48 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



to the fresh and bloody scalps hanging on the pole. Two of these 

 had been torn from the heads of Rapahos struck by his own hand, 

 and this feat, the exploit of the day, had entitled him to the honor 

 of counting his coups. Then, sticking his spear into the ground 

 by the side of the pole, he struck his hand twice on his brawny 

 and naked chest, turned short round, and, swift as the antelope, 

 galloped into the plain : as if overcome by the shock his modesty 

 had received in being obliged to recount his own high-sounding 

 deeds. 



" Wagh I" exclaimed old Killbuck, as he left the circle, point- 

 ing his pipe-stem toward the fast-fading figure of the brave, " that 

 Injun's heart's about as big as ever it will be, I'm thinking." 



With the Yutas, Killbuck and La Bonte remained during the 

 winter ; and when the spring sun had opened the ice-bound creeks, 

 and melted the snow on the mountains, and its genial warmth 

 had expanded the earth and permitted the roots of the grass to 

 *' live" once more, and throw out green and tender shoots, the two 

 trappers bade adieu to the hospitable Indians, who broke up their 

 village in order to start for the valleys of the Del Norte. As 

 they followed the trail from the bayou at sundown, just as they 

 thought of camping, they observed ahead of them a solitary horse- 

 man riding along, followed by three mules. His hunting-frock of 

 fringed buckskin, and the rifle resting across the horn of his sad- 

 dle, at once proclaimed him white ; but as he saw the mountain- 

 eers winding through the carion, driving before them half a 

 dozen horses, he judged they might possibly be Indians and ene- 

 mies, the more so, as their dress was not the usual costume of the 

 whites. The trappers, therefore, saw the stranger raise the rifle 

 in the hollow of his arm, and, gathering up his horse, ride stead- 

 ily to meet them, as soon as he, observed they were but two ; two 

 to one in mountain calculation being scarcely considered odds, if 

 red skin to white. 



However, on nearing them, the stranger discovered his mis- 



