LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 15 



" Well, it did." 



•' Bill Bent— his boys camped the other side the trail, and they 

 was aU mountain men, wagh !— and Bill WiUiams and Bill Tharpe 

 (the Pawnees took his hair on Pawnee Fork last spring) : three Bills, 

 and them three's all ' gone under.' Surely Hatcher went out that 

 time; and wasn't Bill Garey along, too? Didn't him and Chahonard 

 sit in camp for twenty hours at a deck of Euker ? Them was 

 Bent's Indian traders up on Arkansa. Poor Bill Bent ! them 

 Spaniards made meat of him. He lost his topknot at Taos. A 

 'clever' man was Bill Bent as / ever know'd trade a robe or 

 'throw' a bufler in his tracks. Old St. Vrain could knock the 

 hind-sight off him though, when it came to shootin, and old silver 

 heels spoke true, she did : * plum-center' she was, eh ?" 

 " Well, she wasn't nothin else." 



" The Greasers * paid for Bent's scalp, they tell me. Old St. 

 Vrain went out of Santa Fe with a company of mountain men, 

 and the way they made 'em sing out was ' sHck as shootin'. He 

 ' counted a coup,' did St. Vrain. He throwed a Pueblo as had on 

 poor Bent's shirt. I guess he tickled that niggur's hump-ribs. Fort 

 William t aint the lodge it was, an' never will be agin, now he's 

 gone under; but St. Vrain's 'pretty much of a gentleman,' .too; 

 if he aint, I'll be dog-gone, eh, Bill?" 

 ** He is so-o." 



" Chavez had his wagons along. He was only a Spaniard 

 any how, and some of his teamsters put a ball into him his next 

 trip, and made a raise of his dollars, wagh ! Uncle Sam hung 

 'em for it, I heard, but can't b'lieve it, nohow. If them Spaniard^ 

 wasn't born for shootin', why was beaver made ? You was with 

 us that spree, Jemmy ?" 



"No sirre-e/ I went out when Spiers lost his animals on Cim- 



* The Mexicans are called "Spaniards" or "Greasers" (from their greasy ap- 

 pearance) by the Western people. 

 t Bent's Indian trading fort on the Arkansas. 



