LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



CHAPTER I. 



Away to the head waters of the Platte, where several small 

 streams run into the south fork of that river, and head in the 

 broken ridges of the " Divide" which separates the valleys of the 

 Platte and Arkansas, were camped a band of trappers on a creek 

 called Bijou. It was the month of October, when the early frosts 

 of the coming winter had crisped and dyed with sober brown the 

 leaves of the cherry and quaking ash belting the brooks ; and the 

 ridges and peaks of the Rocky Mountains were already covered 

 with a gUttering mantle of snow, sparkling in the still powerful 

 rays of the autumn sun. 



The camp had all the appearance of permanency ; for not only 

 did it comprise one or two unusually comfortable shanties, but the 

 numerous stages on which huge stripes of buffalo meat were hang- 

 ing in process of cure, showed that the party had settled themselves 

 here in order to lay in a store of provisions, or, as it is termed in 

 the language of the mountains, "to make meat." Round the 

 camp fed twelve or fifteen mules and horses, their forelegs confined 

 by hobbles of raw hide ; and, guarding these animals, two men 

 paced backward and forward, driving in the stragglers, ascending 

 ever and anon the bluffs which overhung the river, and leaning on 

 their long rifles, while they swept with their eyes the surrounding 

 prairie. Three or four fires burned in the encampment, at some of 

 which Indian women carefully tended sundry steaming pots ; 



