50 LIFEINTHEFARWEST. 



" Shians at Big Timber, and Bent's people trading smart. 

 On North Fork, Jim Waters got a hundred pack right off, and 

 Sioux making more." 



" Whar's Bill WiUiams ?" 



" Gone under, they say : the Diggers took his hair." 



" How's powder goin ?" 



" Two dollars a pint." 



" Bacca ?" 



" A plew a plug." 



" Got any about you ?" 



" Have so." 



" Give us a chaw ; and now let's camp." 



While unpacking their own animals, the two trappers could 

 aot refrain from glancing, every now and then, with no little as- 

 tonishment, at the solitary stranger they had so unexpectedly en- 

 countered. If truth be told his appearance not a little perplexed 

 them. His hunting-frock of buckskin, shining with grease, and 

 fringed pantaloons, over which the well-greased butcher-knife had 

 evidently been often wiped after cutting his food, or butchering 

 Ihe carcass of deer and buffalo, were of genuine mountain make. 

 His face, clean shaved, exhibited in its well-tanned and weather- 

 oeaten complexion, the effects of such natural cosmetics as sun 

 and wind ; and under the mountain hat of felt which covered his 

 head, long uncut hair hung in Indian fashion on his shoulders. 

 All this would have passed muster, had it not been for the most 

 extraordinaiy equipment of a double-barreled rifle ; which, when it 

 had attracted the eyes of the mountaineers, elicited no little aston- 

 ishment, not to say derision. But, perhaps, nothing excited their 

 admiration so much as the perfect docility of the stranger's ani- 

 mals ; which, almost like dogs, obeyed his voice and call ; and 

 albeit that one, in a small sharp head and pointed ears, expanded 

 nostrils, and eye twinkling and malicious, exhibited the personi- 

 fication of a "lurking devil," yet they could not but admire the 



