LIFEINTHEFARWEST. 83 



and taking a last look at their comrade's lonely resting-place, they 

 turned their backs upon the stream, which has ever since been 

 known as " Gonneville's Creek." 



If the reader casts his eye over any of the recent maps of the 

 western country, which detail the features of the regions embrac- 

 ing the Rocky Mountains, and the vast prairies at their bases, he 

 will not fail to observe that many of the creeks or smaller streams 

 which feed the larger rivers — as the Missouri, Platte, and Arkansas 

 — are called by familiar proper names, both English and French, 

 These are invariably christened after some unfortunate trapper, 

 killed there in Indian fight ; or treacherously slaughtered by the 

 lurking savages, while engaged in trapping beaver on the stream. 

 Thus alone is the memory of these hardy men perpetuated, at least 

 of those whose fate is ascertained : for many, in every season, never 

 return from their hunting expeditions, but meet a sudden death 

 from Indians, or a more lingering fate from accident or disease in 

 some lonely gorge of the mountains, where no footfall save their 

 own, or the heavy tread of grizzly bear, disturbs the unbroken 

 silence of the awful solitude. Then, as many winters pass without 

 some old familiar faces making their appearance at the merry ren- 

 dezvous, their long protracted absence may perhaps elicit a remark, 

 as to where such and such a mountain worthy can have betake^i 

 himself, to which the casual rejoinder of, " Gone under, maybe," 

 too often gives a short but certain answer. 



In all the philosophy of hardened hearts, our hunters turned 

 from the spot where the unmourned trapper met his death. La 

 Bonte, however, not yet entirely steeled by mountain life to a perfect 

 indifference to human feeling, drew his hard hand across his eye, 

 as the unbidden tear rose from his rough but kindly heart. He 

 could not forget so soon the comrade he had lost, the companion in 

 the hunt or over the cheerful camp-fire, the narrator of many a 

 tale of dangers past, of sufferings from hunger, cold, thirst, and un- 

 tended wounds, of Indian perils, and other vicissitudes. One tear 



