LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 91 



Spite of the reputed dangers of the locality, the trappers camped 

 on the spot, and many a draught of the delicious, sparkling water 

 they quaffed in honor of the " medicine" of the fount. Rube, 

 however, sat sulky and silent, his huge form bending over his legs, 

 which were crossed, Indian fashion, under him, and his long bony 

 fingers spread over the fire, which had been made handy to the 

 spring. At last they elicited from him that he had sought this 

 spot for the purpose of '' tnaking medicine,'' having been perse- 

 cuted by extraordinary ill luck, even at this early period of his 

 hunt — the Indians having stolen two out of his three animals, and 

 three of his half-dozen traps. He had, therefore, sought the 

 springs for the purpose of invoking the fountain spirits, which, a 

 perfect Indian in his simple heart, he implicitly believed to inhabit 

 their mysterious waters. When the others had, as he thought, 

 fallen asleep. La Bonte observed the ill-starred trapper take from 

 his pouch a curiously carved red stone pipe, which he carefully 

 charged with tobacco and kinnik-kinnil^. Then approachii^ the 

 spring, he walked three times round it, and gravely sat himself 

 down. Striking fire with his flint and steel, he lit his pipe, and, 

 bending the stem three several times toward the water, he inhaled 

 a vast quantity of smoke, and bending back his neck and looking 

 upward, puffed it into the air. He then blew another puff' toward 

 the four points of the compass, and emptying the pipe into his 

 hand, cast the consecrated contents into the spring, saying a few 

 Indian " medicine" words of cabalistic import. Having performed 

 the ceremony to his satisfaction, he returned to the fire, smoked a 

 pipe on his own hook, and turned into his buffalo robe, conscious 

 of having done a most important duty. 



In the course of their trapping expedition, and accompanied by 

 Rube, who knew the country well, they passed near the Great 

 Salt Lake, a vast inland sea, whose salitrose waters cover an ex- 

 tent of upward of one hundred and forty miles in length, by eighty 

 in breadth. Fed by several streams, of which the Big Bear 



