200 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



osition was received with a yell of derision — the business was com- 

 pounded by the mountaineers promising to give sundry dollars to 

 the friends of two of the Mexicans, who died during the night of 

 their wounds, and to pay for a certain amount of masses to be sung 

 for the repose of their souls in purgatory. Thus the affair blew 

 over; but for several days the mountaineers never showed them- 

 selves in the streets of Fernandez without their rifles on their 

 shoulders, and refrained from attending fandangos for the present, 

 and until the excitement had cooled down. 



A bitter feeling, however, existed on the part of the men ; and one 

 or two offers of a matrimonial nature were rejected by the papas 

 of certain ladies who had been wooed by some of the white hunt- 

 ers, and their hands formally demanded from the respective padres. 



La Bonte had been rather smitten with the charms of one 

 Dolores Salazar — a buxom lass, more than three parts Indian in 

 ner blood, but confessedly the " beauty" of the Vale of Taos. She, 

 by dint of eye, and of nameless acts of elaborate coquetry, with 

 ■^.vhich the sex so universally bait their traps, whether in the salons 

 of Belgravia, or the rancherias of new Mexico, contrived to make- 

 onsiderable havoc in the heart of our mountaineer ; and when 

 onjce Dolores saw she had made an impression, she followed up 

 her advantage with all the arts the most civilized of her sex could 

 use when fishing for a husband. 



La Bonte, however, was too old a hunter to be easily caught ; 

 and before committing himself, he sought the advice of his tried 

 companion Killbuck. Taking him to a retired spot without the 

 village, he drew out his pipe and charged it — seated himself cross- 

 'ogged on the ground, and, with Indian gravity, composed himself 

 Tor a '•' talk." - 



"Ho, Killbuck I" he began, touching the ground with the bowd 

 of his pipe, and then turning the stem upward for '' inedicine'' 

 — "Hyar's a child feels squamptious like, and nigh upon 'gone 

 boaver,' he is — Wa^^h I" 



