220 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



saw the Mormon encampment shut out from her sight by the roll- 

 ing bluffs, and nothing before her but the bleak, barren prairie, 

 could not divest herself of the idea that she had looked for the last 

 time on civilized fellow-creatures, and fairly burst into tears. 



In the morning the heavy wagons rolled on again across tho 

 upland prairies, to strike the trail used by the traders in passing 

 from the south fork of the Platte to the Arkansas. They had for 

 guide a Canadian voyageur, who had been in the service of tho 

 Indian traders, and knew the route well, and had agreed to pilot 

 them to Fort Lancaster on the north fork of the Platte. Their 

 course led for about thirty miles up the Boiling Spring Pv^iver, 

 whence they pursued a northeasterly course to the dividing ridge 

 which separates the waters of the Platte and Arkansas. Their 

 progress was slow, for the ground was saturated with wet, and 

 exceedingly heavy for the cattle, and they scarcely advanced more 

 than ten miles a day. 



At the camp fire at night, Antoine, the Canadian guide, 

 amused them with tales of the wild life and perilous adventures 

 of the hunters and trappers who make the mountains their home ; 

 often extorting a scream from the women by the description of 

 some scene of Indian fight and slaughter, or beguiling them of a 

 commiserating tear by the narrative of the sufferings and priva- 

 tions endured by those hardy hunters in their arduous life. 



Mary listened with the greater interest, since she remembered 

 that such was the life which had been led by one very dear to 

 her — ^by one, long supposed to be dead, of Avhom she had never 

 but once, since his departure, nearly fifteen years before, heard a 

 syllable. Her imagination pictured him as the bravest and most 

 daring of these adventurous hunters, and conjured up his figure 

 charging through the midst of whooping savages, or stretched on 

 the ground perishing from wounds, or cold, or famine. 



Among the characters who figured in Antoine's stories, a hunt- 

 er named La Bonte was made conspicuous for deeds of hardiness 



