LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 233 



State of Temiessee. We can not say, in the concluding words of 

 nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand novels, that " numerou! 

 pledges of mutual love surrounded and cheered them in their de 

 dining years," &c., &c. ; because it was only on the 24tli of July, 

 in the year of our Lord 1847, that La Bonte and Mary Brand 

 were finally made one, after fifteen long years of separation. 



The fate of one of the humble characters who have figured in 

 these pages, we must yet tarry a little longer to describe. 



During the past winter, a party of mountaineers, flying from 

 overpowering numbers of hostile Sioux, found themselves, one 

 stormy evening, in a wild and dismal carion near the elevated 

 mountain valley called the " New Park." 



The rocky bed of a dry mountain torrent, whose waters were 

 now locked up at their spring-heads by icy fetters, was the only 

 road up which they could make their dijElicult way : for the rugged 

 sides of the gorge rose precipitously from the creek, scarcely afibrd- 

 ing a foot-hold to even the active bighorn, which occasionally 

 looked down upon the travelers from the lofty summit. Logs of 

 pitie, uprooted by the hurricanes which sweep incessantly through 

 the mountain defiles, and tossed headlong from the surrounding 

 ridges, continually obstructed their way ; and huge rocks and 

 boulders, fallen from the heights and blocking up the bed of the 

 stream, added to the difiiculty, and threatened them every instant 

 with destruction. 



Toward sundown they reached a point where the carion opened 

 out into a little shelving glade or prairie, a few hundred yards in 

 extent, the entrance to which was almost hidden by a thicket of 

 dwarf pine and cedar. Here they determined to encamp for the 

 night, in a spot secure from Indians, and, as they imagined, un- 

 trodden by the foot of man. 



What, however, was their astonishment, on breaking through 

 tho cedar-covered entrance, to perceive a solitary horse standing 



