JOURNEY UP THE MISSOURI. 291 



pleasant experience, though the game had become much 

 scarcer since I came down it in a canoe eleven years before. 

 You could, however, still find some all along the river bottoms, 

 and there was just sufficient chance of meeting Indians to make 

 the hunting exciting. 



There was a man on board who was taking up two capital 

 ponies to Benton, and I used to hire one of them and go ashore 

 with it before the boat started in the morning (as we never 

 ran at night), taking with me some bread and meat for my 

 midday meal, in case I should get no game. I would then 

 follow the course of the river, cutting across the bends, and 

 frequently got a deer and some grouse by evening when I 

 rejoined the boat, being always able to find it by its smoke 

 from any high point. I had in this way very good sport, and 

 avoided the monotony of the journey, and saw some very pretty 

 country which was not visible from the boat. 



One day when making my way through a dense thicket on 

 the river's bank, into which I had driven some grouse, I came 

 upon a hunter's cabin, made of brush, and so placed that if I 

 had not gone in as I did I should never had suspected its 

 existence. The occupant was a curiosity, and was dressed in 

 an old leather shirt and trowsers, almost black with age and 

 dirt, his hair hanging down fully six inches below his collar, 

 and his face one mass of wrinkles and very like old brown 

 parchment. This old fellow had led a solitary life on the river 

 for years, only going into a town twice a year to buy 

 ammunition and sell his pelts. He told me that he had 

 originally come from the Missouri near St. Louis, which, 

 he said, was then a small town and the rendezvous for trappers, 



and that when only sixteen he had there joined a party under 



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