184 DISORDERLY CAMP. 



favouring him with a volley of questions ; and, 

 half-an-hour after our meeting, we entered the 

 long-sought camp, where we were surrounded by 

 a crew of a dozen as hardy-looking cut-throats, 

 without disrespect be it said, as ever trod a 

 pirate's deck. 



With the appearance of this community I was 

 not favourably impressed. Their camp was disor- 

 derly and dirty ; their own personal appearance 

 absolutely filthy. Many of them were half-breeds, 

 a race to which I had long been the reverse of par- 

 tial, for I had always found them dishonest, treach- 

 erous, and cowardly. All were under the leadership 

 of a chief of their own selection, a powerful, brawny- 

 shouldered Hercules, a man who evidently brooked 

 neither insubordination nor skulking. He gave his 

 orders with that intonation which clearly said, Do 

 it, or I will make you. A man of any other charac- 

 ter could not have managed such a motley crew. 

 He had the reputation of knowing the Indian 

 country from end to end ; and had been in more 

 fights with the natives than any of the free trappers 

 of his time. He was also said to be their best rifle- 

 shot, and none of his comrades could show so many 

 wounds. A Missourian by birth, he had passed his 

 childhood on the frontier, and his more mature 

 years between that state and the Rocky Mountains. 

 It can scarcely be deemed surprising, therefore, that 

 he hated the Indian as thoroughly as it was possible 

 for him to do. When spoken of by his comrades, 



