166 =C«; PROPENSITY FOR 
trade’ would at once bring their mules and 
horses into a more congenial climate—one 
more in accordance with that of their nativity ; 
for the rigorous winters of Missouri often prove 
fatal to the unacclimated Mexican animals. 
This was my last trip across the Plains, 
though I made an excursion, during the fol- 
lowing summer, among the Comanche Indi- 
ans, and other wild tribes, living in t 
of the Prairies, but returned without cross 
to Mexico. The observations made during 
this trip will be found incorporated in the no- 
tices, which are to follow, of the Prairies and 
their inhabitants. 
Since that time I have striven in vain to 
reconcile myself to the even tenor of civilized 
life in the United States; and have sought in 
its amusements and its suciety a substitute 
for those high excitements which have attach- 
ed me so strongly to Prairie life. Yet I am 
almost ashamed to confess that scarcely a 
~ day passes without my experiencing a pang 
of regret that I am not now roving at large 
upon those western plains. Nor do [ find my 
taste peculiar ; for I have hardly known a man, 
who has ever become familiar with the kind 
of life which I have led for so many years, 
that has not relinquished it with regret. 
There is more than one way of Fg 
this apparent incongruity. In the first place 
—the wild, unsettled and independent life of 
trader, makes perfect freedom from 
nearly every kind of social dependence an 
absolute necessity of his being. He is in 
it 
NE ae Rage eT ED ee ee See en 
