In Fact Rouleau Had An Unlucky Partiality For
Squaws.
He always had one whom he must needs bedizen with beads,
ribbons, and all the finery of an Indian
Wardrobe; and though he was
of course obliged to leave her behind him during his expeditions, yet
this hazardous necessity did not at all trouble him, for his
disposition was the very reverse of jealous. If at any time he had
not lavished the whole of the precarious profits of his vocation upon
his dark favorite, he always devoted the rest to feasting his
comrades. If liquor was not to be had - and this was usually the
case - strong coffee was substituted. As the men of that region are
by no means remarkable for providence or self-restraint, whatever was
set before them on these occasions, however extravagant in price, or
enormous in quantity, was sure to be disposed of at one sitting.
Like other trappers, Rouleau's life was one of contrast and variety.
It was only at certain seasons, and for a limited time, that he was
absent on his expeditions. For the rest of the year he would be
lounging about the fort, or encamped with his friends in its
vicinity, lazily hunting or enjoying all the luxury of inaction; but
when once in pursnit of beaver, he was involved in extreme privations
and desperate perils. When in the midst of his game and his enemies,
hand and foot, eye and ear, are incessantly active. Frequently he
must content himself with devouring his evening meal uncooked, lest
the light of his fire should attract the eyes of some wandering
Indian; and sometimes having made his rude repast, he must leave his
fire still blazing, and withdraw to a distance under cover of the
darkness, that his disappointed enemy, drawn thither by the light,
may find his victim gone, and be unable to trace his footsteps in the
gloom. This is the life led by scores of men in the Rocky Mountains
and their vicinity. I once met a trapper whose breast was marked
with the scars of six bullets and arrows, one of his arms broken by a
shot and one of his knees shattered; yet still, with the undaunted
mettle of New England, from which part of the country he had come, he
continued to follow his perilous occupation. To some of the children
of cities it may seem strange that men with no object in view should
continue to follow a life of such hardship and desperate adventure;
yet there is a mysterious, restless charm in the basilisk eye of
danger, and few men perhaps remain long in that wild region without
learning to love peril for its own sake, and to laugh carelessly in
the face of death.
On the last day of our stay in this camp, the trappers were ready for
departure. When in the Black Hills they had caught seven beaver, and
they now left their skins in charge of Reynal, to be kept until their
return.
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