Rouville's Face Assumed Just Then A Most
Ludicrously Blank Expression.
We inquired what was the matter, when
it appeared that Bisonette had sent him from this place to Fort
Laramie with the sole object of bringing back a supply of tobacco.
Our rattle-brain friend, from the time of his reaching the Fort up to
the present moment, had entirely forgotten the object of his journey,
and had ridden a dangerous hundred miles for nothing. Descending to
Horse Creek we forded it, and on the opposite bank a solitary Indian
sat on horseback under a tree. He said nothing, but turned and led
the way toward the camp. Bisonette had made choice of an admirable
position. The stream, with its thick growth of trees, inclosed on
three sides a wide green meadow, where about forty Dakota lodges were
pitched in a circle, and beyond them half a dozen lodges of the
friendly Cheyenne. Bisonette himself lived in the Indian manner.
Riding up to his lodge, we found him seated at the head of it,
surrounded by various appliances of comfort not common on the
prairie. His squaw was near him, and rosy children were scrambling
about in printed-calico gowns; Paul Dorion also, with his leathery
face and old white capote, was seated in the lodge, together with
Antoine Le Rouge, a half-breed Pawnee, Sibille, a trader, and several
other white men.
"It will do you no harm," said Bisonette, "to stay here with us for a
day or two, before you start for the Pueblo."
We accepted the invitation, and pitched our tent on a rising ground
above the camp and close to the edge of the trees.
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