He Grumbled Something That Sounded Like A Curse, Directed As
We Believed, Against The Unhappy Hour When He Had First Thought Of
Leaving Home.
The thing was too good to last long; and the instant
the puffs of wind subsided we erected our tents, and remained in camp
for the rest of a gloomy and lowering day.
The emigrants also
encamped near at hand. We, being first on the ground, had
appropriated all the wood within reach; so that our fire alone blazed
cheerfully. Around it soon gathered a group of uncouth figures,
shivering in the drizzling rain. Conspicuous among them were two or
three of the half-savage men who spend their reckless lives in
trapping among the Rocky Mountains, or in trading for the Fur Company
in the Indian villages. They were all of Canadian extraction; their
hard, weather-beaten faces and bushy mustaches looked out from
beneath the hoods of their white capotes with a bad and brutish
expression, as if their owner might be the willing agent of any
villainy. And such in fact is the character of many of these men.
On the day following we overtook Kearsley's wagons, and
thenceforward, for a week or two, we were fellow-travelers. One good
effect, at least, resulted from the alliance; it materially
diminished the serious fatigue of standing guard; for the party being
now more numerous, there were longer intervals between each man's
turns of duty.
CHAPTER VII
THE BUFFALO
Four days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo!
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