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Show 190 WESTERN WILDS. hours away. The white cross of the chapel, without which no Mexi-can town can be called a pueblo, spoke peace to all ; the priest joined heartily in all the sports, and stood ready to grant extreme unction if aguardiente and gambling resulted in fatal " accidents." On the plaza, every die de fiesta, was gathered a motly crowd : the plains Indian exhibited his wild horsemanship; the senorita coquettishly flaunted her rebosa before the admiring hunter ; the Mexican lost his all or won a little fortune at monte, and even the boys took their first lesson by pitching for quartillas. St. Louis the trapper must sometimes visit, to sell the proceeds of his hunting and lay in supplies ; but it was not his choice to linger there long. How could he contentedly tread the pavements who had trod the green turf of the prairie ? how could he rejoice in city air, having breathed the sweet air of the mountains? His gains were often great. More than one trapper has realized two thousand dollars from the proceeds of a single season. These were spent with reckless generosity, and then he was off again to range from Huerfano to the Yellowstone, and from the Black Hills to the Salt Lake. Such a time it was, when Will and Bob McAfee set out from San Luis Park to make a hurried trip to St. Louis. It was their year of good fortune, and they hurried down the Ar-kansas to cash their wealth of furs and return before the late mild autumn should give place to the biting winter of the plains. With what joy the returning plainsman hails the first sight of heavy timber! Will and Bob had got far enough down the river to find dense groves, and in one of these, late in October, they prepared to camp for the night. But Will, the older and more experienced, grew strangely nervous at sight of the dead trees standing so thickly among the live ones, and called attention to the fact that the river bluffs came in close to the stream, and rose almost perpendicular; in fact, that this was a canon rather than a valley. " Bob, do you see these dead trunks, and the way this gorge opens east and west and it's the time for storms now d'ye remember what father once told us about such a place as this?" " Git out/' said Bob, " no old stories now. Don't ketch me campin 5 out on the perrairie to- night." Will yielded, but his heart was heavy with forebodings of danger; their evening was dull, despite the jocular style and sprightly sallies of Bob, who recounted the pleasures of a brief stay in St. Louis. The animals were picketed, and the trappers lay down wrapped in their blankets, each upon a pile of dry bark, which served them here in- |
