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Show 4G"'" AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF my two children. Keep them until we have drunk up your whisky, and let no one have them till I bid you. Now, Crow, we are ready." Slim Face and Gray Head, two Dog Soldiers, then harangued the village, and desired all who wished to trade to come and bring their robes and horses to Old Bark's lodge, and to remember that they were trading with the honest Crow, and not with white men, and that what they paid him was his. They answered the summons in flocks, the women :first, according to my established rule. My corn, beans, and pumpkins "exhaled like the dew," and I received in exchange their beautiful fancy robes. The women served, the men next came in for whisky. I sold on credit to some. When one wanted thus to deal, he would tell me what kind of a horse or mule he had: I would appeal to Old Bark for confirmation of the statement; if he verified it, I served the liquor. They all got drunk, Porcupine Bear, the temperance orator, with the rest ; but there was not a single fight ; all passed off harmoniously. I received over four hundred splendid robes, besides moccasi~s an~ fancy articles. When I was ready to leave, thirty-eight horses and mules, a number corresponding to what I had marked, were brought forward. I packed up my peltry, and sent my partner on in adv~. nce with every thing except the horse I rode, telling him I would overtake him shortly. I had reserved a five-gallon keg of whisky unknown to all, ~nd when about to start I produced it and presented It to the crowd. They were charmed, and insisted on making_ me a return. They brought me over forty. of t~en· . finest robes, such as the young squaws finish w1th Immense labor to present to their JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 463 lovers. Old Bark gave me a good mule to pack them, and another chief gave me a second. I then took my leave, promising to return by Leaf Fall. When I passed Bent at his post he was perfectly confounded. He had seen one train pass belonging to me, and now I was conducting another, when, at the same time, he had supposed that there was not a robe in the village. , " Beckwourth," said he, " how you manage Indians as you do beats my understanding." I told him that it was easily accounted for; that the Indians knew that the whites cheated them, and knew that they could believe what I said. Besides that, they naturally felt superior confidence in me on account of my supposed affinity of race. I had lived so much among then1 that I could enter into their feelings, and be in every respect one of themselves: this was an inducement which no acknowledged white trader could ever hope to hold out. I rode on, and overtook my partner in advance. He had had an adventure. A party of Cheyennes, led by a chief named Three Crows, had met him, and rifled him of a three-gallon keg of whisky, which we had reserved for our own use on our way to St. Fernandez. The chief stopped him, and said, "I smell whisky, and we must h ave some. '' My partner told hin1 that he had none. " W ugh ! my nose don't lie, but your tongue does. I smell it sn·ong, and, if you do not hand it out, we shall unpack all your horses and find it." " Well," said the man, " I have a little, but it belongs to the Crow, and he wants it himself." "Give it me," said the chief, "and tell him that Three Crows took it." |