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Show CHAPTER XI. SCENES AT THE CAMP. "Fierce are Albania's children ; yet they lack Not virtues, were those vjrtues more mature ; Where is the foe that ever saw their back 1 Wl10 can so well the toil of war endure ?' 7 Cm LDE HArroLD. REYNAI. heard guns fired one day, at the distance of a mile or two from the camp. lie g1·ew nervous instantly. Visions of Crow war-parties began to haunt his imagination ; and when we returned, (for we were all absent,) he ren wed his complaints about being left alone with the Canadians and the squaw. The day after, the cause of the alarm appeared. Four trappers, one called Moran, another Saraphin, and the others nicknamed 'Rouleau' and' Jean Gras,' came to our camp and joined us. They it was who fired the guns and disturbed the dreams of our confederate Reynal. They soon encamped by our side. Their rifles, dingy and battered with hard service rested with ours ' against the old tree; their strong rude saddles, their buffalo-robes, their traps, and the few rough and simple articles of their travelling equipment, were piled near our tent. Their mountain-horses SCENES AT THE CAMP. 169 were turned to graze in the meadow among our own; and the men themselves, no less rough and hardy, used to lie half the day in the shade of our tree, lolling on the grass, lazily smoking, and telling stories of their adventures ; and I defy the annals of chivalry to furnish the record of a life more wild and perilous than that of a Rocky Mountain trapper. With this efficient reinforcement the agitation of Reynal's nerves subsided. He began to conceive a sort of attachment to our old camping ground ; yet it was time to change our quarters, since remaining too long on one spot must lead to certain unpleasant results, not to be borne with unless in a case of dire necessity. The grass no longer presented a smooth surface of turf; it was trampled into mud and clay. So we removed to another old tree, larger yet, that grew by the river side at a furlong's distance. Its trunk was full six feet in diameter; on one side it was m~rked by a party of Indians with various inexplicable hieroglyphics, commemorating some warlike enterprise, and aloft among the branches were the remains of a scaffolding, where dead bodies had once been deposited, after the lndian manner. 'The1·e comes Bull-Bear,' said Henry Chatillon, as we sat on the grass at dinner. Looking up, we saw several horsemen coming over the neighboring hill, and in a moment four stately young men rode up and dismounted. One of them was BullBear, or Mahto-Tatonka, a compound name which he inherited from his father, the most powerful chief in the Ogillallah band. One of his brothers and two other youn(J' men accompanied him. We shook hands with the visitors~ and when we had finished our meal ·- for this is the orthodox manner of entertaining Indians, even the best of them -we handed to each a 8 |
