| OCR Text |
Show • CHAPTER XIII. HUNTING INDIANS. -- " I tread, Witl1 fainting steps and slow, Where wilds immeasurably spread Seem lengthening as I go." GoLDSMITH. AT last we had reached La Bonte's camp, toward which our eyes had turned so long. Of all weary hours, those that passed between noon and sunset of the day when we arrived there may bear away the palm of exquisite discomfort. I lay under the tree reflecting on what course to pursue, watching the shadows which seemed never to move, and the sun which remained fixed in the sky, and hoping every moment to see the men and horses of Bisonette emerging from the woods. Shaw and flenry had ridden out on a scouting expedition, and did not return until the sun was set6ng. There was nothing very cheering in their faces nor in the news they brought. 'We have been ten miles from here,' said Shaw. We climbed the highest butte we could find and could not see a ' buffalo or Indian; nothing but prairie for twenty miles around HUNTING INDIANS. 201 us.' f-Ienry's horse was quite disabled by clambering up and down the sides of ravines, and Shaw's was severely fatigued. After supper that evening, as we sat around the fire, 1 proposed to Shaw to wait one day longer, in hopes of Bisonette's arrival, and if he should not come, to send Delorier with the cart and baggage back to Fort Laramie, while we ourselves followed the Whirlwind's village, and attempted to overtake it as it passed the mountains. Shaw, not having the same motive for hunting Indians that I had, was a verse to the plan; I therefore resolved to go alone. This design 1 adopted very unwillingly, for I knew that in the present state of my health the attempt would be extremely unpleasant, and as I considered, hazardous. I hoped that Bisonette would appear in the course of the following day, and bring us some information by which to direct our course, and enable me to accomplish my purpose by means less objectionable. The rifle of Henry Chatillon was necessary for the subsistence of the party in my absence; so I called Raymond, and ordered him to prepare to set out with me. Raymond roll ed his eyes vacantly about, but at length, having succeeded in grappling with the idea, he withdrew to his bed under the cart. He was a heavy-moulded fellow, with a broad face, exactly like an owl's, expressing the most impenetrable stupidity and entire self-confidence. As for his good qualities, he had a sort of stubborn fidelity, an insensibility to danger, and a kind of instinct or sagacity, which sometimes led him right, where better heads than his were at a loss. Besides this, he knew very well how to handle a rifle and picket a horse. Through the following day. the sun glared down upon us With a pitiless, penetrating heat. The distant blue prairie |
