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Show 284 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. case-strong coffee would be substituted. As the men of that region are by no meams remarkable for providence ur self-re. straint, whatever was set before them on these occasions, how. ever extravagant in price or enormous in quantity, was sure to be disposed of at one sitting. Like other trappers, Rouleau's life was one of contrast and variety. It was only at certain seasons, and for a limited time, that he was absent on his expeditions. For the rest of the year he would be lounging about the fort, or encamped with his friends in its vicinity, lazily hunting or enjoying all the luxury of inaction; but when once in pursuit of the beaver, he was involved in extreme privations and desperate perils. When in the midst of his game and his enemies, hand and foot, eye and ear, are incessantly active. Frequently he must content himself with devouring his evening meal uncooked, lest the light of his fire should attract the eyes of some wandering Indian; and sometimes having made his rude repast, he must leave his fire still blazing, and withdraw to a distance under cover of the darkness, that his disappointed enemy, drawn thither by the light, may find his victim gone, and be unable to trace his footsteps in the gloom. This is the life led by scores of men in the Rocky Mountains and their vicinity· I once met a trapper whose breast was marked with the scars of six bullets and arrows, one of his arms broken by a shot and one of his knees shattered ; yet still, with the undaunted mettle of New-England, from which part of the country he had come, he continued to follow his perilous occupation. To some of the children of cities it may seem strange, that men with no object in view should continue to ~allow a life of such hardship and desperate adventure, yet there Is a mysterious, resistless charm in the basilisk eye of danger, THE TRAPPERS. 285 and few men perhaps remain long in that wild region without learning to love peril for its own sake, and to laugh carelessly in the face of death. On the last day of our stay in this camp, the trappers were ready for departure. When in the Black Hills they had caught seven beaver, and they now left their skins in charge of Rey~al, to be kept until their return. Their strong, gaunt horses, were equipped with rusty Spanish bits, and rude l\!Iexican saddles, to which wooden stirrups were attached, while a buffalo-robe was rolled up behind them, and a bundle of beaver traps slung at the pommel. These, together with their rifles, their knives, their powder-horns and bullet-pouches, flint and steel and a tin cup, composed their whole travelling equipment. They shook hands with us, and rode away; Saraphin with his grim countenance, like a surly bull-dog's, was in advance; but Rouleau, clambering gayly into his seat, kicked his horse's sides, flourished his whip in the air, and trotted briskly over the prairie, trolling forth a Canadian song at the top of his lungs. Reynal looked after them with his face of brutal selfishness. 'Well,' he said, 'if they are killed, I shall have the beaver. They'll fetch me fifty dollars at the fort, any how.' This was the last I saw of them. We had been for five days in the hunting-camp, and the meat, which all this time had hung drying in the sun, was now fit for transportation. Buffalo-hides also had been procured in ~ufficient quantities for making the next season's lodges; but lt remained to provide the long slender poles on which they Were t 0 be supported. These· were only to be had among the tall pine woods of the Black Hills, and in that direction there- |
