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Show 120 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. black-eyed Frenchman came out. His dress was rather singu~ lar ; his black curling hair was parted in the middle of his head and fell below his shoulders; he wore a tight frock of ' smoked deer~skin, very gayly ornamented with figures worked in dyed porcupine-quills. His moccasons and leggins were also gaudily adorned in the same manner; and the latter had in addition a line of long fringes, reaching down the seams. The small frame of Richard, for by this name Henry made him known to us, was in the highest degree athletic and vigorous. There was no superfluity, and indeed there seldom is among the active white men of this country, but every limb was compact and hard; every sinew had its full tone and elasticity, and the whole man wore an air of mingled hardihood and buoyancy. Richard committed our horses to a Navaho slave, a meanlooking fellow, taken prisoner on the l\1exican frontier; and relieving us of our rifles with ready politeness, led the way into the principal apartment of his establishment. This was a room ten feet square. The walls and floor were of black mud, and the roof of rough timber; there was a huge fireplace made of four flat rocks, picked up on the prairie. An Indian bow and otter-skin quiver, several gaudy articles of Rocky Mountain finery ' an Ind m· n me d1' c·m c-ba g, and a pipe and tobacco-pouc h, garnished the walls, and rifles rested in a corn er. There was no furniture exeept a sort of rough settle, covered with buffalo~ ·obes, upon which lolled a tall half-breed, with his hair glued In masses upon each temple, and saturated with vermilion. Two or three more ' moun t am· men ' sat cross-legged on t he floor. Their attire was not unlike that of Richard himself; but the most striking figure of the group was a naked Indian TAKING FRENCH LEAVE . 121 boy of sixteen, with a handsome face, and light, active proportions, who sat in an easy posture in the corner near the door. ·~at one of his limbs moved the breadth of a hair; his eye was fixed immovably, not on any person present, but, as. it appeared, on the projecting corner of the fireplace opposite to him. On tliese prairies the custom of smoking with friends is seldom omitted, whether among Indians or whites. The pipe, therefore, was taken from the wall, and its great red bowl crammed with the tobacco and shongsasha, mixed in suitable proportions. Then it passed round the circle, each man inhaling a few whiffs and handing it to his neighbor. Having spent half an hour here, we took our leave ; first inviting. our new friends to drink a cup of coffee with us at our camp a Inile farthe; up the river. By this time, as the reader may conceive, we had grown rather shabby ; our clothes had burst into rags and tatters; and what was worse, we had very little means of renovation. Fort Laramie was but seven miles before us. Being totally averse to appearing in such a plight among any society that could boast an approximation to the civilized, we soon stopped by the river to make our toilet in the be5t way we could. We hung up small looking~glasses against the trees and shaved, an operation neglected for six weeks ; we performed our ablutions in the Platte, though the utility of such a proceeding was questionable, the water looking exactly like a cup of chocolate, and the bank 8 cons1·s t.m g o f the softest and richest yellow mud, so that we Were obliged, as a preliminary, to build a causeway of stout branches an d t wi· gs. H av1· ng also put on radi.a nt moccasons, procured from a squaw of Richard's establishment, and made what other improvements our narrow circumstances allowed, |
