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Show 128 THE CALIFORNIA A1 D OREGON TRAILr others dropped in also; young fellows who neither by their years nor their exploits were entitled to rank with the old men and warriors, and who, abashed in the presence of their supe. riors, stood aloof, never wjthdrawing their eyes from us. Theit cheeks were adorned with vermilion, their ears with pendants of shell, and their necks with beads. Never yet having signalized themselves as hunters, or performed the honorable exploit of killing a man, they were held in slight esteem, and were diffident and Lashful in proportion. Certain formidable inconveniences attended this influx of visitors. They were bent on inspecting every thing in the room ; our equipn1ents and our dress alike underwent their scrutiny ; for though the contrary has been carelessly asserted, few beings have more curiosity than Indians in regard to subjects within their ordin.ary range of thought. As to other matters, indeed, they seem utterly indifferent. They will not trouble themselves to inquire into what they cannot comprehend, but are quite contented to place their hands over their mouths in token of wonder and exclaim ' that it is' great medicine.' With this comprehensive solution, an Indian never is at a loss. He never launches forth into speculation and conjecture ; his reason moves in its b aten track. His soul is dormant; and no exertions of the missionaries, Jesuit or Puritan, of the old world or of the new, have as yel availed to rouse it. As we were looking, at sunset, fi·om the wall, upon the wild and desolate plains that surround the fort, we observed a cluster of strange objects, like scaffolds, rising in the distance against the red western sky Th b 1 · ] · · ey ·ore a oft some smo-ular-loo nng burdens · and at tl1e·1• £ t 1· . :::> • • ' I oo g tmmered something white h 1w bones. This was the I f h Pace o sepulture of some Dahcota · SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 129 chiefs, whose .re1nains th eir people are fond of placing in the vicinity of the fort, in the hope that they may thu~ be protected from violation at the hands of their enemies. Yet it has happened more than once, and quite recently, that war parties of the Crow Indians, ranging through the country, have thrown the bodies from the scaffold s, and broken them to pieces, amid the yells of the Dahcotahs, who remained pent up in the fort, too few to defend the honored relics from insult. The white objects upon the ground were buffalo.skulls, arranged in the mystic circle, commonly seen at Indian places of sepulture upon the prairie. We soon discovered, in the twiUght, a band of .fifty or sixty horses approaching the fort. These were the animals belonging to the establishment; who having been sent out to feed, under the care of armed guards, in the meadows below, were now being driven into the corral for the night. A little gate opened into this inclosure: by the side of it stood one of the guards, an old Canadian, with gray bushy eyebrows, and a dragoon-pistol stuck into his belt; while his comrade, mounted on horseback, his rifle laid aero s the saddle in front of him, and his long hair blowing before his swarthy face, rode at the rear of the disorderly troop, urging them up the ascent. In a moment the narrow corral was thronged with the half-wild horses, kicking, biting, and crowding restlessly together. The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Canadian in the area, summoned us to supper. This sumptuous repast was served on a rouah table in one of the lower apartments of the fort, and consisted of calces of bread and dried buffalo meatanexcellent thing for strengthening the teeth. At this meal Were seated ·the bourgeois and superior dignitaries of the estab. 6* |