| OCR Text |
Show 130 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. lishment, among whom Henry Chatillon was worthily included. No sooner was it finished, than the table was spread a second time, (the luxury of bread being now, however, omitted,) for the benefit of certain hunters and trappers of an inferior standing; while the ordinary Canadian engages were r galed on dried meat in one of their lodging rooms. By way of illustrating the domestic economy of Fort Laramie, it may not be amiss to introduce in this place a story current among the men when we were there. There was an old man named Pierre, whose duty it was to bring the meat from the store-room for the men. Old Pierre, in the kindness of his heart, used to select the fattest and the best pieces for his companions. This did not long escape the keen-eyed bourgeois, who was greatly disturbed at such improvidence, and cast about for some means to stop it. At last he hit on a plan that exactly suited him. At the side of the meat-room, and separated from it by a clay partition, was another apartment, used for the storage of furs. It had no other communication with the fort, except through a square hole in the partition; and of course it was perfectly dark. One evening the bourgeois, watching for a moment when no oP-e observed him, dodged into the meat-room, clambered through the hole, and ensconced himself among the furs and buffalorobes. Soon after, old Pierre came in with his lantern; and, muttering to himself, began to pull over the bales of meat, and select the best pieces, as usual. But suddenly a hollow and sepulchral voice proceeded from the inner apartment:- ' Pierre ·' Pier r·e ·' L et t h at 1~ at meat alone! Take nothm. g but I ean ·" p·l erre dropped his lantern, and bolted out into the fort, screaming, in an agony of terror, that the devil was in the SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE. 131 store-room; but tripping on the threshold, he pitched over upon the gravel, and lay senseless, stunned by the fall. The Cana. dians ran out to the rescue. Some lifted the unlucky Pierre ; and others, making an extempore crucifix out of two sticks, were proceeding to attack the devil in his strong-hold, when the bourgeois, with a crest-fallen countenance, appeared at the door. To add to the bourgeois's mortification, he was obliged to explain the whole stratagem to Pierre, in order to bring the latter to his senses. We were sitting, on the following morning, in the passageway between the gates, conversing with the traders Vaskiss and May. These two men, together with our sleek friend, the clerk Montalon, were, I believe, the only persons then in the fort who could read and write. May was telling a curious story about the traveller Catlin, when an ugly, diminutive Indian, wretchedly mounted, came up at a gallop, and rode past us into the fort. On being question ed, he said that Smoke's village was close at hand. Accordingly only a few minutes elapsed before the hills beyond the river were covered with a disorder I y swarm of savages, on horseback and on foot. May finished his story; and by that time the whole array had descended to Laramie Creek, and commenced crossing it in a mass. I walked down to the bank. The stream is wide, and was then between three and four feet deep, with a very swift current. For several rods the Water was alive with dogs, horses, and Indians. The long poles used in erecting the lodges are carried by the horses, being fastened by the heavier end, two or three on each side, to a rude sort of pack-saddle, while the other end drags on the ground. About a foot behind the horse, a kind of large basket or pannier is suspended between the poles, and firmly lashed in its |
