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Show 146 THE CALlPORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. panied, we betook ourselves to the prairie, leaving the beaten trail, and passing over the desolate hills that flank the bottoms of Laramie Creek. In all, Indians and whites, we counted eight men and one woman. Reynal, the trader, the image of sleek and selfish complacency, carried' The Horse's' dragoon-sword in his hand, delighting apparently in this useless parade ; for, from spending half his life among Indians, he had caught not only their habits but their ideas. Margot, a fem ale animal of more than two hundred pounds' weight, was couched in the basket of a travail, such as I have before described ; besides her ponderous bulk, various domestic utensils were attached to the vehicle, and she was leading by a trail-rope a packhorse, who carried the cov. ering of Reynal's lodge. Delorier walked briskly by the side of the cart, and Raymond came behind, swearing at the spare horses which it was his business to drive. The restless young Indians, their quivers at their backs and their bows in their hands, galloped over the hills, often starting a wolf or an antelope from the thick growth of wild-sage bushes. Shaw and I were in keeping with the rest of the rude cavalcade, having in the absence of other clothing adopted the buckskin attire of the trappers. Henry Chatillon rode in advance of the whole. Thus we passed hill after hill and hollow after hollow, a country arid, broken, and so parched by the sun that none of the plants familiar to our more fa vored soil would flo uri. h upon it, though there were multitudes of strange medicinal herbs, more C'specially tho absanth which covered every declivitv and ' " ' cacti were hanging like reptiles at the edges of every ravine. At length we ascended a high hill, our horses treading upon pebbles of flint, agate, and rough jasper, until, gaining the top, I THE WAR PARTIES. 14_7 we looked down on the wild bottoms of Laramie Creek, which far below us wound like a writhing snake from side to side of the narrow interval, amid a growth of shattered cotton- wood and ash trees. Lines of tall cliffs, white as chalk, shut in this green strip of woods and meadow-land, into which we descended and encamped for the night. In the morning we passed a wide grassy plain by the river ; there was a grove in front, and beneath its shadows the ruins of an old trading fort of logs. The grove bloomed with myriads of wild roses, with their sweet perfume fraught with recollections of home. As we emerged from the trees, a rattl esnake, as large as a man's arm, and more than four feet long, lay coiled on a rock, fi ercely rattling and hissing at us; a gray hare, double the size of those of New England, leaped up from the tall ferns; curlew were screaming over our heads, and a whole host of little prairie-dogs sat yelping at us at the mouths of th eir burrows on the dry plain beyond. Suddenly an antelope leaped up from the wild-sage bushes, gazed eagerly at us, and then erecting his white tail, stretched away like a greyhound. The two Indian boys found a white wolf, as large as a calf, in a hollow, and giving a sharp yell, they galloped after him; but the wolf leaped into the stream and swam across. Then came the crack of a rifle, the bullet whistling harml essly over his head, as he scrambled up the steep declivity, rattling down stones and earth into the water below. Advancing a little, we beheld, on the farther bank of the ~tream, a spectacle not common even in that region ; for, emergmg from among the trees, a herd of some two hundred elk came out upon the meadow, their antlers clattering as they walked forward in a d ense tl1 rong. S eem· g us, they broke r. nto a run, rushing across the opening and disappearing among the trees |