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Show 408 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. that is, about thirty. I-Ienry was twice as large, and fully six times as strong as T~ te Rouge. I-Ienry's face was roughened by winds and storms; Tete Rouge's was bloated by sherry. cobblers and brandy-toddy. H enry talked of Indians and buffalo ; T~te Rouge of theatres and oyster-cellars. Henry had led a life of hardship and privation ; Tete Rouge never had a whim which he would not g ratify at the first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the most disinterested man I ever saw; while T ete Rouge, though equally good-natured ih his way, cared for nobody but himself. Yet we would not have lost him on any account ; he admirably served the purpose of a jester in a feudal castle ; our camp would have been lifeless without bim. For the pa ·t week he had fattened in a most amazing manner; and, indeed, th i::: was not at all surprising, since his appetite wa most inord in ate . He was eating from morning till night; half the time he would be at work cooking some private repast for himself, and !Je paid a visit to the coflce-pot eight or ten tim es a day . EEs ru eful and disconsolate face became jovial and rubicund, his ey es stood out like a lobster's, and his ::;pirits, which before were sunk to the depths of despondency, were now elated in proportion; all day he was singing, whistling, laug hing, and te1ling stories. Being m·ortal1y afraid of Jim Gurney, be kept close in the neighborhood of our tent. As he h ad seen an abundance of low dissipated life, and had a considerable fund of humor, his anecdotes were extremely amusing , especially since he never hesitated to place himself in a ludicrous point of view, provided he could raise a laugh by doin~ so. Tete Rouge, bowever, was sometimes rather 'troublesome ; he had an inveterate habit of pilfering provisions at all times of the day. He set ridicule THE BUFFALO CAMP, 409 at utter defiance ; and being without a particle of self-respect, he would never have given over his tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the scorn of the whole party. Now and then, indeed, something worse than laughter fell to his share; on these occasions he would exhibit much contrition, but half an hour after we would generally observe him stealing round to the box at the back of the cart, and slyly making off with the provisions which D e lorie ~ had laid by for supper. He was very fond of srnoking ; but having no tobacco of his own, we used to provide him with a::; much as he wanted, a srnall piece ut a time. At first we gave him half a pound together; but this experiment proved an entire failure, for he invariably lost not only the tobacco, but the knife intrusted to him for cutting it, and a. few minutes after he would come to us with many apol- . ogies and beg for more. We had been two days at this camp, and some of the meat was nearly fit for transportation, when a storm came suddenly upon us. -About sunset the whole sky grew as black as ink, and the long grass at the river's edge bent and rose mournfully with the first gusts of the approaching hurricane. Munroe and his two companions brought their guns and placed them unde1· cover of our tent. Having no shelter for themselves, they built a fire of driftwood that might have defied a cataract, and wrapped in their buffalo-robes, sat on the ground around it to bide the fury of the storm. Delorier ensconced himself under the cover of the cart. Shaw and I, together with I-Ienry and T~te Rouge, crowded into the little tent ; but first of all the dried meat was piled together, and well protected by buffalorobes pinned firmly to the ground. About nine o'clock the storm broke, amid absolute darkness ; it blew a gale, and tor- |
