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Show 90 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CHAPTER VIII. Unexpected Return to the Rocky Mountains.-. Camp removed.-. Final Success in finding our party in the Mountams.-Joyful Meetmg.Horses stolen by the Pun-nak Indians.-A Battle, and six Indians killed.-W e recapture our Horses. I HAD been in St. Louis only one week, when Gen. Ashley came to me, and desired me to return to the mountains immediately, to carry dispatches to ~Ir. W. L. Sublet, captain of the trappers, and offering me the magnificent sum of one thousand dollars for the trip. I consented to go; La Roche and Pellow were to accompany me. A journey to the mountains was then called two thousand miles, through a country considered dangerous even for an army. I left St. Louis this time with extreme reluctance. It is a severe trial to leave one's friends; but the grief of separating from father and all other relatives sank into insignificance when contrasted with the misery of separating from one in particular-one in whom all my affections were reposed, and upon whom all my hopes of the future were concentrated. The contemplation of the anguish I was about to inflict by the announcement filled my heart with sorrow. One week more, and the happy event that would make one of two loving hearts would have been consummated. The general's business was urgent, and admitted of no delay; after I had engaged, not a day, scarcely an hour was to be lost. The thousand dollars I was to receive looked large in my eyes; and that, added to what I already possessed, would the better prepare me ,, . JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 91 for a matrimonial voyage. I comforted myself with the reflection that my services were confined to the mere delivering of the dispatches; that service performed, I was free to return immediately. I bid my aged father farewell-it was the last time 1 I saw him. To my other friends I said cheerfully au revoir, expecting to return to them shortly. But my greatest conflict was to come. I had encountered perils, privation, and faced death itself; I had fought savages and the wild beasts of the mountains; but to approach this tender heart, that had been affianced to my own for years, unmanned me. That heart that was then so light, so buoyant with hope, so full of confidence in the future, that I must plunge in utter darkness by the intelligence that in a few short hours I must leave her! Could I have communicated it to her by fighting a score of Indians, how much my pain would have been mitigated! But time was urgent, and the sacred obligation to the lady must be performed. I called on my sweetheart; she looked more lovely than ever. She remarked my troubled looks. "James," she said," you look saddened; what is the matter? Are you unwell?" "No, Eliza, I am well; but-" "But what, James? What has happened? Speak!" Knowing that I had no time for delay, I felt it my duty to break the news to her at once. "My dear girl," I said, "I have loved you long and ardently. I have waited to see if the affection which you shared with me in childhood would stand the proof of maturer years. We are now both matured in years, and are capable of judging our own hearts. Through all my sufferings and dangers, my devotion |