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Show A GOOD TRADE. 285 souri river. He would deliver these to Mr. Pike with a bill of sale of the outfit. Mr. Pike was to take the back track. He was to go back and stay back. Mrs. P. was to stay here, and Mr. P. should relinquish her by bill of sale to the Colonel. A fair case of barter and exchange. Mr. Pike needed mules, bacon, and Missouri climate. Mrs. P. needed the light air of the Rocky Mountains, and the tonic society of a man who was ' of some account.' Col. Brown needed Mrs. P. "A plain business proposition. A fair contract, with parties of the first, second and third parts, and mutually good considerations, ' the said parties thereunto moving.' " Mr. Pike listened silently and attentively. The murky waters of the Arkansas rippled by in the gloaming and seemed to say,' The catfish are all going back too, Mr. Pike.' " Mr. Pike straightened himself up, tenderly brushed away-not a tear, but-a flock of mosquitos that were enthusiastically picnicing on the end of his nose, and said, 'Colonel, its a whack.' "As the next morning's sun cast the long shadows of the cottonwoods toward the Greenhorn Peak, a tall man, dressed in a new otter-trimmed buckskin hunting shirt, and decorated with a pair of revolvers, might have been 'seen standing on the summit of the high .bluff overlooking the valley. Beside him stood a handsome little woman, radiant as Aurora, and leaning confidingly against the tall form beside her. Both were gazing down the long valley far to the eastward, where a speck of white canvas, like the outgoing sail on the ocean, flashed for a moment in the sunlight and disappeared on the horizon. " Then the pair descended from the ' Lookout,' and' hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow,' into the new Eden of their Pueblo paradise they took their happy way." |
