“He’s had his ha’r raised sure, and never seed the next day arter we seed the last on him.”
“I am more hopeful than you are. Recollect I have been a captive and am now here without bodily harm.”
“It’s qua’r, I allow, how you come out, as you did. The reds down in them parts are ramparageous, and if it hadn’t been for that Jim, you spoke about, and that gal, you’d a gone under sure. I’s tuck once by them same chaps one time. Me an’ Snapper Jack was sat on one dark night in an awful snowstorm by a hundred on ’em. They blazed right into us, and Jack rolled over with a pound of lead in him and never said a word. I’s purty well riddled in my lower story, but I tuk through and got off with my ha’r, while Jack never knowed who tuk his. They cac’lated on toastin’ you up brown, and would ef it want fur that gal, as I’s sayin’ while he’s had it all.”
“I cannot yet see, Biddon, why there is not a probability of Nat’s being alive. The Indians in these parts are on friendly intercourse with the traders, and it is in this region, if anywhere, that he will be found.”
“I don’t b’lieve he’s about. They got him down thar, and he got it down thar, sure.”
These words of the trapper dampened my expectations greatly. Much of the joy of my hope was that I expected to again grasp the hand of my old friend, and the thought that he had long been dead made me sad and gloomy. However, I was not ready to give up all hope, and determined that I should be satisfied of his fate before I returned to the States.
The brigade proceeded regularly and rapidly down the Yellowstone, until the sun sinking in the west, warned them that night was at hand. The steersman informed me they should not be able to reach the Indian village that night, but would early the next day. Just as the shadows were blending with the darkness on the river banks, the brigade ran into shore for the night’s encampment. There was a dense forest on either side of us, which rendered our situation dark and gloomy; but this was soon dispelled by the jolly voyageurs. Fuel was collected, and a great roaring fire crackled and blazed cheerily around us; and the men passing to and fro, chatting and joking, the confusion of preparations for supper, made a scene well calculated to dispel all gloomy reveries. The three boats were hauled up on the banks, turned over, and their contents scattered among the owners, and all gathered around the hearty evening meal. These hardy fellows after the laborious day’s work, their appetites sharpened, and healthy truly,
“Ate like horses, when you hear them eat.”
The meal finished, the indispensable pipes were in requisition. Three or four huge fires were kindled, around which the men lazily stretched themselves, to while away the hour that must elapse ere they “turned in” for the night. The brigade included men in it, who had trapped and hunted the shores of the Frozen Sea to the plains of the Kansas, and from Labrador to the mouth of the Columbia, beyond the Rocky Mountains. They had encountered every imaginable foe: the intense cold and the polar bear of the far North, and the innumerable hordes of savages of the more temperate regions; and now they recounted their thrilling reminiscences to each other, and speculated upon the fate still in store for them. The hour passed rapidly, and ere I was aware, the voyageurs were gathering their blankets around them for the night’s rest.
“Come, bundle up, Jarsey,” said Biddon, “for thar’ll be no time to snooze in the daylight.”