It was the Fourth of July in Old Laramie, and men in jeans and wool and buckskin were celebrating. Old Laramie had seen life--all of life, since the fur days of La Ramée in 1821. Having now superciliously sold out to these pilgrims, reserving only alcohol enough for its own consumption, Old Laramie was willing to let the world wag, and content to twiddle a man curl around a finger.
But yet another detachment of the great army following the hegira of the Mormons was now approaching Laramie. In the warm sun of mid-morning, its worn wheels rattling, its cattle limping and with lolling tongues, this caravan forded and swung wide into corral below the crowded tepees of the sullen tribesmen.
Just before the start of the wagon train.
Ahead of it now dashed a horseman, swinging his rifle over his head and uttering Indian yells. He pulled up at the very door of the old adobe guard tower with its mounted swivel guns; swung off, pushed on into the honeycomb of the inner structure.
[pg 189]
The famous border fortress was built around a square, the living quarters on one side, the trading rooms on another. Few Indians were admitted at one time, other than the Indian wives of the engagés, the officials of the fur company or of the attached white or halfbreed hunters. Above some of the inner buildings were sleeping lofts. The inner open space served as a general meeting ground. Indolent but on guard, Old Laramie held her watch, a rear guard of the passing West in its wild days before the plow.
All residents here knew Jim Bridger. He sought out the man in charge.
"How, Bordeaux?" he began. "Whar's the bourgeois, Papin?"