But there is a reverse to the picture. Days and nights exposed to cold, soaking rains; want of food and water; unavoidable exaggeration of danger; painful solicitude for those dear to and absent from you, and most anxious moments when you occasionally feel that prudence is scarcely sufficient to insure your safety. Even the intense and curious impatience to push on in the face of apparent danger makes you at times feel a remorse on account of those you are leading into it. Such are the contrasts of feeling by which the wanderer in these distant regions, still unvisited by a ray of civilization, is frequently agitated.
[Reaching Lake Travers, one of the sources of the Red River of the North, he found quarters with Mr. Brown, the resident factor of the American Fur Company.]
After breakfast Mr. Brown showed me some very rare furs he possessed,—several very fine grizzly bear-skins (Ursus ferox), one of which was a bright yellow, a rare variety. He had also an exceedingly large and rich otter-skin, which, with many other things, I purchased of him. But my most valuable acquisition here was made from an Assiniboin chief, who came in about an hour before I departed. This was a fine bow, made of bone and wood, with a cord of very strong sinew. The chief had performed a feat with it for which Wanetáh, a Nahcotah chief, had been celebrated. He had killed two buffaloes that were galloping on a parallel with his own horse at one draft of his arrow, it having passed through the first and inflicted a mortal wound upon the second.
The chief was very unwilling to part with it. We tried him several times in vain, and at length I offered him five gold-pieces, or twenty-five dollars. “Máhzázhee! Héeyah!” “Yellow iron! No!” he replied. At last Mr. Brown produced some brilliant scarlet cloth. The sight of it overcame his reluctance; it would make such beautiful leggings, and his squaws would be so delighted with it! So I gave him three yards of the cloth, and he delivered me the bow, a quiver of arrows, and a skin case, which contained it. Mr. Brown, of course, got his share of the amount, though he acted very fairly with me. Money is unknown to these savages, and they place no value upon it. He would not have taken twenty of these gold-pieces for his bow, but thought he had made a good bargain with it for the cloth, although I have no doubt Mr. Brown would have sold it to any one for ten dollars. It was an affair of barter, where both parties were satisfied, which, under similar circumstances, is perhaps the best definition of value.
A HUNTER’S CHRISTMAS DINNER.
J. S. CAMPION.
[Campion’s “On the Frontier: Reminiscences of Wild Sports, Personal Adventure, and Strange Scenes,” a work full of vitality, is the source of our present selection. Some of the author’s adventures with hostile Indians are very interesting, but the following account of how the author won his Christmas dinner is likely to prove more attractive reading.]
On the evening of December 23 word was brought into camp by one of the hands, who had been looking up the mules, that he had come across the tracks of some twenty-five turkeys, within five or six miles of camp. This was indeed great news. Hope dawned upon us. We should have the fat turkey for Christmas, at all events.