Chapter 47 - Page 2

height of savage finery, and

mounted on steeds as fine and as fiery as themselves, and all

jingling with hawks' bells, came galloping, with whoop and

halloo, into the camp.

They were fresh from the winter encampment of the American Fur

Company, in the Green River Valley; and had come to pay their old

comrades of Captain Bonneville's company a visit. An idea may be

formed from the scenes we have already given of conviviality in

the wilderness, of the manner in which these game birds were

received by those of their feather in the camp; what feasting,

what revelling, what boasting, what bragging, what ranting and

roaring, and racing and gambling, and squabbling and fighting,

ensued among these boon companions. Captain Bonneville, it is

true, maintained always a certain degree of law and order in his

camp, and checked each fierce excess; but the trappers, in their

seasons of idleness and relaxation require a degree of license

and indulgence, to repay them for the long privations and almost

incredible hardships of their periods of active service.

In the midst of all this feasting and frolicking, a freak of the

tender passion intervened, and wrought a complete change in the

scene. Among the Indian beauties in the camp of the Eutaws and

Shoshonies, the free trappers discovered two, who had whilom

figured as their squaws. These connections frequently take place

for a season, and sometimes continue for years, if not

perpetually; but are apt to be broken when the free trapper

starts off, suddenly, on some distant and rough expedition.

In the present instance, these wild blades were anxious to regain

their belles; nor were the latter loath once more to come under

their protection. The free trapper combines, in the eye of an

Indian girl, all that is dashing and heroic in a warrior of her

own race -- whose gait, and garb, and bravery he emulates -- with

all that is gallant and glorious in the white man. And then the

indulgence with which he treats her, the finery in which he decks

her out, the state in which she moves, the sway she enjoys over

both his purse and person; instead of being the drudge and slave

of an Indian husband, obliged to carry his pack, and build his

lodge, and make his fire, and bear his cross humors and dry

blows. No; there is no comparison in the eyes of an aspiring

belle of the wilderness, between a free trapper and an Indian

brave.

With respect to one of the parties the matter was easily

arranged. 'The beauty in question was a pert little Eutaw wench,

that had been taken prisoner,