第6章

When this ragamuffin horde had passed, we caught our horses, saddled, harnessed, and resumed our journey.Fording the creek, the low roofs of a number of rude buildings appeared, rising from a cluster of groves and woods on the left; and riding up through a long lane, amid a profusion of wild roses and early spring flowers, we found the log-church and school-houses belonging to the Methodist Shawanoe Mission.

The Indians were on the point of gathering to a religious meeting.

Some scores of them, tall men in half-civilized dress, were seated on wooden benches under the trees; while their horses were tied to the sheds and fences.Their chief, Parks, a remarkably large and athletic man, was just arrived from Westport, where he owns a trading establishment.Beside this, he has a fine farm and a considerable number of slaves.Indeed the Shawanoes have made greater progress in agriculture than any other tribe on the Missouri frontier; and both in appearance and in character form a marked contrast to our late acquaintance, the Kansas.

A few hours' ride brought us to the banks of the river Kansas.

Traversing the woods that lined it, and plowing through the deep sand, we encamped not far from the bank, at the Lower Delaware crossing.Our tent was erected for the first time on a meadow close to the woods, and the camp preparations being complete we began to think of supper.An old Delaware woman, of some three hundred pounds' weight, sat in the porch of a little log-house close to the water, and a very pretty half-breed girl was engaged, under her superintendence, in feeding a large flock of turkeys that were fluttering and gobbling about the door.But no offers of money, or even of tobacco, could induce her to part with one of her favorites;so I took my rifle, to see if the woods or the river could furnish us anything.A multitude of quails were plaintively whistling in the woods and meadows; but nothing appropriate to the rifle was to be seen, except three buzzards, seated on the spectral limbs of an old dead sycamore, that thrust itself out over the river from the dense sunny wall of fresh foliage.Their ugly heads were drawn down between their shoulders, and they seemed to luxuriate in the soft sunshine that was pouring from the west.As they offered no epicurean temptations, I refrained from disturbing their enjoyment;but contented myself with admiring the calm beauty of the sunset, for the river, eddying swiftly in deep purple shadows between the impending woods, formed a wild but tranquillizing scene.

When I returned to the camp I found Shaw and an old Indian seated on the ground in close conference, passing the pipe between them.The old man was explaining that he loved the whites, and had an especial partiality for tobacco.Delorier was arranging upon the ground our service of tin cups and plates; and as other viands were not to be had, he set before us a repast of biscuit and bacon, and a large pot of coffee.Unsheathing our knives, we attacked it, disposed of the greater part, and tossed the residue to the Indian.Meanwhile our horses, now hobbled for the first time, stood among the trees, with their fore-legs tied together, in great disgust and astonishment.

They seemed by no means to relish this foretaste of what was before them.Mine, in particular, had conceived a moral aversion to the prairie life.One of them, christened Hendrick, an animal whose strength and hardihood were his only merits, and who yielded to nothing but the cogent arguments of the whip, looked toward us with an indignant countenance, as if he meditated avenging his wrongs with a kick.The other, Pontiac, a good horse, though of plebeian lineage, stood with his head drooping and his mane hanging about his eyes, with the grieved and sulky air of a lubberly boy sent off to school.Poor Pontiac! his forebodings were but too just; for when Ilast heard from him, he was under the lash of an Ogallalla brave, on a war party against the Crows.

As it grew dark, and the voices of the whip-poor-wills succeeded the whistle of the quails, we removed our saddles to the tent, to serve as pillows, spread our blankets upon the ground, and prepared to bivouac for the first time that season.Each man selected the place in the tent which he was to occupy for the journey.To Delorier, however, was assigned the cart, into which he could creep in wet weather, and find a much better shelter than his bourgeois enjoyed in the tent.