il the
hunter comes to examine. Then waiting until he approaches his ambush
within a few feet, whiz flies the home-drawn arrow, never failing at
such close quarters to bring the victim to the ground. For one white
scalp, however, that dangles in the smoke of an Indian lodge, a dozen
black ones at the end of the hunt ornament the camp-fire of the
rendezvous.

"At a certain time when the hunt is over, or they have loaded their pack
animals, the trappers proceed to their rendezvous, the locality of which
has been previously agreed upon; and here the traders and agents of the
fur companies await them, with such assortments of goods as their hardy
customers may require, including generally a fair supply of alcohol. The
trappers drop in singly and in small bands, bringing their packs of
beaver to this mountain market, not unfrequently to the value of a
thousand dollars each, the produce of one hunt. The dissipation of the
rendezvous, however, soon turns the trapper's pocket inside out. The
goods brought by the traders, although of the most inferior quality, are
sold at enormous prices. Coffee twenty and thirty shillings a pint cup,
which is the usual measure; tobacco fetches ten and fifteen shillings a
plug; alcohol from twenty to fifty shillings a pint; gunpowder sixteen
shillings a pint cup, and all other articles at proportionately
exhorbitant prices.

"The rendezvous is one continued scene of drunkenness, gambling,
brawling and fighting, so long as the money and credit of the trappers
last. Seated Indian fashion around the fires, with a blanket spread
before them, groups are seen with their 'decks' of cards playing at
'euchre,' 'poker,' and 'seven-up,' the regular mountain games. The
stakes are beaver, which is here current coin; and when the fur is gone,
their horses, mules, rifles and shirts, hunting packs and breeches are
staked. Daring gamblers make the rounds of the camp, challenging each
other to play for the highest stake--his horse, his squaw if he have
one, and as once happened his scalp. A trapper often squanders the
produce of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of
hours; and supplied on credit with another equipment, leaves the
rendezvous for another expedition which has the same result, time after
time, although one tolerably successful hunt would enable him to return
to the settlements and civilised life with an ample sum to purchase and
stock a farm, and enjoy himself in ease and comfo