e. They had clearly inherited the
adventurous character of that prince of pioneers; but I saw no signs of
the quiet and tranquil spirit that so remarkably distinguished him.

Fearful was the fate that months after overtook some of the members of
that party. General Kearny, on his late return from California, brought
in the account how they were interrupted by the deep snows among the
mountains, and maddened by cold and hunger fed upon each other's flesh.

I got tired of the confusion. "Come, Paul," said I, "we will be off."
Paul sat in the sun, under the wall of the fort. He jumped up, mounted,
and we rode toward Fort Laramie. When we reached it, a man came out of
the gate with a pack at his back and a rifle on his shoulder; others
were gathering about him, shaking him by the hand, as if taking leave.
I thought it a strange thing that a man should set out alone and on
foot for the prairie. I soon got an explanation. Perrault--this, if
I recollect right was the Canadian's name--had quarreled with the
bourgeois, and the fort was too hot to hold him. Bordeaux, inflated with
his transient authority, had abused him, and received a blow in return.
The men then sprang at each other, and grappled in the middle of the
fort. Bordeaux was down in an instant, at the mercy of the incensed
Canadian; had not an old Indian, the brother of his squaw, seized hold
of his antagonist, he would have fared ill. Perrault broke loose from
the old Indian, and both the white men ran to their rooms for their
guns; but when Bordeaux, looking from his door, saw the Canadian, gun in
hand, standing in the area and calling on him to come out and fight,
his heart failed him; he chose to remain where he was. In vain the old
Indian, scandalized by his brother-in-law's cowardice, called upon him
to go upon the prairie and fight it out in the white man's manner; and
Bordeaux's own squaw, equally incensed, screamed to her lord and master
that he was a dog and an old woman. It all availed nothing. Bordeaux's
prudence got the better of his valor, and he would not stir. Perrault
stood showering approbrious epithets at the recent bourgeois. Growing
tired of this, he made up a pack of dried meat, and slinging it at his
back, set out alone for Fort Pierre on the Missouri, a distance of three
hundred miles, over a desert country full of hostile Indians.

I remained in the fort that night. In the morning, as I was coming
out from breakfast, conversing with a trader