aid he, "the Arapahoes have just killed two of us in the
mountains. Old Bull-Tail has come to tell us. They stabbed one behind
his back, and shot the other with his own rifle. That's the way we live
here! I mean to give up trapping after this year. My squaw says she
wants a pacing horse and some red ribbons; I'll make enough beaver to
get them for her, and then I'm done! I'll go below and live on a farm."

"Your bones will dry on the prairie, Rouleau!" said another trapper, who
was standing by; a strong, brutal-looking fellow, with a face as surly
as a bull-dog's.

Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune and shuffle a dance on his
stumps of feet.

"You'll see us, before long, passing up our way," said the other man.
"Well," said I, "stop and take a cup of coffee with us"; and as it was
quite late in the afternoon, I prepared to leave the fort at once.

As I rode out, a train of emigrant wagons was passing across the stream.
"Whar are ye goin' stranger?" Thus I was saluted by two or three voices
at once.

"About eighteen miles up the creek."

"It's mighty late to be going that far! Make haste, ye'd better, and
keep a bright lookout for Indians!"

I thought the advice too good to be neglected. Fording the stream, I
passed at a round trot over the plains beyond. But "the more haste, the
worse speed." I proved the truth in the proverb by the time I reached
the hills three miles from the fort. The trail was faintly marked, and
riding forward with more rapidity than caution, I lost sight of it. I
kept on in a direct line, guided by Laramie Creek, which I could see
at intervals darkly glistening in the evening sun, at the bottom of
the woody gulf on my right. Half an hour before sunset I came upon its
banks. There was something exciting in the wild solitude of the place.
An antelope sprang suddenly from the sagebushes before me. As he leaped
gracefully not thirty yards before my horse, I fired, and instantly he
spun round and fell. Quite sure of him, I walked my horse toward him,
leisurely reloading my rifle, when to my surprise he sprang up and
trotted rapidly away on three legs into the dark recesses of the hills,
whither I had no time to follow. Ten minutes after, I was passing along
the bottom of a deep valley, and chancing to look behind me, I saw in
the dim light that something was following. Supposing it to be wolf, I
slid from my seat and sat down behind my horse to shoot it; but as
it came up, I saw by i