asna which Weah-Washtay had given me. The Indian had brought with
him his pipe and a bag of shongsasha; so before lying down to sleep,
we sat for some time smoking together. Previously, however, our
wide-mouthed friend had taken the precaution of carefully examining the
neighborhood. He reported that eight men, counting them on his fingers,
had been encamped there not long before. Bisonette, Paul Dorion, Antoine
Le Rouge, Richardson, and four others, whose names he could not tell.
All this proved strictly correct. By what instinct he had arrived at
such accurate conclusions, I am utterly at a loss to divine.

It was still quite dark when I awoke and called Raymond. The Indian was
already gone, having chosen to go on before us to the Fort. Setting out
after him, we rode for some time in complete darkness, and when the sun
at length rose, glowing like a fiery ball of copper, we were ten miles
distant from the Fort. At length, from the broken summit of a tall sandy
bluff we could see Fort Laramie, miles before us, standing by the side
of the stream like a little gray speck in the midst of the bounding
desolation. I stopped my horse, and sat for a moment looking down upon
it. It seemed to me the very center of comfort and civilization. We were
not long in approaching it, for we rode at speed the greater part of the
way. Laramie Creek still intervened between us and the friendly walls.
Entering the water at the point where we had struck upon the bank, we
raised our feet to the saddle behind us, and thus, kneeling as it were
on horseback, passed dry-shod through the swift current. As we rode up
the bank, a number of men appeared in the gateway. Three of them came
forward to meet us. In a moment I distinguished Shaw; Henry Chatillon
followed with his face of manly simplicity and frankness, and Delorier
came last, with a broad grin of welcome. The meeting was not on either
side one of mere ceremony. For my own part, the change was a most
agreeable one from the society of savages and men little better than
savages, to that of my gallant and high-minded companion and our
noble-hearted guide. My appearance was equally gratifying to Shaw, who
was beginning to entertain some very uncomfortable surmises concerning
me.

Bordeaux greeted me very cordially, and shouted to the cook. This
functionary was a new acquisition, having lately come from Fort Pierre
with the trading wagons. Whatever skill he might have boasted, he had
not the mo