wonderfully
curtailed, and a horse, a rifle, and a knife seemed to make up the whole
of life's necessaries. For these once obtained, together with the skill
to use them, all else that is essential would follow in their train,
and a host of luxuries besides. One other lesson our short prairie
experience had taught us; that of profound contentment in the present,
and utter contempt for what the future might bring forth.

These principles established, we prepared to leave Fort Laramie. On the
fourth day of August, early in the afternoon, we bade a final adieu to
its hospitable gateway. Again Shaw and I were riding side by side on the
prairie. For the first fifty miles we had companions with us; Troche,
a little trapper, and Rouville, a nondescript in the employ of the Fur
Company, who were going to join the trader Bisonette at his encampment
near the head of Horse Creek. We rode only six or eight miles that
afternoon before we came to a little brook traversing the barren
prairie. All along its course grew copses of young wild-cherry trees,
loaded with ripe fruit, and almost concealing the gliding thread of
water with their dense growth, while on each side rose swells of rich
green grass. Here we encamped; and being much too indolent to pitch
our tent, we flung our saddles on the ground, spread a pair of buffalo
robes, lay down upon them, and began to smoke. Meanwhile, Delorier
busied himself with his hissing frying-pan, and Raymond stood guard
over the band of grazing horses. Delorier had an active assistant in
Rouville, who professed great skill in the culinary art, and seizing
upon a fork, began to lend his zealous aid in making ready supper.
Indeed, according to his own belief, Rouville was a man of universal
knowledge, and he lost no opportunity to display his manifold
accomplishments. He had been a circus-rider at St. Louis, and once he
rode round Fort Laramie on his head, to the utter bewilderment of all
the Indians. He was also noted as the wit of the Fort; and as he had
considerable humor and abundant vivacity, he contributed more that
night to the liveliness of the camp than all the rest of the party put
together. At one instant he would be kneeling by Delorier, instructing
him in the true method of frying antelope steaks, then he would come and
seat himself at our side, dilating upon the orthodox fashion of braiding
up a horse's tail, telling apocryphal stories how he had killed a
buffalo bull with a knife, havin