vily taxed, for
during the day a flotilla of fifteen canoes stopped before the
plantation, and a dozen of French traders came up to the house. They
were intimate friends of the captain, who had known them for a long
time, and it fortunately happened that they were proceeding with goods
to purchase the furs of the Pawnee Picts. They offered a passage to
Gabriel and Roche, who, of course, accepted the welcome proposition.
They embarked their saddles with sundry provisions, which the good Mrs.
Finn forced upon them, while her hospitable husband, unknown to them,
put into the canoes a bale of such articles as he thought would be
useful to them during their long journey. The gift, as I afterwards
learned, was composed of pistols and holsters, a small keg of powder,
bars of lead, new bits and stirrups, and of four Mackinaw blankets.

At last the moment arrived when I was to part with my friends. I felt a
bitter pang, and I wept when I found myself alone. However, I consoled
myself with the reflection that our separation was not to be a long one,
and, cheered up by the captain, I soon overcame the bitterness of the
separation. Yet, for months afterwards, I felt lonely and tired of
myself; I had never had an idea how painful it is to part from the only
few individuals who are attached to you. My worthy host showed much
interest in my welfare. As he had some business to transact at the Land
Office in the Arkansas, he resolved that he would accompany me two or
three days on my journey. Five days after the departure of Gabriel and
Roche, we crossed the Red River, and soon arrived at Washington, the
only place of any importance in the west of Arkansas.

From Washington to Little Rock, the capital of the state, there is a
mail-road, with farms at every fifteen or twenty miles; but the captain
informed me they were inhabited by the refuse from other states, and
that west of the Mississippi (except in Louisiana and Missouri) it was
always safer to travel through the wilderness, and camp out. We
accordingly took the back-wood trail, across a hilly and romantic
country, entirely mineral, and full of extinct volcanoes. The quantity
of game found in these parts is incredible; every ten minutes we would
start a band of some twenty turkeys. At all times, deer were seen
grazing within rifle-shot, and I don't think that, on our first day's
journey over the hills, we met less than twenty bears.

Independent of his love for the wilderness, an