Thinking it as well to humor him, we left behind us the haunt of these extraordinary ghosts, and passed on toward Chugwater, riding at full gallop, for the big drops began to patter down.Soon we came in sight of the poplar saplings that grew about the mouth of the little stream.We leaped to the ground, threw off our saddles, turned our horses loose, and drawing our knives, began to slash among the bushes to cut twigs and branches for making a shelter against the rain.
Bending down the taller saplings as they grew, we piled the young shoots upon them; and thus made a convenient penthouse, but all our labor was useless.The storm scarcely touched us.Half a mile on our right the rain was pouring down like a cataract, and the thunder roared over the prairie like a battery of cannon; while we by good fortune received only a few heavy drops from the skirt of the passing cloud.The weather cleared and the sun set gloriously.Sitting close under our leafy canopy, we proceeded to discuss a substantial meal of wasna 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 most promising materials to exercise it upon.
He set before me, however, a breakfast of biscuit, coffee, and salt pork.It seemed like a new phase of existence, to be seated once more on a bench, with a knife and fork, a plate and teacup, and something resembling a table before me.The coffee seemed delicious, and the bread was a most welcome novelty, since for three weeks I had eaten scarcely anything but meat, and that for the most part without salt.The meal also had the relish of good company, for opposite to me sat Shaw in elegant dishabille.If one is anxious thoroughly to appreciate the value of a congenial companion, he has only to spend a few weeks by himself in an Ogallalla village.And if he can contrive to add to his seclusion a debilitating and somewhat critical illness, his perceptions upon this subject will be rendered considerably more vivid.
Shaw had been upward of two weeks at the Fort.I found him established in his old quarters, a large apartment usually occupied by the absent bourgeois.In one corner was a soft and luxuriant pile of excellent buffalo robes, and here I lay down.Shaw brought me three books.
"Here," said he, "is your Shakespeare and Byron, and here is the Old Testament, which has as much poetry in it as the other two put together."I chose the worst of the three, and for the greater part of that day lay on the buffalo robes, fairly reveling in the creations of that resplendent genius which has achieved no more signal triumph than that of half beguiling us to forget the pitiful and unmanly character of its possessor.
