The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-mountain Life |
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animals antelope Arapahoes arrows band of horses bank began Bent's Fort Bisonette Black Hills black-tailed deer Blackfeet broken buffalo buffalo-robes bull bushes camp Captain close companions crowd Dahcotah dark Deslauriers distance dogs emigrants encamped enemy eyes face farther feet fire followed foot Fort Laramie Fort Leavenworth forward galloped grass grizzly bear ground half hand head Henry Chatillon horses hour hunters Indians journey killed Laramie Creek leaped length lodge looked Mahto-Tatonka meadow meat Medicine Bow Mountain miles Missouri morning mountains mounted mule night Ogillallah party passed Pawnees pipe plain Platte Pontiac prairie ravine Raymond rest Reynal riding rifle river rocks Rocky Rocky Mountains rode saddle savage scarcely seated seemed Shaw side sight sleep smoke soon squaw stood stream stretched tall tent Tête Rouge traders trail trappers trees turned village wagons warriors wolves woods yells young
Popular passages
Page 193 - So he interpreted my question, which produced some debate. There was a difference of opinion. At last old Mene-Seela, or Red- Water, who sat by himself at one side, looked up with his withered face, and said he had always known what the thunder was. It was a great black bird; and once he had seen it, in a dream, swooping down from the Black Hills, with its loud roaring wings; and when it flapped them over a lake, they struck lightning from the water. " The thunder is bad, " said another old man,...
Page x - The wild cavalcade that defiled with me down the gorges of the Black Hills, with its paint and war-plumes, fluttering trophies and savage embroidery, bows, arrows, lances, and shields, will never be seen again.
Page 2 - With all these changes the water is so charged with mud and sand that, in spring, it is perfectly opaque, and in a few minutes deposits a sediment an inch thick in the bottom of a tumbler. The river was now high; but when we descended in the autumn it was fallen very low, and all the secrets of its treacherous shallows were exposed to view. It was frightful to see the dead and broken trees, thick-set as a military abattis, firmly imbedded in the sand, and all pointing down stream, ready to impale...
Page 336 - He had assailed a fat cow, shot her with two bullets, and mortally wounded her. But neither of us was prepared for the chase that afternoon, and Shaw, like myself, had no spare bullets in his pouch; so he abandoned the disabled animal to Henry Chatillon, who followed, dispatched her with his rifle, and loaded his horse with the meat.
Page 257 - ... suppressed ejaculations, to the great indignation of Reynal. Our mortification was increased when we rode up to his lodge. Here we saw his young Indian relative, the Hail-Storm, his light graceful figure reclining on the ground in an easy attitude, while with his friend the Rabbit, who sat by his side, he was making an abundant meal from a wooden bowl of wasna, whic'.h the squaw had placed between them. Near him lay the fresh skin of a female elk, which he had just killed among the mountains,...
Page 335 - After waiting a few minutes more, I made an attempt to ride up and stab her with my knife ; but the experiment proved such as no wise man would repeat. At length, bethinking me of the fringes at the seams of my buckskin pantaloons, I jerked off a few of them, and reloading the gun, forced them down the barrel to keep the bullet in its place ; then approaching, I shot the wounded buffalo through the heart. Sinking to her knees, she rolled over lifeless on the prairie. To my astonishment, I found that...
Page 296 - About noon on that day we reached Cherry Creek. Here was a great abundance of wild-cherries, plums, gooseberries, and currants. The stream, however, like most of the others which we passed, was dried up with the heat, and we had to dig holes in the sand to find water for ourselves and our horses. Two days after, we left the banks of the creek, which we had been following for some time, and began to cross the high dividing ridge which separates the waters of the Platte from those of the Arkansas....
Page 98 - ... than a barn. For furniture it had a rough bedstead, but no bed, two chairs, a chest of drawers, a tin pail to hold water, and a board to cut tobacco upon. A brass crucifix hung on the wall, and close at hand a recent scalp, with hair full a yard long, was suspended from a nail. I shall again have occasion to mendon this dismal trophy, its history being connected with that of our subsequent proceedings.
Page 258 - ... timid and abashed in the presence of the chiefs and old men; for he had never yet killed a man, or stricken the dead body of an enemy in battle. I have no doubt that the handsome smooth-faced boy burned with...
Page 82 - A fortnight afterward, this unfortunate party passed Fort Laramie, while we were there. Not one of their missing oxen had been recovered, though they had remained encamped a week in search of them ; and they had been compelled to abandon a great part of their baggage and provisions, and yoke cows and heifers to their wagons to carry them forward upon their journey, the most toilsome and hazardous part of which lay still before them.