seats on the grass with a feeling of greatly increased respectability,
to wait the arrival of our guests. They came; the banquet was concluded,
and the pipe smoked. Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads
toward the fort.

An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our front, and we could
see no farther; until having surmounted them, a rapid stream appeared
at the foot of the descent, running into the Platte; beyond was a green
meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, at the point
where the two rivers joined, were the low clay walls of a fort. This
was not Fort Laramie, but another post of less recent date, which having
sunk before its successful competitor was now deserted and ruinous. A
moment after the hills, seeming to draw apart as we advanced, disclosed
Fort Laramie itself, its high bastions and perpendicular walls of
clay crowning an eminence on the left beyond the stream, while behind
stretched a line of arid and desolate ridges, and behind these again,
towering aloft seven thousand feet, arose the grim Black Hills.

We tried to ford Laramie Creek at a point nearly opposite the fort, but
the stream, swollen with the rains in the mountains, was too rapid. We
passed up along its bank to find a better crossing place. Men gathered
on the wall to look at us. "There's Bordeaux!" called Henry, his face
brightening as he recognized his acquaintance; "him there with the
spyglass; and there's old Vaskiss, and Tucker, and May; and, by George!
there's Cimoneau!" This Cimoneau was Henry's fast friend, and the only
man in the country who could rival him in hunting.

We soon found a ford. Henry led the way, the pony approaching the bank
with a countenance of cool indifference, bracing his feet and sliding
into the stream with the most unmoved composure.