Thus we all remained stationary for some minutes, crouching close to our
horses' necks, much too surly to speak, though once the captain looked
up from between the collars of his coat, his face blood-red, and the
muscles of his mouth contracted by the cold into a most ludicrous grin
of agony. He grumbled something that sounded like a curse, directed
as we believed, against the unhappy hour when he had first thought of
leaving home. The thing was too good to last long; and the instant the
puffs of wind subsided we erected our tents, and remained in camp for
the rest of a gloomy and lowering day. The emigrants also encamped near
at hand. We, being first on the ground, had appropriated all the wood
within reach; so that our fire alone blazed cheerfully. Around it soon
gathered a group of uncouth figures, shivering in the drizzling rain.
Conspicuous among them were two or three of the half-savage men who
spend their reckless lives in trapping among the Rocky Mountains, or
in trading for the Fur Company in the Indian villages. They were all
of Canadian extraction; their hard, weather-beaten faces and bushy
mustaches looked out from beneath the hoods of their white capotes with
a bad and brutish expression, as if their owner might be the willing
agent of any villainy. And such in fact is the character of many of
these men.

On the day following we overtook Kearsley's wagons, and thenceforward,
for a week or two, we were fellow-travelers. One good effect, at least,
resulted from the alliance; it materially diminished the serious fatigue
of standing guard; for the party being now more numerous, there were
longer intervals between each man's turns of duty.



CHAPTER VII