forehead and each cheek. They were a mongrel race; yet the French blood
seemed to predominate; in a few, indeed, might be seen the black snaky
eye of the Indian half-breed, and one and all, they seemed to aim at
assimilating themselves to their savage associates.

I shook hands with the bourgeois, and delivered the letter; then the
boats swung round into the stream and floated away. They had reason
for haste, for already the voyage from Fort Laramie had occupied a full
month, and the river was growing daily more shallow. Fifty times a
day the boats had been aground, indeed; those who navigate the Platte
invariably spend half their time upon sand-bars. Two of these boats,
the property of private traders, afterward separating from the rest,
got hopelessly involved in the shallows, not very far from the Pawnee
villages, and were soon surrounded by a swarm of the inhabitants. They
carried off everything that they considered valuable, including most of
the robes; and amused themselves by tying up the men left on guard and
soundly whipping them with sticks.

We encamped that night upon the bank of the river. Among the emigrants
there was an overgrown boy, some eighteen years old, with a head as
round and about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague fits had dyed
his face of a corresponding color. He wore an old white hat, tied under
his chin with a handkerchief; his body was short and stout, but his
legs of disproportioned and appalling length. I observed him at sunset,
breasting the hill with gigantic strides, and standing against the sky
on the summit, like a colossal pair of tongs. In a moment after we heard
him screaming frantically behind the ridge, and nothing doubting that
he was in the clutches of Indians or grizzly bears, some of the party
caught up their rifles and ran to the rescue. His outcries, however,
proved but an ebullition of joyous excitement; he had chased two little