trenches without the fort, and many a gay
French voyageur, who had thought to go
singing down the Missouri on his fur-laden
raft in the springtime, would never again
see the lights of St. Louis, or the coin of
the mighty Choteau company.

It had been a winter of tragedies. The
rigors of the weather and the scourge of
the disease had been fought with Indian
charm and with Catholic prayer. Both
were equally unavailing. If a man was
taken sick at the fort they put him in a
warm room, brought him a jug of water
once a day, and left him to find out what his
constitution was worth. Generally he re-
covered; for the surgeon's supplies had
been exhausted early in the year. But the
Indians, in their torment, rushed into the
river through the ice, and returned to roll
themselves in their blankets and die in
ungroaning stoicism.

Every one had grown bitter and hard.
The knives of the trappers were sharp, and
not one whit sharper than their tempers.
Some one said that the friendly Pawnees
were conspiring with the Sioux, who were
always treacherous, to sack the settlement.
The trappers doubted this. They and the