“How are you?” said the first who came up, alighting from his horse and throwing himself upon the ground.  The rest followed close, and a score of them soon gathered about us, some lying at full length and some sitting on horseback.  They all belonged to a company raised in St. Louis.  There were some ruffian faces among them, and some haggard with debauchery; but on the whole they were extremely good-looking men, superior beyond measure to the ordinary rank and file of an army.  Except that they were booted to the knees, they wore their belts and military trappings over the ordinary dress of citizens.  Besides their swords and holster pistols, they carried slung from their saddles the excellent Springfield carbines, loaded at the breech.  They inquired the character of our party, and were anxious to know the prospect of killing buffalo, and the chance that their horses would stand the journey to Santa Fe.  All this was well enough, but a moment after a worse visitation came upon us.

“How are you, strangers? whar are you going and whar are you from?” said a fellow, who came trotting up with an old straw hat on his head.  He was dressed in the coarsest brown homespun cloth.  His face was rather sallow from fever-and-ague, and his tall figure, though strong and sinewy was quite thin, and had besides an angular look, which, together with his boorish seat on horseback, gave him an appearance anything but graceful.  Plenty more of the same stamp were close behind him.  Their company was raised in one of the frontier counties, and we soon had abundant evidence of their rustic breeding; dozens of them came crowding round, pushing between our first visitors and staring at us with unabashed faces.

“Are you the captain?” asked one fellow.

“What’s your business out here?” asked another.

“Whar do you live when you’re at home?” said a third.

“I reckon you’re traders,” surmised a fourth; and to crown the whole, one of them came confidentially to my side and inquired in a low voice, “What’s your partner’s name?”

As each newcomer repeated the same questions, the nuisance became intolerable.  Our military visitors were soon disgusted at the concise nature of our replies, and we could overhear them muttering curses against us.  While we sat smoking, not in the best imaginable humor, Tete Rouge’s tongue was never idle.  He never forgot his military character, and during the whole interview he was incessantly busy among his fellow-soldiers.  At length we placed him on the ground before us, and told him that he might play the part of spokesman for the whole.  Tete Rouge was delighted, and we soon had the satisfaction of seeing him talk and gabble at such a rate that the torrent of questions was in a great measure diverted from us.  A little while after, to our amazement, we saw a large cannon with four horses come lumbering up behind the crowd; and the driver, who was perched on one of the animals, stretching his neck so as to look over the rest of the men, called out: