the dandy carried a bow and arrows in an otter-skin quiver at his back.  In this guise, and bestriding his yellow horse with an air of extreme dignity, The Horse, for that was his name, rode in at the gate, turning neither to the right nor the left, but casting glances askance at the groups of squaws who, with their mongrel progeny, were sitting in the sun before their doors.  The evil tidings brought by The Horse were of the following import:  The squaw of Henry Chatillon, a woman with whom he had been connected for years by the strongest ties which in that country exist between the sexes, was dangerously ill.  She and her children were in the village of The Whirlwind, at the distance of a few days’ journey.  Henry was anxious to see the woman before she died, and provide for the safety and support of his children, of whom he was extremely fond.  To have refused him this would have been gross inhumanity.  We abandoned our plan of joining Smoke’s village, and of proceeding with it to the rendezvous, and determined to meet The Whirlwind, and go in his company.

I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but on the third night after reaching Fort Laramie a violent pain awoke me, and I found myself attacked by the same disorder that occasioned such heavy losses to the army on the Rio Grande.  In a day and a half I was reduced to extreme weakness, so that I could not walk without pain and effort.  Having within that time taken six grains of opium, without the least beneficial effect, and having no medical adviser, nor any choice of diet, I resolved to throw myself upon Providence for recovery, using, without regard to the disorder, any portion of strength that might remain to me.  So on the 20th of June we set out from Fort Laramie to meet The Whirlwind’s village.  Though aided by the high-bowed “mountain saddle,” I could scarcely keep my seat on horseback.  Before we left the fort we hired another man, a long-haired Canadian, with a face like an owl’s, contrasting oddly enough with Delorier’s mercurial countenance.  This was not the only re-enforcement to our party.  A vagrant Indian trader, named Reynal, joined us, together with his squaw Margot, and her two nephews, our dandy friend, The Horse, and his younger brother, The Hail Storm.  Thus accompanied, we betook ourselves to the prairie, leaving the beaten trail, and passing over the desolate hills that flank the bottoms of Laramie Creek.  In all, Indians and whites, we counted eight men and one woman.

Reynal, the trader, the image of sleek and selfish complacency, carried The Horse’s dragoon sword in his hand, delighting apparently in this useless parade; for, from spending half his life among Indians, he had caught not only their habits but their ideas.  Margot, a female animal of more than two hundred pounds’ weight, was couched in the basket of a travail, such as I have before described; besides her ponderous bulk, various domestic utensils were attached to the vehicle,