“Peigans,” he said, “you know the object for which I came into this country was to make peace between you and the Pale-faces.  I have often told you so when you would not listen, and when you told me that I had a double heart and told lies.  You were wrong when you said this; but I do not wonder, for you live among nations who do not fear God, and who think it right to lie.  I now repeat to you what I said before.  It would be good for the Red-men if they would make peace with the Pale-faces, and if they would make peace with each other.  I will now convince you that I am in earnest, and have all along been speaking the truth.”

Hereupon Joe Blunt opened his bundle of goods, and presented fully one-half of the gaudy and brilliant contents to the astonished Indians, who seemed quite taken aback by such generous treatment.  The result of this was that the two parties separated with mutual expressions of esteem and good-will.  The Indians then returned to the forest, and the white men galloped back to their camp among the hills.

CHAPTER XX.

New plans—­Our travellers join the fur-traders, and see many strange things—­A curious fight—­A narrow escape, and a prisoner taken.

Not long after the events related in the last chapter, our four friends—­Dick, and Joe, and Henri, and Crusoe—­agreed to become for a time members of Walter Cameron’s band of trappers.  Joe joined because one of the objects which the traders had in view was similar to his own mission—­namely, the promoting of peace among the various Indian tribes of the mountains and plains to the west.  Joe, therefore, thought it a good opportunity of travelling with a band of men who could secure him a favourable hearing from the Indian tribes they might chance to meet with in the course of their wanderings.  Besides, as the traders carried about a large supply of goods with them, he could easily replenish his own nearly exhausted pack by hunting wild animals and exchanging their skins for such articles as he might require.

Dick joined because it afforded him an opportunity of seeing the wild, majestic scenery of the Rocky Mountains, and shooting the big-horned sheep which abounded there, and the grizzly “bars,” as Joe named them, or “Caleb,” as they were more frequently styled by Henri and the other men.

Henri joined because it was agreeable to the inclination of his own rollicking, blundering, floundering, crashing disposition, and because he would have joined anything that had been joined by the other two.

Crusoe’s reason for joining was single, simple, easy to be expressed, easy to be understood, and commendable. He joined—­because Dick did.

The very day after the party left the encampment where Dick had shot the grizzly bear and the deer, he had the satisfaction of bringing down a splendid specimen of the big-horned sheep.  It came suddenly out from a gorge of the mountain, and stood upon the giddy edge of a tremendous precipice, at a distance of about two hundred and fifty yards.