o Indians and backwoodsmen; and after
braving dangers and hardships enough to break down any spirit but that
of a western pioneer, arrived safe at the solitary post in question. *

(* Bradbury, Travels in America, p. 17.)

Such is a sample of the rugged experience which Colter had to relate
of savage life; yet, with all these perils and terrors fresh in his
recollection, he could not see the present band on their way to those
regions of danger and adventure, without feeling a vehement impulse
to join them. A western trapper is like a sailor; past hazards only
stimulate him to further risks. The vast prairie is to the one what
the ocean is to the other, a boundless field of enterprise and exploit.
However he may have suffered in his last cruise, he is always ready to
join a new expedition; and the more adventurous its nature, the more
attractive is it to his vagrant spirit.

Nothing seems to have kept Colter from continuing with the party to
the shores of the Pacific but the circumstances of his having recently
married. All the morning he kept with them, balancing in his mind the
charms of his bride against those of the Rocky Mountains; the former,
however, prevailed, and after a march of several miles, he took a
reluctant leave of the travellers, and turned his face homeward.

Continuing their progress up the Missouri, the party encamped on the
evening of the 21st of March, in the neighborhood of a little frontier
village of French creoles. Here Pierre Dorion met with some of his old
comrades, with whom he had a long gossip, and returned to the camp with
rumors of bloody feuds between the Osages and the loways, or Ayaways,
Potowatomies, Sioux, and Sawkees. Blood had already been shed, and
scalps been taken. A war party, three hundred strong, were prowling
in the neighborhood; others might be met with higher up the river;
it behooved the travellers, therefore, to be upon their guard against
robbery or surprise, for an Indian war-party on the march is prone to
acts of outrage.

In consequence of this report, which was subsequently confirmed by
further intelligence, a guard was kept up at night round the encampment,
and they all slept on their arms. As they were sixteen in number, and
well supplied with weapons and ammunition, they trusted to be able to
give any marauding party a warm reception. Nothing occurred, however, to
molest them on their voyage, and on the 8th of April they came in sight
of Fort Osage. On