fellow, with a
sinister aspect, and more of the savage than the civilized man in his
appearance. He was engaged to serve in general as a hunter, but as guide
and interpreter when they should reach the country of the Crows.

On the 18th of July, Mr. Hunt took up his line of march by land from
the Arickara village, leaving Mr. Lisa and Mr. Nuttall there, where
they intended to await the expected arrival of Mr. Henry from the Rocky
Mountains. As to Messrs. Bradbury and Breckenridge, they had departed
some days previously, on a voyage down the river to St. Louis, with a
detachment from Mr. Lisa's party. With all his exertions, Mr. Hunt
had been unable to obtain a sufficient number of horses for the
accommodation of all his people. His cavalcade consisted of eighty-two
horses, most of them heavily laden with Indian goods, beaver traps,
ammunition, Indian corn, corn meal and other necessaries. Each of the
partners was mounted, and a horse was allotted to the interpreter,
Pierre Dorion, for the transportation of his luggage and his two
children. His squaw, for the most part of the time, trudged on foot,
like the residue of the party; nor did any of the men show more patience
and fortitude than this resolute woman in enduring fatigue and hardship.

The veteran trappers and voyageurs of Lisa's party shook their heads
as their comrades set out, and took leave of them as of doomed men;
and even Lisa himself gave it as his opinion, after the travellers had
departed, they would never reach the shores of the Pacific, but would
either perish with hunger in the wilderness, or be cut off by the
savages.

CHAPTER XXIII.

Summer Weather of the Prairies.--Purity of the Atmosphere--
Canadians on the March.--Sickness in the Camp.--Big River.--
Vulgar Nomenclature.--Suggestions About the Original Indian
Names.--Camp of Cheyennes.--Trade for Horses.--Character of
the Cheyennes.--Their Horsemanship.--Historical Anecdotes of
the Tribe.

THE course taken by Mr. Hunt was at first to the northwest, but soon
turned and kept generally to the southwest, to avoid the country
infested by the Blackfeet. His route took him across some of the
tributary streams of the Missouri, and over immense prairies, bounded
only by the horizon, and destitute of trees. It was now the height of
summer, and these naked plains would be intolerable to the traveller
were it not for the breezes which swept over them during the fervor