FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111  
112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>   >|  
they war." "Was anything done to punish the Indians, Hiram?" "Lor' bless you, who was to punish them? Why, there was scarce a settler then west of the Mississippi. No; if traders went among 'em they went among 'em at thar own risk; and, I am bound to say, that if the Indians were treated fair, and the men understood thar ways, thar was no great danger. The Indians knew if they killed traders that others wouldn't come among them, and they wanted goods--guns and powder most of all, but other things too, such as blankets, and cloth as they calls cotton, and hatchets, beads, and other things, and they wanted to trade off thar hosses and buffalo robes, and skins of all kinds. That was the protection the traders had; and it warn't very often the Indians fell foul of them, except it might be a muss got up over the fire-water. "When the news came down to St. Louis there was a good deal of talk about it; but it got about that these fellows had been taking up trash, and the general verdict was that it sarved 'em right. All the traders on the frontier set their faces agin men who cheated the Indians, not because they cared for the Indians, mark you, but because anything that made bad blood did harm to the trade all over. However, it gave me a bad scare, and it was a good many years before I came up the Upper Missouri again. There's some men as seems to me to be downright fond of fighting; but I don't feel like that, anyway. If I get into a hard corner, and have got to fight, then I fights, but I had rather go round the other way if I could. Thar are dangers enough on this river for me; what with snags, and shoals, and storms, they are enough for any reasonable man. Then there are the river pirates; they are worse than all, though it's some years since we had much trouble with 'em." "River pirates, Hiram? I have not heard you say anything about them before. I did not know there were any pirates on these rivers." "Thar used to be, lad, years back, lots of them, and a pretty lively time we used to have on the river." "But what sort of pirates, Hiram?" "Well, thar war two sorts, you see, at that time. Five-and-twenty years ago the settlements on the river war a long way apart. You might go fifty miles without seeing a village when you once got past the plantations on the lower river; you may say as this region then was like what Kansas is now. Chaps who had made it too hot for them in the east came out here, and just had
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   87   88   89   90   91   92   93   94   95   96   97   98   99   100   101   102   103   104   105   106   107   108   109   110   111  
112   113   114   115   116   117   118   119   120   121   122   123   124   125   126   127   128   129   130   131   132   133   134   135   136   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

Indians

 

pirates

 

traders

 
punish
 
wanted
 

things

 
storms
 

reasonable

 

corner


shoals

 
fighting
 

dangers

 

downright

 

fights

 

lively

 
village
 

plantations

 

region


Kansas

 
settlements
 

rivers

 
trouble
 

pretty

 

twenty

 

powder

 

killed

 

wouldn


blankets
 

hosses

 

buffalo

 

cotton

 

hatchets

 

danger

 

scarce

 

settler

 

Mississippi


understood

 

treated

 

cheated

 

frontier

 

verdict

 

sarved

 

Missouri

 

However

 

general


protection

 
fellows
 

taking