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