is seldom omitted,
whether among Indians or whites. The pipe, therefore, was taken from the
wall, and its great red bowl crammed with the tobacco and shongsasha,
mixed in suitable proportions. Then it passed round the circle, each man
inhaling a few whiffs and handing it to his neighbor. Having spent half
an hour here, we took our leave; first inviting our new friends to drink
a cup of coffee with us at our camp, a mile farther up the river. By
this time, as the reader may conceive, we had grown rather shabby; our
clothes had burst into rags and tatters; and what was worse, we had very
little means of renovation. Fort Laramie was but seven miles before us.
Being totally averse to appearing in such plight among any society that
could boast an approximation to the civilized, we soon stopped by the
river to make our toilet in the best way we could. We hung up small
looking-glasses against the trees and shaved, an operation neglected for
six weeks; we performed our ablutions in the Platte, though the utility
of such a proceeding was questionable, the water looking exactly like
a cup of chocolate, and the banks consisting of the softest and richest
yellow mud, so that we were obliged, as a preliminary, to build a
cause-way of stout branches and twigs. Having also put on radiant
moccasins, procured from a squaw of Richard's establishment, and made
what other improvements our narrow circumstances allowed, we took our
seats on the grass with a feeling of greatly increased respectability,
to wait the arrival of our guests. They came; the banquet was concluded,
and the pipe smoked. Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads
toward the fort.

An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our front, and we could
see no farther; until having surmounted them, a rapid stream appeared
at the foot of the descent, running into the Platte; beyond was a green
meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, at the point
where the two rivers joined, were the low clay walls of a fort. This
was not Fort Laramie, but another post of less recent date, which having
sunk before its successful competitor was now deserted and ruinous. A
moment after the hills, seeming to draw apart as we advanced, disclosed
Fort Laramie itself, its high bastions and perpendicular walls of
clay crowning an eminence on the left beyond the stream, while behind
stretched a line of arid and desolate ridges, and behind these again,
towering aloft seven thou