r end, two or three on each side, to a rude sort of pack saddle,
while the other end drags on the ground. About a foot behind the horse,
a kind of large basket or pannier is suspended between the poles, and
firmly lashed in its place on the back of the horse are piled various
articles of luggage; the basket also is well filled with domestic
utensils, or, quite as often, with a litter of puppies, a brood of small
children, or a superannuated old man. Numbers of these curious vehicles,
called, in the bastard language of the country travaux were now
splashing together through the stream. Among them swam countless dogs,
often burdened with miniature travaux; and dashing forward on horseback
through the throng came the superbly formed warriors, the slender figure
of some lynx-eyed boy, clinging fast behind them. The women sat perched
on the pack saddles, adding not a little to the load of the already
overburdened horses. The confusion was prodigious. The dogs yelled and
howled in chorus; the puppies in the travaux set up a dismal whine
as the water invaded their comfortable retreat; the little black-eyed
children, from one year of age upward, clung fast with both hands to the
edge of their basket, and looked over in alarm at the water rushing so
near them, sputtering and making wry mouths as it splashed against their
faces. Some of the dogs, encumbered by their loads, were carried down by
the current, yelping piteously; and the old squaws would rush into the
water, seize their favorites by the neck, and drag them out. As each
horse gained the bank, he scrambled up as he could. Stray horses and
colts came among the rest, often breaking away at full speed through the
crowd, followed by the old hags, screaming after their fashion on all
occasions of excitement. Buxom young squaws, blooming in all the charms
of vermilion, stood here and there on the bank, holding aloft their
master's lance, as a signal to collect the scattered portions of his
household. In a few moments the crowd melted away; each family, with its
horses and equipage, filing off to the plain at the rear of the fort;
and here, in the space of half an hour, arose sixty or seventy of
their tapering lodges. Their horses were feeding by hundreds over the
surrounding prairie, and their dogs were roaming everywhere. The fort
was full of men, and the children were whooping and yelling incessantly
under the walls.

These newcomers were scarcely arrived, when Bordeaux was