ught and yelled like pent-up tigers; but the butchery
was soon complete, and the mangled bodies lay piled up together under
the precipice. Not a Blackfoot made his escape.

As Paul finished his story we came in sight of Richard's Fort. It stood
in the middle of the plain; a disorderly crowd of men around it, and an
emigrant camp a little in front.

"Now, Paul," said I, "where are your Winnicongew lodges?"

"Not come yet," said Paul, "maybe come to-morrow."

Two large villages of a band of Dakota had come three hundred miles
from the Missouri, to join in the war, and they were expected to reach
Richard's that morning. There was as yet no sign of their approach; so
pushing through a noisy, drunken crowd, I entered an apartment of logs
and mud, the largest in the fort; it was full of men of various races
and complexions, all more or less drunk. A company of California
emigrants, it seemed, had made the discovery at this late day that they
had encumbered themselves with too many supplies for their journey.
A part, therefore, they had thrown away or sold at great loss to
the traders, but had determined to get rid of their copious stock of
Missouri whisky, by drinking it on the spot. Here were maudlin squaws
stretched on piles of buffalo robes; squalid Mexicans, armed with bows
and arrows; Indians sedately drunk; long-haired Canadians and trappers,
and American backwoodsmen in brown homespun, the well-beloved pistol and
bowie knife displayed openly at their sides. In the middle of the room a
tall, lank man, with a dingy broadcloth coat, was haranguing the company
in the style of the stump orator. With one hand he sawed the air, and
with the other clutched firmly a brown jug of whisky, which he applied
every moment to his lips, forgetting that he had drained the contents
long ago. Richard formally introduced me to this personage, who was no
less a man than Colonel R., once the leader of the party. Instantly the
colonel seizing me, in the absence of buttons by the leather fringes of
my frock, began to define his position. His men, he said, had mutinied
and deposed him; but still he exercised over them the influence of
a superior mind; in all but the name he was yet their chief. As the
colonel spoke, I looked round on the wild assemblage, and could not help
thinking that he was but ill qualified to conduct such men across the
desert to California. Conspicuous among the rest stood three tail
young men, grandsons of Daniel Boon