d in the present instance, when various signs gave evidence of a
lurking foe.

The various bands of Captain Bonneville's company had now been assembled
for some time at the rendezvous; they had had their fill of feasting,
and frolicking, and all the species of wild and often uncouth
merrymaking, which invariably take place on these occasions. Their
horses, as well as themselves, had recovered from past famine and
fatigue, and were again fit for active service; and an impatience began
to manifest itself among the men once more to take the field, and set
off on some wandering expedition.

At this juncture M. Cerre arrived at the rendezvous at the head of a
supply party, bringing goods and equipments from the States. This active
leader, it will be recollected, had embarked the year previously in
skin-boats on the Bighorn, freighted with the year's collection of
peltries. He had met with misfortune in the course of his voyage: one of
his frail barks being upset, and part of the furs lost or damaged.

The arrival of the supplies gave the regular finish to the annual
revel. A grand outbreak of wild debauch ensued among the mountaineers;
drinking, dancing, swaggering, gambling, quarrelling, and fighting.
Alcohol, which, from its portable qualities, containing the greatest
quantity of fiery spirit in the smallest compass, is the only liquor
carried across the mountains, is the inflammatory beverage at these
carousals, and is dealt out to the trappers at four dollars a pint. When
inflamed by this fiery beverage, they cut all kinds of mad pranks
and gambols, and sometimes burn all their clothes in their drunken
bravadoes. A camp, recovering from one of these riotous revels, presents
a seriocomic spectacle; black eyes, broken heads, lack-lustre visages.
Many of the trappers have squandered in one drunken frolic the
hard-earned wages of a year; some have run in debt, and must toil on to
pay for past pleasure. All are sated with this deep draught of pleasure,
and eager to commence another trapping campaign; for hardship and hard
work, spiced with the stimulants of wild adventures, and topped off with
an annual frantic carousal, is the lot of the restless trapper.

The captain now made his arrangements for the current year. Cerre and
Walker, with a number of men who had been to California, were to proceed
to St. Louis with the packages of furs collected during the past year.
Another party, headed by a leader named Montero, was to