Page:Poems by Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/49

 "And those who came your heart to cheer?"

"Were young wives, with their husbands bound

To Oregon, on a frontier

Beyond our West, and only found

By months of toilsome travel, spent

In cold and heat, in rain and sun,

By day on horse, by night in tent,

A journey each day new begun—

For they must keep fast by the train

Escorting them across the plain."

"The train?" "Ah, yes. St. Louis, then,

Was but a post on the frontier;

Recruiting camp for mountain men;

French in its aspect, quaint and queer,

Of long, low houses, white and neat,

With corridors on every side;

The people sitting in the street,

Beneath the shadows cool and wide,

While hunters, in half Indian dress,

Made picturesque the quietness:

"A traders' depot and exchange,

Where fleets of bateaux, from Orleans,

Brought hunting outfits, and the strange,

Barbaric gauds in which the queens

Of mountain wigwams took delight: 43