Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/181

 he head. Me get'em out. Sacre tonnerre! den me had him sufficient la poudre and la ballas for de route! No go hungry une leetil bit!"

On the fifth day subsequent, we again launched forth into the stream, and after a series of most extraordinary exertions, (being obliged to lighten our boat several times, by carrying its loading on shore, and reloading as often, thus to enable us to lift it over sand-bars,) we succeeded in getting it some three miles, and finally became safely moored in the middle of the river, from which it was impossible to extricate ourselves either by going backwards, forwards, or sidewise—with or without a cargo.

Here we remained for three days, and experienced, during the interval, a continuous fall of rain and sleet, which rendered the weather dismal and our own situation disagreeable in the extreme.

A cache of liquor having been made, fifteen or twenty miles distant, by a trader connected with our consort, a month or two previous, unforbidding as was the

weather, the crew could not rest content until the hidden treasure was among them.

Improving the opportunity presented by a slight suspension of the storm, one morning two of them started to procure it. Soon after it commenced snowing and raining, accompanied by a fierce, cutting wind and all the withering bleakness of a winter's blast.

Still keeping on, however, they obtained the cache, and returned with it towards the boat.

But night shut in upon them by the way, and a thrice dreary night it was. Being too drunk to navigate, they lost their course and were forced to camp in the open prairie, without wood or aught else of which to build a fire, or even a robe to cover or a rock to shelter them from the chill wind and peltings of the pitiless storm.

Half-frozen with cold and wet to the skin, they lay upon the muddy ground and passed the interval, not in sleep, but in a state of drunken stupor, produced by inordinate draughts upon the contents of their keg.

On the next morning they reached the boat, —a beautiful looking couple, as might well be supposed! Covered with mud from head to foot, their clothes were wringing wet, and their faces bloated and swollen almost to twice their natural size. So complete was the transformation, they were scarcely recognizable as the same persons.

But, regardless of hardship and suffering, they stuck to the liquor-keg and brought it with them as proof of their triumph.

And now commenced a scene of drunken revelry, which, despite my efforts to prevent it, soon communicated itself to both crews, and continued without intermission till the stock on hand was exhausted.

The lack of a fire by which to warm ourselves, contributed materially to the misery of our present condition; there being no wood procurable for that purpose within five or six mikes of either shores and having none on board, we were compelled to endure the dreary interval as best we could.

But another evil came pressing upon our already heavy load through the entire exhaustion of provisions, and the last of our stay was made twice forlorn by cold and fasting.