Page:Rocky Mountain life.djvu/200

 to friendship, and the two parties negotiated an immediate union. Since then they have been considered as one nation.

What is most singular in this occurrence, neither the Gros Ventres nor Chyennes could trace any previous connection or intercourse with each other, or knowledge of their individual existence.

This tribe has made no advances in civilization, and most probably will make none for many years to come. Their roving and unsettled habits prove an obstacle, almost insuperable, to any efforts that may be undertaken for their improvement.

They are generally accounted friendly to the whites, but friendship like this is essentially of a dangerous character.

Continuing our journey, the evening of Sept. 2d brought us to Fort Lancaster, after an interval of twenty-six days, during which we had travelled not far from seven hundred and twenty miles.

Our route from Chabonard's camp to this point, for the most part, led along the valley of the Platte, which resembled a garden in the splendor of its fields and the variety of its flowers.

A ride of four or five miles took us across the dry bed of a large sand-creek, four or five hundred yards wide, known as the Kuyawa. The banks of this arroyo are very steep and high, disclosing, now and then, spreads of beautiful bottom lands with occasional groves of cottonwood. At this season of the year its waters are lost in the quicksand and gravel.

We also passed the mouths of three large affluents of the right bank of Platte, severally known as Crow creek, Cache a la Poudre, and Thompson's Fork.

These creeks rise in the adjoining mountains, and, with the exception of Crow creek, trace their way with clear and rapid currents, from two to three feet deep and sixty feet wide, over beds of sand and pebbles. Their valleys are broad, rich, and for the most part well timbered.

Timber increases in quantity, upon the Platte and its affluents, as the traveller approaches the mountains, and the soil gradually loses that withering aridity so characteristic of the grand prairie.

Twelve miles below Fort Lancaster we passed Fort George, a large trading post kept up by Bent and St. Vrain. Its size rather exceeds that of Fort Platte, previously described; it is built, however, after the same fashion, —as, in fact, are all the regular trading posts in the country. At this time, fifteen or twenty men were stationed there, under the command of Mr. Marsalina St. Vrain.

Six miles further on, we came to a recently deserted post, which had been occupied the previous winter and summer by Messrs Lock and Randolph.

One of our party, a whilom engagé of this company, informed me of its principals' becoming bankrupt, through mismanagement and losses of various kinds;—he stated, that, in May last, their entire "cavalliard," consisting of forty-five head of horses and mules, had been stolen by the Sioux Indians; this, in connection with other bad luck — together with the depreciated value of furs and peltries, the failure of a boat-load of robes to reach the states, the urgent demands of creditors, &c., had caused them to evacuate their post and quit the country.