Page:Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains.djvu/416

306 Col. Bent told me to make my own bargain with them, and he would pay the bill whatever it might be.

This was the first time these young Indians had ever been in civilization, so I took them around the place and took particular pains to show them everything. When we had been all around and I had showed them everything out doors, I took them into the kitchen of the hotel. When they saw the cook getting supper on the stove they said it was no good, for they could not see the fire and they did not understand how cooking could be done without it.

After they had seen all there was to be seen I took them in where the two proprietors were, and after telling them that they would hire them all winter, providing they did not ask too much, I asked them what they were going to charge us for the trip they had already made.

The most intelligent one spoke up and said: "Give me one string of beads and one butcher knife for the trip already made, and give me one butcher knife for the next trip." I then asked the others if they were satisfied with that, and they said they were; so I paid them off by giving them a butcher knife that cost about fifty cents in St. Louis and one string of beads that would perhaps cost ten cents. They thought they had been well paid for their trouble, and I could see that they had not expected so much. This was no doubt their first experience in hiring out.

The next morning Col. Bent and Mr. Roubidoux said to Jim and I: "Now boys, we will make you a present," telling us that their horses were in the corrall, and for us to go and pick out a saddle horse apiece. They told us