purposes, and on coming one afternoon to the office, we found there a
tall and exceedingly well-dressed man with a face so open and frank that
it attracted our notice at once. We were surprised at being told that it
was he who wished to guide us to the mountains. He was born in a little
French town near St. Louis, and from the age of fifteen years had been
constantly in the neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains, employed for the
most part by the Company to supply their forts with buffalo meat. As a
hunter he had but one rival in the whole region, a man named Cimoneau,
with whom, to the honor of both of them, he was on terms of the closest
friendship. He had arrived at St. Louis the day before, from the
mountains, where he had remained for four years; and he now only asked
to go and spend a day with his mother before setting out on another
expedition. His age was about thirty; he was six feet high, and very
powerfully and gracefully molded. The prairies had been his school;
he could neither read nor write, but he had a natural refinement and
delicacy of mind such as is rarely found, even in women. His manly face
was a perfect mirror of uprightness, simplicity, and kindness of heart;
he had, moreover, a keen perception of character and a tact that would
preserve him from flagrant error in any society. Henry had not the
restless energy of an Anglo-American. He was content to take things
as he found them; and his chief fault arose from an excess of easy
generosity, impelling him to give away too profusely ever to thrive in
the world. Yet it was commonly remarked of him, that whatever he might
choose to do with what belonged to himself, the property of others was
always safe in his hands. His bravery was as much celebrated in the
mountains as his skill in hunting; but it is characteristic of him that
in a country where the rifle is the chief arbiter between man and man,
Henry was very seldom involved in quarrels. Once or twice, indeed,
his quiet good-nature had been mistaken and presumed upon, but the
consequences of the error were so formidable that no one was ever known