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The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West by Washington Irving;Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville
page 84 of 387 (21%)
The only excesses indulged in by this temperate and exemplary people,
appear to be gambling and horseracing. In these they engage with an
eagerness that amounts to infatuation. Knots of gamblers will assemble
before one of their lodge fires, early in the evening, and remain
absorbed in the chances and changes of the game until long after dawn
of the following day. As the night advances, they wax warmer and warmer.
Bets increase in amount, one loss only serves to lead to a greater,
until in the course of a single night's gambling, the richest chief may
become the poorest varlet in the camp.




10.

Black feet in the Horse Prairie--Search after the hunters--
Difficulties and dangers--A card party in the wilderness--
The card party interrupted--"Old Sledge" a losing game--
Visitors to the camp--Iroquois hunters--Hanging-eared
Indians

ON the 12th of October, two young Indians of the Nez Perce tribe arrived
at Captain Bonneville's encampment. They were on their way homeward,
but had been obliged to swerve from their ordinary route through the
mountains, by deep snows. Their new route took them though the Horse
Prairie. In traversing it, they had been attracted by the distant smoke
of a camp fire, and on stealing near to reconnoitre, had discovered a
war party of Blackfeet. They had several horses with them; and, as they
generally go on foot on warlike excursions, it was concluded that these
horses had been captured in the course of their maraudings.
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