would enter an arm of the river, where there appeared a fine channel, and,
after descending prosperously for eight or ten miles, would come suddenly
upon dry sands, and be compelled to return, dragging their boat for days
against the rapid current; and at others, they came upon places where the
water lay in holes, and, getting out to float off their boat, would fall
into water up to their necks, and the next moment tumble over against a
sandbar. Discouraged at length, and finding the Platte growing every day
more shallow, they discharged the principal part of their cargoes one
hundred and thirty miles below Fort Laramie, which they secured as well as
possible, and, leaving a few men to guard them, attempted to continue
their voyage, laden with some light furs and their personal baggage. After
fifteen or twenty days more struggling in the sands, during which they
made but one hundred and forty miles, they sunk their barges, made a
_cache_ of their remaining furs and property in trees on the bank,
and, packing on his back what each man could carry, had commenced, the day
before we encountered them, their journey on foot to St. Louis. We laughed
then at their forlorn and vagabond appearance, and, in our turn, a month
or two afterwards, furnished the same occasion for merriment to others.
Even their stock of tobacco, that _sine qua non_ of a voyageur,
without which the night fire is gloomy, was entirely exhausted. However,
we shortened their homeward journey by a small supply from our own
provision. They gave us the welcome intelligence that the buffalo were
abundant some two days' march in advance, and made us a present of some
choice pieces, which were a very acceptable change from our salt pork. In
the interchange of news, and the renewal of old acquaintanceships, we
found wherewithal to fill a busy hour; then we mounted our horses and they
shouldered their packs, and we shook hands and parted. Among them, I had
found an old companion on the northern prairie, a hardened and hardly
served veteran of the mountains, who had been as much hacked and scarred
as an old moustache of Napoleon's "old guard." He flourished in the