第139章

We told him we would certainly come, but before the evening arrived a steamboat, which came down from Fort Leavenworth, prevented our being present at the expected festivities.Delorier was on the rock at the landing place, waiting to take leave of us.

"Adieu! mes bourgeois; adieu! adieu!" he cried out as the boat pulled off; "when you go another time to de Rocky Montagnes I will go with you; yes, I will go!"He accompanied this patronizing assurance by jumping about swinging his hat, and grinning from ear to ear.As the boat rounded a distant point, the last object that met our eyes was Delorier still lifting his hat and skipping about the rock.We had taken leave of Munroe and Jim Gurney at Westport, and Henry Chatillon went down in the boat with us.

The passage to St.Louis occupied eight days, during about a third of which we were fast aground on sand-bars.We passed the steamer Amelia crowded with a roaring crew of disbanded volunteers, swearing, drinking, gambling, and fighting.At length one evening we reached the crowded levee of St.Louis.Repairing to the Planters' House, we caused diligent search to be made for our trunks, which after some time were discovered stowed away in the farthest corner of the storeroom.In the morning we hardly recognized each other; a frock of broadcloth had supplanted the frock of buckskin; well-fitted pantaloons took the place of the Indian leggings, and polished boots were substituted for the gaudy moccasins.

After we had been several days at St.Louis we heard news of Tete Rouge.He had contrived to reach Fort Leavenworth, where he had found the paymaster and received his money.As a boat was just ready to start for St.Louis, he went on board and engaged his passage.

This done, he immediately got drunk on shore, and the boat went off without him.It was some days before another opportunity occurred, and meanwhile the sutler's stores furnished him with abundant means of keeping up his spirits.Another steamboat came at last, the clerk of which happened to be a friend of his, and by the advice of some charitable person on shore he persuaded Tete Rouge to remain on board, intending to detain him there until the boat should leave the fort.At first Tete Rouge was well contented with this arrangement, but on applying for a dram, the barkeeper, at the clerk's instigation, refused to let him have it.Finding them both inflexible in spite of his entreaties, he became desperate and made his escape from the boat.The clerk found him after a long search in one of the barracks; a circle of dragoons stood contemplating him as he lay on the floor, maudlin drunk and crying dismally.With the help of one of them the clerk pushed him on board, and our informant, who came down in the same boat, declares that he remained in great despondency during the whole passage.As we left St.Louis soon after his arrival, we did not see the worthless, good-natured little vagabond again.

On the evening before our departure Henry Chatillon came to our rooms at the Planters' House to take leave of us.No one who met him in the streets of St.Louis would have taken him for a hunter fresh from the Rocky Mountains.He was very neatly and simply dressed in a suit of dark cloth; for although, since his sixteenth year, he had scarcely been for a month together among the abodes of men, he had a native good taste and a sense of propriety which always led him to pay great attention to his personal appearance.His tall athletic figure, with its easy flexible motions, appeared to advantage in his present dress; and his fine face, though roughened by a thousand storms, was not at all out of keeping with it.We took leave of him with much regret; and unless his changing features, as he shook us by the hand, belied him, the feeling on his part was no less than on ours.Shaw had given him a horse at Westport.My rifle, which he had always been fond of using, as it was an excellent piece, much better than his own, is now in his hands, and perhaps at this moment its sharp voice is startling the echoes of the Rocky Mountains.On the next morning we left town, and after a fortnight of railroads and steamboat we saw once more the familiar features of home.

End