Traveller’s tales—­Indian lurkers—­Prognostics of Buckeye Signs and portents—­The medicine wolf—­An alarm—­An ambush The captured provant—­Triumph of Buckeye—­Arrival of supplies Grand carouse—­Arrangements for the year—­Mr. Wyeth and his new-levied band.

The horror and indignation felt by Captain Bonneville at the excesses of the Californian adventurers were not participated by his men; on the contrary, the events of that expedition were favorite themes in the camp.  The heroes of Monterey bore the palm in all the gossipings among the hunters.  Their glowing descriptions of Spanish bear-baits and bull-fights especially, were listened to with intense delight; and had another expedition to California been proposed, the difficulty would have been to restrain a general eagerness to volunteer.

The captain had not long been at the rendezvous when he perceived, by various signs, that Indians were lurking in the neighborhood.  It was evident that the Blackfoot band, which he had seen when on his march, had dogged his party, and were intent on mischief.  He endeavored to keep his camp on the alert; but it is as difficult to maintain discipline among trappers at a rendezvous as among sailors when in port.

Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was scandalized at this heedlessness of the hunters when an enemy was at hand, and was continually preaching up caution.  He was a little prone to play the prophet, and to deal in signs and portents, which occasionally excited the merriment of his white comrades.  He was a great dreamer, and believed in charms and talismans, or medicines, and could foretell the approach of strangers by the howling or barking of the small prairie wolf.  This animal, being driven by the larger wolves from the carcasses left on the hunting grounds by the hunters, follows the trail of the fresh meat carried to the camp.  Here the smell of the roast and broiled, mingling with every breeze, keeps them hovering about the neighborhood; scenting every blast, turning up their noses like hungry hounds, and testifying their pinching hunger by long whining howls and impatient barkings.  These are interpreted by the superstitious Indians into warnings that strangers are at hand; and one accidental coincidence, like the chance fulfillment of an almanac prediction, is sufficient to cover a thousand failures.  This little, whining, feast-smelling animal is, therefore, called among Indians the “medicine wolf;” and such was one of Buckeye’s infallible oracles.

One morning early, the soothsaying Delaware appeared with a gloomy countenance.  His mind was full of dismal presentiments, whether from mysterious dreams, or the intimations of the medicine wolf, does not appear.  “Danger,” he said, “was lurking in their path, and there would be some fighting before sunset.”  He was bantered for his prophecy, which was attributed to his having supped too heartily, and been visited by bad dreams.  In the course of the morning a party of hunters set