They were fresh from the winter encampment of the American Fur Company, in the Green River Valley; and had come to pay their old comrades of Captain Bonneville’s company a visit.  An idea may be formed from the scenes we have already given of conviviality in the wilderness, of the manner in which these game birds were received by those of their feather in the camp; what feasting, what revelling, what boasting, what bragging, what ranting and roaring, and racing and gambling, and squabbling and fighting, ensued among these boon companions.  Captain Bonneville, it is true, maintained always a certain degree of law and order in his camp, and checked each fierce excess; but the trappers, in their seasons of idleness and relaxation require a degree of license and indulgence, to repay them for the long privations and almost incredible hardships of their periods of active service.

In the midst of all this feasting and frolicking, a freak of the tender passion intervened, and wrought a complete change in the scene.  Among the Indian beauties in the camp of the Eutaws and Shoshonies, the free trappers discovered two, who had whilom figured as their squaws.  These connections frequently take place for a season, and sometimes continue for years, if not perpetually; but are apt to be broken when the free trapper starts off, suddenly, on some distant and rough expedition.

In the present instance, these wild blades were anxious to regain their belles; nor were the latter loath once more to come under their protection.  The free trapper combines, in the eye of an Indian girl, all that is dashing and heroic in a warrior of her own race—­whose gait, and garb, and bravery he emulates—­with all that is gallant and glorious in the white man.  And then the indulgence with which he treats her, the finery in which he decks her out, the state in which she moves, the sway she enjoys over both his purse and person; instead of being the drudge and slave of an Indian husband, obliged to carry his pack, and build his lodge, and make his fire, and bear his cross humors and dry blows.  No; there is no comparison in the eyes of an aspiring belle of the wilderness, between a free trapper and an Indian brave.

With respect to one of the parties the matter was easily arranged.  ’The beauty in question was a pert little Eutaw wench, that had been taken prisoner, in some war excursion, by a Shoshonie.  She was readily ransomed for a few articles of trifling value; and forthwith figured about the camp in fine array, “with rings on her fingers, and bells on her toes,” and a tossed-up coquettish air that made her the envy, admiration, and abhorrence of all the leathern-dressed, hard-working squaws of her acquaintance.