watered, and then revived with cayenne pepper, was selling a dollar a glass at the only saloon with stock. For two weeks the whole country, Indians, independent traders, trappers, mule-skinners, bullwhackers, had foregathered in Benton to await the arrival of supplies.
Now the cannon in the old adobe fort boomed a welcome which clapped and echoed in the river valley as young bloods whooped lathered horses up and down the riverbank, firing pistols in the air. On the levee, merchant dignitaries waited in a knot of sombre black coats and high-collared white shirts, Old Glory at their side, the flag doleful for want of a breeze. A French priest or two, a Methodist preacher, clerks, the better tradesmen, dowdy ravens flocked together in black. Ranged behind them, trappers and whisky-traders, bear-greased hair to their shoulders, bristling with guns, dressed in stinking linsey-woolsey shirts and buckskin trousers, boots and parfleche-soled moccasins, kit-fox caps and store-bought felt hats. Faro dealers and freighters, bar-keeps and crib girls, sin and civilization all met on a riverbank. And Frenchies, Métis from Canada, Creoles from themouth of the Mississippi, interpreters, oarsmen, cordeliers in hooded capotes and beaded moccasins, wide sashes cinched tight at their waists. And their wives, women of every Plains tribe, a few in the white woman’s calico dress with blanket leggings peeking out from under the hem, the rest in soft ivory buckskin, Boston shawls around their shoulders, gimcrack brooches pinned to their bosoms, moon faces shining. A little further to the rear stood Peigans from the big encampment which had gathered outside of Benton to trade winter buffalo robes, one hundred and fifty lodges sprawled out on the flats, ringed by vast herds of grazing horses, the cook-fires hazing the air with thin blue smoke and scenting it with the aroma of fat meat cooking, the nights throbbing with the firefly light of hundreds of lodge fires, pulsing with drumming and the piping of elk effigy whistles as young men paid court to girls of marrying age. To salute the
Yankton
, these bachelors had dandified themselves with their best weasel-fur fringed shirts and daubed their faces with ochre, white clay, bright Chinese vermilion. As the captain strode down the gangplank to shake hands with functionaries of the I.G. Baker Company and the passengers spilled off the boat in unseemly haste, wading through the river mud for the town, the Peigans watched the ceremonies of the white man with a dispassion bordering on contempt.
The last passenger to disembark was John Trevelyan Dawe, carried off on a blanket by three crew members and his boy. They slung him into the wagon bed of a teamster, packed his luggage tightly about him, and spread a coat over his face to keep the sun out of his eyes.
“What’s ailing your friend?” the driver suspiciously asked the boy. He didn’t like the way the Englishman’s teeth chattered and clicked.
“Ague,” said the boy.
“Sure ’tain’t mountain fever?”
“I said her once,” the boy said, putting his foot to the wheel and boosting himself up on to the seat beside the teamster. “You got your trip money. Move them skinny mules.”
Soon they were rumbling down Front Street, the Englishman rattling and groaning on the wagon bed. Front Street wasn’t much, white dust and a ramshackle collection of log, frame, and adobebuildings, a thoroughfare littered with horse droppings, torn playing cards, and chamber-pot slops that Fort Benton’s sporting women tossed out their bedroom windows. Wild-eyed men wandered in and out among the wagons and horsemen, on the verge of being ridden down or driven over. Bursts of cheering and the energetic thumping of bar-room pianos by saloon “professors” announced the broaching of the first whisky barrels, which had been galloped posthaste up from the
Yankton
by buckboard. Merriment was epic and general. In a situation of robust supply, the price of
Now the cannon in the old adobe fort boomed a welcome which clapped and echoed in the river valley as young bloods whooped lathered horses up and down the riverbank, firing pistols in the air. On the levee, merchant dignitaries waited in a knot of sombre black coats and high-collared white shirts, Old Glory at their side, the flag doleful for want of a breeze. A French priest or two, a Methodist preacher, clerks, the better tradesmen, dowdy ravens flocked together in black. Ranged behind them, trappers and whisky-traders, bear-greased hair to their shoulders, bristling with guns, dressed in stinking linsey-woolsey shirts and buckskin trousers, boots and parfleche-soled moccasins, kit-fox caps and store-bought felt hats. Faro dealers and freighters, bar-keeps and crib girls, sin and civilization all met on a riverbank. And Frenchies, Métis from Canada, Creoles from themouth of the Mississippi, interpreters, oarsmen, cordeliers in hooded capotes and beaded moccasins, wide sashes cinched tight at their waists. And their wives, women of every Plains tribe, a few in the white woman’s calico dress with blanket leggings peeking out from under the hem, the rest in soft ivory buckskin, Boston shawls around their shoulders, gimcrack brooches pinned to their bosoms, moon faces shining. A little further to the rear stood Peigans from the big encampment which had gathered outside of Benton to trade winter buffalo robes, one hundred and fifty lodges sprawled out on the flats, ringed by vast herds of grazing horses, the cook-fires hazing the air with thin blue smoke and scenting it with the aroma of fat meat cooking, the nights throbbing with the firefly light of hundreds of lodge fires, pulsing with drumming and the piping of elk effigy whistles as young men paid court to girls of marrying age. To salute the
Yankton
, these bachelors had dandified themselves with their best weasel-fur fringed shirts and daubed their faces with ochre, white clay, bright Chinese vermilion. As the captain strode down the gangplank to shake hands with functionaries of the I.G. Baker Company and the passengers spilled off the boat in unseemly haste, wading through the river mud for the town, the Peigans watched the ceremonies of the white man with a dispassion bordering on contempt.
The last passenger to disembark was John Trevelyan Dawe, carried off on a blanket by three crew members and his boy. They slung him into the wagon bed of a teamster, packed his luggage tightly about him, and spread a coat over his face to keep the sun out of his eyes.
“What’s ailing your friend?” the driver suspiciously asked the boy. He didn’t like the way the Englishman’s teeth chattered and clicked.
“Ague,” said the boy.
“Sure ’tain’t mountain fever?”
“I said her once,” the boy said, putting his foot to the wheel and boosting himself up on to the seat beside the teamster. “You got your trip money. Move them skinny mules.”
Soon they were rumbling down Front Street, the Englishman rattling and groaning on the wagon bed. Front Street wasn’t much, white dust and a ramshackle collection of log, frame, and adobebuildings, a thoroughfare littered with horse droppings, torn playing cards, and chamber-pot slops that Fort Benton’s sporting women tossed out their bedroom windows. Wild-eyed men wandered in and out among the wagons and horsemen, on the verge of being ridden down or driven over. Bursts of cheering and the energetic thumping of bar-room pianos by saloon “professors” announced the broaching of the first whisky barrels, which had been galloped posthaste up from the
Yankton
by buckboard. Merriment was epic and general. In a situation of robust supply, the price of
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