第112章

The inhabitants were in daily apprehensions of an inroad from more formidable consumers than ourselves.Every year at the time when the corn begins to ripen, the Arapahoes, to the number of several thousands, come and encamp around the Pueblo.The handful of white men, who are entirely at the mercy of this swarm of barbarians, choose to make a merit of necessity; they come forward very cordially, shake them by the hand, and intimate that the harvest is entirely at their disposal.The Arapahoes take them at their word, help themselves most liberally, and usually turn their horses into the cornfields afterward.They have the foresight, however, to leave enough of the crops untouched to serve as an inducement for planting the fields again for their benefit in the next spring.

The human race in this part of the world is separated into three divisions, arranged in the order of their merits; white men, Indians, and Mexicans; to the latter of whom the honorable title of "whites"is by no means conceded.

In spite of the warm sunset of that evening the next morning was a dreary and cheerless one.It rained steadily, clouds resting upon the very treetops.We crossed the river to visit the Mormon settlement.As we passed through the water, several trappers on horseback entered it from the other side.Their buckskin frocks were soaked through by the rain, and clung fast to their limbs with a most clammy and uncomfortable look.The water was trickling down their faces, and dropping from the ends of their rifles, and from the traps which each carried at the pommel of his saddle.Horses and all, they had a most disconsolate and woebegone appearance, which we could not help laughing at, forgetting how often we ourselves had been in a similar plight.

After half an hour's riding we saw the white wagons of the Mormons drawn up among the trees.Axes were sounding, trees were falling, and log-huts going up along the edge of the woods and upon the adjoining meadow.As we came up the Mormons left their work and seated themselves on the timber around us, when they began earnestly to discuss points of theology, complain of the ill-usage they had received from the "Gentiles," and sound a lamentation over the loss of their great temple at Nauvoo.After remaining with them an hour we rode back to our camp, happy that the settlements had been delivered from the presence of such blind and desperate fanatics.