第99章 Irving’s Bonneville - Chapter 35(1)

The uninvited guest--Free and easy manners--Salutary jokes--A prodigal son--Exit ofthe glutton-- A sudden change in fortune--Danger of a visit to poor relations--Pluckingof a prosperous man--A vagabond toilet--A substitute for the very fine horse--Hardtravelling--The uninvited guest and the patriarchal colt--A beggar on horseback--Acatastrophe--Exit of the merry vagabond As CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE and his men were encamped one evening among the hillsnear Snake River, seated before their fire, enjoying a hearty supper, they weresuddenly surprised by the visit of an uninvited guest. He was a ragged, half-nakedIndian hunter, armed with bow and arrows, and had the carcass of a fine buck thrownacross his shoulder. Advancing with an alert step, and free and easy air, he threw thebuck on the ground, and, without waiting for an invitation, seated himself at their mess,helped himself without ceremony, and chatted to the right and left in the liveliest andmost unembarrassed manner. No adroit and veteran dinner hunter of a metropoliscould have acquitted himself more knowingly. The travellers were at first completelytaken by surprise, and could not but admire the facility with which this raggedcosmopolite made himself at home among them. While they stared he went on, makingthe most of the good cheer upon which he had so fortunately alighted; and was soonelbow deep in "pot luck," and greased from the tip of his nose to the back of his ears.

As the company recovered from their surprise, they began to feel annoyed at thisintrusion. Their uninvited guest, unlike the generality of his tribe, was somewhat dirty aswell as ragged and they had no relish for such a messmate. Heaping up, therefore, anabundant portion of the "provant" upon a piece of bark, which served for a dish, theyinvited him to confine himself thereto, instead of foraging in the general mess.

He complied with the most accommodating spirit imaginable; and went on eating andchatting, and laughing and smearing himself, until his whole countenance shone withgrease and good-humor. In the course of his repast, his attention was caught by thefigure of the gastronome, who, as usual, was gorging himself in dogged silence. A drollcut of the eye showed either that he knew him of old, or perceived at once hischaracteristics. He immediately made him the butt of his pleasantries; and cracked offtwo or three good hits, that caused the sluggish dolt to prick up his ears, and delightedall the company. From this time, the uninvited guest was taken into favor; his jokesbegan to be relished; his careless, free and easy air, to be considered singularlyamusing; and in the end, he was pronounced by the travellers one of the merriestcompanions and most entertaining vagabonds they had met with in the wilderness.

Supper being over, the redoubtable Shee-wee-she-ouaiter, for such was the simplename by which he announced himself, declared his intention of keeping company withthe party for a day or two, if they had no objection; and by way of backing his self-invitation,presented the carcass of the buck as an earnest of his hunting abilities. Bythis time, he had so completely effaced the unfavorable impression made by his firstappearance, that he was made welcome to the camp, and the Nez Perce guideundertook to give him lodging for the night. The next morning, at break of day, heborrowed a gun, and was off among the hills, nor was anything more seen of him until afew minutes after the party had encamped for the evening, when he again made hisappearance, in his usual frank, careless manner, and threw down the carcass ofanother noble deer, which he had borne on his back for a considerable distance.

This evening he was the life of the party, and his open communicative disposition, freefrom all disguise, soon put them in possession of his history. He had been a kind ofprodigal son in his native village; living a loose, heedless life, and disregarding theprecepts and imperative commands of the chiefs. He had, in consequence, beenexpelled from the village, but, in nowise disheartened at this banishment, had betakenhimself to the society of the border Indians, and had led a careless, haphazard,vagabond life, perfectly consonant to his humors; heedless of the future, so long as hehad wherewithal for the present; and fearing no lack of food, so long as he had theimplements of the chase, and a fair hunting ground.

Finding him very expert as a hunter, and being pleased with his eccentricities, and hisstrange and merry humor, Captain Bonneville fitted him out handsomely as the Nimrodof the party, who all soon became quite attached to him. One of the earliest and mostsignal services he performed, was to exorcise the insatiate kill-crop that hithertooppressed the party. In fact, the doltish Nez Perce, who had seemed so perfectlyinsensible to rough treatment of every kind, by which the travellers had endeavored toelbow him out of their society, could not withstand the good-humored bantering, andoccasionally sharp wit of She-wee-she. He evidently quailed under his jokes, and satblinking like an owl in daylight, when pestered by the flouts and peckings ofmischievous birds. At length his place was found vacant at meal-time; no one knewwhen he went off, or whither he had gone, but he was seen no more, and the vastsurplus that remained when the repast was over, showed what a mighty gormandizerhad departed.

Relieved from this incubus, the little party now went on cheerily. She-wee-she keptthem in fun as well as food. His hunting was always successful; he was ever ready torender any assistance in the camp or on the march; while his jokes, his antics, and thevery cut of his countenance, so full of whim and comicality, kept every one in good-humor.