The Hunters Feast

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The Hunters' Feast, by Mayne Reid

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Title: The Hunters' Feast Conversations Around the Camp Fire
Author: Mayne Reid
Release Date: November 15, 2007 [EBook #23499]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
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The Hunters' Feast
by Captain Mayne Reid.
CHAPTER ONE.
A HUNTING PARTY.
On the western bank of the Mississippi, twelve miles below the embouchure of the Missouri, stands the large town of Saint Louis, poetically known as the "Mound City." Although there are many other large towns throughout the Mississippi Valley, Saint Louis is the true metropolis of the "far west"--of that semi-civilised, ever-changing belt of territory known as the "Frontier."
Saint Louis is one of those American cities in the history of which there is something of peculiar interest. It is one of the oldest of North-American settlements, having been a French trading port at an early period.
Though not so successful as their rivals the English, there was a degree of picturesqueness about French colonisation, that, in the present day, strongly claims the attention of the American poet, novelist, and historian. Their dealings with the Indian aborigines--the facile manner in which they glided into the habits of the latter--meeting them more than half-way between civilisation and savage life--the handsome nomenclature which they have scattered freely, and which still holds over the trans-Mississippian territories--the introduction of a new race (the half blood--peculiarly French)--the heroic and adventurous character of their earliest pioneers, De Salle Marquette, Father Hennepin, etcetera--their romantic explorations and melancholy fate--all these circumstances have rendered extremely interesting the early history of the French in America. Even the Quixotism of some of their attempts at colonisation cannot fail to interest us, as at Gallipolis on the Ohio, a colony composed of expatriated people of the French court;-- perruquiers, coachbuilders, tailors, modistes, and the like. Here, in the face of hostile Indians, before an acre of ground was cleared, before the slightest provision was made for their future subsistence, the first house erected was a large log structure, to serve as the salon du Lal!
Besides its French origin, Saint Louis possesses many other points of interest. It has long been the entrepot and depot of commerce with the wild tribes of prairie-land. There the trader is supplied with his stock for the Indian market--his red and green blanket--his beads and trinkets--his rifles, and powder, and lead; and there, in return, he disposes of the spoils of the prairie collected in many a far and perilous wandering. There the emigrant rests on the way to his wilderness home; and the hunter equips himself before starting forth on some new expedition.
To the traveller, Saint Louis is a place of peculiar interest. He will hear around him the language of every nation in the civilised world. He will behold faces of every hue and variety of expression. He will meet with men of every possible calling.
All this is peculiarly true in the latter part of the summer season. Then the motley population of New Orleans fly from the annual scourge of the yellow fever, and seek safety in the cities that lie farther north. Of these, Saint Louis is a favourite "city of refuge,"--the Creole element of its population being related to that kindred race in the South, and keeping up with it this annual correspondence.
In one of these streams of migration I had found my way to Saint Louis, in the autumn of 18--. The place was at the time filled with loungers, who seemed to have nothing else to do but kill time. Every hotel had its quota, and in every verandah and at the corners of the streets you might see small knots of well-dressed gentlemen trying to entertain each other, and laugh away the hours. Most of them were the annual birds of passage from New Orleans, who had fled from "yellow Jack," and were sojourning here till the cold frosty winds of November should drive that intruder from the "crescent city;" but there were many other flaneurs as well. There were travellers from Europe:--men of wealth and rank who had left behind them the luxuries of civilised society to rough it for a season in the wild West--painters in search of the picturesque-- naturalists whose love of their favourite study had drawn them from their comfortable closets to search for knowledge under circumstances of extremest difficulty--and sportsmen, who, tired of chasing small game, were on their way to the great plains to take part in the noble sport of