The Hunters Feast

The Hunters' Feast, by Mayne
Reid

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Hunters' Feast, by Mayne Reid
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
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
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
HUNTERS' FEAST ***

Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England

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