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us, on the right, was a tract of ragged and broken woods.
We could look down on the tops of the trees, some living
and some dead; some erect, others leaning at every angle,
and others piled in masses together by the passage of a
hurricane. Beyond their extreme verge the turbid waters
of the Missouri were discernible through the boughs, roll-
ing powerfully along at the foot of the woody declivities
on its farther bank.

The path soon after led inland; and as we crossed an open
meadow we saw a cluster of buildings on a rising ground
before us, with a crowd of people surrounding them. They
were the storehouse, cottage, and stables of the Kickapoo
trader's establishment. Just at that moment, as it chanced,
he was beset with half the Indians of the settlement.
They had tied their wretched, neglected little ponies by
dozens along the fences and out-houses, and were either
lounging about the place, or crowding into the trading-
house. Here were faces of various colors, -- red, green,
white, and black, -- curiously intermingled and disposed over
the visage in a variety of patterns. Calico shirts, red
and blue blankets, brass ear-rings, wampum necklaces,
appeared in profusion. The trader was a blue-eyed, open-
faced man, who neither in his manners nor his appearance
betrayed any of the roughness of the frontier; though just
at present he was obliged to keep a lynx eye on his cus-
tomers, who, men and women, were climbing on his coun-
ter, and seating themselves among his boxes and bales.

4

The village itself was not far off, and sufficiently illus-
trated the condition of its unfortunate and self-abandoned
occupants. Fancy to yourself a little swift stream work-
ing its devious way down a woody valley; sometimes wholly
hidden under logs and fallen trees, sometimes spreading
into a broad, clear pool; and on its banks, in little nooks

5

-26-

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Publication Information: Book Title: The Oregon Trail: Sketches of Prairie and Rocky-Mountain Life. Contributors: Francis Parkman - author, Frederic Remington - illustrator. Publisher: Little Brown. Place of Publication: Boston. Publication Year: 1892. Page Number: 26.
    
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