“Cows, boys! Look at the cows! We’re near the settlements.”
“’Tis the best sight I’ve seen in better’n two years,” proclaimed Sergeant Pat. “Faith, I’m in that state o’ mind when I could kiss a cow on the nose!”
“What is cow, Pat?” invited Peter, staring.
“Oh, murther, an’ ye don’t know!” bewailed Pat. “The cow be the buff’lo civilized, Peter. She be the white man’s buff’lo. She gives us milk to drink an’ butter to ate, an’ the breath of her is swater’n the prairie breeze an’ the voice of her is beautiful.”
“La Charette! I see La Charette!” cried old Cruzatte.
La Charette was the first white man’s village! The captains ordered guns to be fired, and told the men to cheer. Down to the shore hastened the inhabitants. They, too, cheered. They talked part in French, part in United States. What a chatter sounded! They almost carried the men to the houses.
“We nefer expec’ to see you again!” they exclaimed. “We t’ink you all scalped. Haf you been far?”
Drouillard and Cruzatte and Lepage and Labiche were well-nigh beside themselves with joy. They greeted numerous old friends.
“Dees is the best part of all de trip,” they laughed, again and again.
Assuredly, the villages of the white men of the United States must be pleasant places, thought Peter.
Sixty-eight miles had been rowed, this day. With difficulty could the men get away from hospitable La Charette, but on the next day forty-eight miles were covered, to another village, St. Charles. Here occurred more excitement, of greetings, and dinners, and good beds. The captains, and all the men, in their elk-hide clothes, and their beards, and their tan, were treated as heroes; and Peter was not overlooked――not by any means. Nor was Sha-ha-ka, the Big White. He, like Peter, for the first time was seeing how the white people lived.
“Sha-ha-ka say de white people evidently a ver’ good people,” announced Jessaume. “But he anxious to get on to de beeg village of San Loui’.”
“How far to St. Louis, Pat?” asked Peter, eagerly.
“Only twenty miles. With an ’arly start we’ll ate our dinner there.”
Twenty miles! The last twenty of more than 8000! No wonder that all the men were impatient. They made great plans. At St. Louis they were to be paid off and discharged.