The Hunters' Feat

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_!