THE WRECK ON THE RIVER I made friends with many of these strange travelers, and was attracted especially by one, a reticent man of perhaps sixty odd years, in Western garb, full of beard and with long hair reaching to his shoulders.

He had the face of an old Teuton war chief I had once seen depicted in a canvas showing a raid in some European forest in years long before a Christian civilization was known--a face fierce and eager, aquiline in nose, blue of eye; a figure stalwart, muscular, whose every movement spoke courage and self-confidence.

Auberry was his name, and as I talked with him he told me of days passed with my heroes--Fremont, Carson, Ashley, Bill Williams, Jim Bridger, even the negro ruffian Beckwourth--all men of the border of whose deeds I had read.

Auberry had trapped from the St.
Mary's to the sources of the Red, and his tales, told in simple and matter-of-fact terms, set my very blood atingle.

He was bound, as he informed me, for Laramie; always provided that the Sioux, now grown exceedingly restless over the many wagon-trains pushing up the Platte to all the swiftly-opening West, had not by this time swooped down and closed all the trails entirely.