Francis Parkman's Works: The Oregon Trail; sketches of prairie and Rocky-Mountain life. 1910Little, Brown, 1910 |
Expressions et termes fréquents
animals antelope appeared approached Arapahoes arrows band band of horses bank began Bent's Fort Black Hills broken buffalo buffalo bull buffalo-robes bull bushes camp captain close companions crowd Dahcotah dark Deslauriers distance emigrants encamped enemy eyes face farther fire followed foot Fort Laramie Fort Leavenworth forward galloped grass grizzly bear ground half hand head Henry Chatillon horseback horses hour hunter Indians journey killed length lodge looked meadow meat miles Missouri moccasons morning mountains mounted mule night Ogillallah party passed Pawnees pipe plain Platte Pontiac prairie ravine Raymond rest Reynal riding rifle river rocks Rocky Mountains rode rose saddle seated seemed Shaw side sight sleep smoking soon squaw stood stream stretched tall tent Tête Rouge traders trail trappers trees turned village wagons war-party warriors whole wild wolves woods young
Fréquemment cités
Page 403 - ... one vast host of buffalo. The outskirts of the herd were within a quarter of a mile. In many parts they were crowded so densely together that in the distance their rounded backs presented a surface of uniform blackness...
Page 3 - Her upper deck was covered with large wagons of a peculiar form, for the Santa Fe trade, and her hold was crammed with goods for the same destination. There were also the equipments and provisions of a party of Oregon emigrants, a band of mules and horses, piles of saddles and harness, and a multitude of nondescript articles, indispensable on the prairies. Almost hidden in this medley, one might have seen a small French cart, of the sort very appropriately called a "mule-killer" beyond the frontiers,...
Page 408 - I saw a solitary buffalo galloping heavily. In a moment I and my victim were running side by side. My firearms were all empty, and I had in my pouch nothing but rifle bullets, too large for the pistols and too small for the gun. I loaded the...
Page 263 - We were among them in an instant. Amid the trampling and the yells I could see their dark figures running hither and thither through clouds of dust, and the horsemen darting in pursuit. While we were charging on one side, our companions attacked the bewildered and panic-stricken herd on the other. The uproar and confusion lasted but a moment. The dust cleared away, and the buffalo could be seen scattering as from a common centre, flying over the plain singly, or in long files and small compact bodies,...
Page 231 - Neither their manners nor their ideas were in the slightest degree modified by contact with civilization. They knew nothing of the power and real character of the white men, and their children would scream in terror when they saw me.
Page 56 - The thunder here is not like the tame thunder of the Atlantic coast. Bursting with a terrific crash directly above our heads, it roared over the boundless waste of prairie, seeming to roll around the whole circle of the firmament with a peculiar and awful reverberation.
Page 75 - The Great American Desert — extending for hundreds of miles to the Arkansas on the one side, and the Missouri on the other. Before us and behind us, the level monotony of the plain was unbroken as far as the eye could reach. Sometimes it glared in the sun, an expanse of hot, bare sand; sometimes it was veiled by long coarse grass. Huge skulls and whitening bones of buffalo were scattered everywhere...
Page 406 - I was in the midst of the cloud, half suffocated by the dust and stunned by the trampling of the flying herd ; but I was drunk with the chase and cared for nothing but the buffalo. Very soon a long dark mass became visible, looming through the dust ; then I could distinguish each bulky carcass, the hoofs flying out beneath, the short tails held rigidly erect. In a moment I was so close that I could have touched them with my gun. Suddenly, to my amazement, the hoofs were jerked upwards, the tails...
Page xiv - We knew that, more and more, year after year, the trains of emigrant wagons would creep in slow procession towards barbarous Oregon or wild and distant California ; but we did not dream how Commerce and Gold would breed nations along the Pacific, the disenchanting screech of the locomotive break the spell of weird mysterious mountains...