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CHAPTER 22
The Crow country - A Crow paradise - Habits of the Crows - Anecdotes of Rose, the renegade white man - His fights with the Blackfeet - His elevation - His death - Arapooish, the Crow chief - His eagle - Adventure of Robert Campbell Honor among Crows
BEFORE WE ACCOMPANY Captain Bonneville into the Crow country, we
will impart a few facts about this wild region, and the wild
people who inhabit it. We are not aware of the precise
boundaries, if there are any, of the country claimed by the
Crows; it appears to extend from the Black Hills to the Rocky
Mountains, including a part of their lofty ranges, and embracing
many of the plains and valleys watered by the Wind River, the
Yellowstone, the Powder River, the Little Missouri, and the
Nebraska. The country varies in soil and climate; there are vast
plains of sand and clay, studded with large red sand-hills; other
parts are mountainous and picturesque; it possesses warm springs,
and coal mines, and abounds with game.
But let us give the account of the country as rendered by
Arapooish, a Crow chief, to Mr. Robert Campbell, of the Rocky
Mountain Fur Company.
"The Crow country," said he, "is a good country. The Great Spirit
has put it exactly in the right place; while you-are in it you
fare well; whenever you go out of it, whichever way you travel,
you fare worse.
"If you go to the south, you have to wander over great barren
plains; the water is warm and bad, and you meet the fever and
ague.
"To the north it is cold; the winters are long and bitter, with
no grass; you cannot keep horses there, but must travel with
dogs. What is a country without horses?
"On the Columbia they are poor and dirty, paddle about in canoes,
and eat fish. Their teeth are worn out; they are always taking
fish-bones out of their mouths. Fish is poor food.
"To the east, they dwell in villages; they live well; but they
drink the muddy water of the Missouri--that is bad. A Crow's dog
would not drink such water.
"About the forks of the Missouri is a fine country; good water;
good grass; plenty of buffalo. In summer, it is almost as good as
the Crow country; but in winter it is cold; the grass is gone;
and there is no salt weed for the horses.
"The Crow country is exactly in the right place. It has snowy
mountains and sunny plains; all kinds of climates and good things
for every season. When the summer heats scorch the prairies, you
can draw up under the mountains, where the air is sweet and cool,
the grass fresh, and the bright streams come tumbling out of the
snow-banks. There you can hunt the elk, the deer, and the
antelope, when their skins are fit for dressing; there you will
find plenty of white bears and mountain sheep.
"In the autumn, when your horses are fat and strong from the
mountain pastures, you can go down into the plains and hunt the
buffalo, or trap beaver on the streams. And when winter comes on,
you can take shelter in the woody bottoms along the rivers; there
you will find buffalo meat for yourselves, and cotton-wood bark
for your horses: or you may winter in the Wind River valley,
where there is salt weed in abundance.
"The Crow country is exactly in the right place. Everything good
is to be found there. There is no country like the Crow country."
Such is the eulogium on his country by Arapooish.
We have had repeated occasions to speak of the restless and
predatory habits of the Crows. They can muster fifteen hundred
fighting men, but their incessant wars with the Blackfeet, and
their vagabond, predatory habits, are gradually wearing them out.
In a recent work, we related the circumstance of a white man
named Rose, an outlaw, and a designing vagabond, who acted as
guide and interpreter to Mr. Hunt and his party, on their journey
across the mountains to Astoria, who came near betraying them
into the hands of the Crows, and who remained among the tribe,
marrying one of their women, and adopting their congenial habits.
A few anecdotes of the subsequent fortunes of that renegade may
not be uninteresting, especially as they are connected with the
fortunes of the tribe.
Rose was powerful in frame and fearless in spirit; and soon by
his daring deeds took his rank among the first braves of the
tribe. He aspired to command, and knew it was only to be attained
by desperate exploits. He distinguished himself in repeated
actions with Blackfeet. On one occasion, a band of those savages
had fortified themselves within a breastwork, and could not be
harmed. Rose proposed to storm the work. "Who will take the
lead?" was the demand. "I!" cried he; and putting himself at
their head, rushed forward. The first Blackfoot that opposed him
he shot down with his rifle, and, snatching up the war-club of
his victim, killed four others within the fort. The victory was
complete, and Rose returned to the Crow village covered with
glory, and bearing five Blackfoot scalps, to be erected as a
trophy before his lodge. From this time, he was known among the
Crows by the name of Che-ku-kaats, or "the man who killed five."
He became chief of the village, or rather band, and for a time
was the popular idol. His popularity soon awakened envy among the
native braves; he was a stranger, an intruder, a white man. A
party seceded from his command. Feuds and civil wars succeeded
that lasted for two or three years, until Rose, having contrived
to set his adopted brethren by the ears, left them, and went down
the Missouri in 1823. Here he fell in with one of the earliest
trapping expeditions sent by General Ashley across the mountains.
It was conducted by Smith, Fitzpatrick, and Sublette. Rose
enlisted with them as guide and interpreter. When he got them
among the Crows, he was exceedingly generous with their goods;
making presents to the braves of his adopted tribe, as became a
high-minded chief.
This, doubtless, helped to revive his popularity. In that
expedition, Smith and Fitzpatrick were robbed of their horses in
Green River valley; the place where the robbery took place still
bears the name of Horse Creek. We are not informed whether the
horses were stolen through the instigation and management of
Rose; it is not improbable, for such was the perfidy he had
intended to practice on a former occasion toward Mr. Hunt and his
party.
The last anecdote we have of Rose is from an Indian trader. When
General Atkinson made his military expedition up the Missouri, in
1825, to protect the fur trade, he held a conference with the
Crow nation, at which Rose figured as Indian dignitary and Crow
interpreter. The military were stationed at some little distance
from the scene of the "big talk"; while the general and the
chiefs were smoking pipes and making speeches, the officers,
supposing all was friendly, left the troops, and drew near the
scene of ceremonial. Some of the more knowing Crows, perceiving
this, stole quietly to the camp, and, unobserved, contrived to
stop the touch-holes of the field-pieces with dirt. Shortly
after, a misunderstanding occurred in the conference: some of the
Indians, knowing the cannon to be useless, became insolent. A
tumult arose. In the confusion, Colonel O'Fallan snapped a pistol
in the face of a brave, and knocked him down with the butt end.
The Crows were all in a fury. A chance-medley fight was on the
point of taking place, when Rose, his natural sympathies as a
white man suddenly recurring, broke the stock of his fusee over
the head of a Crow warrior, and laid so vigorously about him with
the barrel, that he soon put the whole throng to flight. Luckily,
as no lives had been lost, this sturdy rib roasting calmed the
fury of the Crows, and the tumult ended without serious
consequences.
What was the ultimate fate of this vagabond hero is not
distinctly known. Some report him to have fallen a victim to
disease, brought on by his licentious life; others assert that he
was murdered in a feud among the Crows. After all, his residence
among these savages, and the influence he acquired over them,
had, for a time, some beneficial effects. He is said, not merely
to have rendered them more formidable to the Blackfeet, but to
have opened their eyes to the policy of cultivating the
friendship of the white men.
After Rose's death, his policy continued to be cultivated, with
indifferent success, by Arapooish, the chief already mentioned,
who had been his great friend, and whose character he had
contributed to develope. This sagacious chief endeavored, on
every occasion, to restrain the predatory propensities of his
tribe when directed against the white men. "If we keep friends
with them," said he, "we have nothing to fear from the Blackfeet,
and can rule the mountains." Arapooish pretended to be a great
"medicine man", a character among the Indians which is a compound
of priest, doctor, prophet, and conjurer. He carried about with
him a tame eagle, as his "medicine" or familiar. With the white
men, he acknowledged that this was all charlatanism, but said it
was necessary, to give him weight and influence among his people.
Mr. Robert Campbell, from whom we have most of these facts, in
the course of one of his trapping expeditions, was quartered in
the village of Arapooish, and a guest in the lodge of the
chieftain. He had collected a large quantity of furs, and,
fearful of being plundered, deposited but a part in the lodge of
the chief; the rest he buried in a cache. One night, Arapooish
came into the lodge with a cloudy brow, and seated himself for a
time without saying a word. At length, turning to Campbell, "You
have more furs with you," said he, "than you have brought into my
lodge?"
"I have," replied Campbell.
"Where are they?"
Campbell knew the uselessness of any prevarication with an
Indian; and the importance of complete frankness. He described
the exact place where he had concealed his peltries.
" 'Tis well," replied Arapooish; "you speak straight. It is just
as you say. But your cache has been robbed. Go and see how many
skins have been taken from it."
Campbell examined the cache, and estimated his loss to be about
one hundred and fifty beaver skins.
Arapooish now summoned a meeting of the village. He bitterly
reproached his people for robbing a stranger who had confided to
their honor; and commanded that whoever had taken the skins,
should bring them back: declaring that, as Campbell was his guest
and inmate of his lodge, he would not eat nor drink until every
skin was restored to him.
The meeting broke up, and every one dispersed. Arapooish now
charged Campbell to give neither reward nor thanks to any one who
should bring in the beaver skins, but to keep count as they were
delivered.
In a little while, the skins began to make their appearance, a
few at a time; they were laid down in the lodge, and those who
brought them departed without saying a word. The day passed away.
Arapooish sat in one corner of his lodge, wrapped up in his robe,
scarcely moving a muscle of his countenance. When night arrived,
he demanded if all the skins had been brought in. Above a hundred
had been given up, and Campbell expressed himself contented. Not
so the Crow chieftain. He fasted all that night, nor tasted a
drop of water. In the morning, some more skins were brought in,
and continued to come, one and two at a time, throughout the day,
until but a few were wanting to make the number complete.
Campbell was now anxious to put an end to this fasting of the old
chief, and again declared that he was perfectly satisfied.
Arapooish demanded what number of skins were yet wanting. On
being told, he whispered to some of his people, who disappeared.
After a time the number were brought in, though it was evident
they were not any of the skins that had been stolen, but others
gleaned in the village.
"Is all right now?" demanded Arapooish.
"All is right," replied Campbell.
"Good! Now bring me meat and drink!"
When they were alone together, Arapooish had a conversation with
his guest.
"When you come another time among the Crows," said he, "don't
hide your goods: trust to them and they will not wrong you. Put
your goods in the lodge of a chief, and they are sacred; hide
them in a cache, and any one who finds will steal them. My people
have now given up your goods for my sake; but there are some
foolish young men in the village, who may be disposed to be
troublesome. Don't linger, therefore, but pack your horses and be
off."
Campbell took his advice, and made his way safely out of the Crow
country. He has ever since maintained that the Crows are not so
black as they are painted. "Trust to their honor," says he, "and
you are safe: trust to their honesty, and they will steal the
hair off your head."
Having given these few preliminary particulars, we will resume
the course of our narrative.
Content of CHAPTER 22 [Washington Irving's book: The Adventures of Captain Bonneville]
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