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CHAPTER 28
A region of natural curiosities - The plain of white clay - Hot springs - The Beer Spring - Departure to seek the free trappers - Plain of Portneuf - Lava - Chasms and gullies - Bannack Indians - Their hunt of the buffalo - Hunter's feast - Trencher heroes - Bullying of an absent foe - The damp comrade - The Indian spy -Meeting with Hodgkiss - His adventures - Poordevil Indians - Triumph of the
Bannacks - Blackfeet policy in war
CROSSING AN ELEVATED RIDGE, Captain Bonneville now came upon Bear
River, which, from its source to its entrance into the Great Salt
Lake, describes the figure of a horse-shoe. One of the principal
head waters of this river, although supposed to abound with
beaver, has never been visited by the trapper; rising among
rugged mountains, and being barricadoed [sic] by fallen pine
trees and tremendous precipices.
Proceeding down this river, the party encamped, on the 6th of
November, at the outlet of a lake about thirty miles long, and
from two to three miles in width, completely imbedded in low
ranges of mountains, and connected with Bear River by an
impassable swamp. It is called the Little Lake, to distinguish it
from the great one of salt water.
On the 10th of November, Captain Bonneville visited a place in
the neighborhood which is quite a region of natural curiosities.
An area of about half a mile square presents a level surface of
white clay or fuller's earth, perfectly spotless, resembling a
great slab of Parian marble, or a sheet of dazzling snow. The
effect is strikingly beautiful at all times: in summer, when it
is surrounded with verdure, or in autumn, when it contrasts its
bright immaculate surface with the withered herbage. Seen from a
distant eminence, it then shines like a mirror, set in the brown
landscape. Around this plain are clustered numerous springs of
various sizes and temperatures. One of them, of scalding heat,
boils furiously and incessantly, rising to the height of two or
three feet. In another place, there is an aperture in the earth,
from which rushes a column of steam that forms a perpetual cloud.
The ground for some distance around sounds hollow, and startles
the solitary trapper, as he hears the tramp of his horse giving
the sound of a muffled drum. He pictures to himself a mysterious
gulf below, a place of hidden fires, and gazes round him with awe
and uneasiness.
The most noted curiosity, however, of this singular region, is
the Beer Spring, of which trappers give wonderful accounts. They
are said to turn aside from their route through the country to
drink of its waters, with as much eagerness as the Arab seeks
some famous well of the desert. Captain Bonneville describes it
as having the taste of beer. His men drank it with avidity, and
in copious draughts. It did not appear to him to possess any
medicinal properties, or to produce any peculiar effects. The
Indians, however, refuse to taste it, and endeavor to persuade
the white men from doing so.
We have heard this also called the Soda Spring, and described as
containing iron and sulphur. It probably possesses some of the
properties of the Ballston water.
The time had now arrived for Captain Bonneville to go in quest of
the party of free trappers, detached in the beginning of July,
under the command of Mr. Hodgkiss, to trap upon the head waters
of Salmon River. His intention was to unite them with the party
with which he was at present travelling, that all might go into
quarters together for the winter. Accordingly, on the 11th of
November, he took a temporary leave of his band, appointing a
rendezvous on Snake River, and, accompanied by three men, set out
upon his journey. His route lay across the plain of the Portneuf,
a tributary stream of Snake River, called after an unfortunate
Canadian trapper murdered by the Indians. The whole country
through which he passed bore evidence of volcanic convulsions and
conflagrations in the olden time. Great masses of lava lay
scattered about in every direction; the crags and cliffs had
apparently been under the action of fire; the rocks in some
places seemed to have been in a state of fusion; the plain was
rent and split with deep chasms and gullies, some of which were
partly filled with lava.
They had not proceeded far, however, before they saw a party of
horsemen, galloping full tilt toward them. They instantly turned,
and made full speed for the covert of a woody stream, to fortify
themselves among the trees. The Indians came to a halt, and one
of them came forward alone. He reached Captain Bonneville and his
men just as they were dismounting and about to post themselves. A
few words dispelled all uneasiness. It was a party of twenty-five
Bannack Indians, friendly to the whites, and they proposed,
through their envoy, that both parties should encamp together,
and hunt the buffalo, of which they had discovered several large
herds hard by. Captain Bonneville cheerfully assented to their
proposition, being curious to see their manner of hunting.
Both parties accordingly encamped together on a convenient spot,
and prepared for the hunt. The Indians first posted a boy on a
small hill near the camp, to keep a look-out for enemies. The
"runners," then, as they are called, mounted on fleet horses, and
armed with bows and arrows, moved slowly and cautiously toward
the buffalo, keeping as much as possible out of sight, in hollows
and ravines. When within a proper distance, a signal was given,
and they all opened at once like a pack of hounds, with a full
chorus of yells, dashing into the midst of the herds, and
launching their arrows to the right and left. The plain seemed
absolutely to shake under the tramp of the buffalo, as they
scoured off. The cows in headlong panic, the bulls furious with
rage, uttering deep roars, and occasionally turning with a
desperate rush upon their pursuers. Nothing could surpass the
spirit, grace, and dexterity, with which the Indians managed
their horses; wheeling and coursing among the affrighted herd,
and launching their arrows with unerring aim. In the midst of the
apparent confusion, they selected their victims with perfect
judgment, generally aiming at the fattest of the cows, the flesh
of the bull being nearly worthless, at this season of the year.
In a few minutes, each of the hunters had crippled three or four
cows. A single shot was sufficient for the purpose, and the
animal, once maimed, was left to be completely dispatched at the
end of the chase. Frequently, a cow was killed on the spot by a
single arrow. In one instance, Captain Bonneville saw an Indian
shoot his arrow completely through the body of a cow, so that it
struck in the ground beyond. The bulls, however, are not so
easily killed as the cows, and always cost the hunter several
arrows; sometimes making battle upon the horses, and chasing them
furiously, though severely wounded, with the darts still sticking
in their flesh.
The grand scamper of the hunt being over, the Indians proceeded
to dispatch the animals that had been disabled; then cutting up
the carcasses, they returned with loads of meat to the camp,
where the choicest pieces were soon roasting before large fires,
and a hunters' feast succeeded; at which Captain Bonneville and
his men were qualified, by previous fasting, to perform their
parts with great vigor.
Some men are said to wax valorous upon a full stomach, and such
seemed to be the case with the Bannack braves, who, in proportion
as they crammed themselves with buffalo meat, grew stout of
heart, until, the supper at an end, they began to chant war
songs, setting forth their mighty deeds, and the victories they
had gained over the Blackfeet. Warming with the theme, and
inflating themselves with their own eulogies, these magnanimous
heroes of the trencher would start up, advance a short distance
beyond the light of the fire, and apostrophize most vehemently
their Blackfeet enemies, as though they had been within hearing.
Ruffling, and swelling, and snorting, and slapping their breasts,
and brandishing their arms, they would vociferate all their
exploits; reminding the Blackfeet how they had drenched their
towns in tears and blood; enumerate the blows they had inflicted,
the warriors they had slain, the scalps they had brought off in
triumph. Then, having said everything that could stir a man's
spleen or pique his valor, they would dare their imaginary
hearers, now that the Bannacks were few in number, to come and
take their revenge--receiving no reply to this valorous bravado,
they would conclude by all kinds of sneers and insults, deriding
the Blackfeet for dastards and poltroons, that dared not accept
their challenge. Such is the kind of swaggering and rhodomontade
in which the "red men" are prone to indulge in their vainglorious
moments; for, with all their vaunted taciturnity, they are
vehemently prone at times to become eloquent about their
exploits, and to sound their own trumpet.
Having vented their valor in this fierce effervescence, the
Bannack braves gradually calmed down, lowered their crests,
smoothed their ruffled feathers, and betook themselves to sleep,
without placing a single guard over their camp; so that, had the
Blackfeet taken them at their word, but few of these braggart
heroes might have survived for any further boasting.
On the following morning, Captain Bonneville purchased a supply
of buffalo meat from his braggadocio friends; who, with all their
vaporing, were in fact a very forlorn horde, destitute of
firearms, and of almost everything that constitutes riches in
savage life. The bargain concluded, the Bannacks set off for
their village, which was situated, they said, at the mouth of the
Portneuf, and Captain Bonneville and his companions shaped their
course toward Snake River.
Arrived on the banks of that river, he found it rapid and
boisterous, but not too deep to be forded. In traversing it,
however, one of the horses was swept suddenly from his footing,
and his rider was flung from the saddle into the midst of the
stream. Both horse and horseman were extricated without any
damage, excepting that the latter was completely drenched, so
that it was necessary to kindle a fire to dry him. While they
were thus occupied, one of the party looking up, perceived an
Indian scout cautiously reconnoitring them from the summit of a
neighboring hill. The moment he found himself discovered, he
disappeared behind the hill. From his furtive movements, Captain
Bonneville suspected him to be a scout from the Blackfeet camp,
and that he had gone to report what he had seen to his
companions. It would not do to loiter in such a neighborhood, so
the kindling of the fire was abandoned, the drenched horseman
mounted in dripping condition, and the little band pushed forward
directly into the plain, going at a smart pace, until they had
gained a considerable distance from the place of supposed danger.
Here encamping for the night, in the midst of abundance of sage,
or wormwood, which afforded fodder for their horses, they kindled
a huge fire for the benefit of their damp comrade, and then
proceeded to prepare a sumptuous supper of buffalo humps and
ribs, and other choice bits, which they had brought with them.
After a hearty repast, relished with an appetite unknown to city
epicures, they stretched themselves upon their couches of skins,
and under the starry canopy of heaven, enjoyed the sound and
sweet sleep of hardy and well-fed mountaineers.
They continued on their journey for several days, without any
incident worthy of notice, and on the 19th of November, came upon
traces of the party of which they were in search; such as burned
patches of prairie, and deserted camping grounds. All these were
carefully examined, to discover by their freshness or antiquity
the probable time that the trappers had left them; at length,
after much wandering and investigating, they came upon the
regular trail of the hunting party, which led into the mountains,
and following it up briskly, came about two o'clock in the
afternoon of the 20th, upon the encampment of Hodgkiss and his
band of free trappers, in the bosom of a mountain valley.
It will be recollected that these free trappers, who were masters
of themselves and their movements, had refused to accompany
Captain Bonneville back to Green River in the preceding month of
July, preferring to trap about the upper waters of the Salmon
River, where they expected to find plenty of beaver, and a less
dangerous neighborhood. Their hunt had not been very successful.
They had penetrated the great range of mountains among which some
of the upper branches of Salmon River take their rise, but had
become so entangled among immense and almost impassable
barricades of fallen pines, and so impeded by tremendous
precipices, that a great part of their season had been wasted
among these mountains. At one time, they had made their way
through them, and reached the Boisee River; but meeting with a
band of Bannack Indians, from whom they apprehended hostilities,
they had again taken shelter among the mountains, where they were
found by Captain Bonneville. In the neighborhood of their
encampment, the captain had the good fortune to meet with a
family of those wanderers of the mountains, emphatically called
"les dignes de pitie," or Poordevil Indians. These, however,
appear to have forfeited the title, for they had with them a fine
lot of skins of beaver, elk, deer, and mountain sheep. These,
Captain Bonneville purchased from them at a fair valuation, and
sent them off astonished at their own wealth, and no doubt
objects of envy to all their pitiful tribe.
Being now reinforced by Hodgkiss and his band of free trappers,
Captain Bonneville put himself at the head of the united parties,
and set out to rejoin those he had recently left at the Beer
Spring, that they might all go into winter quarters on Snake
River. On his route, he encountered many heavy falls of snow,
which melted almost immediately, so as not to impede his march,
and on the 4th of December, he found his other party, encamped at
the very place where he had partaken in the buffalo hunt with the
Bannacks.
That braggart horde was encamped but about three miles off, and
were just then in high glee and festivity, and more swaggering
than ever, celebrating a prodigious victory. It appeared that a
party of their braves being out on a hunting excursion,
discovered a band of Blackfeet moving, as they thought, to
surprise their hunting camp. The Bannacks immediately posted
themselves on each side of a dark ravine, through which the enemy
must pass, and, just as they were entangled in the midst of it,
attacked them with great fury. The Blackfeet, struck with sudden
panic, threw off their buffalo robes and fled, leaving one of
their warriors dead on the spot. The victors eagerly gathered up
the spoils; but their greatest prize was the scalp of the
Blackfoot brave. This they bore off in triumph to their village,
where it had ever since been an object of the greatest exultation
and rejoicing. It had been elevated upon a pole in the centre of
the village, where the warriors had celebrated the scalp dance
round it, with war feasts, war songs, and warlike harangues. It
had then been given up to the women and boys; who had paraded it
up and down the village with shouts and chants and antic dances;
occasionally saluting it with all kinds of taunts, invectives,
and revilings.
The Blackfeet, in this affair, do not appear to have acted up to
the character which has rendered them objects of such terror.
Indeed, their conduct in war, to the inexperienced observer, is
full of inconsistencies; at one time they are headlong in
courage, and heedless of danger; at another time cautious almost
to cowardice. To understand these apparent incongruities, one
must know their principles of warfare. A war party, however
triumphant, if they lose a warrior in the fight, bring back a
cause of mourning to their people, which casts a shade over the
glory of their achievement. Hence, the Indian is often less
fierce and reckless in general battle, than he is in a private
brawl; and the chiefs are checked in their boldest undertakings
by the fear of sacrificing their warriors.
This peculiarity is not confined to the Blackfeet. Among the
Osages, says Captain Bonneville, when a warrior falls in battle,
his comrades, though they may have fought with consummate valor,
and won a glorious victory, will leave their arms upon the field
of battle, and returning home with dejected countenances, will
halt without the encampment, and wait until the relatives of the
slain come forth and invite them to mingle again with their
people.
Content of CHAPTER 28 [Washington Irving's book: The Adventures of Captain Bonneville]
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