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CHAPTER 49
Rendezvous at Wind River - Campaign of Montero and his brigade in the Crow country - Wars between the Crows and Blackfeet - Death of Arapooish - Blackfeet lurkers - Sagacity of the horse - Dependence of the hunter on his horse - Return to the settlements.
ON the 22d of June Captain Bonneville raised his camp, and moved
to the forks of Wind River; the appointed place of rendezvous.
In a few days he was joined there by the brigade of Montero,
which had been sent, in the preceding year, to beat up the Crow
country, and afterward proceed to the Arkansas. Montero had
followed the early part of his instructions; after trapping upon
some of the upper streams, he proceeded to Powder River. Here he
fell in with the Crow villages or bands, who treated him with
unusual kindness, and prevailed upon him to take up his winter
quarters among them.
The Crows at that time were struggling almost for existence with
their old enemies, the Blackfeet; who, in the past year, had
picked off the flower of their warriors in various engagements,
and among the rest, Arapooish, the friend of the white men. That
sagacious and magnanimous chief had beheld, with grief, the
ravages which war was making in his tribe, and that it was
declining in force, and must eventually be destroyed unless some
signal blow could be struck to retrieve its fortunes. In a
pitched battle of the two tribes, he made a speech to his
warriors, urging them to set everything at hazard in one furious
charge; which done, he led the way into the thickest of the foe.
He was soon separated from his men, and fell covered with wounds,
but his self-devotion was not in vain. The Blackfeet were
defeated; and from that time the Crows plucked up fresh heart,
and were frequently successful.
Montero had not been long encamped among them, when he discovered
that the Blackfeet were hovering about the neighborhood. One day
the hunters came galloping into the camp, and proclaimed that a
band of the enemy was at hand. The Crows flew to arms, leaped on
their horses, and dashed out in squadrons in pursuit. They
overtook the retreating enemy in the midst of a plain. A
desperate fight ensued. The Crows had the advantage of numbers,
and of fighting on horseback. The greater part of the Blackfeet
were slain; the remnant took shelter in a close thicket of
willows, where the horse could not enter; whence they plied their
bows vigorously.
The Crows drew off out of bow-shot, and endeavored, by taunts and
bravadoes, to draw the warriors Out of their retreat. A few of
the best mounted among them rode apart from the rest. One of
their number then advanced alone, with that martial air and
equestrian grace for which the tribe is noted. When within an
arrow's flight of the thicket, he loosened his rein, urged his
horse to full speed, threw his body on the opposite side, so as
to hang by one leg, and present no mark to the foe; in this way
he swept along in front of the thicket, launching his arrows from
under the neck of his steed. Then regaining his seat in the
saddle, he wheeled round and returned whooping and scoffing to
his companions, who received him with yells of applause.
Another and another horseman repeated this exploit; but the
Blackfeet were not to be taunted out of their safe shelter. The
victors feared to drive desperate men to extremities, so they
forbore to attempt the thicket. Toward night they gave over the
attack, and returned all-glorious with the scalps of the slain.
Then came on the usual feasts and triumphs, the scalp-dance of
warriors round the ghastly trophies, and all the other fierce
revelry of barbarous warfare. When the braves had finished with
the scalps, they were, as usual, given up to the women and
children, and made the objects of new parades and dances. They
were then treasured up as invaluable trophies and decorations by
the braves who had won them.
It is worthy of note, that the scalp of a white man, either
through policy or fear, is treated with more charity than that of
an Indian. The warrior who won it is entitled to his triumph if
he demands it. In such case, the war party alone dance round the
scalp. It is then taken down, and the shagged frontlet of a
buffalo substituted in its place, and abandoned to the triumph
and insults of the million.
To avoid being involved in these guerillas, as well as to escape
from the extremely social intercourse of the Crows, which began
to be oppressive, Montero moved to the distance of several miles
from their camps, and there formed a winter cantonment of huts.
He now maintained a vigilant watch at night. Their horses, which
were turned loose to graze during the day, under heedful eyes,
were brought in at night, and shut up in strong pens, built of
large logs of cotton-wood. The snows, during a portion of the
winter, were so deep that the poor animals could find but little
sustenance. Here and there a tuft of grass would peer above the
snow; but they were in general driven to browse the twigs and
tender branches of the trees. When they were turned out in the
morning, the first moments of freedom from the confinement of the
pen were spent in frisking and gambolling. This done, they went
soberly and sadly to work, to glean their scanty subsistence for
the day. In the meantime the men stripped the bark of the
cotton-wood tree for the evening fodder. As the poor horses would
return toward night, with sluggish and dispirited air, the moment
they saw their owners approaching them with blankets filled with
cotton-wood bark, their whole demeanor underwent a change. A
universal neighing and capering took place; they would rush
forward, smell to the blankets, paw the earth, snort, whinny and
prance round with head and tail erect, until the blankets were
opened, and the welcome provender spread before them. These
evidences of intelligence and gladness were frequently recounted
by the trappers as proving the sagacity of the animal.
These veteran rovers of the mountains look upon their horses as
in some respects gifted with almost human intellect. An old and
experienced trapper, when mounting guard upon the camp in dark
nights and times of peril, gives heedful attention to all the
sounds and signs of the horses. No enemy enters nor approaches
the camp without attracting their notice, and their movements not
only give a vague alarm, but it is said, will even indicate to
the knowing trapper the very quarter whence the danger threatens.
In the daytime, too, while a hunter is engaged on the prairie,
cutting up the deer or buffalo he has slain, he depends upon his
faithful horse as a sentinel. The sagacious animal sees and
smells all round him, and by his starting and whinnying, gives
notice of the approach of strangers. There seems to be a dumb
communion and fellowship, a sort of fraternal sympathy between
the hunter and his horse. They mutually rely upon each other for
company and protection; and nothing is more difficult, it is
said, than to surprise an experienced hunter on the prairie while
his old and favorite steed is at his side.
Montero had not long removed his camp from the vicinity of the
Crows, and fixed himself in his new quarters, when the Blackfeet
marauders discovered his cantonment, and began to haunt the
vicinity, He kept up a vigilant watch, however, and foiled every
attempt of the enemy, who, at length, seemed to have given up in
despair, and abandoned the neighborhood. The trappers relaxed
their vigilance, therefore, and one night, after a day of severe
labor, no guards were posted, and the whole camp was soon asleep.
Toward midnight, however, the lightest sleepers were roused by
the trampling of hoofs; and, giving the alarm, the whole party
were immediately on their legs and hastened to the pens. The bars
were down; but no enemy was to he seen or heard, and the horses
being all found hard by, it was supposed the bars had been left
down through negligence. All were once more asleep, when, in
about an hour there was a second alarm, and it was discovered
that several horses were missing. The rest were mounted, and so
spirited a pursuit took place, that eighteen of the number
carried off were regained, and but three remained in possession
of the enemy. Traps for wolves, had been set about the camp the
preceding day. In the morning it was discovered that a Blackfoot
was entrapped by one of them, but had succeeded in dragging it
off. His trail was followed for a long distance which he must
have limped alone. At length he appeared to have fallen in with
some of his comrades, who had relieved him from his painful
encumbrance.
These were the leading incidents of Montero's campaign in the
Crow country. The united parties now celebrated the 4th of July,
in rough hunters' style, with hearty conviviality; after which
Captain Bonneville made his final arrangements. Leaving Montero
with a brigade of trappers to open another campaign, he put
himself at the head of the residue of his men, and set off on his
return to civilized life. We shall not detail his journey along
the course of the Nebraska, and so, from point to point of the
wilderness, until he and his band reached the frontier
settlements on the 22d of August.
Here, according to his own account, his cavalcade might have been
taken for a procession of tatterdemalion savages; for the men
were ragged almost to nakedness, and had contracted a wildness of
aspect during three years of wandering in the wilderness. A few
hours in a populous town, however, produced a magical
metamorphosis. Hats of the most ample brim and longest nap;
coats with buttons that shone like mirrors, and pantaloons of the
most ample plenitude, took place of the well-worn trapper's
equipments; and the happy wearers might be seen strolling about
in all directions, scattering their silver like sailors just from
a cruise.
The worthy captain, however, seems by no means to have shared the
excitement of his men, on finding himself once more in the
thronged resorts of civilized life, but, on the contrary, to have
looked back to the wilderness with regret. "Though the prospect,"
says he, "of once more tasting the blessings of peaceful society,
and passing days and nights under the calm guardianship of the
laws, was not without its attractions; yet to those of us whose
whole lives had been spent in the stirring excitement and
perpetual watchfulness of adventures in the wilderness, the
change was far from promising an increase of that contentment and
inward satisfaction most conducive to happiness. He who, like
myself, has roved almost from boyhood among the children of the
forest, and over the unfurrowed plains and rugged heights of the
western wastes, will not be startled to learn, that
notwithstanding all the fascinations of the world on this
civilized side of the mountains, I would fain make my bow to the
splendors and gayeties of the metropolis, and plunge again amidst
the hardships and perils of the wilderness."
We have only to add that the affairs of the captain have been
satisfactorily arranged with the War Department, and that he is
actually in service at Fort Gibson, on our western frontier,
where we hope he may meet with further opportunities of indulging
his peculiar tastes, and of collecting graphic and characteristic
details of the great western wilds and their motley inhabitants.
--
We here close our picturings of the Rocky Mountains and their
wild inhabitants, and of the wild life that prevails there; which
we have been anxious to fix on record, because we are aware that
this singular state of things is full of mutation, and must soon
undergo great changes, if not entirely pass away. The fur trade
itself, which has given life to all this portraiture, is
essentially evanescent. Rival parties of trappers soon exhaust
the streams, especially when competition renders them heedless
and wasteful of the beaver. The furbearing animals extinct, a
complete change will come over the scene; the gay free trapper
and his steed, decked out in wild array, and tinkling with bells
and trinketry; the savage war chief, plumed and painted and ever
on the prowl; the traders' cavalcade, winding through defiles or
over naked plains, with the stealthy war party lurking on its
trail; the buffalo chase, the hunting camp, the mad carouse in
the midst of danger, the night attack, the stampede, the scamper,
the fierce skirmish among rocks and cliffs -- all this romance
of savage life, which yet exists among the mountains, will then
exist but in frontier story, and seem like the fictions of
chivalry or fairy tale.
Some new system of things, or rather some new modification, will
succeed among the roving people of this vast wilderness; but just
as opposite, perhaps, to the inhabitants of civilization. The
great Chippewyan chain of mountains, and the sandy and volcanic
plains which extend on either side, are represented as incapable
of cultivation. The pasturage which prevails there during a
certain portion of the year, soon withers under the aridity of
the atmosphere, and leaves nothing but dreary wastes. An immense
belt of rocky mountains and volcanic plains, several hundred
miles in width, must ever remain an irreclaimable wilderness,
intervening between the abodes of civilization, and affording a
last refuge to the Indian. Here roving tribes of hunters, living
in tents or lodges, and following the migrations of the game, may
lead a life of savage independence, where there is nothing to
tempt the cupidity of the white man. The amalgamation of various
tribes, and of white men of every nation, will in time produce
hybrid races like the mountain Tartars of the Caucasus.
Possessed as they are of immense droves of horses should they
continue their present predatory and warlike habits, they may in
time become a scourge to the civilized frontiers on either side
of the mountains, as they are at present a terror to the
traveller and trader.
The facts disclosed in the present work clearly manifest the
policy of establishing military posts and a mounted force to
protect our traders in their journeys across the great western
wilds, and of pushing the outposts into the very heart of the
singular wilderness we have laid open, so as to maintain some
degree of sway over the country, and to put an end to the kind of
"blackmail," levied on all occasions by the savage "chivalry of
the mountains."
Content of CHAPTER 49 [Washington Irving's book: The Adventures of Captain Bonneville]
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