A winter camp in the wilderness—Medley of trappers, hunters, and Indians—Scarcity of game—New arrangements in the camp—Detachments sent to a distance—Carelessness of the Indians when encamped—Sickness among the Indians—Excellent character of the Nez-Perces—The Captain's effort as a pacificator—A Nez-Perce's argument in favor of war—Robberies, by the Black feet—Long suffering of the Nez-Perces—A hunter's Elysium among the mountains—More robberies—The Captain preaches up a crusade—The effect upon his hearers.
FOR the greater part of the month of November Captain Bonneville
remained in his temporary post on Salmon River. He was now in the full
enjoyment of his wishes; leading a hunter's life in the heart of the
wilderness, with all its wild populace around him. Beside his own
people, motley in character and costume—creole, Kentuckian, Indian,
half-breed, hired trapper, and free trapper—he was surrounded by
encampments of Nez Perces and Flatheads, with their droves of horses
covering the hills and plains. It was, he declares, a wild and bustling
scene. The hunting parties of white men and red men, continually
sallying forth and returning; the groups at the various encampments,
some cooking, some working, some amusing themselves at different games;
the neighing of horses, the braying of asses, the resounding strokes of
the axe, the sharp report of the rifle, the whoop, the halloo, and the
frequent burst of laughter, all in the midst of a region suddenly roused
from perfect silence and loneliness by this transient hunters' sojourn,
realized, he says, the idea of a "populous solitude."
The kind and genial character of the captain had, evidently, its
influence on the opposite races thus fortuitously congregated together.
The most perfect harmony prevailed between them. The Indians, he says,
were friendly in their dispositions, and honest to the most scrupulous
degree in their intercourse with the white men. It is true they were
somewhat importunate in their curiosity, and apt to be continually in
the way, examining everything with keen and prying eye, and watching
every movement of the white men. All this, however, was borne with great
good-humor by the captain, and through his example by his men. Indeed,
throughout all his transactions he shows himself the friend of the poor
Indians, and his conduct toward them is above all praise.
The Nez Perces, the Flatheads, and the Hanging-ears pride themselves
upon the number of their horses, of which they possess more in
proportion than any other of the mountain tribes within the buffalo
range. Many of the Indian warriors and hunters encamped around Captain
Bonneville possess from thirty to forty horses each. Their horses are
stout, well-built ponies, of great wind, and capable of enduring the
severest hardship and fatigue. The swiftest of them, however, are those
obtained from the whites while sufficiently young to become acclimated
and inured to the rough service of the mountains.
By degrees the populousness of this encampment began to produce its
inconveniences. The immense droves of horses owned by the Indians
consumed the herbage of the surrounding hills; while to drive them to
any distant pasturage, in a neighborhood abounding with lurking and
deadly enemies, would be to endanger the loss both of man and beast.
Game, too, began to grow scarce. It was soon hunted and frightened out
of the vicinity, and though the Indians made a wide circuit through
the mountains in the hope of driving the buffalo toward the cantonment,
their expedition was unsuccessful. It was plain that so large a party
could not subsist themselves there, nor in any one place throughout the
winter. Captain Bonneville, therefore, altered his whole arrangements.
He detached fifty men toward the south to winter upon Snake River, and to trap about its waters in the spring, with orders to rejoin him in the
month of July at Horse Creek, in Green River Valley, which he had fixed
upon as the general rendezvous of his company for the ensuing year.
Of all his late party, he now retained with him merely a small number of
free trappers, with whom he intended to sojourn among the Nez Perces and
Flatheads, and adopt the Indian mode of moving with the game and grass.
Those bands, in effect, shortly afterward broke up their encampments
and set off for a less beaten neighborhood. Captain Bonneville remained
behind for a few days, that he might secretly prepare caches, in which
to deposit everything not required for current use. Thus lightened
of all superfluous encumbrance, he set off on the 20th of November to
rejoin his Indian allies. He found them encamped in a secluded part of
the country, at the head of a small stream. Considering themselves
out of all danger in this sequestered spot from their old enemies, the
Blackfeet, their encampment manifested the most negligent security.
Their lodges were scattered in every direction, and their horses covered
every hill for a great distance round, grazing upon the upland bunch
grass which grew in great abundance, and though dry, retained its
nutritious properties instead of losing them like other grasses in the
autumn.
When the Nez Perces, Flatheads, and Pends Oreilles are encamped in a
dangerous neighborhood, says Captain Bonneville, the greatest care
is taken of their horses, those prime articles of Indian wealth, and
objects of Indian depredation. Each warrior has his horse tied by one
foot at night to a stake planted before his lodge. Here they remain
until broad daylight; by that time the young men of the camp are already
ranging over the surrounding hills. Each family then drives its horses
to some eligible spot, where they are left to graze unattended. A young
Indian repairs occasionally to the pasture to give them water, and to
see that all is well. So accustomed are the horses to this management,
that they keep together in the pasture where they have been left. As
the sun sinks behind the hills, they may be seen moving from all points
toward the camp, where they surrender themselves to be tied up for the
night. Even in situations of danger, the Indians rarely set guards over
their camp at night, intrusting that office entirely to their vigilant
and well-trained dogs.
In an encampment, however, of such fancied security as that in which
Captain Bonneville found his Indian friends, much of these precautions
with respect to their horses are omitted. They merely drive them, at
nightfall, to some sequestered little dell, and leave them there, at
perfect liberty, until the morning.
One object of Captain Bonneville in wintering among these Indians was
to procure a supply of horses against the spring. They were, however,
extremely unwilling to part with any, and it was with great difficulty
that he purchased, at the rate of twenty dollars each, a few for the use
of some of his free trappers who were on foot and dependent on him for
their equipment.
In this encampment Captain Bonneville remained from the 21st of November
to the 9th of December. During this period the thermometer ranged from
thirteen to forty-two degrees. There were occasional falls of snow; but
it generally melted away almost immediately, and the tender blades
of new grass began to shoot up among the old. On the 7th of December,
however, the thermometer fell to seven degrees.
The reader will recollect that, on distributing his forces when in
Green River Valley, Captain Bonneville had detached a party, headed by
a leader of the name of Matthieu, with all the weak and disabled horses,
to sojourn about Bear River, meet the Shoshonie bands, and afterward to
rejoin him at his winter camp on Salmon River.
More than sufficient time had elapsed, yet Matthieu failed to make his
appearance, and uneasiness began to be felt on his account. Captain
Bonneville sent out four men, to range the country through which he
would have to pass, and endeavor to get some information concerning
him; for his route lay across the great Snake River plain, which spreads
itself out like an Arabian desert, and on which a cavalcade could be
descried at a great distance. The scouts soon returned, having proceeded
no further than the edge of the plain, pretending that their horses were
lame; but it was evident they had feared to venture, with so small a
force, into these exposed and dangerous regions.
A disease, which Captain Bonneville supposed to be pneumonia, now
appeared among the Indians, carrying off numbers of them after an
illness of three or four days. The worthy captain acted as physician,
prescribing profuse sweatings and copious bleedings, and uniformly with
success, if the patient were subsequently treated with proper care. In
extraordinary cases, the poor savages called in the aid of their own
doctors or conjurors, who officiated with great noise and mummery, but
with little benefit. Those who died during this epidemic were buried in
graves, after the manner of the whites, but without any regard to the
direction of the head. It is a fact worthy of notice that, while this
malady made such ravages among the natives, not a single white man had
the slightest symptom of it.
A familiar intercourse of some standing with the Pierced-nose and
Flathead Indians had now convinced Captain Bonneville of their amicable
and inoffensive character; he began to take a strong interest in them,
and conceived the idea of becoming a pacificator, and healing the deadly
feud between them and the Blackfeet, in which they were so deplorably
the sufferers. He proposed the matter to some of the leaders, and
urged that they should meet the Blackfeet chiefs in a grand pacific
conference, offering to send two of his men to the enemy's camp with
pipe, tobacco and flag of truce, to negotiate the proposed meeting.
The Nez Perces and Flathead sages upon this held a council of war of two
days' duration, in which there was abundance of hard smoking and long
talking, and both eloquence and tobacco were nearly exhausted. At length
they came to a decision to reject the worthy captain's proposition, and
upon pretty substantial grounds, as the reader may judge.
"War," said the chiefs, "is a bloody business, and full of evil; but
it keeps the eyes of the chiefs always open, and makes the limbs of the
young men strong and supple. In war, every one is on the alert. If we
see a trail we know it must be an enemy; if the Blackfeet come to us, we
know it is for war, and we are ready. Peace, on the other hand, sounds
no alarm; the eyes of the chiefs are closed in sleep, and the young men
are sleek and lazy. The horses stray into the mountains; the women and
their little babes go about alone. But the heart of a Blackfoot is a
lie, and his tongue is a trap. If he says peace it is to deceive; he
comes to us as a brother; he smokes his pipe with us; but when he sees
us weak, and off our guard, he will slay and steal. We will have no such
peace; let there be war!"
With this reasoning Captain Bonneville was fain to acquiesce; but, since
the sagacious Flatheads and their allies were content to remain in
a state of warfare, he wished them at least to exercise the boasted
vigilance which war was to produce, and to keep their eyes open. He
represented to them the impossibility that two such considerable clans
could move about the country without leaving trails by which they might
be traced. Besides, among the Blackfeet braves were several Nez Perces,
who had been taken prisoners in early youth, adopted by their captors,
and trained up and imbued with warlike and predatory notions; these had
lost all sympathies with their native tribe, and would be prone to lead
the enemy to their secret haunts. He exhorted them, therefore, to keep
upon the alert, and never to remit their vigilance while within the
range of so crafty and cruel a foe. All these counsels were lost upon
his easy and simple-minded hearers. A careless indifference reigned
throughout their encampments, and their horses were permitted to range
the hills at night in perfect freedom. Captain Bonneville had his own
horses brought in at night, and properly picketed and guarded. The
evil he apprehended soon took place. In a single night a swoop was made
through the neighboring pastures by the Blackfeet, and eighty-six of the
finest horses carried off. A whip and a rope were left in a conspicuous
situation by the robbers, as a taunt to the simpletons they had
unhorsed.
Long before sunrise the news of this calamity spread like wildfire
through the different encampments. Captain Bonneville, whose own horses
remained safe at their pickets, watched in momentary expectation of an
outbreak of warriors, Pierced-nose and Flathead, in furious pursuit
of the marauders; but no such thing—they contented themselves with
searching diligently over hill and dale, to glean up such horses as
had escaped the hands of the marauders, and then resigned themselves to
their loss with the most exemplary quiescence.
Some, it is true, who were entirely unhorsed, set out on a begging visit
to their cousins, as they called them, the Lower Nez Perces, who inhabit
the lower country about the Columbia, and possess horses in abundance.
To these they repair when in difficulty, and seldom fail, by dint of
begging and bartering, to get themselves once more mounted on horseback.
Game had now become scarce in the neighborhood of the camp, and it was
necessary, according to Indian custom, to move off to a less beaten
ground. Captain Bonneville proposed the Horse Prairie; but his Indian
friends objected that many of the Nez Perces had gone to visit their
cousins, and that the whites were few in number, so that their united
force was not sufficient to Venture upon the buffalo grounds, which were
infested by bands of Blackfeet.
They now spoke of a place at no great distance, which they represented
as a perfect hunter's elysium. It was on the right branch, or head
stream of the river, locked up among cliffs and precipices where there
was no danger from roving bands, and where the Blackfeet dare not enter.
Here, they said, the elk abounded, and the mountain sheep were to be
seen trooping upon the rocks and hills. A little distance beyond it,
also, herds of buffalo were to be met with, Out of range of danger.
Thither they proposed to move their camp.
The proposition pleased the captain, who was desirous, through the
Indians, of becoming acquainted with all the secret places of the land.
Accordingly, on the 9th of December, they struck their tents, and moved
forward by short stages, as many of the Indians were yet feeble from the
late malady.
Following up the right fork of the river they came to where it entered
a deep gorge of the mountains, up which lay the secluded region so much
valued by the Indians. Captain Bonneville halted and encamped for three
days before entering the gorge. In the meantime he detached five of
his free trappers to scour the hills, and kill as many elk as possible,
before the main body should enter, as they would then be soon frightened
away by the various Indian hunting parties.
While thus encamped, they were still liable to the marauds of the
Blackfeet, and Captain Bonneville admonished his Indian friends to be
upon their guard. The Nez Perces, however, notwithstanding their recent
loss, were still careless of their horses; merely driving them to some
secluded spot, and leaving them there for the night, without setting any
guard upon them. The consequence was a second swoop, in which forty-one
were carried off. This was borne with equal philosophy with the
first, and no effort was made either to recover the horses, or to take
vengeance on the thieves.
The Nez Perces, however, grew more cautious with respect to their
remaining horses, driving them regularly to the camp every evening, and
fastening them to pickets. Captain Bonneville, however, told them that
this was not enough. It was evident they were dogged by a daring and
persevering enemy, who was encouraged by past impunity; they should,
therefore, take more than usual precautions, and post a guard at night
over their cavalry. They could not, however, be persuaded to depart from
their usual custom. The horse once picketed, the care of the owner was
over for the night, and he slept profoundly. None waked in the camp but
the gamblers, who, absorbed in their play, were more difficult to be
roused to external circumstances than even the sleepers.
The Blackfeet are bold enemies, and fond of hazardous exploits. The band
that were hovering about the neighborhood, finding that they had such
pacific people to deal with, redoubled their daring. The horses being
now picketed before the lodges, a number of Blackfeet scouts penetrated
in the early part of the night into the very centre of the camp. Here
they went about among the lodges as calmly and deliberately as if at
home, quietly cutting loose the horses that stood picketed by the lodges
of their sleeping owners. One of these prowlers, more adventurous than
the rest, approached a fire round which a group of Nez Perces were
gambling with the most intense eagerness. Here he stood for some time,
muffled up in his robe, peering over the shoulders of the players,
watching the changes of their countenances and the fluctuations of
the game. So completely engrossed were they, that the presence of this
muffled eaves-dropper was unnoticed and, having executed his bravado, he
retired undiscovered.
Having cut loose as many horses as they could conveniently carry off,
the Blackfeet scouts rejoined their comrades, and all remained patiently
round the camp. By degrees the horses, finding themselves at liberty,
took their route toward their customary grazing ground. As they emerged
from the camp they were silently taken possession of, until, having
secured about thirty, the Blackfeet sprang on their backs and scampered
off. The clatter of hoofs startled the gamblers from their game. They
gave the alarm, which soon roused the sleepers from every lodge. Still
all was quiescent; no marshalling of forces, no saddling of steeds
and dashing off in pursuit, no talk of retribution for their repeated
outrages. The patience of Captain Bonneville was at length exhausted. He
had played the part of a pacificator without success; he now altered his
tone, and resolved, if possible, to rouse their war spirit.
Accordingly, convoking their chiefs, he inveighed against their craven
policy, and urged the necessity of vigorous and retributive measures
that would check the confidence and presumption of their enemies, if
not inspire them with awe. For this purpose, he advised that a war party
should be immediately sent off on the trail of the marauders, to follow
them, if necessary, into the very heart of the Blackfoot country, and
not to leave them until they had taken signal vengeance. Beside this, he
recommended the organization of minor war parties, to make reprisals to
the extent of the losses sustained. "Unless you rouse yourselves from
your apathy," said he, "and strike some bold and decisive blow, you will
cease to be considered men, or objects of manly warfare. The very squaws
and children of the Blackfeet will be set against you, while their
warriors reserve themselves for nobler antagonists."
This harangue had evidently a momentary effect upon the pride of the
hearers. After a short pause, however, one of the orators arose. It was
bad, he said, to go to war for mere revenge. The Great Spirit had given
them a heart for peace, not for war. They had lost horses, it was true,
but they could easily get others from their cousins, the Lower Nez
Perces, without incurring any risk; whereas, in war they should lose
men, who were not so readily replaced. As to their late losses, an
increased watchfulness would prevent any more misfortunes of the kind.
He disapproved, therefore, of all hostile measures; and all the other
chiefs concurred in his opinion.
Captain Bonneville again took up the point. "It is true," said he, "the
Great Spirit has given you a heart to love your friends; but he has
also given you an arm to strike your enemies. Unless you do something
speedily to put an end to this continual plundering, I must say
farewell. As yet I have sustained no loss; thanks to the precautions
which you have slighted; but my property is too unsafe here; my turn
will come next; I and my people will share the contempt you are bringing
upon yourselves, and will be thought, like you, poor-spirited beings,
who may at any time be plundered with impunity."
The conference broke up with some signs of excitement on the part of
the Indians. Early the next morning, a party of thirty men set off in
pursuit of the foe, and Captain Bonneville hoped to hear a good account
of the Blackfeet marauders. To his disappointment, the war party came
lagging back on the following day, leading a few old, sorry, broken-down
horses, which the free-booters had not been able to urge to sufficient
speed. This effort exhausted the martial spirit, and satisfied the
wounded pride of the Nez Perces, and they relapsed into their usual
state of passive indifference.
