An alarm—Crow—Indians—Their appearance—Mode of approach —Their vengeful errand—Their curiosity—Hostility between the Crows and Blackfeet—Loving conduct of the Crows—Laramie's Fork—First navigation of the—Nebraska—Great elevation of the country—Rarity of the atmosphere—Its effect on the wood-work of wagons—Black Hills—Their wild and broken scenery—Indian dogs—Crow trophies—Sterile and dreary country—Banks of the Sweet Water—Buffalo hunting— Adventure of Tom Cain the Irish cook
WHEN ON THE MARCH, Captain Bonneville always sent some of his best
hunters in the advance to reconnoitre the country, as well as to look
out for game. On the 24th of May, as the caravan was slowly journeying
up the banks of the Nebraska, the hunters came galloping back, waving
their caps, and giving the alarm cry, Indians! Indians!
The captain immediately ordered a halt: the hunters now came up and
announced that a large war-party of Crow Indians were just above, on the
river. The captain knew the character of these savages; one of the
most roving, warlike, crafty, and predatory tribes of the mountains;
horse-stealers of the first order, and easily provoked to acts of
sanguinary violence. Orders were accordingly given to prepare for
action, and every one promptly took the post that had been assigned him
in the general order of the march, in all cases of warlike emergency.
Everything being put in battle array, the captain took the lead of his
little band, and moved on slowly and warily. In a little while he beheld
the Crow warriors emerging from among the bluffs. There were about sixty
of them; fine martial-looking fellows, painted and arrayed for war, and
mounted on horses decked out with all kinds of wild trappings. They
came prancing along in gallant style, with many wild and dexterous
evolutions, for none can surpass them in horsemanship; and their
bright colors, and flaunting and fantastic embellishments, glaring
and sparkling in the morning sunshine, gave them really a striking
appearance.
Their mode of approach, to one not acquainted with the tactics and
ceremonies of this rude chivalry of the wilderness, had an air of direct
hostility. They came galloping forward in a body, as if about to make a
furious charge, but, when close at hand, opened to the right and left,
and wheeled in wide circles round the travellers, whooping and yelling
like maniacs.
This done, their mock fury sank into a calm, and the chief, approaching
the captain, who had remained warily drawn up, though informed of the
pacific nature of the maneuver, extended to him the hand of friendship.
The pipe of peace was smoked, and now all was good fellowship.
The Crows were in pursuit of a band of Cheyennes, who had attacked their
village in the night and killed one of their people. They had already
been five and twenty days on the track of the marauders, and were
determined not to return home until they had sated their revenge.
A few days previously, some of their scouts, who were ranging the
country at a distance from the main body, had discovered the party of
Captain Bonneville. They had dogged it for a time in secret, astonished
at the long train of wagons and oxen, and especially struck with the
sight of a cow and calf, quietly following the caravan; supposing them
to be some kind of tame buffalo. Having satisfied their curiosity, they
carried back to their chief intelligence of all that they had seen. He
had, in consequence, diverged from his pursuit of vengeance to behold
the wonders described to him. "Now that we have met you," said he to
Captain Bonneville, "and have seen these marvels with our own eyes, our
hearts are glad." In fact, nothing could exceed the curiosity evinced by
these people as to the objects before them. Wagons had never been seen
by them before, and they examined them with the greatest minuteness; but
the calf was the peculiar object of their admiration. They watched it
with intense interest as it licked the hands accustomed to feed it, and
were struck with the mild expression of its countenance, and its perfect
docility.
After much sage consultation, they at length determined that it must
be the "great medicine" of the white party; an appellation given by the
Indians to anything of supernatural and mysterious power that is guarded
as a talisman. They were completely thrown out in their conjecture,
however, by an offer of the white men to exchange the calf for a horse;
their estimation of the great medicine sank in an instant, and they
declined the bargain.
At the request of the Crow chieftain the two parties encamped together,
and passed the residue of the day in company. The captain was
well pleased with every opportunity to gain a knowledge of the
"unsophisticated sons of nature," who had so long been objects of his
poetic speculations; and indeed this wild, horse-stealing tribe is one
of the most notorious of the mountains. The chief, of course, had
his scalps to show and his battles to recount. The Blackfoot is the
hereditary enemy of the Crow, toward whom hostility is like a cherished
principle of religion; for every tribe, besides its casual
antagonists, has some enduring foe with whom there can be no permanent
reconciliation. The Crows and Blackfeet, upon the whole, are enemies
worthy of each other, being rogues and ruffians of the first water. As
their predatory excursions extend over the same regions, they often come
in contact with each other, and these casual conflicts serve to keep
their wits awake and their passions alive.
The present party of Crows, however, evinced nothing of the invidious
character for which they are renowned. During the day and night that
they were encamped in company with the travellers, their conduct was
friendly in the extreme. They were, in fact, quite irksome in their
attentions, and had a caressing manner at times quite importunate. It
was not until after separation on the following morning that the captain
and his men ascertained the secret of all this loving-kindness. In the
course of their fraternal caresses, the Crows had contrived to empty the
pockets of their white brothers; to abstract the very buttons from their
coats, and, above all, to make free with their hunting knives.
By equal altitudes of the sun, taken at this last encampment, Captain
Bonneville ascertained his latitude to be 41 47' north. The thermometer,
at six o'clock in the morning, stood at fifty-nine degrees; at two
o'clock, P. M., at ninety-two degrees; and at six o'clock in the
evening, at seventy degrees.
The Black Hills, or Mountains, now began to be seen at a distance,
printing the horizon with their rugged and broken outlines; and
threatening to oppose a difficult barrier in the way of the travellers.
On the 26th of May, the travellers encamped at Laramie's Fork, a clear
and beautiful stream, rising in the west-southwest, maintaining an
average width of twenty yards, and winding through broad meadows
abounding in currants and gooseberries, and adorned with groves and
clumps of trees.
By an observation of Jupiter's satellites, with a Dolland reflecting
telescope, Captain Bonneville ascertained the longitude to be 102 57'
west of Greenwich.
We will here step ahead of our narrative to observe that about three
years after the time of which we are treating, Mr. Robert Campbell,
formerly of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, descended the Platte
from this fork, in skin canoes, thus proving, what had always been
discredited, that the river was navigable. About the same time, he built
a fort or trading post at Laramie's Fork, which he named Fort William,
after his friend and partner, Mr. William Sublette. Since that time, the
Platte has become a highway for the fur traders.
For some days past, Captain Bonneville had been made sensible of the
great elevation of country into which he was gradually ascending by the
effect of the dryness and rarefaction of the atmosphere upon his wagons.
The wood-work shrunk; the paint boxes of the wheels were continually
working out, and it was necessary to support the spokes by stout props
to prevent their falling asunder. The travellers were now entering one
of those great steppes of the Far West, where the prevalent aridity
of the atmosphere renders the country unfit for cultivation. In these
regions there is a fresh sweet growth of grass in the spring, but it is
scanty and short, and parches up in the course of the summer, so that
there is none for the hunters to set fire to in the autumn. It is a
common observation that "above the forks of the Platte the grass does
not burn." All attempts at agriculture and gardening in the neighborhood
of Fort William have been attended with very little success. The grain
and vegetables raised there have been scanty in quantity and poor in
quality. The great elevation of these plains, and the dryness of the
atmosphere, will tend to retain these immense regions in a state of
pristine wildness.
In the course of a day or two more, the travellers entered that wild and
broken tract of the Crow country called the Black Hills, and here their
journey became toilsome in the extreme. Rugged steeps and deep ravines
incessantly obstructed their progress, so that a great part of the
day was spent in the painful toil of digging through banks, filling up
ravines, forcing the wagons up the most forbidding ascents, or swinging
them with ropes down the face of dangerous precipices. The shoes of
their horses were worn out, and their feet injured by the rugged and
stony roads. The travellers were annoyed also by frequent but brief
storms, which would come hurrying over the hills, or through the
mountain defiles, rage with great fury for a short time, and then pass
off, leaving everything calm and serene again.
For several nights the camp had been infested by vagabond Indian dogs,
prowling about in quest of food. They were about the size of a large
pointer; with ears short and erect, and a long bushy tail—altogether,
they bore a striking resemblance to a wolf. These skulking visitors
would keep about the purlieus of the camp until daylight; when, on the
first stir of life among the sleepers, they would scamper off until they
reached some rising ground, where they would take their seats, and keep
a sharp and hungry watch upon every movement. The moment the travellers
were fairly on the march, and the camp was abandoned, these starving
hangers-on would hasten to the deserted fires, to seize upon the
half-picked bones, the offal and garbage that lay about; and, having
made a hasty meal, with many a snap and snarl and growl, would follow
leisurely on the trail of the caravan. Many attempts were made to coax
or catch them, but in vain. Their quick and suspicious eyes caught
the slightest sinister movement, and they turned and scampered off. At
length one was taken. He was terribly alarmed, and crouched and trembled
as if expecting instant death. Soothed, however, by caresses, he began
after a time to gather confidence and wag his tail, and at length was
brought to follow close at the heels of his captors, still, however,
darting around furtive and suspicious glances, and evincing a
disposition to scamper off upon the least alarm.
On the first of July the band of Crow warriors again crossed their path.
They came in vaunting and vainglorious style; displaying five Cheyenne
scalps, the trophies of their vengeance. They were now bound homewards,
to appease the manes of their comrade by these proofs that his death had
been revenged, and intended to have scalp-dances and other triumphant
rejoicings. Captain Bonneville and his men, however, were by no means
disposed to renew their confiding intimacy with these crafty savages,
and above all, took care to avoid their pilfering caresses. They
remarked one precaution of the Crows with respect to their horses; to
protect their hoofs from the sharp and jagged rocks among which they had
to pass, they had covered them with shoes of buffalo hide.
The route of the travellers lay generally along the course of the
Nebraska or Platte, but occasionally, where steep promontories advanced
to the margin of the stream, they were obliged to make inland circuits.
One of these took them through a bold and stern country, bordered by a
range of low mountains, running east and west. Everything around bore
traces of some fearful convulsion of nature in times long past. Hitherto
the various strata of rock had exhibited a gentle elevation toward the
southwest, but here everything appeared to have been subverted, and
thrown out of place. In many places there were heavy beds of white
sandstone resting upon red. Immense strata of rocks jutted up into crags
and cliffs; and sometimes formed perpendicular walls and overhanging
precipices. An air of sterility prevailed over these savage wastes. The
valleys were destitute of herbage, and scantily clothed with a stunted
species of wormwood, generally known among traders and trappers by the
name of sage. From an elevated point of their march through this region,
the travellers caught a beautiful view of the Powder River Mountains
away to the north, stretching along the very verge of the horizon, and
seeming, from the snow with which they were mantled, to be a chain of
small white clouds, connecting sky and earth.
Though the thermometer at mid-day ranged from eighty to ninety, and even
sometimes rose to ninety-three degrees, yet occasional spots of snow
were to be seen on the tops of the low mountains, among which the
travellers were journeying; proofs of the great elevation of the whole
region.
The Nebraska, in its passage through the Black Hills, is confined to
a much narrower channel than that through which it flows in the plains
below; but it is deeper and clearer, and rushes with a stronger current.
The scenery, also, is more varied and beautiful. Sometimes it glides
rapidly but smoothly through a picturesque valley, between wooded banks;
then, forcing its way into the bosom of rugged mountains, it rushes
impetuously through narrow defiles, roaring and foaming down rocks and
rapids, until it is again soothed to rest in some peaceful valley.
On the 12th of July, Captain Bonneville abandoned the main stream of the
Nebraska, which was continually shouldered by rugged promontories, and
making a bend to the southwest, for a couple of days, part of the time
over plains of loose sand, encamped on the 14th on the banks of the
Sweet Water, a stream about twenty yards in breadth, and four or five
feet deep, flowing between low banks over a sandy soil, and forming one
of the forks or upper branches of the Nebraska. Up this stream they now
shaped their course for several successive days, tending, generally, to
the west. The soil was light and sandy; the country much diversified.
Frequently the plains were studded with isolated blocks of rock,
sometimes in the shape of a half globe, and from three to four hundred
feet high. These singular masses had occasionally a very imposing, and
even sublime appearance, rising from the midst of a savage and lonely
landscape.
As the travellers continued to advance, they became more and more
sensible of the elevation of the country. The hills around were more
generally capped with snow. The men complained of cramps and colics,
sore lips and mouths, and violent headaches. The wood-work of the wagons
also shrank so much that it was with difficulty the wheels were kept
from falling to pieces. The country bordering upon the river was
frequently gashed with deep ravines, or traversed by high bluffs, to
avoid which, the travellers were obliged to make wide circuits through
the plains. In the course of these, they came upon immense herds of
buffalo, which kept scouring off in the van, like a retreating army.
Among the motley retainers of the camp was Tom Cain, a raw Irishman, who
officiated as cook, whose various blunders and expedients in his novel
situation, and in the wild scenes and wild kind of life into which he
had suddenly been thrown, had made him a kind of butt or droll of
the camp. Tom, however, began to discover an ambition superior to his
station; and the conversation of the hunters, and their stories of their
exploits, inspired him with a desire to elevate himself to the dignity
of their order. The buffalo in such immense droves presented a tempting
opportunity for making his first essay. He rode, in the line of march,
all prepared for action: his powder-flask and shot-pouch knowingly slung
at the pommel of his saddle, to be at hand; his rifle balanced on his
shoulder. While in this plight, a troop of Buffalo came trotting by in
great alarm. In an instant, Tom sprang from his horse and gave chase on
foot. Finding they were leaving him behind, he levelled his rifle and
pulled [the] trigger. His shot produced no other effect than to increase
the speed of the buffalo, and to frighten his own horse, who took to his
heels, and scampered off with all the ammunition. Tom scampered after
him, hallooing with might and main, and the wild horse and wild Irishman
soon disappeared among the ravines of the prairie. Captain Bonneville,
who was at the head of the line, and had seen the transaction at a
distance, detached a party in pursuit of Tom. After a long interval they
returned, leading the frightened horse; but though they had scoured the
country, and looked out and shouted from every height, they had seen
nothing of his rider.
As Captain Bonneville knew Tom's utter awkwardness and inexperience,
and the dangers of a bewildered Irishman in the midst of a prairie, he
halted and encamped at an early hour, that there might be a regular hunt
for him in the morning.
At early dawn on the following day scouts were sent off in every
direction, while the main body, after breakfast, proceeded slowly on its
course. It was not until the middle of the afternoon that the hunters
returned, with honest Tom mounted behind one of them. They had found him
in a complete state of perplexity and amazement. His appearance caused
shouts of merriment in the camp,—but Tom for once could not join in
the mirth raised at his expense: he was completely chapfallen, and
apparently cured of the hunting mania for the rest of his life.
