Traveller's tales—Indian lurkers—Prognostics of Buckeye—Signs and portents—The medicine wolf—An alarm—An ambush—The captured provant—Triumph of Buckeye—Arrival of supplies Grand carouse—Arrangements for the year—Mr. Wyeth and his new-levied band.
THE horror and indignation felt by Captain Bonneville at the excesses
of the Californian adventurers were not participated by his men; on
the contrary, the events of that expedition were favorite themes in the
camp. The heroes of Monterey bore the palm in all the gossipings among
the hunters. Their glowing descriptions of Spanish bear-baits and
bull-fights especially, were listened to with intense delight; and had
another expedition to California been proposed, the difficulty would
have been to restrain a general eagerness to volunteer.
The captain had not long been at the rendezvous when he perceived, by
various signs, that Indians were lurking in the neighborhood. It was
evident that the Blackfoot band, which he had seen when on his march,
had dogged his party, and were intent on mischief. He endeavored to keep
his camp on the alert; but it is as difficult to maintain discipline
among trappers at a rendezvous as among sailors when in port.
Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was scandalized at this heedlessness of
the hunters when an enemy was at hand, and was continually preaching up
caution. He was a little prone to play the prophet, and to deal in signs
and portents, which occasionally excited the merriment of his white
comrades. He was a great dreamer, and believed in charms and talismans,
or medicines, and could foretell the approach of strangers by the
howling or barking of the small prairie wolf. This animal, being driven
by the larger wolves from the carcasses left on the hunting grounds by
the hunters, follows the trail of the fresh meat carried to the camp.
Here the smell of the roast and broiled, mingling with every breeze,
keeps them hovering about the neighborhood; scenting every blast,
turning up their noses like hungry hounds, and testifying their
pinching hunger by long whining howls and impatient barkings. These are
interpreted by the superstitious Indians into warnings that strangers
are at hand; and one accidental coincidence, like the chance fulfillment
of an almanac prediction, is sufficient to cover a thousand failures.
This little, whining, feast-smelling animal is, therefore, called among
Indians the "medicine wolf;" and such was one of Buckeye's infallible
oracles.
One morning early, the soothsaying Delaware appeared with a gloomy
countenance. His mind was full of dismal presentiments, whether from
mysterious dreams, or the intimations of the medicine wolf, does not
appear. "Danger," he said, "was lurking in their path, and there would
be some fighting before sunset." He was bantered for his prophecy, which
was attributed to his having supped too heartily, and been visited by
bad dreams. In the course of the morning a party of hunters set out in
pursuit of buffaloes, taking with them a mule, to bring home the meat
they should procure. They had been some few hours absent, when they came
clattering at full speed into camp, giving the war cry of Blackfeet!
Blackfeet! Every one seized his weapon and ran to learn the cause of the
alarm. It appeared that the hunters, as they were returning leisurely,
leading their mule well laden with prime pieces of buffalo meat, passed
close by a small stream overhung with trees, about two miles from
the camp. Suddenly a party of Blackfeet, who lay in ambush along the
thickets, sprang up with a fearful yell, and discharged a volley at the
hunters. The latter immediately threw themselves flat on their horses,
put them to their speed, and never paused to look behind, until they
found themselves in camp. Fortunately they had escaped without a wound;
but the mule, with all the "provant," had fallen into the hands of the
enemy This was a loss, as well as an insult, not to be borne. Every
man sprang to horse, and with rifle in hand, galloped off to punish
the Blackfeet, and rescue the buffalo beef. They came too late; the
marauders were off, and all that they found of their mule was the dents
of his hoofs, as he had been conveyed off at a round trot, bearing his
savory cargo to the hills, to furnish the scampering savages with a
banquet of roast meat at the expense of the white men.
The party returned to camp, balked of their revenge, but still more
grievously balked of their supper. Buckeye, the Delaware, sat smoking by
his fire, perfectly composed. As the hunters related the particulars
of the attack, he listened in silence, with unruffled countenance, then
pointing to the west, "the sun has not yet set," said he: "Buckeye did
not dream like a fool!"
All present now recollected the prediction of the Indian at daybreak,
and were struck with what appeared to be its fulfilment. They called to
mind, also, a long catalogue of foregone presentiments and predictions
made at various times by the Delaware, and, in their superstitious
credulity, began to consider him a veritable seer; without thinking how
natural it was to predict danger, and how likely to have the prediction
verified in the present instance, when various signs gave evidence of a
lurking foe.
The various bands of Captain Bonneville's company had now been assembled
for some time at the rendezvous; they had had their fill of feasting,
and frolicking, and all the species of wild and often uncouth
merrymaking, which invariably take place on these occasions. Their
horses, as well as themselves, had recovered from past famine and
fatigue, and were again fit for active service; and an impatience began
to manifest itself among the men once more to take the field, and set
off on some wandering expedition.
At this juncture M. Cerre arrived at the rendezvous at the head of a
supply party, bringing goods and equipments from the States. This active
leader, it will be recollected, had embarked the year previously in
skin-boats on the Bighorn, freighted with the year's collection of
peltries. He had met with misfortune in the course of his voyage: one of
his frail barks being upset, and part of the furs lost or damaged.
The arrival of the supplies gave the regular finish to the annual
revel. A grand outbreak of wild debauch ensued among the mountaineers;
drinking, dancing, swaggering, gambling, quarrelling, and fighting.
Alcohol, which, from its portable qualities, containing the greatest
quantity of fiery spirit in the smallest compass, is the only liquor
carried across the mountains, is the inflammatory beverage at these
carousals, and is dealt out to the trappers at four dollars a pint. When
inflamed by this fiery beverage, they cut all kinds of mad pranks
and gambols, and sometimes burn all their clothes in their drunken
bravadoes. A camp, recovering from one of these riotous revels, presents
a seriocomic spectacle; black eyes, broken heads, lack-lustre visages.
Many of the trappers have squandered in one drunken frolic the
hard-earned wages of a year; some have run in debt, and must toil on to
pay for past pleasure. All are sated with this deep draught of pleasure,
and eager to commence another trapping campaign; for hardship and hard
work, spiced with the stimulants of wild adventures, and topped off with
an annual frantic carousal, is the lot of the restless trapper.
The captain now made his arrangements for the current year. Cerre and Walker, with a number of men who had been to California, were to proceed to St. Louis with the packages of furs collected during the past year.
Another party, headed by a leader named Montero, was to proceed to the
Crow country, trap upon its various streams, and among the Black Hills,
and thence to proceed to the Arkansas, where he was to go into winter
quarters.
The captain marked out for himself a widely different course. He
intended to make another expedition, with twenty-three men to the
lower part of the Columbia River, and to proceed to the valley of the
Multnomah; after wintering in those parts, and establishing a trade with
those tribes, among whom he had sojourned on his first visit, he would
return in the spring, cross the Rocky Mountains, and join Montero and
his party in the month of July, at the rendezvous of the Arkansas; where
he expected to receive his annual supplies from the States.
If the reader will cast his eye upon a map, he may form an idea of the
contempt for distance which a man acquires in this vast wilderness, by
noticing the extent of country comprised in these projected wanderings.
Just as the different parties were about to set out on the 3d of July,
on their opposite routes, Captain Bonneville received intelligence that
Wyeth, the indefatigable leader of the salmon-fishing enterprise, who
had parted with him about a year previously on the banks of the Bighorn,
to descend that wild river in a bull boat, was near at hand, with a new
levied band of hunters and trappers, and was on his way once more to the
banks of the Columbia.
As we take much interest in the novel enterprise of this "eastern man,"
and are pleased with his pushing and persevering spirit; and as his
movements are characteristic of life in the wilderness, we will, with
the reader's permission, while Captain Bonneville is breaking up his
camp and saddling his horses, step back a year in time, and a few
hundred miles in distance to the bank of the Bighorn, and launch
ourselves with Wyeth in his bull boat; and though his adventurous voyage
will take us many hundreds of miles further down wild and wandering
rivers; yet such is the magic power of the pen, that we promise to bring
the reader safe to Bear River Valley, by the time the last horse is
saddled.
