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 be 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."
