17.
Opening of the caches--Detachments of Cerre and Hodgkiss Salmon River Mountains--Superst.i.tion of an Indian trapper-- G.o.din"s River--Preparations for trapping--An alarm--An interruption--A rival band--Phenomena of Snake River Plain Vast clefts and chasms--Ingulfed streams--Sublime scenery--A grand buffalo hunt.
CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE found his caches perfectly secure, and having secretly opened them he selected such articles as were necessary to equip the free trappers and to supply the inconsiderable trade with the Indians, after which he closed them again. The free trappers, being newly rigged out and supplied, were in high spirits, and swaggered gayly about the camp. To compensate all hands for past sufferings, and to give a cheerful spur to further operations, Captain Bonneville now gave the men what, in frontier phrase, is termed "a regular blow-out." It was a day of uncouth gambols and frolics and rude feasting. The Indians joined in the sports and games, and all was mirth and good-fellowship.
It was now the middle of March, and Captain Bonneville made preparations to open the spring campaign. He had pitched upon Malade River for his main trapping ground for the season. This is a stream which rises among the great bed of mountains north of the Lava Plain, and after a winding course falls into Snake River. Previous to his departure the captain dispatched Mr. Cerre, with a few men, to visit the Indian villages and purchase horses; he furnished his clerk, Mr. Hodgkiss, also, with a small stock of goods, to keep up a trade with the Indians during the spring, for such peltries as they might collect, appointing the caches on Salmon River as the point of rendezvous, where they were to rejoin him on the 15th of June following.
This done he set out for Malade River, with a band of twenty-eight men composed of hired and free trappers and Indian hunters, together with eight squaws. Their route lay up along the right fork of Salmon River, as it pa.s.ses through the deep defile of the mountains. They travelled very slowly, not above five miles a day, for many of the horses were so weak that they faltered and staggered as they walked. Pasturage, however, was now growing plentiful. There was abundance of fresh gra.s.s, which in some places had attained such height as to wave in the wind.
The native flocks of the wilderness, the mountain sheep, as they are called by the trappers, were continually to be seen upon the hills between which they pa.s.sed, and a good supply of mutton was provided by the hunters, as they were advancing toward a region of scarcity.
In the course of his journey Captain Bonneville had occasion to remark an instance of the many notions, and almost superst.i.tions, which prevail among the Indians, and among some of the white men, with respect to the sagacity of the beaver. The Indian hunters of his party were in the habit of exploring all the streams along which they pa.s.sed, in search of "beaver lodges," and occasionally set their traps with some success.
One of them, however, though an experienced and skilful trapper, was invariably unsuccessful. Astonished and mortified at such unusual bad luck, he at length conceived the idea that there was some odor about his person of which the beaver got scent and retreated at his approach.
He immediately set about a thorough purification. Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge into the river. A number of these sweatings and plungings having, as he supposed, rendered his person perfectly "inodorous," he resumed his trapping with renovated hope.
About the beginning of April they encamped upon G.o.din"s River, where they found the swamp full of "musk-rat houses." Here, therefore, Captain Bonneville determined to remain a few days and make his first regular attempt at trapping. That his maiden campaign might open with spirit, he promised the Indians and free trappers an extra price for every musk-rat they should take. All now set to work for the next day"s sport. The utmost animation and gayety prevailed throughout the camp. Everything looked auspicious for their spring campaign. The abundance of musk-rats in the swamp was but an earnest of the n.o.bler game they were to find when they should reach the Malade River, and have a capital beaver country all to themselves, where they might trap at their leisure without molestation.
In the midst of their gayety a hunter came galloping into the camp, shouting, or rather yelling, "A trail! a trail!--lodge poles! lodge poles!"
These were words full of meaning to a trapper"s ear. They intimated that there was some band in the neighborhood, and probably a hunting party, as they had lodge poles for an encampment. The hunter came up and told his story. He had discovered a fresh trail, in which the traces made by the dragging of lodge poles were distinctly visible. The buffalo, too, had just been driven out of the neighborhood, which showed that the hunters had already been on the range.
The gayety of the camp was at an end; all preparations for musk-rat trapping were suspended, and all hands sallied forth to examine the trail. Their worst fears were soon confirmed. Infallible signs showed the unknown party in the advance to be white men; doubtless, some rival band of trappers! Here was compet.i.tion when least expected; and that too by a party already in the advance, who were driving the game before them. Captain Bonneville had now a taste of the sudden transitions to which a trapper"s life is subject. The buoyant confidence in an uninterrupted hunt was at an end; every countenance lowered with gloom and disappointment.
Captain Bonneville immediately dispatched two spies to overtake the rival party, and endeavor to learn their plans; in the meantime, he turned his back upon the swamp and its musk-rat houses and followed on at "long camps", which in trapper"s language is equivalent to long stages. On the 6th of April he met his spies returning. They had kept on the trail like hounds until they overtook the party at the south end of G.o.din"s defile. Here they found them comfortably encamped: twenty-two prime trappers, all well appointed, with excellent horses in capital condition led by Milton Sublette, and an able coadjutor named Jarvie, and in full march for the Malade hunting ground. This was stunning news.
The Malade River was the only trapping ground within reach; but to have to compete there with veteran trappers, perfectly at home among the mountains, and admirably mounted, while they were so poorly provided with horses and trappers, and had but one man in their party acquainted with the country-it was out of the question.
The only hope that now remained was that the snow, which still lay deep among the mountains of G.o.din"s River and blocked up the usual pa.s.s to the Malade country, might detain the other party until Captain Bonneville"s horses should get once more into good condition in their present ample pasturage.
The rival parties now encamped together, not out of companionship, but to keep an eye upon each other. Day after day pa.s.sed by without any possibility of getting to the Malade country. Sublette and Jarvie endeavored to force their way across the mountain; but the snows lay so deep as to oblige them to turn back. In the meantime the captain"s horses were daily gaining strength, and their hoofs improving, which had been worn and battered by mountain service. The captain, also was increasing his stock of provisions; so that the delay was all in his favor.
To any one who merely contemplates a map of the country this difficulty of getting from G.o.din to Malade River will appear inexplicable, as the intervening mountains terminate in the great Snake River plain, so that, apparently, it would be perfectly easy to proceed round their bases.
Here, however, occur some of the striking phenomena of this wild and sublime region. The great lower plain which extends to the feet of these mountains is broken up near their bases into crests, and ridges resembling the surges of the ocean breaking on a rocky sh.o.r.e.
In a line with the mountains the plain is gashed with numerous and dangerous chasms, from four to ten feet wide, and of great depth.
Captain Bonneville attempted to sound some of these openings, but without any satisfactory result. A stone dropped into one of them reverberated against the sides for apparently a very great depth, and, by its sound, indicated the same kind of substance with the surface, as long as the strokes could be heard. The horse, instinctively sagacious in avoiding danger, shrinks back in alarm from the least of these chasms, p.r.i.c.king up his ears, snorting and pawing, until permitted to turn away.
We have been told by a person well acquainted with the country that it is sometimes necessary to travel fifty and sixty miles to get round one of these tremendous ravines. Considerable streams, like that of G.o.din"s River, that run with a bold, free current, lose themselves in this plain; some of them end in swamps, others suddenly disappear, finding, no doubt, subterranean outlets.
Opposite to these chasms Snake River makes two desperate leaps over precipices, at a short distance from each other; one twenty, the other forty feet in height.
The volcanic plain in question forms an area of about sixty miles in diameter, where nothing meets the eye but a desolate and awful waste; where no gra.s.s grows nor water runs, and where nothing is to be seen but lava. Ranges of mountains skirt this plain, and, in Captain Bonneville"s opinion, were formerly connected, until rent asunder by some convulsion of nature. Far to the east the Three Tetons lift their heads sublimely, and dominate this wide sea of lava--one of the most striking features of a wilderness where everything seems on a scale of stern and simple grandeur.
We look forward with impatience for some able geologist to explore this sublime but almost unknown region.
It was not until the 25th of April that the two parties of trappers broke up their encampments, and undertook to cross over the southwest end of the mountain by a pa.s.s explored by their scouts. From various points of the mountain they commanded boundless prospects of the lava plain, stretching away in cold and gloomy barrenness as far as the eye could reach. On the evening of the 26th they reached the plain west of the mountain, watered by the Malade, the Boisee, and other streams, which comprised the contemplated trapping-ground.
The country about the Boisee (or Woody) River is extolled by Captain Bonneville as the most enchanting he had seen in the Far West, presenting the mingled grandeur and beauty of mountain and plain, of bright running streams and vast gra.s.sy meadows waving to the breeze.
We shall not follow the captain throughout his trapping campaign, which lasted until the beginning of June, nor detail all the manoeuvres of the rival trapping parties and their various schemes to outwit and out-trap each other. Suffice it to say that, after having visited and camped about various streams with varying success, Captain Bonneville set forward early in June for the appointed rendezvous at the caches. On the way, he treated his party to a grand buffalo hunt. The scouts had re ported numerous herds in a plain beyond an intervening height. There was an immediate halt; the fleetest horses were forthwith mounted and the party advanced to the summit of the hill. Hence they beheld the great plain below; absolutely swarming with buffalo. Captain Bonneville now appointed the place where he would encamp; and toward which the hunters were to drive the game. He cautioned the latter to advance slowly, reserving the strength and speed of the horses until within a moderate distance of the herds. Twenty-two hors.e.m.e.n descended cautiously into the plain, conformably to these directions. "It was a beautiful sight,"
says the captain, "to see the runners, as they are called, advancing in column, at a slow trot, until within two hundred and fifty yards of the outskirts of the herd, then dashing on at full speed until lost in the immense mult.i.tude of buffaloes scouring the plain in every direction."
All was now tumult and wild confusion. In the meantime Captain Bonneville and the residue of the party moved on to the appointed camping ground; thither the most expert runners succeeded in driving numbers of buffalo, which were killed hard by the camp, and the flesh transported thither without difficulty. In a little while the whole camp looked like one great slaughter-house; the carca.s.ses were skilfully cut up, great fires were made, scaffolds erected for drying and jerking beef, and an ample provision was made for future subsistence. On the 15th of June, the precise day appointed for the rendezvous, Captain Bonneville and his party arrived safely at the caches.
Here he was joined by the other detachments of his main party, all in good health and spirits. The caches were again opened, supplies of various kinds taken out, and a liberal allowance of aqua vitae distributed throughout the camp, to celebrate with proper conviviality this merry meeting.
18.
Meeting with Hodgkiss--Misfortunes of the Nez Perces-- Schemes of Kosato, the renegado--His foray into the Horse Prairie--Invasion of Black feet--Blue John and his forlorn hope--Their generous enterprise--Their fate--Consternation and despair of the village--Solemn obsequies--Attempt at Indian trade--Hudson"s Bay Company"s monopoly--Arrangements for autumn--Breaking up of an encampment.
HAVING now a pretty strong party, well armed and equipped, Captain Bonneville no longer felt the necessity of fortifying himself in the secret places and fastnesses of the mountains; but sallied forth boldly into the Snake River plain, in search of his clerk, Hodgkiss, who had remained with the Nez Perces. He found him on the 24th of June, and learned from him another chapter of misfortunes which had recently befallen that ill-fated race.
After the departure of Captain Bonneville in March, Kosato, the renegade Blackfoot, had recovered from the wound received in battle; and with his strength revived all his deadly hostility to his native tribe. He now resumed his efforts to stir up the Nez Perces to reprisals upon their old enemies; reminding them incessantly of all the outrages and robberies they had recently experienced, and a.s.suring them that such would continue to be their lot until they proved themselves men by some signal retaliation.
The impa.s.sioned eloquence of the desperado at length produced an effect; and a band of braves enlisted under his guidance, to penetrate into the Blackfoot country, hara.s.s their Villages, carry off their horses, and commit all kinds of depredations.
Kosato pushed forward on his foray as far as the Horse Prairie, where he came upon a strong party of Blackfeet. Without waiting to estimate their force, he attacked them with characteristic fury, and was bravely seconded by his followers. The contest, for a time, was hot and b.l.o.o.d.y; at length, as is customary with these two tribes, they paused, and held a long parley, or rather a war of words.
"What need," said the Blackfoot chief, tauntingly, "have the Nez Perces to leave their homes, and sally forth on war parties, when they have danger enough at their own doors? If you want fighting, return to your villages; you will have plenty of it there. The Blackfeet warriors have hitherto made war upon you as children. They are now coming as men. A great force is at hand; they are on their way to your towns, and are determined to rub out the very name of the Nez Perces from the mountains. Return, I say, to your towns, and fight there, if you wish to live any longer as a people."
Kosato took him at his word; for he knew the character of his native tribe. Hastening back with his band to the Nez Perces village, he told all that he had seen and heard, and urged the most prompt and strenuous measures for defence. The Nez Perces, however, heard him with their accustomed phlegm; the threat of the Blackfeet had been often made, and as often had proved a mere bravado; such they p.r.o.nounced it to be at present, and, of course, took no precautions.
They were soon convinced that it was no empty menace. In a few days a band of three hundred Blackfeet warriors appeared upon the hills. All now was consternation in the village. The force of the Nez Perces was too small to cope with the enemy in open fight; many of the young men having gone to their relatives on the Columbia to procure horses. The sages met in hurried council. What was to be done to ward off a blow which threatened annihilation? In this moment of imminent peril, a Pierced-nose chief, named Blue John by the whites, offered to approach secretly with a small, but chosen band, through a defile which led to the encampment of the enemy, and, by a sudden onset, to drive off the horses. Should this blow be successful, the spirit and strength of the invaders would be broken, and the Nez Perces, having horses, would be more than a match for them. Should it fail, the village would not be worse off than at present, when destruction appeared inevitable.
Twenty-nine of the choicest warriors instantly volunteered to follow Blue John in this hazardous enterprise. They prepared for it with the solemnity and devotion peculiar to the tribe. Blue John consulted his medicine, or talismanic charm, such as every chief keeps in his lodge as a supernatural protection. The oracle a.s.sured him that his enterprise would be completely successful, provided no rain should fall before he had pa.s.sed through the defile; but should it rain, his band would be utterly cut off.
The day was clear and bright; and Blue John antic.i.p.ated that the skies would be propitious. He departed in high spirits with his forlorn hope; and never did band of braves make a more gallant display-hors.e.m.e.n and horses being decorated and equipped in the fiercest and most glaring style-glittering with arms and ornaments, and fluttering with feathers.
The weather continued serene until they reached the defile; but just as they were entering it a black cloud rose over the mountain crest, and there was a sudden shower. The warriors turned to their leader, as if to read his opinion of this unlucky omen; but the countenance of Blue John remained unchanged, and they continued to press forward. It was their hope to make their way undiscovered to the very vicinity of the Blackfoot camp; but they had not proceeded far in the defile, when they met a scouting party of the enemy. They attacked and drove them among the hills, and were pursuing them with great eagerness when they heard shouts and yells behind them, and beheld the main body of the Blackfeet advancing.
The second chief wavered a little at the sight and proposed an instant retreat. "We came to fight!" replied Blue John, sternly. Then giving his war-whoop, he sprang forward to the conflict. His braves followed him. They made a headlong charge upon the enemy; not with the hope of victory, but the determination to sell their lives dearly. A frightful carnage, rather than a regular battle, succeeded. The forlorn band laid heaps of their enemies dead at their feet, but were overwhelmed with numbers and pressed into a gorge of the mountain; where they continued to fight until they were cut to pieces. One only, of the thirty, survived. He sprang on the horse of a Blackfoot warrior whom he had slain, and escaping at full speed, brought home the baleful tidings to his village.
Who can paint the horror and desolation of the inhabitants? The flower of their warriors laid low, and a ferocious enemy at their doors. The air was rent by the shrieks and lamentations of the women, who, casting off their ornaments and tearing their hair, wandered about, frantically bewailing the dead and predicting destruction to the living. The remaining warriors armed themselves for obstinate defence; but showed by their gloomy looks and sullen silence that they considered defence hopeless. To their surprise the Blackfeet refrained from pursuing their advantage; perhaps satisfied with the blood already shed, or disheartened by the loss they had themselves sustained. At any rate, they disappeared from the hills, and it was soon ascertained that they had returned to the Horse Prairie.
The unfortunate Nez Perces now began once more to breathe. A few of their warriors, taking pack-horses, repaired to the defile to bring away the bodies of their slaughtered brethren. They found them mere headless trunks; and the wounds with which they were covered showed how bravely they had fought. Their hearts, too, had been torn out and carried off; a proof of their signal valor; for in devouring the heart of a foe renowned for bravery, or who has distinguished himself in battle, the Indian victor thinks he appropriates to himself the courage of the deceased.
Gathering the mangled bodies of the slain, and strapping them across their pack-horses, the warriors returned, in dismal procession, to the village. The tribe came forth to meet them; the women with piercing cries and wailings; the men with downcast countenances, in which gloom and sorrow seemed fixed as if in marble. The mutilated and almost undistinguishable bodies were placed in rows upon the ground, in the midst of the a.s.semblage; and the scene of heart-rending anguish and lamentation that ensued would have confounded those who insist on Indian stoicism.
Such was the disastrous event that had overwhelmed the Nez Perces tribe during the absence of Captain Bonneville; and he was informed that Kosato, the renegade, who, being stationed in the village, had been prevented from going on the forlorn hope, was again striving to rouse the vindictive feelings of his adopted brethren, and to prompt them to revenge the slaughter of their devoted braves.
During his sojourn on the Snake River plain, Captain Bonneville made one of his first essays at the strategy of the fur trade. There was at this time an a.s.semblage of Nez Perces, Flatheads, and Cottonois Indians encamped together upon the plain; well provided with beaver, which they had collected during the spring. These they were waiting to traffic with a resident trader of the Hudson"s Bay Company, who was stationed among them, and with whom they were accustomed to deal. As it happened, the trader was almost entirely dest.i.tute of Indian goods; his spring supply not having yet reached him. Captain Bonneville had secret intelligence that the supplies were on their way, and would soon arrive; he hoped, how-ever, by a prompt move, to antic.i.p.ate their arrival, and secure the market to himself. Throwing himself, therefore, among the Indians, he opened his packs of merchandise and displayed the most tempting wares: bright cloths, and scarlet blankets, and glittering ornaments, and everything gay and glorious in the eyes of warrior or squaw; all, however, was in vain. The Hudson"s Bay trader was a perfect master of his business, thoroughly acquainted with the Indians he had to deal with, and held such control over them that none dared to act openly in opposition to his wishes; nay, more--he came nigh turning the tables upon the captain, and shaking the allegiance of some of his free trappers, by distributing liquors among them. The latter, therefore, was glad to give up a compet.i.tion, where the war was likely to be carried into his own camp.
In fact, the traders of the Hudson"s Bay Company have advantages over all compet.i.tors in the trade beyond the Rocky Mountains. That huge monopoly centers within itself not merely its own hereditary and long-established power and influence; but also those of its ancient rival, but now integral part, the famous Northwest Company. It has thus its races of traders, trappers, hunters, and voyageurs, born and brought up in its service, and inheriting from preceding generations a knowledge and apt.i.tude in everything connected with Indian life, and Indian traffic. In the process of years, this company has been enabled to spread its ramifications in every direction; its system of intercourse is founded upon a long and intimate knowledge of the character and necessities of the various tribes; and of all the fastnesses, defiles, and favorable hunting grounds of the country. Their capital, also, and the manner in which their supplies are distributed at various posts, or forwarded by regular caravans, keep their traders well supplied, and enable them to furnish their goods to the Indians at a cheap rate. Their men, too, being chiefly drawn from the Canadas, where they enjoy great influence and control, are engaged at the most trifling wages, and supported at little cost; the provisions which they take with them being little more than Indian corn and grease. They are brought also into the most perfect discipline and subordination, especially when their leaders have once got them to their scene of action in the heart of the wilderness.
These circ.u.mstances combine to give the leaders of the Hudson"s Bay Company a decided advantage over all the American companies that come within their range, so that any close compet.i.tion with them is almost hopeless.
Shortly after Captain Bonneville"s ineffectual attempt to partic.i.p.ate in the trade of the a.s.sociated camp, the supplies of the Hudson"s Bay Company arrived; and the resident trader was enabled to monopolize the market.