The Adventures of Captain Bonneville

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During the heat of the battle, a woman of the Nez Perces, seeing her
warrior badly wounded and unable to fight, seized his bow and arrows,
and bravely and successfully defended his person, contributing to the
safety of the whole party.

In another part of the field of action, a Nez Perce had crouched behind
the trunk of a fallen tree, and kept up a galling fire from his covert.
A Blackfoot seeing this, procured a round log, and placing it before
him as he lay prostrate, rolled it forward toward the trunk of the
tree behind which his enemy lay crouched. It was a moment of breathless
interest; whoever first showed himself would be in danger of a shot.
The Nez Perce put an end to the suspense. The moment the logs touched he
Sprang upon his feet and discharged the contents of his fusee into the
back of his antagonist. By this time the Blackfeet had got possession of
the horses, several of their warriors lay dead on the field, and the Nez
Perces, ensconced in their lodges, seemed resolved to defend themselves
to the last gasp. It so happened that the chief of the Blackfeet party
was a renegade from the Nez Perces; unlike Kosato, however, he had no
vindictive rage against his native tribe, but was rather disposed, now
he had got the booty, to spare all unnecessary effusion of blood. He
held a long parley, therefore, with the besieged, and finally drew off
his warriors, taking with him seventy horses. It appeared, afterward,
that the bullets of the Blackfeet had been entirely expended in the
course of the battle, so that they were obliged to make use of stones as
substitute.

At the outset of the fight Kosato, the renegade, fought with fury rather
than valor, animating the others by word as well as deed. A wound in the
head from a rifle ball laid him senseless on the earth. There his body
remained when the battle was over, and the victors were leading off the
horses. His wife hung over him with frantic lamentations. The conquerors
paused and urged her to leave the lifeless renegade, and return with
them to her kindred. She refused to listen to their solicitations, and
they passed on. As she sat watching the features of Kosato, and giving
way to passionate grief, she thought she perceived him to breathe. She
was not mistaken. The ball, which had been nearly spent before it struck
him, had stunned instead of killing him. By the ministry of his faithful
wife he gradually recovered, reviving to a redoubled love for her, and
hatred of his tribe.

As to the female who had so bravely defended her husband, she was
elevated by the tribe to a rank far above her sex, and beside other
honorable distinctions, was thenceforward permitted to take a part in
the war dances of the braves!




17.

Opening of the caches--Detachments of Cerre and Hodgkiss
Salmon River Mountains--Superstition of an Indian trapper--
Godin'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 passes 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 grass,
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 passed, 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 superstitions, 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 passed, 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 Godin'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 nobler 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 competition 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
Godin'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 Godin's River and blocked up the usual pass
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 passed 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 Godin 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 shore.

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, pricking 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 Godin'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 grass 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 pass 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 grassy 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 horsemen 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 multitude 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 carcasses 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 assuring them that such
would continue to be their lot until they proved themselves men by some
signal retaliation.

The impassioned eloquence of the desperado at length produced an effect;
and a band of braves enlisted under his guidance, to penetrate into the
Blackfoot country, harass 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 bloody;
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 pronounced 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 assured him that his enterprise
would be completely successful, provided no rain should fall before he
had passed through the defile; but should it rain, his band would be
utterly cut off.

The day was clear and bright; and Blue John anticipated 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-horsemen 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 assemblage; 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 assemblage 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 destitute 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 anticipate 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 competition, where the war was likely to be carried
into his own camp.