New Distribution of Horses--Secret Information of Treason in
the Camp.--Rose the Interpreter--His Perfidious Character--
His Plots.--Anecdotes of the Crow Indians.--Notorious Horse
Stealers.--Some Account of Rose.--A Desperado of the
Frontier.
ON the sixth of August the travellers bade farewell to the friendly band
of Cheyennes, and resumed their journey. As they had obtained thirty-six
additional horses by their recent traffic, Mr. Hunt made a new
arrangement. The baggage was made up in smaller loads. A horse was
allotted to each of the six prime hunters, and others were distributed
among the voyageurs, a horse for every two, so that they could ride and
walk alternately. Mr. Crooks being still too feeble to mount the saddle,
was carried on a litter.
Their march this day lay among singular hills and knolls of an indurated
red earth, resembling brick, about the bases of which were scattered
pumice stones and cinders, the whole bearing traces of the action of
fire. In the evening they encamped on a branch of Big River.
They were now out of the tract of country infested by the Sioux, and had
advanced such a distance into the interior that Mr. Hunt no longer felt
apprehensive of the desertion of any of his men. He was doomed, however,
to experience new cause of anxiety. As he was seated in his tent after
nightfall, one of the men came to him privately, and informed him that
there was mischief brewing in the camp. Edward Rose, the interpreter,
whose sinister looks we have already mentioned, was denounced by this
secret informer as a designing, treacherous scoundrel, who was tampering
with the fidelity of certain of the men, and instigating them to a
flagrant piece of treason. In the course of a few days they would arrive
at the mountainous district infested by the Upsarokas or Crows, the
tribe among which Rose was to officiate as interpreter. His plan was
that several of the men should join with him, when in that neighborhood,
in carrying off a number of the horses with their packages of goods, and
deserting to those savages. He assured them of good treatment among the
Crows, the principal chiefs and warriors of whom he knew; they would
soon become great men among them, and have the finest women, and the
daughters of the chiefs for wives; and the horses and goods they carried
off would make them rich for life.
The intelligence of this treachery on the part of Rose gave much
disquiet to Mr. Hunt, for he knew not how far it might be effective
among his men. He had already had proofs that several of them were
disaffected to the enterprise, and loath to cross the mountains. He
knew also that savage life had charms for many of them, especially the
Canadians, who were prone to intermarry and domesticate themselves among
the Indians.
And here a word or two concerning the Crows may be of service to the
reader, as they will figure occasionally in the succeeding narration.
The tribe consists of four bands, which have their nestling-places
in fertile, well-wooded valleys, lying among the Rocky Mountains, and
watered by the Big Horse River and its tributary streams; but, though
these are properly their homes, where they shelter their old people,
their wives, and their children, the men of the tribe are almost
continually on the foray and the scamper. They are, in fact, notorious
marauders and horse-stealers; crossing and re-crossing the mountains,
robbing on the one side, and conveying their spoils to the other. Hence,
we are told, is derived their name, given to them on account of their
unsettled and predatory habits; winging their flight, like the crows,
from one side of the mountains to the other, and making free booty of
everything that lies in their way. Horses, however, are the especial
objects of their depredations, and their skill and audacity in stealing
them are said to be astonishing. This is their glory and delight; an
accomplished horse-stealer fills up their idea of a hero. Many horses
are obtained by them, also, in barter from tribes in and beyond the
mountains. They have an absolute passion for this noble animal; besides
which he is with them an important object of traffic. Once a year
they make a visit to the Mandans, Minatarees, and other tribes of the
Missouri, taking with them droves of horses which they exchange for
guns, ammunition, trinkets, vermilion, cloths of bright colors, and
various other articles of European manufacture. With these they supply
their own wants and caprices, and carry on the internal trade for horses
already mentioned.
The plot of Rose to rob and abandon his countrymen when in the heart
of the wilderness, and to throw himself into the hands of savages, may
appear strange and improbable to those unacquainted with the singular
and anomalous characters that are to be found about the borders. This
fellow, it appears, was one of those desperadoes of the frontiers,
outlawed by their crimes, who combine the vices of civilized and savage
life, and are ten times more barbarous than the Indians with whom they
consort. Rose had formerly belonged to one of the gangs of pirates who
infested the islands of the Mississippi, plundering boats as they went
up and down the river, and who sometimes shifted the scene of their
robberies to the shore, waylaying travellers as they returned by land
from New Orleans with the proceeds of their downward voyage, plundering
them of their money and effects, and often perpetrating the most
atrocious murders.
These hordes of villains being broken up and dispersed, Rose had betaken
himself to the wilderness, and associated himself with the Crows, whose
predatory habits were congenial with his own, had married a woman of the
tribe, and, in short, had identified himself with those vagrant savages.
Such was the worthy guide and interpreter, Edward Rose. We give his
story, however, not as it was known to Mr. Hunt and his companions at
the time, but as it has been subsequently ascertained. Enough was known
of the fellow and his dark and perfidious character to put Mr. Hunt upon
his guard: still, as there was no knowing how far his plans might have
succeeded, and as any rash act might blow the mere smouldering sparks of
treason into a sudden blaze, it was thought advisable by those with
whom Mr. Hunt consulted, to conceal all knowledge or suspicion of the
meditated treachery, but to keep up a vigilant watch upon the movements
of Rose, and a strict guard upon the horses at night.