Mr. Hunt Overtakes the Advance Party.--Pierre Dorion, and
His Skeleton Horse.--A Shoshonie Camp.--A Justifiable
Outrage.--Feasting on Horse Flesh.--Mr. Crooks Brought to
the Camp.--Undertakes to Relieve His Men.--The Skin Ferry-
Boat.--Frenzy of Prevost.--His Melancholy Fate.-Enfeebled
State of John Day.-Mr. Crooks Again Left Behind.-The Party
Emerge From Among the Mountains.--Interview With Shoshonies.--
A Guide Procured to Conduct the Party Across a Mountain.--
Ferriage Across Snake River.--Reunion With Mr Crook’s Men.--
Final Departure From the River.
ALL that day, Mr. Hunt and his three comrades travelled without eating.
At night they made a tantalizing supper on their beaver skin, and were
nearly exhausted by hunger and cold. The next day, December 10th, they
overtook the advance party, who were all as much famished as themselves,
some of them not having eaten since the morning of the seventh. Mr. Hunt
now proposed the sacrifice of Pierre Dorion’s skeleton horse. Here he
again met with positive and vehement opposition from the half-breed, who
was too sullen and vindictive a fellow to be easily dealt with. What was
singular, the men, though suffering such pinching hunger, interfered in
favor of the horse.
They represented that it was better to keep on as long as pos-sible
without resorting to this last resource. Possibly the Indians, of whom
they were in quest, might have shifted their encampment, in which case
it would be time enough to kill the horse to escape starvation. Mr.
Hunt, therefore, was prevailed upon to grant Pierre Dorion’s horse a
reprieve.
Fortunately, they had not proceeded much further, when, towards evening,
they came in sight of a lodge of Shoshonies, with a number of horses
grazing around it. The sight was as unexpected as it was joyous. Having
seen no Indians in this neighborhood as they passed down the river, they
must have subsequently come out from among the mountains. Mr. Hunt, who
first descried them, checked the eagerness of his companions, knowing
the unwillingness of these Indians to part with their horses, and their
aptness to hurry them off and conceal them, in case of an alarm. This
was no time to risk such a disappointment. Approaching, therefore,
stealthily and silently, they came upon the savages by surprise, who
fled in terror. Five of their horses were eagerly seized, and one was
despatched upon the spot. The carcass was immediately cut up, and a
part of it hastily cooked and ravenously devoured. A man was now sent on
horseback with a supply of the flesh to Mr. Crooks and his companions.
He reached them in the night; they were so famished that the supply sent
them seemed but to aggravate their hunger, and they were almost tempted
to kill and eat the horse that had brought the messenger. Availing
themselves of the assistance of the animal, they reached the camp early
in the morning.
On arriving there, Mr. Crooks was shocked to find that, while the people
on this side of the river were amply supplied with provisions, none had
been sent to his own forlorn and famishing men on the opposite bank. He
immediately caused a skin canoe to be constructed, and called out to his
men to fill their camp-kettles with water and hang them over the fire,
that no time might be lost in cooking the meat the moment it should be
received. The river was so narrow, though deep, that everything could
be distinctly heard and seen across it. The kettles were placed on the
fire, and the water was boiling by the time the canoe was completed.
When all was ready, however, no one would undertake to ferry the meat
across. A vague and almost superstitious terror had infected the minds
of Mr. Hunt’s followers, enfeebled and rendered imaginative of horrors
by the dismal scenes and sufferings through which they had passed.
They regarded the haggard crew, hovering like spectres of famine on the
opposite bank, with indefinite feelings of awe and apprehension: as if
something desperate and dangerous was to be feared from them.
Mr. Crooks tried in vain to reason or shame them out of this singular
state of mind. He then attempted to navigate the canoe himself, but
found his strength incompetent to brave the impetuous current. The good
feelings of Ben Jones, the Kentuckian, at length overcame his fears,
and he ventured over. The supply he brought was received with trembling
avidity. A poor Canadian, however, named Jean Baptiste Prevost, whom
famine had rendered wild and desperate, ran frantically about the bank,
after Jones had returned, crying out to Mr. Hunt to send the canoe for
him, and take him from that horrible region of famine, declaring that
otherwise he would never march another step, but would lie down there
and die.
The canoe was shortly sent over again, under the management of Joseph
Delaunay, with further supplies. Prevost immediately pressed forward to
embark. Delaunay refused to admit him, telling him that there was now a
sufficient supply of meat on his side of the river. He replied that it
was not cooked, and he should starve before it was ready; he implored,
therefore, to be taken where he could get something to appease his
hunger immediately. Finding the canoe putting off without him, he forced
himself aboard. As he drew near the opposite shore, and beheld meat
roasting before the fire, he jumped up, shouted, clapped his hands, and
danced in a delirium of joy, until he upset the canoe. The poor wretch
was swept away by the current and drowned, and it was with extreme
difficulty that Delaunay reached the shore.
Mr. Hunt now sent all his men forward excepting two or three. In the
evening he caused another horse to be killed, and a canoe to be made
out of the skin, in which he sent over a further supply of meat to the
opposite party. The canoe brought back John Day, the Kentucky hunter,
who came to join his former employer and commander, Mr. Crooks. Poor
Day, once so active and vigorous, was now reduced to a condition even
more feeble and emaciated than his companions. Mr. Crooks had such
a value for the man, on account of his past services and faithful
character, that he determined not to quit him; he exhorted Mr. Hunt,
however, to proceed forward, and join the party, as his presence was all
important to the conduct of the expedition. One of the Canadians, Jean
Baptiste Dubreuil, likewise remained with Mr. Crooks.
Mr. Hunt left two horses with them, and a part of the carcass of the
last that had been killed. This, he hoped, would be sufficient to
sustain them until they should reach the Indian encampment.
One of the chief dangers attending the enfeebled condition of Mr. Crooks
and his companions was their being overtaken by the Indians whose horses
had been seized, though Mr. Hunt hoped that he had guarded against any
resentment on the part of the savages, by leaving various articles in
their lodge, more than sufficient to compensate for the outrage he had
been compelled to commit.
Resuming his onward course, Mr. Hunt came up with his people in the
evening. The next day, December 13th, he beheld several Indians, with
three horses, on the opposite side of the river, and after a time came
to the two lodges which he had seen on going down. Here he endeavored in
vain to barter a rifle for a horse, but again succeeded in effecting the
purchase with an old tin kettle, aided by a few beads.
The two succeeding days were cold and stormy; the snow was augmenting,
and there was a good deal of ice running in the river. Their road,
however, was becoming easier; they were getting out of the hills, and
finally emerged into the open country, after twenty days of fatigue,
famine, and hardship of every kind, in the ineffectual attempt to find a
passage down the river.
They now encamped on a little willowed stream, running from the east,
which they had crossed on the 26th of November. Here they found a dozen
lodges of Shoshonies, recently arrived, who informed them that had they
persevered along the river, they would have found their difficulties
augment until they became absolutely insurmountable. This intelligence
added to the anxiety of Mr. Hunt for the fate of Mr. M’Kenzie and his
people, who had kept on.
Mr. Hunt now followed up the little river, and encamped at some lodges
of Shoshonies, from whom he procured a couple of horses, a dog, a few
dried fish, and some roots and dried cherries. Two or three days were
exhausted in obtaining information about the route, and what time it
would take to get to the Sciatogas, a hospitable tribe on the west
of the mountains, represented as having many horses. The replies were
various, but concurred in saying that the distance was great, and would
occupy from seventeen to twenty-one nights. Mr. Hunt then tried to
procure a guide; but though he sent to various lodges up and down the
river, offering articles of great value in Indian estimation, no one
would venture. The snow, they said, was waist deep in the mountains; and
to all his offers they shook their heads, gave a shiver, and replied,
“we shall freeze! we shall freeze!” at the same time they urged him to
remain and pass the winter among them.
Mr. Hunt was in a dismal dilemma. To attempt the mountains without a
guide would be certain death to him and all his people; to remain there,
after having already been so long on the journey, and at such great
expense, was worse to him, he said, than two “deaths.” He now changed
his tone with the Indians, charged them with deceiving him in respect to
the mountains, and talking with a “forked tongue,” or, in other words,
with lying. He upbraided them with their want of courage, and told them
they were women, to shrink from the perils of such a journey. At length
one of them, piqued by his taunts, or tempted by his offers, agreed to
be his guide; for which he was to receive a gun, a pistol, three knives,
two horses, and a little of every article in possession of the party;
a reward sufficient to make him one of the wealthiest of his vagabond
nation.
Once more, then, on the 21st of December, they set out upon their
wayfaring, with newly excited spirits. Two other Indians accompanied
their guide, who led them immediately back to Snake River, which they
followed down for a short distance, in search of some Indian rafts made
of reeds, on which they might cross. Finding none, Mr. Hunt caused a
horse to be killed, and a canoe to be made out of its skin. Here, on the
opposite bank, they saw the thirteen men of Mr. Crooks’s party, who had
continued up along the river. They told Mr. Hunt, across the stream,
that they had not seen Mr. Crooks, and the two men who had remained with
him, since the day that he had separated from them.
The canoe proving too small, another horse was killed, and the skin of
it joined to that of the first. Night came on before the little bark had
made more than two voyages. Being badly made it was taken apart and put
together again, by the light of the fire. The night was cold; the men
were weary and disheartened with such varied and incessant toil and
hardship. They crouched, dull and drooping, around their fires; many of
them began to express a wish to remain where they were for the winter.
The very necessity of crossing the river dismayed some of them in their
present enfeebled and dejected state. It was rapid and turbulent, and
filled with floating ice, and they remembered that two of their
comrades had already perished in its waters. Others looked forward with
misgivings to the long and dismal journey through lonesome regions that
awaited them, when they should have passed this dreary flood.
At an early hour of the morning, December 23d, they began to cross the
river. Much ice had formed during the night, and they were obliged to
break it for some distance on each shore. At length they all got over in
safety to the west side; and their spirits rose on having achieved this
perilous passage. Here they were rejoined by the people of Mr. Crooks,
who had with them a horse and a dog, which they had recently procured.
The poor fellows were in the most squalid and emaciated state. Three
of them were so completely prostrated in strength and spirits that they
expressed a wish to remain among the Snakes. Mr. Hunt, therefore, gave
them the canoe, that they might cross the river, and a few articles,
with which to procure necessities, until they should meet with Mr.
Crooks. There was another man, named Michael Carriere, who was almost
equally reduced, but he determined to proceed with his comrades, who
were now incorporated with the party of Mr. Hunt. After the day’s
exertions they encamped together on the banks of the river. This was the
last night they were to spend upon its borders. More than eight hundred
miles of hard travelling, and many weary days, had it cost them; and the
sufferings connected with it rendered it hateful in their remembrance,
so that the Canadian voyageurs always spoke of it as “La maudite riviere
enragee”--the accursed mad river--thus coupling a malediction with its
name.