Travellers Unhorsed--Pedestrian Preparations--Prying Spies.
--Bonfires of Baggage--A March on Foot.--Rafting a River--The
Wounded Elk.--Indian Trails.--Willful Conduct of Mr.
M’Lellan.--Grand Prospect From a Mountain.--Distant Craters
of Volcanoes--Illness of Mr. Crooks.
FEW reverses in this changeful world are more complete and disheartening
than that of a traveller, suddenly unhorsed, in the midst of the
wilderness. Our unfortunate travellers contemplated their situation,
for a time, in perfect dismay. A long journey over rugged mountains and
immeasurable plains lay before them, which they must painfully perform
on foot, and everything necessary for subsistence or defense must be
carried on their shoulders. Their dismay, however, was but transient,
and they immediately set to work, with that prompt expediency produced
by the exigencies of the wilderness, to fit themselves for the change in
their condition.
Their first attention was to select from their baggage such articles
as were indispensable to their journey; to make them up into convenient
packs, and to deposit the residue in caches. The whole day was consumed
in these occupations; at night, they made a scanty meal of their
remaining provisions, and lay down to sleep with heavy hearts. In the
morning, they were up and about at an early hour, and began to prepare
their knapsacks for a march, while Ben Jones repaired to an old beaver
trap which he had set in the river bank at some little distance from the
camp. He was rejoiced to find a middle-sized beaver there, sufficient
for a morning’s meal to his hungry comrades. On his way back with his
prize, he observed two heads peering over the edge of an impending
cliff, several hundred feet high, which he supposed to be a couple of
wolves. As he continued on, he now and then cast his eye up; heads were
still there, looking down with fixed and watchful gaze. A suspicion now
flashed across his mind that they might be Indian scouts; and, had they
not been far above the reach of his rifle, he would undoubtedly have
regaled them with a shot.
On arriving at the camp, he directed the attention of his comrades to
these aerial observers. The same idea was at first entertained, that
they were wolves; but their immovable watchfulness soon satisfied every
one that they were Indians. It was concluded that they were watching the
movements of the party, to discover their place of concealment of
such articles as they would be compelled to leave behind. There was no
likelihood that the caches would escape the search of such keen eyes and
experienced rummagers, and the idea was intolerable that any more
booty should fall into their hands. To disappoint them, therefore, the
travellers stripped the caches of the articles deposited there, and
collecting together everything that they could not carry away with
them, made a bonfire of all that would burn, and threw the rest into the
river. There was a forlorn satisfaction in thus balking the Crows, by
the destruction of their own property; and, having thus gratified their
pique, they shouldered their packs, about ten o’clock in the morning,
and set out on their pedestrian wayfaring.
The route they took was down along the banks of Mad River. This stream
makes its way through the defiles of the mountains, into the plain below
Fort Henry, where it terminates in Snake River. Mr. Stuart was in hopes
of meeting with Snake encampments in the plain, where he might procure a
couple of horses to transport the baggage. In such case, he intended to
resume his eastern course across the mountains, and endeavor to reach
the Cheyenne River before winter. Should he fail, however, of obtaining
horses, he would probably be compelled to winter on the Pacific side of
the mountains, somewhere on the head waters of the Spanish or Colorado
River.
With all the care that had been observed in taking nothing with them
that was not absolutely necessary, the poor pedestrians were heavily
laden, and their burdens added to the fatigues of their rugged road.
They suffered much, too, from hunger. The trout they caught were too
poor to yield much nourishment; their main dependence, therefore,
was upon an old beaver trap, which they had providentially retained.
Whenever they were fortunate enough to entrap a beaver, it was cut up
immediately and distributed, that each man might carry his share.
After two days of toilsome travel, during which they made but eighteen
miles, they stopped on the 21st, to build two rafts on which to cross
to the north side of the river. On these they embarked on the following
morning, four on one raft, and three on the other, and pushed boldly
from shore. Finding the rafts sufficiently firm and steady to withstand
the rough and rapid water, they changed their minds, and instead of
crossing, ventured to float down with the current. The river was, in
general, very rapid, and from one to two hundred yards in width, winding
in every direction through mountains of hard black rock, covered with
pines and cedars. The mountains to the east of the river were spurs of
the Rocky range, and of great magnitude; those on the west were little
better than hills, bleak and barren, or scantily clothed with stunted
grass.
Mad River, though deserving its name from the impetuosity of its
current, was free from rapids and cascades, and flowed on in a single
channel between gravel banks, often fringed with cotton-wood and dwarf
willows in abundance. These gave sustenance to immense quantities of
beaver, so that the voyagers found no difficulty in procuring food.
Ben Jones, also, killed a fallow deer and a wolverine, and as they were
enabled to carry the carcasses on their rafts, their larder was well
supplied. Indeed, they might have occasionally shot beavers that were
swimming in the river as they floated by, but they humanely spared their
lives, being in no want of meat at the time. In this way, they kept down
the river for three days, drifting with the current and encamping on
land at night, when they drew up their rafts on shore. Towards the
evening of the third day, they came to a little island on which they
descried a gang of elk. Ben Jones landed, and was fortunate enough to
wound one, which immediately took to the water, but, being unable to
stem the current, drifted above a mile, when it was overtaken and drawn
to shore. As a storm was gathering, they now encamped on the margin of
the river, where they remained all the next day, sheltering themselves
as well as they could from the rain and snow--a sharp foretaste of the
impending winter. During their encampment, they employed themselves in
jerking a part of the elk for future supply. In cutting up the carcass,
they found that the animal had been wounded by hunters, about a week
previously, an arrow head and a musket ball remaining in the wounds.
In the wilderness, every trivial circumstance is a matter of anxious
speculation. The Snake Indians have no guns; the elk, therefore, could
not have been wounded by one of them. They were on the borders of
the country infested by the Blackfeet, who carry fire-arms. It was
concluded, therefore, that the elk had been hunted by some of
that wandering and hostile tribe, who, of course, must be in the
neighborhood. The idea put an end to the transient solace they had
enjoyed in the comparative repose and abundance of the river.
For three days longer they continued to navigate with their rafts.
The recent storm had rendered the weather extremely cold. They had
now floated down the river about ninety-one miles, when finding the
mountains on the right diminished to moderate sized hills, they landed,
and prepared to resume their journey on foot. Accordingly, having spent
a day in preparations, making moccasins, and parceling out their jerked
meat in packs of twenty pounds to each man, they turned their backs
upon the river on the 29th of September and struck off to the northeast,
keeping along the southern skirt of the mountain on which Henry’s Fort
was situated.
Their march was slow and toilsome; part of the time through an alluvial
bottom, thickly grown with cotton-wood, hawthorn, and willows, and part
of the time over rough hills. Three antelopes came within shot, but they
dared not fire at them, lest the report of their rifles should betray
them to the Blackfeet. In the course of the day, they came upon a
large horse-track, apparently about three weeks old, and in the evening
encamped on the banks of a small stream, on a spot which had been the
camping place of this same band.
On the following morning they still observed the Indian track, but after
a time they came to where it separated in every direction, and was lost.
This showed that the band had dispersed in various hunting parties, and
was, in all probability, still in the neighborhood; it was necessary,
therefore, to proceed with the utmost caution. They kept a vigilant eye
as they marched, upon every height where a scout might be posted, and
scanned the solitary landscapes and the distant ravines, to observe
any column of smoke; but nothing of the kind was to be seen; all was
indescribably stern and lifeless.
Towards evening they came to where there were several hot springs,
strongly impregnated with iron and sulphur, and sending up a volume of
vapor that tainted the surrounding atmosphere, and might be seen at the
distance of a couple of miles.
Near to these they encamped in a deep gully, which afforded some
concealment. To their great concern, Mr. Crooks, who had been indisposed
for the two preceding days, had a violent fever in the night.
Shortly after daybreak they resumed their march. On emerging from the
glen, a consultation was held as to their course. Should they continue
round the skirt of the mountain, they would be in danger of falling in
with the scattered parties of Blackfeet, who were probably hunting in
the plain. It was thought most advisable, therefore, to strike directly
across the mountain, since the route, though rugged and difficult, would
be most secure. This counsel was indignantly derided by M’Lellan as
pusillanimous. Hot-headed and impatient at all times, he had been
rendered irascible by the fatigues of the journey, and the condition of
his feet, which were chafed and sore. He could not endure the idea of
encountering the difficulties of the mountain, and swore he would rather
face all the Blackfeet in the country. He was overruled, however, and
the party began to ascend the mountain, striving, with the ardor and
emulation of young men, who should be first up. M’Lellan, who was double
the age of some of his companions, soon began to lose breath, and fall
in the rear. In the distribution of burdens, it was his turn to carry
the old beaver trap. Piqued and irritated, he suddenly came to a halt,
swore he would carry it no further, and jerked it half-way down the
hill. He was offered in place of it a package of dried meat, but this
he scornfully threw upon the ground. They might carry it, he said,
who needed it; for his part, he could provide his daily bread with his
rifle. He concluded by flinging off from the party, and keeping along
the skirts of the mountain, leaving those, he said, to climb rocks, who
were afraid to face Indians. It was in vain that Mr. Stuart represented
to him the rashness of his conduct, and the dangers to which he exposed
himself: he rejected such counsel as craven. It was equally useless to
represent the dangers to which he subjected his companions; as he
could be discovered at a great distance on those naked plains, and
the Indians, seeing him, would know that there must be other white men
within reach. M’Lellan turned a deaf ear to every remonstrance, and kept
on his wilful way.
It seemed a strange instance of perverseness in this man thus to fling
himself off alone, in a savage region, where solitude itself was dismal,
and every encounter with his fellow-man full of peril. Such, however, is
the hardness of spirit, and the insensibility to danger that grow
upon men in the wilderness. M’Lellan, moreover, was a man of peculiar
temperament, ungovernable in his will, of a courage that absolutely knew
no fear, and somewhat of a braggart spirit, that took a pride in doing
desperate and hair-brained things.
Mr. Stuart and his party found the passages of the mountain somewhat
difficult, on account of the snow, which in many places was of
considerable depth, though it was but the 1st of October. They crossed
the summit early in the afternoon, and beheld below them, a plain
about twenty miles wide, bounded on the opposite side by their old
acquaintances, the Pilot Knobs, those towering mountains which had
served Mr. Hunt as landmarks in part of his route of the preceding year.
Through the intermediate plain wandered a river about fifty yards wide,
sometimes gleaming in open day, but oftener running through willowed
banks, which marked its serpentine course.
Those of the party who had been across these mountains, pointed out much
of the bearings of the country to Mr. Stuart. They showed him in what
direction must lie the deserted post called Henry’s Fort, where they
had abandoned their horses and embarked in canoes, and they informed him
that the stream which wandered through the plain below them, fell into
Henry River, half way between the fort and the mouth of Mad or Snake
River. The character of all this mountain region was decidedly volcanic;
and to the northwest, between Henry’s Fort and the source of the
Missouri, Mr. Stuart observed several very high peaks covered with snow,
from two of which smoke ascended in considerable volumes, apparently
from craters in a state of eruption.
On their way down the mountain, when they had reached the skirts, they
descried M’Lellan at a distance, in the advance, traversing the plain.
Whether he saw them or not, he showed no disposition to rejoin them, but
pursued his sullen and solitary way.
After descending into the plain, they kept on about six miles, until
they reached the little river, which was here about knee deep, and
richly fringed with willow. Here they encamped for the night. At this
encampment the fever of Mr. Crooks increased to such a degree that it
was impossible for him to travel. Some of the men were strenuous for
Mr. Stuart to proceed without him, urging the imminent danger they were
exposed to by delay in that unknown and barren region, infested by the
most treacherous and inveterate foes. They represented that the season
was rapidly advancing; the weather for some days had been extremely
cold; the mountains were already almost impassable from snow, and would
soon present effectual barriers. Their provisions were exhausted; there
was no game to be seen, and they did not dare to use their rifles,
through fear of drawing upon them the Blackfeet.
The picture thus presented was too true to be contradicted, and made a
deep impression on the mind of Mr. Stuart; but the idea of abandoning
a fellow being, and a comrade, in such a forlorn situation, was too
repugnant to his feelings to be admitted for an instant. He represented
to the men that the malady of Mr. Crooks could not be of long duration,
and that, in all probability, he would be able to travel in the course
of a few days. It was with great difficulty, however, that he prevailed
upon them to abide the event.