Fort Benton was established by the American Fur Company, I think in
the year 1832. That same year the first steamboat ascended the river
to that locality, owned by the company. When we reached the fort it
was in charge of Alexander Culbertson, a prominent employee of the fur
company. Fifty-four years before this it took Lewis and Clark nearly
a year to make the journey from St. Louis to the Great Falls, thirty
miles above Fort Benton.
The remainder of the boat’s cargo, including the work oxen, plows,
harrows, etc., intended for the Blackfoot Agency, was unloaded and
the merchandise piled up on the river bank, a part being stored in
the fort, while arrangements were being made by Colonel Vaughn for
transportation to the Blackfoot Agency, on Sun River, the supervision
of which kept the colonel very busy for several days.
The long voyage up the Missouri, together with my experience and
observation, gathered along the way, had convinced me that I would
not enjoy spending the whole winter at the Blackfoot Agency, so I
determined to return on the boat.
Mr. Lace, who had come up with the intention of going out to the
mountains, was so discouraged with the prospects of hunting under
existing conditions, that he also resolved to return on the boat. There
was no way of his getting back to the States at a later date in that
year, except to float down the river, a mode of traveling that had no
attractions for him. Mr. Holbrook, the young Harvard graduate, who
was traveling merely for recreation and health, had no intention of
remaining, so the boat was not entirely bereft of passengers.
On meeting Colonel Vaughn seven years afterwards, when he was living
on a ranch not far from Helena, Montana, he told me of his distressing
experience and narrow escape from death he had encountered in a
blizzard during the winter of 1858–9. While hibernating quietly and
comfortably at the Sun River Agency, a courier or voyageur, arrived
from Fort Benton, bringing the intelligence that a band of Indians
from over on the Marias River had come in to Fort Benton, who were
in a state of destitution and threatened starvation, and that it was
absolutely necessary for him to visit the fort and have rations issued
to them or they would starve. He at once made preparations and started
on horseback, accompanied by his interpreter, a Canadian Frenchman,
long a resident of the Indian country. They started on a morning in
February when the weather was clear and pleasant, with but little snow
lying on the ground, not enough to hide the roadway or render riding
difficult.
At midday the sky became overcast, the clouds sweeping down from the
north, and they were soon enveloped by a heavy fall of snow, driven
and whirled about by a terrific wind, in fact, the worst kind of a
blizzard. The path was soon covered and the snow so dense and drifting
rapidly soon rendered progress slow and difficult, the ravines being
filled with snow when this blizzard began. Both Colonel Vaughn and
the interpreter were perfectly acquainted with the route, but they
lost their reckoning even before they were overtaken by darkness. The
blizzard continued unabated during that night and all the following
day, and all this time they wandered about completely bewildered by
dense snow and severe cold. At last, during the second night, they
were apprised of their locality from the sound of the Great Falls of
the Missouri, and were farther from Fort Benton than when the snow
first struck them. By this time, both men and horses were nearly
worn out and benumbed with cold. When within hearing of the falls
they stopped under an overhanging rock which sheltered them from the
snow and wind, but drowsiness set in, the certain precursor of death
under such circumstances, so they rode out again into the storm, the
colonel taking the lead, and kept their horses moving. Calling to the
interpreter he answered not, and after this the colonel himself lost
consciousness, and while he retained his seat in the saddle, he ceased
to exercise any control over the horse, and the horse left to his own
guidance, carried the colonel back to the agency, reaching there after
daylight, the morning of the third day, with him almost dead.
The men at the agency went out, lifted him down, carried him into the
house and proceeded to restore him to life again, eventually their
efforts proving successful.
The horse of the interpreter arrived at the agency before the colonel,
and when the colonel had so far regained his faculties as to be able
to talk, he told them where he had last seen the interpreter near
the Great Falls. Some Indians put off in search of him, and his
body was recovered by them, found sitting erect in the snow, frozen
solidly--almost as solid as the granite boulders surrounding it.
The stage of water being good, the boat descended the river rapidly,
running twenty miles an hour and making few landings.
At the Ree village below the mouth of the Yellowstone, a stop was made
to take on a large stock of buffalo robes, a half day being required
to load them, and in order to hasten the work, twenty or thirty squaws
were hired to aid in transferring the bales of robes from a warehouse
on a hill, two hundred yards perhaps from the river bank, to the boat.
These squaws, although of comparatively small stature, to the bucks,
would shoulder up or put on top of their heads a bale of robes, and
walk with it, apparently, with ease, laughing and chattering with
their companions as they went. All the while the bucks were sitting or
standing around, smoking their pipes, looking on with composure and
satisfaction. It did not comport with their notions of dignity and
propriety to engage in any such ignoble work themselves, in fact the
Indian bucks have never yet been able to appreciate the “nobility” of
labor.
Somewhere about Fort Pierre, while the boat was running, four buffalo
bulls were seen grazing quietly in the bottoms some distance from the
river bank. The captain gave orders for landing the boat immediately.
Tied up to the guards on the lower deck were a couple of Indian ponies
being sent down to some point below, as a present from some chief, to
his friends or relations (giving presents being a very general custom
among them), and as was stated when the horses were brought on board,
the horses were extra good buffalo horses, fleet of foot and trained to
the chase.
Among the passengers at that time was a solitary Sioux warrior, going
down on a visit, as he said. He had been with us for a day or two,
and it had been whispered around that he was a bad character where he
belonged. He was athletic and devilish-looking, but there was little
about his person to distinguish him from the general run of Indian
bucks and warriors. He had an ordinary bow and quiver of arrows slung
over his back.
The captain ordered one of the horses brought forward quickly, and,
with the aid of a dozen deck hands, the horse was put ashore. Just
as soon as the buffalo were seen this Indian volunteered with great
alacrity to go after them, and as yet they were grazing undisturbed.
Having had experience in killing buffalo on horseback the previous
year, on the Santa Fé Trail, I suggested the propriety of giving the
Indian a pair of Colt’s navy revolvers, which I had used effectively,
but he declined them, signifying by signs that his bow and arrow would
answer the purpose better than the pistols, and we soon discovered
that he was a skillful buffalo hunter. The moment the horse was on the
river bank he mounted him, bareback, without any trappings whatever
save a short piece of rope tied around the horse’s neck. We stood on
the hurricane deck looking on, and it immediately became apparent to
us that the Indian well understood the business at hand, needing no
instructions whatever from us. The horse at once showed speed and
activity, the Indian, expertness in riding him, swaying and guiding him
without even using the rope, galloping off, not towards the buffalo,
but down the river bank, to a point where he had the wind of the game,
then turning towards them, he got right up on them almost before they
started. In a moment he was abreast of one of them and sent an arrow
into its side half its length. Then the horse, it seemed, of his own
will fell back to the rear, then sprang forward on the opposite side
when a second arrow was shot into the buffalo deep enough to produce
inward bleeding. The animal being mortally wounded ran only a half-mile
when tumbled down to die. We had an unobstructed view of the whole
proceeding from the hurricane deck of the boat. A striking performance,
demonstrating the prowess of the Indian. The buffalo was butchered and
brought on board, furnishing fresh meat for several days.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation
marks were remedied when the change was obvious, and otherwise left
unbalanced.
Illustrations in this eBook have been positioned between paragraphs
and outside quotations. In versions of this eBook that support
hyperlinks, the page references in the List of Illustrations lead to
the corresponding illustrations.
Transcriber added the Table of Contents and the List of Illustrations.
Page numbers in the List of Illustrations match the positions in this
eBook, not the ones in the original book.