With fresh animals, and men well fed and rested, McCoy and Carson and
all their party soon started from Fort Hall, for the rendezvous again
upon Green River, where they were detained some weeks for the arrival of
other parties, enjoying as they best might the occasion, and preparing
for future operations.
A party of an hundred was here organized, with Mr. Fontenelle and Carson
for its leaders, to trap upon the Yellowstone, and the head waters of
the Missouri. It was known that they would probably meet the Blackfeet
in whose grounds they were going, and it was therefore arranged, that,
while fifty were to trap and furnish the food for the party, the
remainder should be assigned to guard the camp and cook. There was no
disinclination on the part of any to another meeting with the Blackfeet,
so often had they troubled members of the party, especially Carson, who,
while he could be magnanimous towards an enemy, would not turn aside
from his course, if able to cope with him; and now he was in a company
which justly felt itself strong enough to punish the "thieving
Blackfeet," as they spoke of them, he was anxious to pay off some old
scores.
They saw nothing, however, of these Indians; but afterwards learned that
the small-pox had raged terribly among them, and that they had kept
themselves retired in mountain valleys, oppressed with fear and severe
disease.
The winter's encampment was made in this region, and a party of Crow
Indians which was with them, camped at a little distance, on the same
stream. Here they had secured an abundance of meat, and passed the
severe weather with a variety of amusements in which the Indians joined
them in their lodges, made of buffalo hides. These lodges, very good
substitutes for houses, are made in the form of a cone, spread by the
means of poles spreading from a common centre, where there was a hole at
the top for the passage of the smoke. These were often twenty feet in
height, and as many feet in diameter, where they were pinned to the
ground with stakes. In a large village the Indians often had one lodge
large enough to hold fifty persons, and within were performed their war
dances around a fire made in the centre. During the palmy days of the
British Fur Company, in a lodge like this only made, instead, of
birch-bark, Irving says the Indians of the north held their "primitive
fairs," outside the city of Montreal, where they disposed of their furs.
There was one drawback upon conviviality for this party, in the extreme
difficulty of getting food for their animals; for the food and fuel so
abundant for themselves did not suffice for their horses. Snow covered
the ground, and the trappers were obliged to gather willow twigs, and
strip the bark from cottonwood trees, in order to keep them alive. The
inner bark of the cottonwood is eaten by the Indians when reduced to
extreme want. Beside, the cold brought the buffalo down upon them in
large herds, to share the nourishment they had provided for their
horses.
Spring at length opened, and gladly they again commenced trapping; first
on the Yellowstone, and soon on the head waters of the Missouri, where
they learned that the Blackfeet were recovered from the sickness of last
year, which had not been so severe as it was reported, and that they
were still anxious and in condition for a fight, and were encamped not
far from their present trapping grounds.
Carson and five men went forward in advance "to reconnoitre," and found
the village preparing to remove, having learned of the presence of the
trappers. Hurrying back, a party of forty-three was selected from the
whole, and they unanimously selected Carson to lead them, and leaving
the rest to move on with the baggage, and aid them if it should be
necessary when they should come up with the Indians, they hastened
forward, eager for a battle.
Carson and his command were not long in overtaking the Indians, and
dashing among them, at the first fire killed ten of their braves, but
the Indians rallied, and retreated in good order. The white men were in
fine spirits, and followed up their first attack with deadly result for
three full hours, the Indians making scarce any resistance. Now their
firing became less animated as their ammunition was getting low, and
they had to use it with extreme caution. The Indians, suspecting this
from the slackness of their fire, rallied, and with a tremendous whoop
turned upon their enemies.
Now Carson and his company could use their small arms, which produced a
terrible effect, and which enabled them again to drive back the
Indians. They rallied yet again, and charged with so much power, and in
such numbers, they forced the trappers to retreat.
During this engagement, the horse of one of the mountaineers was killed,
and fell with his whole weight upon his rider. Carson saw the condition
of the man, with six warriors rushing to take his scalp, and reached the
spot in time to save his friend. Leaping from the saddle, he placed
himself before his fallen companion, shouting at the same time for his
men to rally around him, and with deadly aim from his rifle, shot down
the foremost warrior.
The trappers now rallied about Carson, and the remaining five warriors
retired, without the scalp of their fallen foe. Only two of them reached
a place of safety; for the well aimed fire of the trappers leveled them
with the earth.
Carson's horse was loose, and as his comrade was safe, he mounted behind
one of his men, and rode back to the ranks, while, by general impulse,
the firing upon both sides ceased. His horse was captured and restored
to him, but each party, now thoroughly exhausted, seemed to wait for the
other to renew the attack.
While resting in this attitude, the other division of the trappers came
in sight, but the Indians, showing no fear, posted themselves among the
rocks at some distance from the scene of the last skirmish, and coolly
waited for their adversaries. Exhausted ammunition had been the cause of
the retreat of Carson and his force, but now with a renewed supply, and
an addition of fresh men to the force, they advanced on foot to drive
the Indians from their hiding places. The contest was desperate and
severe, but powder and ball eventually conquered, and the Indians, once
dislodged, scattered in every direction. The trappers considered this a
complete victory over the Blackfeet, for a large number of their
warriors were killed, and many more were wounded, while they had but
three men killed, and a few severely wounded.
Fontenelle and his party now camped at the scene of the engagement, to
recruit their men, and bury here their dead. Afterward they trapped
through the whole Blackfeet country, and with great success; going where
they pleased without fear or molestation. The Indians kept off their
_route_, evidently having acquaintance with Carson and his company
enough to last them their life time. With the small-pox and the white
man's rifles the warriors were much reduced, and the tribe which had
formerly numbered thirty thousand, was already decimated, and a few more
blows, like the one dealt by this dauntless band, would suffice to break
its spirit, and destroy its power for future evil.
During the battle with the trappers, the women and children of the
Blackfeet village were sent on in advance, and when the engagement was
over, and the braves returned to them so much reduced in numbers, and
without a single scalp, the big lodge that had been erected for the war
dance, was given up for the wounded, and in hundreds of Indian hearts
grew a bitterer hatred for the white man.
An express, despatched for the purpose, announced the place of the
rendezvous to Fontenelle and Carson, who were now on Green River, and
with their whole party and a large stock of furs, they at once set out
for the place upon Mud River, to find the sales commenced before their
arrival, so that in twenty days they were ready to break up camp.
Carson now organized a party of seven, and proceeded to a trading post
called Brown's Hole, where he joined a company of traders to go to the
Navajoe Indians. He found this tribe more assimilated to the white man
than any Indians he had yet seen, having many fine horses and large
flocks of sheep and cattle. They also possessed the art of weaving, and
their blankets were in great demand through Mexico, bringing high
prices, on account of their great beauty, being woven in flowers with
much taste. They were evidently a remnant of the Aztec race.
They traded here for a large drove of fine mules, which, taken to the
fort on the South Platte, realized good prices, when Carson went again
to Brown's Hole, a narrow but pretty valley about sixteen miles long,
upon the Colorado River.
After many offers for his services from other parties, Carson at length
engaged himself for the winter, to hunt for the men at this fort, and as
the game was abundant in this beautiful valley, and in the cañon country
further down the Colorado, in its deer, elk, and antelope, reminding him
of his hunts upon the Sacramento, the task was a delightful one to him.
In the spring, Carson trapped with Bridger and Owen's with passable
success, and went to the rendezvous upon Wind River, at the head of the
Yellowstone, and from thence, with a large part of the trappers at the
rendezvous, to the Yellowstone, where they camped in the vicinity for
the winter, without seeing their old enemy, the Blackfeet Indians, until
mid-winter, when they discovered that they were near their principal
stronghold.
A party of forty was selected to give them battle, with Carson, of
course, for their captain. They found the Indians already in the field,
to the number of several hundred, who made a brave resistance, until
night and darkness admonished both parties to retire. In the morning
when Carson and his men went to the spot whither the Indians had
retired, they were not to be found. They had given them a "wide berth,"
taking their all away with them, even their dead.
Carson and his command returned to camp, where a council of war decided
that as the Indians would report, at the principal encampment, the
terrible loss they had sustained, and others would be sent to renew the
fight, it was wise to prepare to act on the defensive, and use every
precaution immediately; and accordingly a sentinel was stationed on a
lofty hill near by, who soon reported that the Indians were upon the
move.
Their plans matured, they at once threw up a breastwork, under Carson's
direction, and waited the approach of the Indians, who came in slowly,
the first parties waiting for those behind. After three days, a full
thousand had reached the camp, about half a mile from the breastwork of
the trappers. In their war paint--stripes of red across the forehead,
and down either cheek--with their bows and arrows, tomahawks, and
lances, this army of Indians presented a formidable appearance to the
small body of trappers who were opposed to them.
The war dance was enacted in sight and hearing of the trappers, and at
early dawn the Indians advanced, having made every preparation for the
attack. Carson commanded his men to reserve their fire till the Indians
were near enough to have every shot tell; but seeing the strength of the
white men's position, after a few ineffectual shots, the Indians
retired, camped a mile from them, and finally separated into two
parties, and went away, leaving the trappers to breathe more freely,
for, at the best, the encounter must have been of a desperate character.
They evidently recognized the leader who had before dealt so severely
with them, in the skill with which the defence was arranged, and if the
name of Kit Carson was on their lips, they knew him for both bravery
and magnanimity, and had not the courage to offer him battle.
Another winter gone, saddlery, moccasin-making, lodge-building, to
complete the repairs of the summer's wars and the winter's fight, all
completed, Carson with fifteen men went, past Fort Hall, again to the
Salmon River, and trapped part of the season there and upon Big Snake,
and Goose Creeks, and selling his furs at Fort Hall, again joined
Bridger in another trapping excursion into the Blackfeet country.
The Blackfeet had molested the traps of another party who had arrived
there before them, and had driven them away. The Indian assailants were
still near, and Carson led his party against them, taking care to
station himself and men in the edge of a thicket, where they kept the
savages at bay all day, taking a man from their number with nearly every
shot of their well directed rifles. In vain the Indians now attempted to
fire the thicket; it would not burn, and sullenly they retired, forced
again to acknowledge defeat at the hands of Kit Carson, the "Monarch of
the Prairies."
Carson's party now joined with the others, but concluding that they
could not trap successfully with the annoyance the Indians were likely
to give them, as their force was too small to hope to conquer, they left
this part of the country for the north fork of the Missouri.
Now they were with the friendly Flatheads, one of whose chiefs joined
them in the hunt, and went into camp near them, with a party of his
braves. This tribe of Indians, like several other tribes which extend
along this latitude to the Pacific, have the custom which gives them
their name, thus described by Irving, in speaking of the Indians upon
the Lower Columbia, about its mouth.
"A most singular custom," he says, "prevails, not only among the
Chinooks, but among most of the tribes about this part of the coast,
which is the flattening of the forehead. The process by which this
deformity is effected, commences immediately after birth. The infant is
laid in a wooden trough, by way of cradle. The end on which the head
reposes is higher than the rest. A padding is placed on the forehead of
the infant, with a piece of bark above it, and is pressed down by cords
which pass through holes upon the sides of the trough. As the tightening
of the padding and the pressure of the head to the board is gradual,
the process is said not to be attended with pain. The appearance of the
infant, however, while in this state of compression is whimsically
hideous, and 'its little black eyes,' we are told, 'being forced out by
the tightness of the bandages, resemble those of a mouse choked in a
trap.'
"About a year's pressure is sufficient to produce the desired effect, at
the end of which time, the child emerges from its bandages, a complete
flathead, and continues so through life. It must be noted, however, that
this flattening of the head has something in it of aristocratic
significance, like the crippling of the feet among the Chinese ladies of
quality. At any rate, it is the sign of freedom. No slave is permitted
to bestow this deformity upon the head of his children; all the slaves,
therefore, are roundheads."