THE PIONEER WEST
[Illustration: Dr. Steele, president of the gulch, acted as judge.
FRONTISPIECE. _See page 234._]
THE PIONEER WEST
_NARRATIVES OF THE WESTWARD
MARCH OF EMPIRE_
SELECTED AND EDITED BY
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH
WITH A FOREWORD BY
HAMLIN GARLAND
ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR BY
REMINGTON SCHUYLER
[Illustration]
BOSTON
LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY
1924
_Copyright, 1923_,
BY LITTLE, BROWN, AND COMPANY.
_All rights reserved_
Published October, 1923
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Westward the course of empire takes its way;
The four first acts already past,
A fifth shall close the drama with the day:
Time’s noblest offspring is the last.
BISHOP BERKELEY.
VITAL PAGES IN AMERICAN HISTORY
The history of America is the story of trail-makers, pioneers in every
sense of the word. Our forefathers had trails to make in new fields
of government, of invention and in city building, but before all,
smoothing the way for all, came the men and women who explored and
ploughed and planted the wilderness. Their story will grow in interest
as the years pass. Their deeds have already taken on something of the
dim quality of heroic myths. They form the most distinctive of our
contributions to history and poetry.
Many of the most stark and stirring of these chronicles of the
border have passed out of print and are now inaccessible even to the
painstaking student. It is from among these almost forgotten, yet
vital records that Mr. French has selected the chapters of his book of
narratives of the PIONEER WEST. I am personally grateful to him for
rescuing for me several of these chronicles of which I had heard but
which I had not been able to read until they came to me in this volume.
I perceive in this collection another link in the lengthening chain
of our traditional story. The Great War has thrown the events of our
early settlement suddenly into remote distance. It is as if an extra
half-century had been abruptly interposed, and this added perspective
has given us a new and keener interest in the beginnings of our nation.
No one who has spent a recent summer in Europe can fail to perceive
the change of sentiment which has come, since the war, to the peoples
of the Old World. To them America is admittedly the dominating
economic force of to-day. No well-informed European writer or speaker
now pretends to patronize the United States as a young and unformed
colony. The foundation stages of American history have acquired new
value in the minds of many English and French readers, and such
students this book which Mr. French has built up of scattered and
neglected chronicles will stimulate to wider research. I commend it
to all Americans who have neither time nor opportunity to read in
their entirety the volumes from which these notable and representative
chapters have been lifted. Broadly chronological in arrangement, they
suggest a panorama of the rigorous Westward march of the hunters,
woodsmen, planters and gold-miners who were chief actors of the century
which ended with the outbreak of the Spanish War in 1898.
With regard to the inclusion of a section from one of my own books I
can only say that when approached for a grant of copyright I suggested
something to offset the many chapters of life in the mining camps and
on the trail, something which should tell of the homely methods of
settling the plains. Beyond this suggestion, I did not care to go.
The excerpt which the editor has used is a leaf out of my personal
experiences in Brown and MacPherson counties in Dakota, in the spring
of 1883, and is a faithful picture of the life we led while holding
down our homestead claims.
HAMLIN GARLAND.
PREFACE
Oh, that glorious West! The magic and the memory of it! How it thrilled
us in our boyhood, how it held us in our youth, how the dream of it
filled our young pulsing manhood, till there was none other! “O, to
be in England now that April’s there!” once sang Browning, but the
song in the heart of young America, forty years ago and more, was the
great glorious, boundless West! I crossed the bare Kansas and Colorado
plains in the month of March, 1880,--when the Great West was still a
vision, yet largely a dream; when scarce small clumps of buffalo could
still be seen from the car windows. I shook hands at the bar of the St.
James Hotel in Denver with Buffalo Bill and Texas Jack in full buckskin
regalia,--still to be seen and known in their habit as they lived.
Yet it was the dawning of a new day for the West and all men knew it.
The old order passeth, and so it was here; a new West was coming in,
and the great pioneer heroes of an earlier day shook hands with the
derby-hatted tenderfoot from the East and tilted glasses in friendly
companionship. But the old West--the great, the never-to-be-forgotten
epic of our newer civilization--still lingered; and happy, yes, a hero
of sorts was he of the East who still sniffed the footprints. Railroads
were still largely a dream; the Union Pacific had cut the boundless
wastes of the great desert and made travel to California an actuality;
but a second great transcontinental iron path was still largely a
possibility. The footprints of the pioneers were everywhere; echoes of
the pathfinder were yet in the air; gold and silver were being found
every day in the wilderness of the Rockies; new camps--reachable only
by the primitive stagecoach, whose final departure in an older realm
had been magniloquently signed over by old Sir Walter--were springing
up overnight; Leadville had a population of thirty thousand and not a
score of streets named; Buena Vista, at eleven thousand feet above sea
level, was a dream of the gods! Away to the South were Silver Cliff and
Rosita, with their hitherto uncombed rocks pouring out fortunes. Ouray
was an acknowledged bonanza; and into the Gunnison country poured a
steady stream of prairie-wagons over mountain trails that the Indian
himself did not know. The plains held unlimited resources in the golden
imagination of the pioneer! Was there ever such a dream as his--of
sheep and cattle by the thousands--such flocks as Abraham never dreamed
of; and away to the South, boundless, unconceived-of possibilities,
an absolute Eldorado! Such was the great, the Golden West--to make no
concrete mention of California--when the compiler of these pages first
felt the urge and the surge toward it. Horace Greeley’s pæan was in the
air: “Go West, young man.” And most of us did; and whether fortune or
its reverse came, there is not a man of us in whom the red blood flows
still that can ever forget that splendid scene. If to the survivor, as
to the more or less belated traveler, some echo of it lives in these
pages, he has done his work faithfully.
This, then, is an outdoor book. The breath of the prairie, the
mountain, the desert, the lake, the sea blows through its pages. It
describes for the most part an outdoor life,--a life that in its main
aspects and features is the most stirring and eventful chapter in the
history of any new civilization. All the elements of romance were
crowded into the making of our great West; not a single one is lacking.
It was the last great scene in the history of world-pioneering, and
contains episodes, like the discovery of gold in California, that are
epic. The tale in its infinite variety has been told by many writers;
some of whom have passed into oblivion, but have left us living
pages; others of them belong to our best literary tradition; a few
are among our immortals. It is impossible in a volume of this size to
give more than a vivid glance at the scope and importance of this vast
literature. The compiler has endeavored to convey an impression of
the general scene inspired by the men who were themselves its living
actors. “All of which I saw, and part of which I was” has been his
motto in gathering his material. He has therefore some hope that he has
presented, at least in degree, a living picture of a great drama, now
vanished forever, and which undoubtedly can never be paralleled in the
annals of world civilization.
JOSEPH LEWIS FRENCH
CONTENTS
PAGE
VITAL PAGES IN AMERICAN HISTORY vii
PREFACE ix
THE UNBROKEN WILD (1804) 1
From Lewis and Clark’s Journals
JIM BECKWOURTH’S NARRATIVE (1824) 15
From “Autobiography of James P. Beckwourth”
THE PATHFINDER: IN THE HIGH ROCKIES (1842), _By John C. Frémont_ 37
From Frémont’s Journal of the First Expedition
THE WILDERNESS HUNTER (1845), _By J. B. Ruxton_ 56
From “Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains”
AT FORT LARAMIE (1846), _By Francis Parkman_ 72
From “The Oregon Trail”
GOLD! GOLD! SUTTER’S FORT (1848-1849), _By Charles Pettigrew_ 86
From the _Caledonian_
A FRONTIER DUEL (1848), _By Emerson Hough_ 115
From “The Covered Wagon”
EL DORADO, _By Bayard Taylor_ 124
From “Eldorado”
FRÉMONT’S GREAT RIDE (1849), _By Frederick S. Dellenbaugh_ 158
From “Frémont and ’49”
THE LUCK OF ROARING CAMP, _By Bret Harte_ 161
From “The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Sketches”
THE CITY OF THE SAINTS, _By Sir Richard Burton_ 174
From “The City of the Saints and Across the Rocky
Mountains to California”
ON THE COMSTOCK (1860), _By J. Ross Browne_ 202
From “A Peep at Washoe” and “Washoe Revisited”
ALDER GULCH (1863), _By Nathaniel P. Langford_ 231
From “Vigilante Days and Ways”
CHEYENNES AND SIOUX (1867), _By General George A. Custer_ 245
From “My Life on the Plains”
THE PONY EXPRESS, _By Mark Twain_ 268
From “Roughing It”
SLADE, _By Mark Twain_ 270
From “Roughing It”
GENERAL SHERIDAN HUNTS THE BUFFALO, _By De B. R. Keim_ 284
From “On the Border with Sheridan’s Troopers”
AT TUCSON (1870), _By Capt. John G. Bourke_ 296
From “On the Border with Cook”
TOLD AT TRINIDAD (1879), _By A. A. Hayes, Jr._ 310
From “New Colorado and the Santa Fé Trail”
SPECIMEN JONES, _By Owen Wister_ 319
From “Red Men and White”
THE LAND OF THE STRADDLE-BUG--DAKOTA (1883), _By Hamlin Garland_ 343
From “The Moccasin Ranch”
OLD EPHRAIM THE GRIZZLY, _By Theodore Roosevelt_ 357
From “Hunting-Trips of a Ranchman”
THE VANISHED SCENE, _By Hal G. Evarts_ 378
From “The Passing of the Old West”
ILLUSTRATIONS
DR. STEELE, PRESIDENT OF THE GULCH, ACTED AS JUDGE _Frontispiece_
ONCE MORE THE TRAIN FACED THE DESERT PAGE 115
MAN AND HORSE BURST PAST OUR EXCITED FACES, AND GO
WINGING AWAY LIKE A BELATED FRAGMENT OF A STORM! “ 270
THE MILK-CANS CLASHED, AND JONES THOUGHT HE FELT
THE BOY’S STROKES WEAKENING “ 339
THE PIONEER WEST
THE UNBROKEN WILD
LEWIS AND CLARK
1804
Reprinted from Lewis and Clark’s Journals. July 22, 1804.
Our camp is by observation in latitude 41° 3′ 11″.[1] Immediately
behind it is a plain about five miles wide, one half covered with
wood, the other dry and elevated. The low grounds on the south near
the junction of the two rivers are rich but subject to be overflowed.
Farther up the banks are higher and opposite our camp the first hills
approach the river, and are covered with timber such as oak, walnut
and elm. The immediate country is watered by the Papillon (Butterfly)
Creek, of about 18 yards wide and three miles from the Platte; on the
north are high open plains and prairies and at nine miles from the
Platte the Moscheto Creek and two or three small willow islands. We
stayed here several days during which we dried our provisions, made
new oars, and prepared our despatches and maps of the country we
passed for the President of the United States to whom we intend to
send them by a pirogue from this place. The hunters have found game
scarce in this neighborhood; they have seen deer, turkeys and grouse;
we have also an abundance of ripe grapes, and one of our men caught a
white catfish, the eyes of which were small and its tail resembling
that of a dolphin. The present season is that in which the Indians go
out into the prairies to hunt the buffalo; but as we discovered some
hunters’ tracks, and observed the plains on fire in the direction of
their villages, we hoped that they might have returned to gather the
green Indian corn, and therefore despatched two men to the Pawnee
villages with a present of tobacco and an invitation to the chief to
visit us. They returned in two days. Their first course was through an
open prairie to the south. They then reached a small beautiful river
called the Elkhorn or Corne de Ceri. (These natural features have brush
names in some instances.) About 100 yards wide with clear water and a
gravelly channel. It empties a little below the Pawnee village into the
Platte which they crossed and came to the village, about forty-five
miles from our camp. They found no Indians though there were fresh
tracks of a small party. The Ottoes were once a powerful nation and
live about 20 miles above the Platte on the south bank of the Missouri.
Being reduced they migrated to the neighborhood of the Pawnees under
whose protection they now live. Their village is on the south side
of the Platte about 30 miles from its mouth; and their number is 200
including about 30 families of Missouri Indians who are incorporated
with them.
Five leagues above them on the same side of the river, resides the
nation of Pawnees. This people were among the most numerous of the
Missouri Indians, but have been gradually broken and dispersed and even
within the past ten years have undergone some sensible changes. They
now consist of four bands; the first of about 500 men, to whom of late
years have been added a second band called the Republican Pawnees from
their having lived on the Republican branch of the River Kanzas--they
amount to nearly 250 men. The third are the Pawnees Loups or Wolf
Pawnees, who live on the Wolf fork of the Platte, about 90 miles from
the principal village and number 280 men. The fourth band originally
resided on the Kanzas and Arkansaw but in their wars with the Osages
they were so often defeated that they at last retired to their present
home on the Red River where they form a tribe of 400 men. All these
tribes live in villages and subsist chiefly on corn; but during the
intervals of farming rove the plains in quest of buffalo.
Beyond them on the river and westward of the Black Mountains are the
Kaninaviesch consisting of about 400 men. They are supposed to have
been originally Pawnees--but they have degenerated and now no longer
live in villages but rove the plains. Still farther to the westward
are several tribes who wander and hunt to the sources of the River
Platte and thence to Rock Mountain. Of these tribes little is known
more than the names and the numbers, as first the Straitan or Kite
Indians, a small tribe of one hundred men. They have acquired the name
of Kites from their flying; that is their being always on horseback;
and the smallness of their numbers is to be attributed to their extreme
ferocity; they are the most warlike of all the western Indians;
they never yield in battle; they never spare their enemies; and the
retaliation of this barbarity has almost extinguished the nation. Then
come the Wetapahato and Kiowa tribes associated together and amounting
to two hundred men; the Castahana of three hundred men, to which are to
be added the Cataka, seventy-five men, and the Dotami. These wandering
tribes are conjectured to be the remnants of the great Padouca nation
who occupied the country between the upper parts of the River Platte
and the River Kanzas. They were visited by Bourgemont in 1724, and
then lived on the Kanzas River. The Seats which he described as their
residences are now occupied by the Kanzas nation; and of the Padoucas
there does not now exist even the name.
It being vital to the success of further progress to hold council
with the Indians messengers were sent with presents and a few days
afterwards: in the afternoon the party arrived with the Indians
consisting of Little Thief and Big Horse, together with six other
chiefs and a French interpreter. We met them under a shade and after
they had finished a repast we supplied them we inquired into the origin
of the late war between their tribe and the Mahas, which they related
with great frankness. * * * The evening was closed by a dance; and the
next day the chiefs and warriors being assembled at ten o’clock we
explained the speech we had already sent from the Council Bluffs[2] and
renewed its advices. They all replied in turn and the presents were
then distributed. We gave large medals to Big Horse and Little Thief,
and a small medal to a third chief. We also gave a kind of certificate
or letter of acknowledgment to five of the warriors expressive of our
favor and their good intentions. One of them dissatisfied returned us
the certificate, but the chief fearful of our being offended begged it
might be restored to him; this we declined and rebuked them severely
for having in view mere traffic instead of peace with their neighbors.
This displeased them at first, but at length all petitioned that it
should be given to the warrior who came forward and made an apology.
We then handed it to the chief to be given to the most worthy among
them and he bestowed it on the same warrior whose name was Great Blue
Eyes. After a more substantial present of small articles and tobacco
the council was ended with a dram to the Indians. In the evening
we exhibited different objects of curiosity and particularly the
air-gun which gave them great surprise. Those people are almost naked,
having no covering except a sort of breech cloth around the middle
with a loose blanket or buffalo-robe painted, thrown over them. This
delegation was from the Missouris and Ottoes who speak very nearly the
same language. They all begged us to give them whiskey.
The next morning the Indians mounted their horses and received from us
a canister of whiskey at parting. We then set sail and after passing
two islands on the north came to one on that side under some bluffs.
Here we had the misfortune to lose one of our sergeants Charles
Floyd.[3] He was yesterday seized with a bilious colic, and all our
care and attention could not save him. A little before his death he
said to Captain Clark “I am going to leave you”; and he died with
a composure which justified the high opinion we had formed of his
firmness and good conduct. He was buried on the top of a bluff with the
honors due to a brave soldier, and the place of his interment marked
by a cedar post on which we put his name and the date of his death. We
named this place after him and also a small river about a mile to the
north where we encamped.
We shortly after passed the mouth of the great Sioux River--this river
comes in from the north and is about one hundred and ten yards wide.
M. Durion our Sioux interpreter says that it is navigable upwards of
two hundred miles to the falls and even beyond them. That below the
falls a creek falls in from the Eastward after passing through cliffs
of red rock. Of this the Indians make their pipes: and the necessity of
procuring them has introduced a sort of law of nations, by which the
banks of the creek are sacred, so that even tribes at war meet at these
quarries without hostility. Thus we find even among savages certain
things held sacred which mitigate the rigours of their merciless
warfare.
A few days following we had a violent storm of wind and rain in the
evening and had to repair our pirogues the next day. At four o’clock
Sergeant Pryor and his men came back with five chiefs of the Sioux
and about seventy warriors and boys. Sergeant Pryor reported that on
reaching their village twelve miles from our camp he was met by a party
with a buffalo-robe on which they desired to carry their visitors: an
honour which they declined informing the Indians that they were not the
commanders of the party. As a mark of respect they were then presented
with a fat dog, already cooked of which they partook heartily and found
it well flavored. The camps of the Sioux are of a conical form covered
with buffalo-robes painted with various figures and colours, with an
aperture in the top for the smoke to pass through. The lodges contain
from ten to fifteen persons and the interior arrangement is compact and
handsome, each lodge having a place for cooking detached from it. The
next day we prepared a speech and some presents and then sent for the
chiefs and warriors whom we received under a large oak-tree near to
which the flag of the United States was flying. Captain Lewis delivered
the speech and we gave to the grand chief a flag, a medal, and a
certificate, to which we added a chief’s coat; that is a richly-laced
uniform of the United States Artillery Corps, and a cocked hat and
red feather. A second chief and three inferior ones were given medals
and a present of tobacco and articles of clothing. We then smoked the
pipe of peace, and the chiefs retired to a bower formed of bushes by
their young men, where they divided the presents among each other and
ate and smoked and held a council on their answer to us to-morrow. The
young people exercised their bows and arrows in shooting at marks for
beads as prizes; and in the evening the whole party danced until a late
hour. In the course of their amusement we threw among them some knives,
tobacco, bells, tape and binding with which they were much pleased.
Their musical instruments were the drum, and a sort of little bag made
of buffalo-hide dressed white with small shot or pebbles in it and a
bunch of hair tied to it for a handle. This produces a sort of rattling
music with which the party was annoyed by four musicians during the
council this morning.
* * * * *
These Indians are the Yanktons a tribe of the great nation of the
Sioux. They are stout and well proportioned and have a certain air of
dignity and boldness. They are very fond of decorations and use paint
freely and porcupine quills and feathers. Some of them wear necklaces
of brass chains three inches long and close strung. They have only a
few fowling-pieces among them. What struck us most was an institution
peculiar to them and to the Kite Indians--from whom it is copied we
were told. This is an association of the bravest and most active
young men who are bound to each other by attachment and secured by a
vow never to retreat before danger or give way to their enemies. In
war they go forward openly and without any effort at shelter. This
determination became heroic--or ridiculous--a short time since when
these young Yanktons were crossing the Missouri on the ice. A hole lay
immediately in their course but the leader went straight ahead and was
drowned. Others would have followed but were forcibly stopped by the
rest of them. These young men sit and encamp and dance apart from the
rest; their seats in council are superior to those even of the chiefs
and their persons more respected. But their boldness diminishes their
numbers; so that the band is now reduced to four warriors who were
among our visitors.
* * * * *
Early in the morning of September 16th having reached a convenient
spot on the south side of the river, we encamped just above a small
creek which we called Corvus having killed an animal of that genus near
it. Our camp is in a beautiful plain with timber thinly scattered
for three-quarters of a mile, consisting chiefly of elm, cottonwood,
some ash of an indifferent quality, and a considerable quantity of a
small species of white oak. This tree seldom rises higher than thirty
feet and branches very much,--the bark is rough, thick and of a light
colour; the leaves small, deeply indented, and of a pale green; the
cup which contains the acorn is fringed on the edges; the acorn itself
which grows in great profusion is of an excellent flavor and has none
of the roughness which most other acorns possess: they are now falling
and have probably attracted the number of deer which we have seen at
this place. The ground having been recently burned by the Indians is
covered with young green grass and in the neighbourhood are great
quantities of fine plums. We killed a few deer for the sake of their
skins which we wanted to cover the pirogues, the meat being too poor
for food. About a quarter of a mile behind our camp, at an elevation
of twenty feet a plain extends parallel with the river for three
miles. Here we saw a grove of plum trees loaded with fruit, now ripe
and differing in nothing from those of the Atlantic States except that
the tree is smaller and more thickly set. The ground of the plain is
occupied by the burrows of multitudes of barking squirrels, who entice
hither the wolves of a small kind, hawks and polecats. This plain
is intersected nearly in its whole extent by deep ravines and steep
irregular rising grounds of from one to two hundred feet. On ascending
one of these we saw a second high level plain stretching to the south
as far as the eye could reach. To the westward a high range of hills
about twenty miles distant. All around the country had been recently
burned and a young green grass about four inches high covered the
ground which was enlivened by herds of antelopes and buffalo; the last
of which were in such multitudes that we cannot exaggerate in saying
that at a single glance we saw three thousand of them before us. Of
all the animals we had seen the antelope seems to possess the most
wonderful fleetness. Shy and timorous they generally repose only on the
ridges which command a view of all the approaches of an enemy;--the
acuteness of their sight distinguishes the most distant danger: the
delicate sensibility of their smell defeats concealment; and when
alarmed their rapid career seems more like the flight of birds than
the movements of a quadruped. After many unsuccessful attempts Captain
Lewis at last by winding around the ridges approached a party of seven
which were on an eminence towards which the wind was unfortunately
blowing. The only male of the party frequently encircled the summit of
the hill as if to announce any danger to the females which formed a
group at the top. Although they did not see Captain Lewis, the smell
alarmed them and they fled when he was still at the distance of two
hundred yards: he immediately ran to the spot where they had been; a
ravine concealed him from them; but the next moment they appeared on
a second ridge at a distance of three miles. He doubted whether they
could be the same; but the number and the extreme rapidity with which
they continued their course convinced him.
The following day we reached an island in the middle of the river
nearly a mile in length and crossed with red cedar: at its extremity a
small creek comes in from the north: we there met with some sand-bars
and the wind being very high and ahead, we encamped having made only
seven miles. In addition to the common deer which were in great
abundance we saw goats, elk, buffalo, and the black-tailed deer; the
large wolves too are very numerous, and have long hair with coarse fur
of a light color. A small species of wolf about the size of a gray fox
was also killed and proved to be the animal we had hitherto mistaken
for a fox. There were also many porcupines, rabbits and barking
squirrels in the neighbourhood.
In the morning we observed a man riding on horseback down towards
the boat and we were much pleased to find that it was George Shannon,
one of our party for whose safety we had been very uneasy. Our two
horses having strayed from us on the 26th August he was sent to search
for them. After he had found them he started to rejoin us, but seeing
some other tracks which must have been those of Indians, and which he
mistook for our own, he concluded that we were ahead, and had been
for sixteen days following the bank of the river above us. During the
first four days he exhausted his bullets, being obliged to subsist for
twelve days on a few grapes, and a rabbit which he had killed by making
use of a hard piece of stick for a ball. One of his horses gave out
and was left behind; the other he kept as a last resource for food.
Despairing of overtaking us, he was returning down the river in the
hope of meeting some boat with Indians, and was on the point of killing
his horse when he discovered us. September 25. The morning was fine and
the wind continued from the southeast. We raised a flagstaff and an
awning under which we assembled at twelve o’clock with all our party[4]
parading under arms. The chiefs and warriors from the camp two miles
up the river met us, to the number of fifty or sixty and after smoking
we delivered them a speech, and gave the chiefs presents. We then
invited them on board, and showed them the boat, the air-gun and such
curiosities as we thought might amuse them. In this we succeeded too
well for after giving them a quarter of a glass of whiskey, which they
seemed to like very much, and sucked the bottle it was with difficulty
we got rid of them. Captain Clark at last started for the shore with
them in a pirogue with five of our own men; but it seems they had
formed a design to stop us. No sooner had the party landed than three
of the Indians seized the boat’s cable, and one of the soldiers of the
chief put his arms around the mast--in token of possession. The second
chief then said that we should not go on; that they had not received
enough presents. Captain Clark told him that we were not squaws but
warriors--that we could not be stopped from going on; that we were sent
by our Great Father who could in a moment exterminate them. The chief
replied he too had warriors and started to attack Captain Clark who
immediately drew his sword, and signaled the men in the main boat to
prepare for action.
The Indians surrounding him drew arrows and were just bending their
bows when the swivel gun[5] was instantly trained on them--and twelve
of our best men who had at once rowed over jumped ashore to help
Captain Clark.
Those movements took them aback--the great chief ordered the young men
away from our pirogue and they withdrew for council. Captain Clark went
forward and offered his hand to the first and second chiefs but was
refused. He retired and boarded the pirogue but had not got more than
ten paces when both the chiefs and two of the warriors waded in after
the boat and were taken on board.
September 26. Our conduct yesterday seemed to have inspired the Indians
with fear of us, and as we wanted to be well with them we complied with
their wish that their squaws and children also should see us and our
boat--which would be a great curiosity to them.
We finally anchored on the south side of the river where a crowd of
them were waiting for us. Captain Lewis went on shore and remained
several hours: and finding their disposition friendly this time,
we resolved to remain during the night to a dance which they were
preparing for us. Captains Lewis and Clark who went on shore one
after the other were met on landing by ten well-dressed young men who
took them up in a robe highly decorated, and carried them to a large
council-house, where they were placed on a dressed buffalo-skin by
the side of the grand chief. The hall or council-room was in the shape
of three-quarters of a circle, covered at the top and sides with skins
well-dressed and sewed together. Under this shelter sat about seventy
men forming a circle round the chief, before whom were placed a Spanish
flag and the one we had given them yesterday. This left a vacant circle
of about six feet diameter, in which the pipe of peace was raised on
two forked sticks, about six or eight inches from the ground, and
under it the down of the swan was scattered; a large fire in which
they were cooking provisions burned near, and in the centre about four
hundred pounds of excellent buffalo-meat as a present for us. As soon
as we were seated an old man got up and after approving what we had
done in our own defense, begged us to take pity on their unfortunate
situation. The great chief rose after and made an harangue to the same
effect; then with great solemnity he took some of the most delicate
parts of the dog which was cooked for the festival and held it to the
flag by way of sacrifice. This done he held up the pipe of peace, and
first pointing it to the heavens, then to the four quarters of the
globe and then to the earth, he made a short speech, lighted it and
presented it to us. As we smoked in turn he harangued his people, and
then the repast was served. It consisted of the dog which they had just
been cooking, this being a great dish among the Sioux and used on all
festivals; to which were added pemitigon, a dish made of buffalo-meat
dried or jerked; pounded and mixed raw with grease and a kind of ground
potato dressed like the preparation of Indian corn called hominy to
which it is little inferior. Of all their luxuries, which were placed
before us in platters with horn-spoons, we took the latter, but we
could as yet partake but sparingly of the dog.
We ate and smoked for an hour when it became dark; everything was then
cleared away for the dance, a large fire being made in the centre
of the house, giving at once light and warmth to the ball-room.
The orchestra was composed of about ten men, who played on a sort
of tambourine formed of skin stretched across a hoop, and made a
jingling noise with a long stick to which the hoofs of deer and goats
were hung. The third instrument was a small skin bag with pebbles
in it; these with five or six young men for the vocal part made up
the band. The women then came forward highly decorated; some with
poles in their hands on which were hung the scalps of their enemies;
others with guns, spears or different trophies taken in war by
their husbands or brothers. They arranged themselves in two columns
and danced toward each other till they met in the center, when the
rattles were shaken, and they all shouted and returned to do it over
again. They have no step, but shuffle along the ground. The music is
no more than a confusion of noises, pointed by hard or gentle blows
on the buffalo-skin. The song is perfectly extemporaneous. In the
pauses a man comes forward and recites in a low guttural some story
or incident--martial or ludicrous--or as was the case this evening
voluptuous and indecent. Sometimes they alternate, the orchestra first
and then the women raise their voices in chorus making a music more
agreeable, that is, less intolerable than the musicians. The men dance
always separate from the women and about the same except they jump up
and down instead of shuffling; in their war dances the recitations are
always of a military cast.
In person these Tetons are rather ugly and ill-made--their legs
and arms are too small, their cheek bones are high and their eyes
projecting. The females are the handsomer. Both sexes appear cheerful
and sprightly; but in our intercourse we discovered they were cunning
and vicious. The men shave their heads except a small tuft on top
which they only sacrifice on the death of a near relation. In full
dress they fasten to this a hawk’s feather or calumet feather worked
with porcupine quills. They paint the face and body with a mixture
of grease and coal. The chief garment is a buffalo-robe dressed white
and adorned with loose porcupine quills to make a jingling noise when
they move--and painted with uncouth symbols. The leg from the hip to
the ankle is covered by leggins of dressed antelope with two inch
side-seams ornamented by tufts of hair from scalps won in war. Their
winter moccasins are dressed buffalo-skin soled with thick elk-skin.
On great occasions or in full dress the young men drag after them the
entire skin of a polecat fixed to the heel of a moccasin. Another such
skin serves as a tobacco-pouch tucked into the girdle. They smoke red
willow bark either alone or mixed with tobacco when they have any. The
pipe is of red clay, with an ash stem of three or four feet, highly
ornamented with feathers, hair, and porcupine quills. The hair of the
women grows long and is parted from the forehead across the head, at
the back of which it is either collected into a kind of bag or hangs
down over the shoulders.
They wear the same kind of moccasins and leggins as the men but the
latter do not reach below the knee where they are met by a long loose
shift of skins which reaches nearly to the ankles. This is fastened
over the shoulders by a string, and has no sleeves, but a few pieces
of the skin hang a short distance around the arms. Sometimes a girdle
fastens this skin round the waist and over is thrown a robe like that
worn by the men. They seem fond of dress. They have among them officers
to keep the peace--like civilized peoples--whose distinguishing mark is
a collection of two or three raven skins fastened to the girdle behind
the back in such a way that the tails stick out horizontally from the
body. On the head too is a raven skin split into two parts and tied so
as to let the beak project from the forehead.
JIM BECKWOURTH’S NARRATIVE
1824
From “Autobiography of James P. Beckwourth.”
After we had rested we departed for Snake River, Idaho, making the
Black Foot Buttes on our way, in order to pass through the buffalo
region. The second day of our march, one of our men, while fishing,
detected a party of Black Feet in the act of stealing our horses in the
open day. But for the man, they would have succeeded in making off with
a great number. The alarm was given, and we mounted and gave immediate
chase. The Indians were forty-four in number, and on foot; therefore
they became an easy prey. We ran them into a thicket of dry bush, which
we surrounded, and then fired in several places. It was quite dry,
and, there being a good breeze at the time, it burned like chaff. This
driving the Indians out, as fast as they made their appearance we shot
them with our rifles. Every one of them was killed; those who escaped
our bullets were consumed in the fire; and as they were all more or
less roasted, we took no scalps. None of our party were hurt, except
one, who was wounded by one of our men.
On the third day we found buffalo, and killed great numbers of them by
a “surround.” At this place we lost six horses, three of them belonging
to myself, two to a Swiss, and one to Baptiste. Not relishing the idea
of losing them (for they were splendid animals), and seeing no signs
of Indians, I and the Swiss started along the back track in pursuit,
with the understanding that we would rejoin our company at the Buttes.
We followed them to the last place of rendezvous; their tracks were
fresh and plain, but we could gain no sight of our horses. We then gave
up the chase, and encamped in a thicket. In the morning we started to
return, and had not proceeded far, when, hearing a noise in our rear,
I looked round, and saw between two and three hundred Indians within
a few hundred yards of us. They soon discovered us, and, from their
not making immediate pursuit, I inferred that they mistook us for two
of their own party. However, they soon gave chase. They being also on
foot, I said to my companion, “Now we have as good a chance of escaping
as they have of overtaking us.”
The Swiss (named Alexander) said, “It is of no use for me to try to get
away: I cannot run; save yourself, and never mind me.”
“No,” I replied, “I will not leave you; run as fast as you can until
you reach the creek; there you can secrete yourself, for they will
pursue me.”
He followed my advice, and saved himself. I crossed the stream, and
when I again appeared in sight of the Indians I was on the summit of a
small hill two miles in advance. Giving a general yell, they came in
pursuit of me. On I ran, not daring to indulge the hope that they would
give up the chase, for some of the Indians are great runners, and would
rather die than incur the ridicule of their brethren. On, on we tore;
I to save my scalp, and my pursuers to win it. At length I reached the
Buttes, where I had expected to find the camp, but, to my inconceivable
horror and dismay, my comrades were not there. They had found no water
on their route, and had proceeded to the river, forty-five miles
distant.
My feelings at this disappointment transcended expression. A thousand
ideas peopled my feverish brain at once. Home, friends, and my loved
one presented themselves with one lightning-flash. The Indians were
close at my heels; their bullets were whizzing past me; their yells
sounded painfully in my ears; and I could almost feel the knife making
a circuit round my skull. On I bounded, however, following the road
which our whole company had made. I was scorching with thirst, having
tasted neither sup nor bit since we commenced the race. Still on I went
with the speed of an antelope. I kept safely in advance of the range
of their bullets, when suddenly the glorious sight of the camp-smoke
caught my eye. My companions perceived me at a mile from the camp,
as well as my pursuers; and, mounting their horses to meet me, soon
turned the tables on my pursuers. It was now the Indians’ turn to be
chased. They must have suffered as badly with thirst as I did, and our
men cut them off from the river. Night had begun to close in, under
the protection of which the Indians escaped; our men returned with
only five scalps. According to the closest calculation, I ran that day
ninety-five miles.[6]
My heels thus deprived the rascally Indians of their anticipated
pleasure of dancing over my scalp. My limbs were so much swollen the
next morning, that for two or three days ensuing it was with great
difficulty I got about. My whole system was also in great pain. In
a few days, however, I was as well as ever, and ready to repay the
Indians for their trouble.
The third day after my escape, my companion Aleck found his way into
camp. He entered the lodge with dejection on his features.
“Oh!” he exclaimed, “I thank God for my escape, but the Indians have
killed poor Jim. I saw his bones a few miles back. I will give anything
I have if a party will go with me and bury him. The wolves have almost
picked his bones, but it must be he. Poor, poor Jim! gone at last!”
“Ha!” said some one present, “is Jim killed, then? Poor fellow! Well,
Aleck, let us go back and give him a Christian burial.”
He had seen a body nearly devoured on the way, most likely that of the
wounded Indian who had chased me in his retreat from our camp.
I came limping into the crowd at this moment, and addressed him before
he had perceived me: “Halloo, Aleck, are you safe?”
He looked at me for a moment in astonishment, and then embraced me so
tight that I thought he would suffocate me. He burst into a flood of
tears, which for a time prevented his articulation. He looked at me
again and again, as if in doubt of my identity.
At length he said, “Oh, Jim, you are safe! And how did you escape? I
made sure that you were killed, and that the body I saw on the road was
yours. Pshaw! I stopped and shed tears on a confounded dead Indian’s
carcass!”
Aleck stated that the enemy had passed within ten feet without
perceiving him; that his gun was cocked and well primed, so that if he
had been discovered there would have been at least one red skin less to
chase me. He had seen no Indians on his way to camp.
I was satisfied that some (if not all) of my pursuers knew me, for they
were Black Feet, or they would not have taken such extraordinary pains
to run me down. If they had succeeded in their endeavor, they would, in
subsequent years, have saved their tribe many scalps.
From this encampment we moved on to Lewis’s Fork, on the Columbia
River, where we made a final halt to prepare for the fall trapping
season. Some small parties, getting tired of inaction, would
occasionally sally out to the small mountain streams, all of which
contained plenty of beaver, and would frequently come in with several
skins.
I prepared my traps one day, thinking to go out alone, and see what my
luck might be. I mounted my horse, and, on approaching a small stream,
dismounted to take a careful survey, to see if there were any signs
of beaver. Carefully ascending the bank of the stream, I peered over,
and saw, not a beaver, but an Indian. He had his robe spread on the
grass, and was engaged in freeing himself from vermin, with which all
Indians abound. He had not seen nor heard me; his face was toward me,
but inclined, and he was intently pursuing his occupation.
“Here,” thought I, “are a gun, a bow, a quiver full of arrows, a good
robe and a scalp.”
I fired my rifle; the Indian fell over without uttering a sound. I
not only took his scalp, but his head. I tied two locks of his long
hair together, hung his head on the horn of my saddle, and, taking the
spoils of the enemy, hurried back to camp.
The next morning our camp was invested by two thousand five hundred
warriors of the Black Foot tribe. We had now something on our hands
which demanded attention. We were encamped in the bend of a river--in
the “horseshoe.” Our lodges were pitched at the entrance, or narrowest
part of the shoe, while our animals were driven back into the bend. The
lodges, four deep, extended nearly across the land, forming a kind of
barricade in front; not a very safe one for the inmates, since, being
covered with buffalo-hides, they were penetrable to bullet and arrow.
The Indians made a furious charge. We immediately placed the women
and children in the rear, sending them down the bend, where they were
safe unless we were defeated. We suffered the Indians for a long time
to act on the offensive, being content with defending ourselves and
the camp. I advised Captain Sublet to let them weary themselves with
charging, by which time we would mount and charge them with greater
prospect of victory; whereas, should we tire ourselves while they were
fresh, we should be overwhelmed by their numbers, and, if not defeated,
inevitably lose a great many men.
All the mountaineers approved of my advice, and our plans were taken
accordingly. They drove us from our first position twice, so that our
lodges were between the contending ranks, but they never broke our
lines. When they approached us very near we resorted to our arrows,
which all our half-breeds used as skillfully as the Indians. Finally,
perceiving they began to tire, I went and ordered the women to saddle
the horses in haste. A horse was soon ready for each man, four hundred
in number. Taking one hundred and thirty men, I passed out through
the timber, keeping near the river until we could all emerge and form
a line to charge them, unobserved, in the rear. While executing this
diversion, the main body was to charge them in front. Defiling through
the timber we came suddenly upon ten Indians who were resting from
the fight, and were sitting on the ground unconcernedly smoking their
pipes. We killed nine of them, the tenth one making good his retreat.
Our manœuvre succeeded admirably. The Indians were unconscious of our
approach in their rear until they began to fall from their horses. Then
charging on their main body simultaneously with Captain Sublet’s charge
in front, their whole force was thrown into irretrievable confusion,
and they fled without farther resistance. We did not pursue them,
feeling very well satisfied to have got rid of them as we had. They
left one hundred and sixty-seven dead on the field. Our loss was also
very severe; sixteen killed, mostly half-breeds, and fifty or sixty
wounded. In this action I received a wound in my left side, although I
did not perceive it until the battle was over.
As usual, there was a scalp-dance after the victory, in which I really
feared that the fair sex would dance themselves to death. They had a
crying spell afterward for the dead. After all, it was a victory rather
dearly purchased.
A few days after our battle, one of our old trappers, named Le Blueux,
who had spent twenty years in the mountains, came to me, and telling me
he knew of a small stream full of beaver which ran into Lewis’s Fork,
about thirty miles from camp, wished me to accompany him there. We
being free trappers at that time, the chance of obtaining a pack or
two of beaver was rather a powerful incentive. Gain being my object, I
readily acceded to his proposal. We put out from camp during the night,
and traveled up Lewis’s Fork, leisurely discussing our prospects and
confidently enumerating our unhatched chickens, when suddenly a large
party of Indians came in sight in our rear.