|THE next morning Killbuck's leg was greatly inflamed, and he was unable
to leave the lodge; but he made his companion bring the old mule to the
door, that he might give her a couple of ears of Indian corn, the last
remains of the slender store brought by the Indians from the Navajo
country. The day passed, and sundown brought no tidings of the
war-party. This caused no little wailing on the part of the squaws,
but was interpreted by the whites as a favorable augury. A little after
sunrise on the second morning, the long line of the returning warriors
was discerned winding over the prairie, and a scout having galloped in
to bring the news of a great victory, the whole village was soon in a
ferment of paint and drumming. A short distance from the lodges, the
warriors halted to await the approach of the people. Old men, children,
and squaws sitting astride their horses, sallied out to escort the
victorious party in triumph to the village. With loud shouts and
songs, and drums beating the monotonous Indian time, they advanced and
encircled the returning braves, one of whom, his face covered with black
paint, carried a pole on which dangled thirteen scalps, the trophies
of the expedition. As he lifted these on high they were saluted with
deafening whoops, and cries of exultation and savage joy. In this manner
they entered the village, almost before the friends of those fallen in
the fight had ascertained their losses. Then the shouts of delight were
converted into yells of grief; the mothers and wives of those braves
who had been killed (and seven had "gone under") presently returned with
their faces, necks, and hands blackened, and danced and howled round the
scalp-pole, which had been deposited in the center of the village, in
front of the lodge of the great chief.
Killbuck now learned that a scout having brought intelligence that the
two band's of Rapa-hos were hastening to form a junction, as soon
as they learned that their approach was discovered, the Yutas had
successfully prevented it; and attacking one party, had entirely
defeated it, killing thirteen of the Rapaho braves. The other party had
fled on seeing the issue of the fight, and a few of the Yuta warriors
were now pursuing them.
To celebrate so signal a victory, great preparations sounded their notes
through the village. Paints--vermilion and ochres, red and yellow--were
in great request; whilst the scrapings of charred wood, mixed with
gunpowder, were used as substitute for black, the medicine color.
The lodges of the village, numbering some two hundred or more, were
erected in parallel lines, and covered a large space of the level
prairie in shape of a parallelogram. In the center, however, the
space which half-a-dozen lodges in length would have taken up was
left unoccupied, save by one large one, of red-painted buffalo-skins,
tattooed with the mystic totems of the medicine peculiar to the nation.
In front of this stood the grim scalp-pole, like a decayed tree-trunk,
its bloody fruit tossing in the wind; and on another pole, at a few feet
distance, was hung the bag with its mysterious contents. Before each
lodge a tripod of spears supported the arms and shields of the Yuta
chivalry, and on many of them smoke-dried scalps rattled in the wind,
former trophies of the dusky knights who were arming themselves within.
Heraldic devices were not wanting--not, however, graved upon the
shield, but hanging from the spear-head, the actual totem of the warrior
it distinguished. The rattlesnake, the otter, the carcajou, the mountain
badger, the war-eagle, the konqua-kish, the porcupine, the fox, &c.,
dangled their well-stuffed skins, displaying the guardian medicine
of the warriors they pertained to, and representing the mental and
corporeal qualities which were supposed to characterize the braves to
whom they belonged.
From the center lodge, two or three medicinemen, fantastically attired
in the skins of wolves and bears, and bearing long peeled wands of
cherry in their hands, occasionally emerged to tend a very small fire
which they had kindled in the center of the open space; and when a thin
column of smoke arose, one of them planted the scalp-pole obliquely
across the fire. Squaws in robes of white dressed buckskin, garnished
with beads and porcupines' quills, and their faces painted bright red
and black, then appeared. These ranged themselves round the outside of
the square, the boys and children of all ages, mounted on barebacked
horses, galloping round and round, and screaming with eagerness,
excitement, and curiosity.
Presently the braves and warriors made their appearance, and squatted
round the fire in two circles, those who had been engaged on the
expedition being in the first or smaller one. One medicine-man sat under
the scalp-pole, having a drum between his knees, which he tapped
at intervals with his hand, eliciting from the instrument a hollow
monotonous sound. A bevy of women, shoulder to shoulder, then advanced
from the four sides of the square, and some, shaking a rattle-drum in
time with their steps, commenced a jumping, jerking dance, now lifting
one foot from the ground, and now rising with both, accompanying the
dance with a chant, which swelled from a low whisper to the utmost
extent of their voices--now dying away, and again bursting into
vociferous measure. Thus they advanced to the center and retreated to
their former positions; when six squaws, with their faces painted a dead
black, made their appearance from the crowd, chanting, in soft and sweet
measure, a lament for the braves the nation had lost in the late battle:
but soon as they drew near the scalp-pole, their melancholy note changed
to the music (to them) of gratified revenge. In a succession of jumps,
raising the feet alternately but a little distance from the ground, they
made their way, through an interval left in the circle of warriors, to
the grim pole, and encircling it, danced in perfect silence round it for
a few moments. Then they burst forth with an extempore song, laudatory
of the achievements of their victorious braves. They addressed the
scalps as "sisters" (to be called a squaw is the greatest insult that
can be offered to an Indian), and, spitting at them, upbraided them with
their rashness in leaving their lodges to seek for Yuta husbands; "that
the Yuta warriors and young men despised them, and chastised them for
their forwardness and presumption, bringing back their scalps to their
own women."
After sufficiently proving that they had anything but lost the use of
their tongues, but possessed, on the contrary, as fair a length of that
formidable weapon as any of their sex, they withdrew, and left the field
in undisputed possession of the men; who, accompanied by tap of drum,
and by the noise of many rattles, broke out into a war-song, in which
their own valor was by no means hidden in a bushel, or modestly refused
the light of day. After this came the more interesting ceremony of
a warrior "counting his coups." A young brave, with his face painted
black, mounted on a white horse mysteriously marked with red clay, and
naked to the breech-clout, holding in his hand a long taper lance, rode
into the circle, and paced slowly round it; then, flourishing his spear
on high, he darted to the scalp-pole, round which the warriors were
now seated in a semicircle; and in a loud voice, and with furious
gesticulations, related his exploits, the drums tapping at the
conclusion of each. On his spear hung seven scalps, and holding it
vertically above his head, and commencing with the top one, he told the
feats in which he had raised the trophy hair. When he had run through
these the drums tapped loudly, and several of the old chiefs shook their
rattles, in corroboration of the truth of his achievements. The brave,
swelling with pride, then pointed to the fresh and bloody scalps hanging
on the pole. Two of these had been torn from the heads of Rapahos struck
by his own hand, and this feat, _the_ exploit of the day, had entitled
him to the honor of counting his coups. Then, sticking his spear into
the ground by the side of the pole, he struck his hand twice on his
brawny and naked chest, turned short round, and, swift as the antelope,
galloped into the plain, as if overcome by the shock his modesty had
received in being obliged to recount his own high-sounding deeds.
"Wagh!" exclaimed old Killbuck, as he left the circle, pointing his
pipe-stem towards the fast-fading figure of the brave, "that Injun's
heart's about as big as ever it will be, I'm thinking."
With the Yutas, Killbuck and La Bonté remained during the winter; and
when the spring sun had opened the icebound creeks, and melted the
snow on the mountains, and its genial warmth had expanded the earth
and permitted the roots of the grass to "live" once more, and throw out
green and tender shoots, the two trappers bade adieu to the hospitable
Indians, who broke up their village in order to start for the valleys
of the Del Norte. As they followed the trail from the Bayou, at sundown,
just as they thought of camping, they observed ahead of them a solitary
horseman * riding along, followed by three mules. His hunting-frock of
fringed buckskin, and the rifle resting across the horn of his saddle,
at once proclaimed him white; but as he saw the mountaineers winding
through the canon, driving before them half-a-dozen horses, he judged
they might possibly be Indians and enemies, the more so as their dress
was not the usual costume of the whites. The trappers, therefore, saw
the stranger raise the rifle in the hollow of his arm, and gathering up
his horse, ride steadily to meet them, as soon as he observed they were
but two; two to one in mountain calculation being scarcely considered
odds, if red skin to white.
* Evidently Ruxton himself. (Ed.)
However, on nearing them, the stranger discovered his mistake, and
throwing his rifle across the saddle once more reined in his horse and
waited their approach; for the spot where he then stood presented an
excellent camping-ground, with abundance of dry wood and convenient
water.
"Where from, stranger?"
"The divide, and to the Bayou for meat; and you are from there, I see.
Any buffalo come in yet?"
"Heap, and seal-fat at that. What's the sign out on the plains?"
"War-party of Rapahos passed Squirrel at sundown yesterday, and nearly
raised my animals. Sign, too, of more on left fork of Boiling Spring. No
buffalo between this and Bijou. Do you feel like camping?"
"_Well_, we do. But whar's your campan-yeros?"
"I'm alone."
"Alone? Wagh! how do you get your animals along?"
"I go ahead, and they follow the horse."
"Well, that beats all! That's a smart-looking hoss, now; and runs some,
I'm thinking."
"Well, it does."
"Whar's them mules from? They look like Californy."
"Mexican country--away down south."
"H----! Whar's yourself from?"
"There away, too."
"What's beaver worth in Taos?"
"Dollar."
"In Saint Louiy?"
"Same."
"H--! Any call for buckskin?"
"A heap! The soldiers in Santa Fé are half froze for leather; and
moccasins fetch two dollars easy."
"Wagh! How's trade on Arkansa, and what's doin' to the Fort?"
"Shians at Big Timber, and Bent's people trading smart. On North Fork,
Jim Waters got a hundred pack right off, and Sioux making more."
"Whar's Bill Williams?"
"Gone under, they say: the Diggers took his hair."
"How's powder goin'?"
"Two dollars a pint."
"Bacca?"
"A plew a plug."
"Got any about you?"
"Have _so_."
"Give us a chaw; and now let's camp."
Whilst unpacking their own animals, the two trappers could not refrain
from glancing, every now and then, with no little astonishment, at the
solitary stranger they had so unexpectedly encountered. If truth be
told, his appearance not a little perplexed them. His hunting-frock of
buckskin, shining with grease, and fringed pantaloons, over which the
well-greased butcher-knife had evidently been often wiped after cutting
his food or butchering the carcass of deer and buffalo, were of genuine
mountain-make. His face, clean shaved, exhibited, in its well-tanned and
weatherbeaten complexion, the effects of such natural cosmetics as sun
and wind; and under the mountain-hat of felt which covered his head,
long uncut hair hung in Indian fashion on his shoulders. All this would
have passed muster, had it not been for the most extraordinary equipment
of a double-barreled rifle, which, when it had attracted the eyes of the
mountaineers, elicited no little astonishment, not to say derision. But
perhaps nothing excited their admiration so much as the perfect docility
of the stranger's animals, which, almost like dogs, obeyed his voice
and call; and albeit that one, in a small sharp head and pointed ears,
expanded nostrils, and eye twinkling and malicious, exhibited the
personification of a lurking devil, yet they could not but admire
the perfect ease with which even this one, in common with the rest,
permitted herself to be handled.
Dismounting, and unhitching from the horn of his saddle the coil of
skin rope, one end of which was secured round the neck of the horse, he
proceeded to unsaddle; and whilst so engaged, the three mules, two of
which were packed, one with the unbutchered carcass of a deer, the other
with a pack of skins, &c., followed leisurely into the space chosen for
the camp, and, cropping the grass at their ease, waited until a whistle
called them to be unpacked.
The horse was a strong square-built bay; and although the severities of
a prolonged winter, with scanty pasture and long and trying travel, had
robbed his bones of fat and flesh, tucked up his flank, and "ewed" his
neck, still his clean and well-set legs, oblique shoulder, and withers
fine as a deer's, in spite of his gaunt half-starved appearance, bore
ample testimony as to what he _had_ been; while his clear cheerful eye,
and the hearty appetite with which he fell to work on the coarse grass
of the bottom, proved that he had something in him still, and was game
as ever. His tail, gnawed by the mules in days of strait, attracted the
observant mountaineers.
"Hard doin's when it come to that," remarked La Bonté.
Between the horse and two of the mules a mutual and great affection
appeared to subsist, which was no more than natural, when their master
observed to his companions that they had traveled together upwards of
two thousand miles.
One of these mules was a short, thick-set, stumpy animal, with an
enormous head surmounted by proportionable ears, and a pair of unusually
large eyes, beaming the most perfect good temper and docility (most
uncommon qualities in a mule). Her neck was thick, and rendered more so
in appearance by reason of her mane not being roached (or, in English,
hogged), which privilege she alone, enjoyed of the trio; and her short
strong legs, ending in small, round, cat-like hoofs, were feathered with
a profusion of dark-brown hair.
As she stood stock-still whilst the stranger removed the awkwardly
packed deer from her back, she flapped her huge ears backward and
forward, occasionally turning her head, and laying her cold nose against
her master's cheek. When the pack was removed he advanced to her head,
and resting it on his shoulder, rubbed her broad and grizzled cheeks
with both his hands for several minutes, the old mule laying her ears,
like a rabbit, back upon her neck, and with half-closed eyes enjoyed
mightily the manipulation. Then, giving her a smack upon the haunch,
and a "hep-a" well known to the mule kind, the old favorite threw up her
heels and cantered off to the horse, who was busily cropping the buffalo
grass on the bluff above the stream.
Great was the contrast between the one just described and the next
which came up to be divested of her pack. She, a tall beautifully-shaped
Mexican mule, of a light mouse color, with a head like a deer's, and
long springy legs, trotted up obedient to the call, but with ears bent
back and curled-up nose, and tail compressed between her legs. As her
pack was being removed, she groaned and whined like a dog as a thong or
loosened strap touched her ticklish body, lifting her hind quarters in
a succession of jumps or preparatory kicks, and looked wicked as a
panther. When nothing but the fore pack-saddle remained, she had worked
herself into the last stage; and as the stranger cast loose the girth of
buffalo-hide, and was about to lift the saddle and draw the crupper from
the tail, she drew her hind legs under her, more tightly compressed her
tail, and almost shrieked with rage.
"Stand clear," he roared (knowing what was coming), and raised the
saddle, when out went her hind legs, up went the pack into the air,
and, with it dangling at her heels, away she tore, kicking the offending
saddle as she ran. Her master, however, took this as matter of course,
followed her and brought back the saddle, which he piled on the others
to windward of the fire one of the trappers was kindling. Fire-making
is a simple process with the mountaineers. Their bullet-pouches always
contain a flint and steel, and sundry pieces of "punk" * or tinder; and
pulling a handful of dry grass, which they screw into a nest, they place
the lighted punk in this, and, closing the grass over it, wave it in the
air, when it soon ignites, and readily kindles the dry sticks forming
the foundation of the fire.
* A pithy substance found in dead trees.
The tidbits of the deer the stranger had brought in were soon roasting
over the fire; whilst, as soon as the burning logs had deposited a
sufficiency of ashes, a hole was raked in them, and the head of the
deer, skin, hair, and all, placed in this primitive oven, and carefully
covered with the hot ashes.
A "heap" of fat meat in perspective, our mountaineers enjoyed their
anteprandial pipes, recounting the news of the respective regions whence
they came; and so well did they like each other's company, so sweet
was the honeydew tobacco of which the strange hunter had good store,
so plentiful the game about the creek, and so abundant the pasture for
their winter-starved animals, that before the carcass of the two-year
buck had been more than four-fifths consumed--and although rib after rib
had been picked and chucked over their shoulders to the wolves, and
one fore leg and _the_ "bit" of all, the head, were still cooked before
them--the three had come to the resolution to join company, and hunt
in their present locality for a few days at least--the owner of the
"two-shoot" gun volunteering to fill their horns with powder, and find
tobacco for their pipes.
Here, on plenty of meat, of venison, bear, and antelope, they merrily
luxuriated; returning after their daily hunts to the brightly-burning
campfire, where one always remained to guard the animals, and unloading
their packs of meat (all choicest portions), ate late into the
night, and, smoking, wiled away the time in narrating scenes in their
hard-spent lives, and fighting their battles o'er again.
The younger of the trappers, he who has figured under the name of La
Bonté, had excited, by scraps and patches from his history, no little
curiosity in the stranger's mind to learn the ups and downs of his
career; and one night, when they assembled earlier than usual at the
fire, he prevailed upon the modest trapper to "unpack" some passages in
his wild adventurous life.
"Maybe," commenced the mountaineer, "you both remember when old
Ashley went out with the biggest kind of band to trap the Columbia and
head-waters of Missoura and Yellow Stone. Well, that was the time this
nigger first felt like taking to the mountains."
This brings us back to the year of our Lord 1825; and perhaps it will be
as well, in order to render La Bonté's mountain language intelligible,
to translate it at once into tolerable English, and to tell in the third
person, but from his own lips, the scrapes which befell him in a sojourn
of more than twenty years in the Far West, and the causes that impelled
him to quit the comfort and civilization of his home, to seek the
perilous but engaging life of a trapper of the Rocky Mountains.
La Bonté * was raised in the state of Mississippi, not far from Memphis,
on the left bank of that huge and snag-filled river. His father was a
Saint Louis Frenchman, his mother a native of Tennessee. When a boy, our
trapper was "some," he said, with the rifle, and always had a hankering
for the West; particularly when, on accompanying his father to Saint
Louis every spring, he saw the different bands of traders and hunters
start upon their annual expeditions to the mountains. Greatly did he
envy the independent _insouciant_ trappers, as, in all the glory of
beads and buckskin, they shouldered their rifles at Jake Hawk-en's
door (the rifle-maker of Saint Louis), and bade adieu to the cares and
trammels of civilized life.
However, like a thoughtless beaver-kitten, he put his foot into a trap
one fine day, set by Mary Brand, ** a neighbor's daughter, and esteemed
"some punkins"--or, in other words, toasted as the beauty of the
county--by the susceptible Mississippians. From that moment he was "gone
beaver;" "he felt queer," he said, "all over, like a buffalo shot in the
lights; he had no relish for mush and molasses; hominy and johnny cakes
failed to excite his appetite. Deer and turkeys ran by him unscathed; he
didn't know, he said, whether his rifle had hind-sights or not. He felt
bad, that was a fact; but what ailed him he didn't know."
* The name of this trapper is perpetuated in La Bonté Creek,
which enters the Platte River 66 miles above the mouth of
the Laramie, on the old Oregon trail. (Ed.)
** Mary Chase. See introduction to this volume. (Ed.)
Mary Brand--Mary Brand--Mary Brand! the old Dutch clock ticked it. Mary
Brand! his head throbbed it when he lay down to sleep. Mary Brand! his
riflelock spoke it plainly when he cocked it, to raise a shaking sight
at a deer. Mary Brand, Mary Brand! the whip-poor-will sang it instead
of her own well-known note; the bull-frogs croaked it in the swamp, and
mosquitoes droned it in his ear as he tossed about his bed at night,
wakeful, and striving to think what ailed him.
Who could that strapping young fellow who passed the door just now be
going to see? Mary Brand: Mary Brand. And who can big Pete Herring be
dressing that silver-fox skin so carefully for? For whom but Mary Brand?
And who is it that jokes and laughs and dances with all the "boys" but
him; and why?
Who but Mary Brand: and because the lovesick booby carefully avoids her.
"And Mary Brand herself--what is she like?"
"She's some now; that _is_ a fact, and the biggest kind of punkin at
that," would have been the answer from any man, woman, or child in the
county, and truly spoken too; always understanding that the pumpkin is
the fruit by which the _ne plus ultra_ of female perfection is expressed
amongst the figuratively-speaking westerns.
Being an American woman, of course she was tall, and straight and slim
as a hickory sapling, well, formed withal, with rounded bust, and neck
white and slender as the swan's. Her features were small, but finely
chiselled: and in this, it may be remarked, the lower orders of the
American woman differ from and far surpass the same class in England,
or elsewhere, where the features, although far prettier, are more vulgar
and commonplace. Mary Brand had the bright blue eye, thin nose, and
small but sweetly-formed mouth, the too fair complexion and dark-brown
hair, which characterize the beauty of the Anglo-American, the heavy
masses (hardly curls) that fell over her face and neck contrasting with
her polished whiteness. Such was Mary Brand; and when to her good looks
are added a sweet disposition and all the best qualities of a thrifty
housewife, it must be allowed that she fully justified the eulogiums of
the good people of Memphis.
Well, to cut a love-story short, in doing which not a little moral
courage is shown, young La Bonté fell desperately in love with the
pretty Mary, and she with him; and small blame to her, for he was a
proper lad of twenty--six feet in his moccasins--the best hunter and
rifle-shot in the country, with many other advantages too numerous to
mention. But when did the course, &c., e'er run smooth? When the affair
had become a recognized "courting" (and Americans alone know the horrors
of such prolonged purgatory), they became, to use La Bonté's words,
"awful fond," and consequently about once a-week had their tiffs and
make-ups.
However, on one occasion, at a husking, and during one of these tiffs,
Mary, every inch a woman, to gratify some indescribable feeling, brought
to her aid jealousy--that old serpent who has caused such mischief in
this world; and by a flirtation over the corn-cobs with big Pete, La
Bonté's former and only rival, struck so hard a blow at the latter's
heart, that on the moment his brain caught fire, blood danced before his
eyes, and he became like one possessed. Pete observed and enjoyed his
struggling emotion--better for him had he minded his corn-shelling
alone;--and the more to annoy his rival, paid the most sedulous
attention to pretty Mary.
Young La Bonté stood it as long as human nature, at boiling heat,
could endure; but when Pete, in the exultation of his apparent triumph,
crowned his success by encircling the slender waist of the girl with his
arm, and snatching a sudden kiss, he jumped upright from his seat,
and seizing a small whiskey-keg which stood in the center of the
corn-shellers, he hurled it at his rival, and crying to him, hoarse with
passion, "to follow if he was a man," he left the house.
At that time, and even now, in the remoter States of the western
country, rifles settled even the most trivial differences between the
hot-blooded youths; and of such frequent occurrence and invariably
bloody termination did these encounters become, that they scarcely
produced sufficient excitement to draw together half-a-dozen spectators.
In the present case, however, so public was the quarrel and so well
known the parties concerned, that not only the people who had witnessed
the affair, but all the neighborhood, thronged to the scene of action,
in a large field in front of the house, where the preliminaries of a
duel between Pete and La Bonté were being arranged by their respective
friends.
Mary, when she discovered the mischief her thoughtlessness was likely to
occasion, was almost beside herself with grief, but she knew how vain it
would be to attempt to interfere. The poor girl, who was most ardently
attached to La Bonté, was carried swooning into the house, where all the
women congregated, and were locked in by old Brand, who, himself an old
pioneer, thought but little of bloodshed, but refused to let the women
folk witness the affray.
Preliminaries arranged, the combatants took up their respective
positions at either end of a space marked for the purpose, at forty
paces from each other. They were both armed with heavy rifles, and
had the usual hunting pouches, containing ammunition, hanging over the
shoulder. Standing with the butts of their rifles on the ground, they
confronted each other; and the crowd, drawing away a few paces only
on each side, left one man to give the word. This was the single word
"fire;" and after this signal was given, the combatants were at liberty
to fire away until one or the other dropped.
At the word, both the men quickly raised their rifles to the shoulder;
and whilst the sharp cracks instantaneously rang, they were seen to
flinch, as either felt the pinging sensation of a bullet entering
his flesh. Regarding each other steadily for a few moments, the blood
running down La Bonté's neck from a wound under the left jaw, whilst his
opponent was seen to place his hand once to his right breast, as if to
feel the position of his wound, they commenced reloading their rifles.
But as Pete was in the act of forcing down the ball with his long
hickory wiping-stick, he suddenly dropped his right arm--the rifle
slipped from his grasp--and, reeling for a moment like a drunken man, he
fell dead to the ground.
Even here, however, there was law of some kind or another; and the
consequences of the duel were, that the constables were soon on the
trail of La Bonté to arrest him. He easily avoided them; and, taking to
the woods, lived for several days in as wild a state as the beasts he
hunted and killed for his support.
Tired of this, he at last resolved to quit the country and betake
himself to the mountains, for which life he had ever felt an
inclination.
When, therefore, he thought the officers of justice had grown slack
in their search of him, and that the coast was comparatively clear, he
determined to start on his distant expedition to the Far West.
Once more, before he carried his project into execution, he sought and
obtained a last interview with Mary Brand.
"Mary," said he, "I'm about to break. They're hunting me like a fall
buck, and I'm bound to quit. Don't think any more about me, for I shall
never come back."
Poor Mary burst into tears, and bent her head on the table near which
she sat. When she again raised it, she saw La Bonté, his long rifle upon
his shoulder, striding with rapid steps from the house. Year after year
rolled on, and he did not return.