THE WAR PARTIES
The summer of 1846 was a season of much warlike excitement among all the
western bands of the Dakota. In 1845 they encountered great reverses.
Many war parties had been sent out; some of them had been totally cut
off, and others had returned broken and disheartened, so that the whole
nation was in mourning. Among the rest, ten warriors had gone to the
Snake country, led by the son of a prominent Ogallalla chief, called The
Whirlwind. In passing over Laramie Plains they encountered a superior
number of their enemies, were surrounded, and killed to a man.
Having performed this exploit the Snakes became alarmed, dreading the
resentment of the Dakota, and they hastened therefore to signify their
wish for peace by sending the scalp of the slain partisan, together with
a small parcel of tobacco attached, to his tribesmen and relations. They
had employed old Vaskiss, the trader, as their messenger, and the scalp
was the same that hung in our room at the fort. But The Whirlwind proved
inexorable. Though his character hardly corresponds with his name, he is
nevertheless an Indian, and hates the Snakes with his whole soul. Long
before the scalp arrived he had made his preparations for revenge. He
sent messengers with presents and tobacco to all the Dakota within three
hundred miles, proposing a grand combination to chastise the Snakes, and
naming a place and time of rendezvous. The plan was readily adopted and
at this moment many villages, probably embracing in the whole five or
six thousand souls, were slowly creeping over the prairies and tending
towards the common center at La Bonte’s Camp, on the Platte. Here their
war-like rites were to be celebrated with more than ordinary solemnity,
and a thousand warriors, as it was said, were to set out for the enemy
country. The characteristic result of this preparation will appear in
the sequel.
I was greatly rejoiced to hear of it. I had come into the country almost
exclusively with a view of observing the Indian character. Having from
childhood felt a curiosity on this subject, and having failed completely
to gratify it by reading, I resolved to have recourse to observation.
I wished to satisfy myself with regard to the position of the Indians
among the races of men; the vices and the virtues that have sprung from
their innate character and from their modes of life, their government,
their superstitions, and their domestic situation. To accomplish my
purpose it was necessary to live in the midst of them, and become, as
it were, one of them. I proposed to join a village and make myself an
inmate of one of their lodges; and henceforward this narrative, so far
as I am concerned, will be chiefly a record of the progress of this
design apparently so easy of accomplishment, and the unexpected
impediments that opposed it.
We resolved on no account to miss the rendezvous at La Bonte’s Camp. Our
plan was to leave Delorier at the fort, in charge of our equipage and
the better part of our horses, while we took with us nothing but our
weapons and the worst animals we had. In all probability jealousies and
quarrels would arise among so many hordes of fierce impulsive savages,
congregated together under no common head, and many of them strangers,
from remote prairies and mountains. We were bound in common prudence to
be cautious how we excited any feeling of cupidity. This was our plan,
but unhappily we were not destined to visit La Bonte’s Camp in this
manner; for one morning a young Indian came to the fort and brought us
evil tidings. The newcomer was a dandy of the first water. His ugly face
was painted with vermilion; on his head fluttered the tail of a prairie
cock (a large species of pheasant, not found, as I have heard, eastward
of the Rocky Mountains); in his ears were hung pendants of shell, and a
flaming red blanket was wrapped around him. He carried a dragoon sword
in his hand, solely for display, since the knife, the arrow, and the
rifle are the arbiters of every prairie fight; but no one in this
country goes abroad unarmed, the dandy carried a bow and arrows in an
otter-skin quiver at his back. In this guise, and bestriding his yellow
horse with an air of extreme dignity, The Horse, for that was his name,
rode in at the gate, turning neither to the right nor the left, but
casting glances askance at the groups of squaws who, with their mongrel
progeny, were sitting in the sun before their doors. The evil tidings
brought by The Horse were of the following import: The squaw of Henry
Chatillon, a woman with whom he had been connected for years by the
strongest ties which in that country exist between the sexes, was
dangerously ill. She and her children were in the village of The
Whirlwind, at the distance of a few days’ journey. Henry was anxious to
see the woman before she died, and provide for the safety and support
of his children, of whom he was extremely fond. To have refused him
this would have been gross inhumanity. We abandoned our plan of joining
Smoke’s village, and of proceeding with it to the rendezvous, and
determined to meet The Whirlwind, and go in his company.
I had been slightly ill for several weeks, but on the third night
after reaching Fort Laramie a violent pain awoke me, and I found myself
attacked by the same disorder that occasioned such heavy losses to the
army on the Rio Grande. In a day and a half I was reduced to extreme
weakness, so that I could not walk without pain and effort. Having
within that time taken six grains of opium, without the least beneficial
effect, and having no medical adviser, nor any choice of diet, I
resolved to throw myself upon Providence for recovery, using, without
regard to the disorder, any portion of strength that might remain to
me. So on the 20th of June we set out from Fort Laramie to meet The
Whirlwind’s village. Though aided by the high-bowed “mountain saddle,”
I could scarcely keep my seat on horseback. Before we left the fort we
hired another man, a long-haired Canadian, with a face like an owl’s,
contrasting oddly enough with Delorier’s mercurial countenance. This was
not the only re-enforcement to our party. A vagrant Indian trader, named
Reynal, joined us, together with his squaw Margot, and her two nephews,
our dandy friend, The Horse, and his younger brother, The Hail Storm.
Thus accompanied, we betook ourselves to the prairie, leaving the beaten
trail, and passing over the desolate hills that flank the bottoms of
Laramie Creek. In all, Indians and whites, we counted eight men and one
woman.
Reynal, the trader, the image of sleek and selfish complacency, carried
The Horse’s dragoon sword in his hand, delighting apparently in this
useless parade; for, from spending half his life among Indians, he had
caught not only their habits but their ideas. Margot, a female animal
of more than two hundred pounds’ weight, was couched in the basket of
a travail, such as I have before described; besides her ponderous bulk,
various domestic utensils were attached to the vehicle, and she was
leading by a trail-rope a packhorse, who carried the covering of
Reynal’s lodge. Delorier walked briskly by the side of the cart, and
Raymond came behind, swearing at the spare horses, which it was his
business to drive. The restless young Indians, their quivers at their
backs, and their bows in their hand, galloped over the hills, often
starting a wolf or an antelope from the thick growth of wild-sage
bushes. Shaw and I were in keeping with the rest of the rude cavalcade,
having in the absence of other clothing adopted the buckskin attire
of the trappers. Henry Chatillon rode in advance of the whole. Thus we
passed hill after hill and hollow after hollow, a country arid, broken
and so parched by the sun that none of the plants familiar to our more
favored soil would flourish upon it, though there were multitudes of
strange medicinal herbs, more especially the absanth, which covered
every declivity, and cacti were hanging like reptiles at the edges of
every ravine. At length we ascended a high hill, our horses treading
upon pebbles of flint, agate, and rough jasper, until, gaining the top,
we looked down on the wild bottoms of Laramie Creek, which far below us
wound like a writhing snake from side to side of the narrow interval,
amid a growth of shattered cotton-wood and ash trees. Lines of tall
cliffs, white as chalk, shut in this green strip of woods and meadow
land, into which we descended and encamped for the night. In the morning
we passed a wide grassy plain by the river; there was a grove in front,
and beneath its shadows the ruins of an old trading fort of logs. The
grove bloomed with myriads of wild roses, with their sweet perfume
fraught with recollections of home. As we emerged from the trees, a
rattlesnake, as large as a man’s arm, and more than four feet long,
lay coiled on a rock, fiercely rattling and hissing at us; a gray hare,
double the size of those in New England, leaped up from the tall ferns;
curlew were screaming over our heads, and a whole host of little prairie
dogs sat yelping at us at the mouths of their burrows on the dry plain
beyond. Suddenly an antelope leaped up from the wild-sage bushes, gazed
eagerly at us, and then, erecting his white tail, stretched away like a
greyhound. The two Indian boys found a white wolf, as large as a calf in
a hollow, and giving a sharp yell, they galloped after him; but the wolf
leaped into the stream and swam across. Then came the crack of a rifle,
the bullet whistling harmlessly over his head, as he scrambled up the
steep declivity, rattling down stones and earth into the water below.
Advancing a little, we beheld on the farther bank of the stream, a
spectacle not common even in that region; for, emerging from among the
trees, a herd of some two hundred elk came out upon the meadow, their
antlers clattering as they walked forward in dense throng. Seeing us,
they broke into a run, rushing across the opening and disappearing
among the trees and scattered groves. On our left was a barren prairie,
stretching to the horizon; on our right, a deep gulf, with Laramie
Creek at the bottom. We found ourselves at length at the edge of a
steep descent; a narrow valley, with long rank grass and scattered trees
stretching before us for a mile or more along the course of the
stream. Reaching the farther end, we stopped and encamped. An old huge
cotton-wood tree spread its branches horizontally over our tent. Laramie
Creek, circling before our camp, half inclosed us; it swept along the
bottom of a line of tall white cliffs that looked down on us from the
farther bank. There were dense copses on our right; the cliffs, too,
were half hidden by shrubbery, though behind us a few cotton-wood trees,
dotting the green prairie, alone impeded the view, and friend or enemy
could be discerned in that direction at a mile’s distance. Here we
resolved to remain and await the arrival of The Whirlwind, who would
certainly pass this way in his progress toward La Bonte’s Camp. To go
in search of him was not expedient, both on account of the broken and
impracticable nature of the country and the uncertainty of his position
and movements; besides, our horses were almost worn out, and I was in no
condition to travel. We had good grass, good water, tolerable fish
from the stream, and plenty of smaller game, such as antelope and deer,
though no buffalo. There was one little drawback to our satisfaction--a
certain extensive tract of bushes and dried grass, just behind us, which
it was by no means advisable to enter, since it sheltered a numerous
brood of rattlesnakes. Henry Chatillon again dispatched The Horse to the
village, with a message to his squaw that she and her relatives should
leave the rest and push on as rapidly as possible to our camp.
Our daily routine soon became as regular as that of a well-ordered
household. The weather-beaten old tree was in the center; our rifles
generally rested against its vast trunk, and our saddles were flung on
the ground around it; its distorted roots were so twisted as to form one
or two convenient arm-chairs, where we could sit in the shade and read
or smoke; but meal-times became, on the whole, the most interesting
hours of the day, and a bountiful provision was made for them. An
antelope or a deer usually swung from a stout bough, and haunches were
suspended against the trunk. That camp is daguerreotyped on my memory;
the old tree, the white tent, with Shaw sleeping in the shadow of it,
and Reynal’s miserable lodge close by the bank of the stream. It was a
wretched oven-shaped structure, made of begrimed and tattered buffalo
hides stretched over a frame of poles; one side was open, and at the
side of the opening hung the powder horn and bullet pouch of the owner,
together with his long red pipe, and a rich quiver of otterskin, with a
bow and arrows; for Reynal, an Indian in most things but color, chose
to hunt buffalo with these primitive weapons. In the darkness of this
cavern-like habitation, might be discerned Madame Margot, her overgrown
bulk stowed away among her domestic implements, furs, robes, blankets,
and painted cases of PAR’ FLECHE, in which dried meat is kept. Here
she sat from sunrise to sunset, a bloated impersonation of gluttony
and laziness, while her affectionate proprietor was smoking, or begging
petty gifts from us, or telling lies concerning his own achievements,
or perchance engaged in the more profitable occupation of cooking some
preparation of prairie delicacies. Reynal was an adept at this work; he
and Delorier have joined forces and are hard at work together over
the fire, while Raymond spreads, by way of tablecloth, a buffalo hide,
carefully whitened with pipeclay, on the grass before the tent. Here,
with ostentatious display, he arranges the teacups and plates; and then,
creeping on all fours like a dog, he thrusts his head in at the opening
of the tent. For a moment we see his round owlish eyes rolling wildly,
as if the idea he came to communicate had suddenly escaped him; then
collecting his scattered thoughts, as if by an effort, he informs us
that supper is ready, and instantly withdraws.
When sunset came, and at that hour the wild and desolate scene would
assume a new aspect, the horses were driven in. They had been grazing
all day in the neighboring meadow, but now they were picketed close
about the camp. As the prairie darkened we sat and conversed around the
fire, until becoming drowsy we spread our saddles on the ground, wrapped
our blankets around us and lay down. We never placed a guard, having
by this time become too indolent; but Henry Chatillon folded his loaded
rifle in the same blanket with himself, observing that he always took it
to bed with him when he camped in that place. Henry was too bold a man
to use such a precaution without good cause. We had a hint now and then
that our situation was none of the safest; several Crow war parties were
known to be in the vicinity, and one of them, that passed here some time
before, had peeled the bark from a neighboring tree, and engraved upon
the white wood certain hieroglyphics, to signify that they had invaded
the territories of their enemies, the Dakota, and set them at defiance.
One morning a thick mist covered the whole country. Shaw and Henry went
out to ride, and soon came back with a startling piece of intelligence;
they had found within rifle-shot of our camp the recent trail of about
thirty horsemen. They could not be whites, and they could not be Dakota,
since we knew no such parties to be in the neighborhood; therefore
they must be Crows. Thanks to that friendly mist, we had escaped a hard
battle; they would inevitably have attacked us and our Indian companions
had they seen our camp. Whatever doubts we might have entertained, were
quite removed a day or two after, by two or three Dakota, who came to us
with an account of having hidden in a ravine on that very morning, from
whence they saw and counted the Crows; they said that they followed
them, carefully keeping out of sight, as they passed up Chugwater; that
here the Crows discovered five dead bodies of Dakota, placed according
to the national custom in trees, and flinging them to the ground, they
held their guns against them and blew them to atoms.
If our camp were not altogether safe, still it was comfortable enough;
at least it was so to Shaw, for I was tormented with illness and vexed
by the delay in the accomplishment of my designs. When a respite in my
disorder gave me some returning strength, I rode out well-armed upon
the prairie, or bathed with Shaw in the stream, or waged a petty warfare
with the inhabitants of a neighborhood prairie-dog village. Around our
fire at night we employed ourselves in inveighing against the fickleness
and inconstancy of Indians, and execrating The Whirlwind and all his
village. At last the thing grew insufferable.
“To-morrow morning,” said I, “I will start for the fort, and see if I
can hear any news there.” Late that evening, when the fire had sunk
low, and all the camp were asleep, a loud cry sounded from the darkness.
Henry started up, recognized the voice, replied to it, and our dandy
friend, The Horse, rode in among us, just returned from his mission to
the village. He coolly picketed his mare, without saying a word, sat
down by the fire and began to eat, but his imperturbable philosophy
was too much for our patience. Where was the village? about fifty miles
south of us; it was moving slowly and would not arrive in less than
a week; and where was Henry’s squaw? coming as fast as she could with
Mahto-Tatonka, and the rest of her brothers, but she would never reach
us, for she was dying, and asking every moment for Henry. Henry’s manly
face became clouded and downcast; he said that if we were willing he
would go in the morning to find her, at which Shaw offered to accompany
him.
We saddled our horses at sunrise. Reynal protested vehemently against
being left alone, with nobody but the two Canadians and the young
Indians, when enemies were in the neighborhood. Disregarding his
complaints, we left him, and coming to the mouth of Chugwater,
separated, Shaw and Henry turning to the right, up the bank of the
stream, while I made for the fort.
Taking leave for a while of my friend and the unfortunate squaw, I will
relate by way of episode what I saw and did at Fort Laramie. It was not
more than eighteen miles distant, and I reached it in three hours; a
shriveled little figure, wrapped from head to foot in a dingy white
Canadian capote, stood in the gateway, holding by a cord of bull’s hide
a shaggy wild horse, which he had lately caught. His sharp prominent
features, and his little keen snakelike eyes, looked out from beneath
the shadowy hood of the capote, which was drawn over his head exactly
like the cowl of a Capuchin friar. His face was extremely thin and like
an old piece of leather, and his mouth spread from ear to ear. Extending
his long wiry hand, he welcomed me with something more cordial than the
ordinary cold salute of an Indian, for we were excellent friends. He had
made an exchange of horses to our mutual advantage; and Paul, thinking
himself well-treated, had declared everywhere that the white man had
a good heart. He was a Dakota from the Missouri, a reputed son of the
half-breed interpreter, Pierre Dorion, so often mentioned in Irving’s
“Astoria.” He said that he was going to Richard’s trading house to sell
his horse to some emigrants who were encamped there, and asked me to go
with him. We forded the stream together, Paul dragging his wild charge
behind him. As we passed over the sandy plains beyond, he grew quite
communicative. Paul was a cosmopolitan in his way; he had been to the
settlements of the whites, and visited in peace and war most of the
tribes within the range of a thousand miles. He spoke a jargon of French
and another of English, yet nevertheless he was a thorough Indian; and
as he told of the bloody deeds of his own people against their enemies,
his little eye would glitter with a fierce luster. He told how the
Dakota exterminated a village of the Hohays on the Upper Missouri,
slaughtering men, women, and children; and how an overwhelming force of
them cut off sixteen of the brave Delawares, who fought like wolves
to the last, amid the throng of their enemies. He told me also another
story, which I did not believe until I had it confirmed from so many
independent sources that no room was left for doubt. I am tempted to
introduce it here.
Six years ago a fellow named Jim Beckwith, a mongrel of French,
American, and negro blood, was trading for the Fur Company, in a very
large village of the Crows. Jim Beckwith was last summer at St. Louis.
He is a ruffian of the first stamp; bloody and treacherous, without
honor or honesty; such at least is the character he bears upon the
prairie. Yet in his case all the standard rules of character fail,
for though he will stab a man in his sleep, he will also perform most
desperate acts of daring; such, for instance, as the following: While he
was in the Crow village, a Blackfoot war party, between thirty and forty
in number came stealing through the country, killing stragglers and
carrying off horses. The Crow warriors got upon their trail and pressed
them so closely that they could not escape, at which the Blackfeet,
throwing up a semicircular breastwork of logs at the foot of a
precipice, coolly awaited their approach. The logs and sticks, piled
four or five high, protected them in front. The Crows might have
swept over the breastwork and exterminated their enemies; but though
out-numbering them tenfold, they did not dream of storming the little
fortification. Such a proceeding would be altogether repugnant to their
notions of warfare. Whooping and yelling, and jumping from side to side
like devils incarnate, they showered bullets and arrows upon the logs;
not a Blackfoot was hurt, but several Crows, in spite of their leaping
and dodging, were shot down. In this childish manner the fight went on
for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow warrior in an ecstasy of valor
and vainglory would scream forth his war song, boasting himself the
bravest and greatest of mankind, and grasping his hatchet, would rush
up and strike it upon the breastwork, and then as he retreated to his
companions, fall dead under a shower of arrows; yet no combined
attack seemed to be dreamed of. The Blackfeet remained secure in their
intrenchment. At last Jim Beckwith lost patience.
“You are all fools and old women,” he said to the Crows; “come with me,
if any of you are brave enough, and I will show you how to fight.”
He threw off his trapper’s frock of buckskin and stripped himself naked
like the Indians themselves. He left his rifle on the ground, and taking
in his hand a small light hatchet, he ran over the prairie to the right,
concealed by a hollow from the eyes of the Blackfeet. Then climbing
up the rocks, he gained the top of the precipice behind them. Forty or
fifty young Crow warriors followed him. By the cries and whoops that
rose from below he knew that the Blackfeet were just beneath him; and
running forward, he leaped down the rock into the midst of them. As
he fell he caught one by the long loose hair and dragging him down
tomahawked him; then grasping another by the belt at his waist, he
struck him also a stunning blow, and gaining his feet, shouted the Crow
war-cry. He swung his hatchet so fiercely around him that the astonished
Blackfeet bore back and gave him room. He might, had he chosen, have
leaped over the breastwork and escaped; but this was not necessary, for
with devilish yells the Crow warriors came dropping in quick succession
over the rock among their enemies. The main body of the Crows, too,
answered the cry from the front and rushed up simultaneously. The
convulsive struggle within the breastwork was frightful; for an instant
the Blackfeet fought and yelled like pent-up tigers; but the butchery
was soon complete, and the mangled bodies lay piled up together under
the precipice. Not a Blackfoot made his escape.
As Paul finished his story we came in sight of Richard’s Fort. It stood
in the middle of the plain; a disorderly crowd of men around it, and an
emigrant camp a little in front.
“Now, Paul,” said I, “where are your Winnicongew lodges?”
“Not come yet,” said Paul, “maybe come to-morrow.”
Two large villages of a band of Dakota had come three hundred miles
from the Missouri, to join in the war, and they were expected to reach
Richard’s that morning. There was as yet no sign of their approach; so
pushing through a noisy, drunken crowd, I entered an apartment of logs
and mud, the largest in the fort; it was full of men of various races
and complexions, all more or less drunk. A company of California
emigrants, it seemed, had made the discovery at this late day that they
had encumbered themselves with too many supplies for their journey.
A part, therefore, they had thrown away or sold at great loss to
the traders, but had determined to get rid of their copious stock of
Missouri whisky, by drinking it on the spot. Here were maudlin squaws
stretched on piles of buffalo robes; squalid Mexicans, armed with bows
and arrows; Indians sedately drunk; long-haired Canadians and trappers,
and American backwoodsmen in brown homespun, the well-beloved pistol and
bowie knife displayed openly at their sides. In the middle of the room a
tall, lank man, with a dingy broadcloth coat, was haranguing the company
in the style of the stump orator. With one hand he sawed the air, and
with the other clutched firmly a brown jug of whisky, which he applied
every moment to his lips, forgetting that he had drained the contents
long ago. Richard formally introduced me to this personage, who was no
less a man than Colonel R., once the leader of the party. Instantly the
colonel seizing me, in the absence of buttons by the leather fringes of
my frock, began to define his position. His men, he said, had mutinied
and deposed him; but still he exercised over them the influence of
a superior mind; in all but the name he was yet their chief. As the
colonel spoke, I looked round on the wild assemblage, and could not help
thinking that he was but ill qualified to conduct such men across the
desert to California. Conspicuous among the rest stood three tail
young men, grandsons of Daniel Boone. They had clearly inherited the
adventurous character of that prince of pioneers; but I saw no signs of
the quiet and tranquil spirit that so remarkably distinguished him.
Fearful was the fate that months after overtook some of the members of
that party. General Kearny, on his late return from California, brought
in the account how they were interrupted by the deep snows among the
mountains, and maddened by cold and hunger fed upon each other’s flesh.
I got tired of the confusion. “Come, Paul,” said I, “we will be off.”
Paul sat in the sun, under the wall of the fort. He jumped up, mounted,
and we rode toward Fort Laramie. When we reached it, a man came out of
the gate with a pack at his back and a rifle on his shoulder; others
were gathering about him, shaking him by the hand, as if taking leave.
I thought it a strange thing that a man should set out alone and on
foot for the prairie. I soon got an explanation. Perrault--this, if
I recollect right was the Canadian’s name--had quarreled with the
bourgeois, and the fort was too hot to hold him. Bordeaux, inflated with
his transient authority, had abused him, and received a blow in return.
The men then sprang at each other, and grappled in the middle of the
fort. Bordeaux was down in an instant, at the mercy of the incensed
Canadian; had not an old Indian, the brother of his squaw, seized hold
of his antagonist, he would have fared ill. Perrault broke loose from
the old Indian, and both the white men ran to their rooms for their
guns; but when Bordeaux, looking from his door, saw the Canadian, gun in
hand, standing in the area and calling on him to come out and fight,
his heart failed him; he chose to remain where he was. In vain the old
Indian, scandalized by his brother-in-law’s cowardice, called upon him
to go upon the prairie and fight it out in the white man’s manner; and
Bordeaux’s own squaw, equally incensed, screamed to her lord and master
that he was a dog and an old woman. It all availed nothing. Bordeaux’s
prudence got the better of his valor, and he would not stir. Perrault
stood showering approbrious epithets at the recent bourgeois. Growing
tired of this, he made up a pack of dried meat, and slinging it at his
back, set out alone for Fort Pierre on the Missouri, a distance of three
hundred miles, over a desert country full of hostile Indians.
I remained in the fort that night. In the morning, as I was coming
out from breakfast, conversing with a trader named McCluskey, I saw
a strange Indian leaning against the side of the gate. He was a tall,
strong man, with heavy features.
“Who is he?” I asked. “That’s The Whirlwind,” said McCluskey. “He is the
fellow that made all this stir about the war. It’s always the way with
the Sioux; they never stop cutting each other’s throats; it’s all they
are fit for; instead of sitting in their lodges, and getting robes to
trade with us in the winter. If this war goes on, we’ll make a poor
trade of it next season, I reckon.”
And this was the opinion of all the traders, who were vehemently opposed
to the war, from the serious injury that it must occasion to their
interests. The Whirlwind left his village the day before to make a visit
to the fort. His warlike ardor had abated not a little since he
first conceived the design of avenging his son’s death. The long and
complicated preparations for the expedition were too much for his
fickle, inconstant disposition. That morning Bordeaux fastened upon him,
made him presents and told him that if he went to war he would destroy
his horses and kill no buffalo to trade with the white men; in short,
that he was a fool to think of such a thing, and had better make up his
mind to sit quietly in his lodge and smoke his pipe, like a wise man.
The Whirlwind’s purpose was evidently shaken; he had become tired, like
a child, of his favorite plan. Bordeaux exultingly predicted that he
would not go to war. My philanthropy at that time was no match for my
curiosity, and I was vexed at the possibility that after all I might
lose the rare opportunity of seeing the formidable ceremonies of
war. The Whirlwind, however, had merely thrown the firebrand; the
conflagration was become general. All the western bands of the Dakota
were bent on war; and as I heard from McCluskey, six large villages
already gathered on a little stream, forty miles distant, were daily
calling to the Great Spirit to aid them in their enterprise. McCluskey
had just left and represented them as on their way to La Bonte’s Camp,
which they would reach in a week, UNLESS THEY SHOULD LEARN THAT THERE
WERE NO BUFFALO THERE. I did not like this condition, for buffalo
this season were rare in the neighborhood. There were also the two
Minnicongew villages that I mentioned before; but about noon, an Indian
came from Richard’s Fort with the news that they were quarreling,
breaking up, and dispersing. So much for the whisky of the emigrants!
Finding themselves unable to drink the whole, they had sold the residue
to these Indians, and it needed no prophet to foretell the results; a
spark dropped into a powder magazine would not have produced a quicker
effect. Instantly the old jealousies and rivalries and smothered feuds
that exist in an Indian village broke out into furious quarrels. They
forgot the warlike enterprise that had already brought them three
hundred miles. They seemed like ungoverned children inflamed with the
fiercest passions of men. Several of them were stabbed in the drunken
tumult; and in the morning they scattered and moved back toward the
Missouri in small parties. I feared that, after all, the long-projected
meeting and the ceremonies that were to attend it might never take
place, and I should lose so admirable an opportunity of seeing the
Indian under his most fearful and characteristic aspect; however,
in foregoing this, I should avoid a very fair probability of being
plundered and stripped, and, it might be, stabbed or shot into the
bargain. Consoling myself with this reflection, I prepared to carry the
news, such as it was, to the camp.
I caught my horse, and to my vexation found he had lost a shoe and
broken his tender white hoof against the rocks. Horses are shod at Fort
Laramie at the moderate rate of three dollars a foot; so I tied
Hendrick to a beam in the corral, and summoned Roubidou, the blacksmith.
Roubidou, with the hoof between his knees, was at work with hammer and
file, and I was inspecting the process, when a strange voice addressed
me.
“Two more gone under! Well, there is more of us left yet. Here’s Jean
Gars and me off to the mountains to-morrow. Our turn will come next, I
suppose. It’s a hard life, anyhow!”
I looked up and saw a little man, not much more than five feet high, but
of very square and strong proportions. In appearance he was particularly
dingy; for his old buckskin frock was black and polished with time and
grease, and his belt, knife, pouch, and powder-horn appeared to have
seen the roughest service. The first joint of each foot was entirely
gone, having been frozen off several winters before, and his moccasins
were curtailed in proportion. His whole appearance and equipment bespoke
the “free trapper.” He had a round ruddy face, animated with a spirit of
carelessness and gayety not at all in accordance with the words he had
just spoken.
“Two more gone,” said I; “what do you mean by that?”
“Oh,” said he, “the Arapahoes have just killed two of us in the
mountains. Old Bull-Tail has come to tell us. They stabbed one behind
his back, and shot the other with his own rifle. That’s the way we live
here! I mean to give up trapping after this year. My squaw says she
wants a pacing horse and some red ribbons; I’ll make enough beaver to
get them for her, and then I’m done! I’ll go below and live on a farm.”
“Your bones will dry on the prairie, Rouleau!” said another trapper, who
was standing by; a strong, brutal-looking fellow, with a face as surly
as a bull-dog’s.
Rouleau only laughed, and began to hum a tune and shuffle a dance on his
stumps of feet.
“You’ll see us, before long, passing up our way,” said the other man.
“Well,” said I, “stop and take a cup of coffee with us”; and as it was
quite late in the afternoon, I prepared to leave the fort at once.
As I rode out, a train of emigrant wagons was passing across the stream.
“Whar are ye goin’ stranger?” Thus I was saluted by two or three voices
at once.
“About eighteen miles up the creek.”
“It’s mighty late to be going that far! Make haste, ye’d better, and
keep a bright lookout for Indians!”
I thought the advice too good to be neglected. Fording the stream, I
passed at a round trot over the plains beyond. But “the more haste, the
worse speed.” I proved the truth in the proverb by the time I reached
the hills three miles from the fort. The trail was faintly marked, and
riding forward with more rapidity than caution, I lost sight of it. I
kept on in a direct line, guided by Laramie Creek, which I could see
at intervals darkly glistening in the evening sun, at the bottom of
the woody gulf on my right. Half an hour before sunset I came upon its
banks. There was something exciting in the wild solitude of the place.
An antelope sprang suddenly from the sagebushes before me. As he leaped
gracefully not thirty yards before my horse, I fired, and instantly he
spun round and fell. Quite sure of him, I walked my horse toward him,
leisurely reloading my rifle, when to my surprise he sprang up and
trotted rapidly away on three legs into the dark recesses of the hills,
whither I had no time to follow. Ten minutes after, I was passing along
the bottom of a deep valley, and chancing to look behind me, I saw in
the dim light that something was following. Supposing it to be wolf, I
slid from my seat and sat down behind my horse to shoot it; but as
it came up, I saw by its motions that it was another antelope. It
approached within a hundred yards, arched its graceful neck, and gazed
intently. I leveled at the white spot on its chest, and was about to
fire when it started off, ran first to one side and then to the other,
like a vessel tacking against a wind, and at last stretched away at full
speed. Then it stopped again, looked curiously behind it, and trotted up
as before; but not so boldly, for it soon paused and stood gazing at
me. I fired; it leaped upward and fell upon its tracks. Measuring the
distance, I found it 204 paces. When I stood by his side, the antelope
turned his expiring eye upward. It was like a beautiful woman’s, dark
and rich. “Fortunate that I am in a hurry,” thought I; “I might be
troubled with remorse, if I had time for it.”
Cutting the animal up, not in the most skilled manner, I hung the meat
at the back of my saddle, and rode on again. The hills (I could not
remember one of them) closed around me. “It is too late,” thought I,
“to go forward. I will stay here to-night, and look for the path in the
morning.” As a last effort, however, I ascended a high hill, from which,
to my great satisfaction, I could see Laramie Creek stretching before
me, twisting from side to side amid ragged patches of timber; and
far off, close beneath the shadows of the trees, the ruins of the old
trading fort were visible. I reached them at twilight. It was far from
pleasant, in that uncertain light, to be pushing through the dense trees
and shrubbery of the grove beyond. I listened anxiously for the footfall
of man or beast. Nothing was stirring but one harmless brown bird,
chirping among the branches. I was glad when I gained the open prairie
once more, where I could see if anything approached. When I came to the
mouth of Chugwater, it was totally dark. Slackening the reins, I let my
horse take his own course. He trotted on with unerring instinct, and by
nine o’clock was scrambling down the steep ascent into the meadows where
we were encamped. While I was looking in vain for the light of the
fire, Hendrick, with keener perceptions, gave a loud neigh, which was
immediately answered in a shrill note from the distance. In a moment I
was hailed from the darkness by the voice of Reynal, who had come out,
rifle in hand, to see who was approaching.
He, with his squaw, the two Canadians and the Indian boys, were the sole
inmates of the camp, Shaw and Henry Chatillon being still absent. At
noon of the following day they came back, their horses looking none the
better for the journey. Henry seemed dejected. The woman was dead, and
his children must henceforward be exposed, without a protector, to the
hardships and vicissitudes of Indian life. Even in the midst of his
grief he had not forgotten his attachment to his bourgeois, for he had
procured among his Indian relatives two beautifully ornamented buffalo
robes, which he spread on the ground as a present to us.
Shaw lighted his pipe, and told me in a few words the history of his
journey. When I went to the fort they left me, as I mentioned, at the
mouth of Chugwater. They followed the course of the little stream all
day, traversing a desolate and barren country. Several times they came
upon the fresh traces of a large war party--the same, no doubt, from
whom we had so narrowly escaped an attack. At an hour before sunset,
without encountering a human being by the way, they came upon the lodges
of the squaw and her brothers, who, in compliance with Henry’s message,
had left the Indian village in order to join us at our camp. The lodges
were already pitched, five in number, by the side of the stream. The
woman lay in one of them, reduced to a mere skeleton. For some time she
had been unable to move or speak. Indeed, nothing had kept her alive
but the hope of seeing Henry, to whom she was strongly and faithfully
attached. No sooner did he enter the lodge than she revived, and
conversed with him the greater part of the night. Early in the morning
she was lifted into a travail, and the whole party set out toward our
camp. There were but five warriors; the rest were women and children.
The whole were in great alarm at the proximity of the Crow war party,
who would certainly have destroyed them without mercy had they met. They
had advanced only a mile or two, when they discerned a horseman, far
off, on the edge of the horizon. They all stopped, gathering together in
the greatest anxiety, from which they did not recover until long after
the horseman disappeared; then they set out again. Henry was riding with
Shaw a few rods in advance of the Indians, when Mahto-Tatonka, a younger
brother of the woman, hastily called after them. Turning back, they
found all the Indians crowded around the travail in which the woman was
lying. They reached her just in time to hear the death-rattle in
her throat. In a moment she lay dead in the basket of the vehicle. A
complete stillness succeeded; then the Indians raised in concert their
cries of lamentation over the corpse, and among them Shaw clearly
distinguished those strange sounds resembling the word “Halleluyah,”
which together with some other accidental coincidences has given rise
to the absurd theory that the Indians are descended from the ten lost
tribes of Israel.
The Indian usage required that Henry, as well as the other relatives of
the woman, should make valuable presents, to be placed by the side of
the body at its last resting place. Leaving the Indians, he and Shaw set
out for the camp and reached it, as we have seen, by hard pushing, at
about noon. Having obtained the necessary articles, they immediately
returned. It was very late and quite dark when they again reached the
lodges. They were all placed in a deep hollow among the dreary hills.
Four of them were just visible through the gloom, but the fifth and
largest was illuminated by the ruddy blaze of a fire within, glowing
through the half-transparent covering of raw hides. There was a perfect
stillness as they approached. The lodges seemed without a tenant. Not a
living thing was stirring--there was something awful in the scene. They
rode up to the entrance of the lodge, and there was no sound but the
tramp of their horses. A squaw came out and took charge of the animals,
without speaking a word. Entering, they found the lodge crowded with
Indians; a fire was burning in the midst, and the mourners encircled
it in a triple row. Room was made for the newcomers at the head of the
lodge, a robe spread for them to sit upon, and a pipe lighted and handed
to them in perfect silence. Thus they passed the greater part of the
night. At times the fire would subside into a heap of embers, until the
dark figures seated around it were scarcely visible; then a squaw would
drop upon it a piece of buffalo-fat, and a bright flame, instantly
springing up, would reveal of a sudden the crowd of wild faces,
motionless as bronze. The silence continued unbroken. It was a relief
to Shaw when daylight returned and he could escape from this house of
mourning. He and Henry prepared to return homeward; first, however, they
placed the presents they had brought near the body of the squaw, which,
most gaudily attired, remained in a sitting posture in one of the
lodges. A fine horse was picketed not far off, destined to be killed
that morning for the service of her spirit, for the woman was lame, and
could not travel on foot over the dismal prairies to the villages of
the dead. Food, too, was provided, and household implements, for her use
upon this last journey.
Henry left her to the care of her relatives, and came immediately with
Shaw to the camp. It was some time before he entirely recovered from his
dejection.