The business of the rendezvous occupied about a month. In this period
the men, Indian allies, and other Indian parties who usually visited the
camp at this time, were all supplied with goods. The remaining
merchandise was adjusted for the convenience of the different traders
who should be sent out through all the country traversed by the company.
Sublette then decided upon their routes, dividing up his forces into
camps, which took each its appointed course, detaching as it proceeded
small parties of trappers to all the hunting grounds in the
neighborhood. These smaller camps were ordered to meet at certain times
and places, to report progress, collect and cache their furs, and "count
noses." If certain parties failed to arrive, others were sent out in
search for them.
This year, in the absence of Smith and Jackson, a considerable party was
dispatched, under Milton Sublette, brother of the Captain, and two other
free trappers and traders, Frapp and Jervais, to traverse the country
down along the Bighorn River. Captain Sublette took a large party, among
whom was Joe Meek, across the mountains to trap on the Snake River, in
opposition to the Hudson's Bay Company. The Rocky Mountain Fur Company
had hitherto avoided this country, except when Smith had once crossed to
the head-waters of the Snake with a small party of five trappers. But
Smith and Sublette had determined to oppose themselves to the British
traders who occupied so large an extent of territory presumed to be
American; and it had been agreed between them to meet this year on Snake
River on Sublette's return from St. Louis, and Smith's from his
California tour. What befel Smith's party before reaching the Columbia,
has already been related; also his reception by the Hudson's Bay
Company, and his departure from Vancouver.
Sublette led his company up the valley of the Wind River, across the
mountains, and on to the very head-waters of the Lewis or Snake River.
Here he fell in with Jackson, in the valley of Lewis Lake, called
Jackson's Hole, and remained on the borders of this lake for some time,
waiting for Smith, whose non-appearance began to create a good deal of
uneasiness. At length runners were dispatched in all directions looking
for the lost Booshway.
The detachment to which Meek was assigned had the pleasure and honor of
discovering the hiding place of the missing partner, which was in
Pierre's Hole, a mountain valley about thirty miles long and of half
that width, which subsequently was much frequented by the camps of the
various fur companies. He was found trapping and exploring, in company
with four men only, one of whom was Black, who with him escaped from the
Umpqua Indians, as before related.
Notwithstanding the excitement and elation attendant upon the success of
his party, Meek found time to admire the magnificent scenery of the
valley, which is bounded on two sides by broken and picturesque ranges,
and overlooked by that magnificent group of mountains, called the Three
Tetons, towering to a height of fourteen thousand feet. This emerald cup
set in its rim of amethystine mountains, was so pleasant a sight to the
mountain-men that camp was moved to it without delay, where it remained
until some time in September, recruiting its animals and preparing for
the fall hunt.
Here again the trappers indulged in their noisy sports and rejoicing,
ostensibly on account of the return of the long-absent Booshway. There
was little said of the men who had perished in that unfortunate
expedition. "Poor fellow! out of luck;" was the usual burial rite which
the memory of a dead comrade received. So much and no more. They could
indulge in noisy rejoicings over a lost comrade restored; but the dead
one was not mentioned. Nor was this apparently heartless and heedless
manner so irrational or unfeeling as it seemed. Everybody understood one
thing in the mountains--that he must keep his life by his own courage
and valor, or at the least by his own prudence. Unseen dangers always
lay in wait for him. The arrow or tomahawk of the Indian, the blow of
the grizzly bear, the mis-step on the dizzy or slippery height, the rush
of boiling and foaming floods, freezing cold, famine--these were the
most common forms of peril, yet did not embrace even then all the forms
in which Death sought his victims in the wilderness. The avoidance of
painful reminders, such as the loss of a party of men, was a natural
instinct, involving also a principle of self defence--since to have weak
hearts would be the surest road to defeat in the next dangerous
encounter. To keep their hearts "big," they must be gay, they must not
remember the miserable fate of many of their one-time comrades. Think of
that, stern moralist and martinet in propriety! Your fur collar hangs in
the gas-lighted hall. In your luxurious dressing gown and slippers, by
the warmth of a glowing grate, you muse upon the depravity of your
fellow men. But imagine yourself, if you can, in the heart of an
interminable wilderness. Let the snow be three or four feet deep, game
scarce, Indians on your track: escaped from these dangers, once more
beside a camp fire, with a roast of buffalo meat on a stick before it,
and several of your companions similarly escaped, and destined for the
same chances to-morrow, around you. Do you fancy you should give much
time to lamenting the less lucky fellows who were left behind frozen,
starved, or scalped? Not you. You would be fortifying yourself against
to-morrow, when the same terrors might lay in wait for you. Jedediah
Smith was a pious man; one of the few that ever resided in the Rocky
Mountains, and led a band of reckless trappers; but he did not turn back
to his camp when he saw it attacked on the Umpqua, nor stop to lament
his murdered men. The law of self-preservation is strong in the
wilderness. "Keep up your heart to-day, for to-morrow you may die," is
the motto of the trapper.
In the conference which took place between Smith and Sublette, the
former insisted that on account of the kind services of the Hudson's Bay
Company toward himself and the three other survivors of his party, they
should withdraw their trappers and traders from the western side of the
mountains for the present, so as not to have them come in conflict with
those of that company. To this proposition Sublette reluctantly
consented, and orders were issued for moving once more to the east,
before going into winter camp, which was appointed for the Wind River
Valley.
In the meantime Joe Meek was sent out with a party to take his first
hunt for beaver as a hired trapper. The detachment to which he belonged
traveled down Pierre's fork, the stream which watered the valley of
Pierre's Hole, to its junction with Lewis' and Henry's forks where they
unite to form the great Snake River. While trapping in this locality the
party became aware of the vicinity of a roving band of Blackfeet, and in
consequence, redoubled their usual precautions while on the march.
The Blackfeet were the tribe most dreaded in the Rocky Mountains, and
went by the name of "Bugs Boys," which rendered into good English, meant
"the devil's own." They are now so well known that to mention their
characteristics seems like repeating a "twice-told tale;" but as they
will appear so often in this narrative, Irving's account of them as he
had it from Bonneville when he was fresh from the mountains, will, after
all, not be out of place. "These savages," he says, "are the most
dangerous banditti of the mountains, and the inveterate foe of the
trapper. They are Ishmaelites of the first order, always with weapon in
hand, ready for action. The young braves of the tribe, who are destitute
of property, go to war for booty; to gain horses, and acquire the means
of setting up a lodge, supporting a family, and entitling themselves to
a seat in the public councils. The veteran warriors fight merely for the
love of the thing, and the consequence which success gives them among
their people. They are capital horsemen, and are generally well mounted
on short, stout horses, similar to the prairie ponies, to be met with in
St. Louis. When on a war party, however, they go on foot, to enable them
to skulk through the country with greater secrecy; to keep in thickets
and ravines, and use more adroit subterfuges and stratagems. Their mode
of warfare is entirely by ambush, surprise, and sudden assaults in the
night time. If they succeed in causing a panic, they dash forward with
headlong fury; if the enemy is on the alert, and shows no signs of fear,
they become wary and deliberate in their movements.
"Some of them are armed in the primitive style, with bows and arrows;
the greater part have American fusees, made after the fashion of those
of the Hudson's Bay Company. These they procure at the trading post of
the American Fur Company, on Maria's River, where they traffic their
peltries for arms, ammunition, clothing, and trinkets. They are
extremely fond of spirituous liquors and tobacco, for which nuisances
they are ready to exchange, not merely their guns and horses, but even
their wives and daughters. As they are a treacherous race, and have
cherished a lurking hostility to the whites, ever since one of their
tribe was killed by Mr. Lewis, the associate of General Clarke, in his
exploring expedition across the Rocky Mountains, the American Fur
Company is obliged constantly to keep at their post a garrison of sixty
or seventy men."
"Under the general name of Blackfeet are comprehended several tribes,
such as the Surcies, the Peagans, the Blood Indians, and the Gros
Ventres of the Prairies, who roam about the Southern branches of the
Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers, together with some other tribes further
north. The bands infesting the Wind River Mountains, and the country
adjacent, at the time of which we are treating, were Gros Ventres _of
the Prairies_, which are not to be confounded with the Gros Ventres _of
the Missouri_, who keep about the _lower_ part of that river, and are
friendly to the white men."
"This hostile band keeps about the head-waters of the Missouri, and
numbers about nine hundred fighting men. Once in the course of two or
three years they abandon their usual abodes and make a visit to the
Arapahoes of the Arkansas. Their route lies either through the Crow
country, and the Black Hills, or through the lands of the Nez Perces,
Flatheads, Bannacks, and Shoshonies. As they enjoy their favorite state
of hostility with all these tribes, their expeditions are prone to be
conducted in the most lawless and predatory style; nor do they hesitate
to extend their maraudings to any party of white men they meet with,
following their trail, hovering about their camps, waylaying and
dogging the caravans of the free traders, and murdering the solitary
trapper. The consequences are frequent and desperate fights between them
and the mountaineers, in the wild defiles and fastnesses of the Rocky
Mountains." Such were the Blackfeet at the period of which we are
writing; nor has their character changed at this day, as many of the
Montana miners know to their cost.