1837. The decline of the business of hunting furs began to be quite
obvious about this time. Besides the American and St. Louis Companies,
and the Hudson's Bay Company, there were numerous lone traders with whom
the ground was divided. The autumn of this year was spent by the
American Company, as formerly, in trapping beaver on the streams issuing
from the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains. When the cold weather
finally drove the Fur Company to the plains, they went into winter
quarters once more in the neighborhood of the Crows on Powder River.
Here were re-enacted the wild scenes of the previous winter, both
trappers and Indians being given up to excesses.
On the return of spring, Bridger again led his brigade all through the
Yellowstone country, to the streams on the north side of the Missouri,
to the head-waters of that river; and finally rendezvoused on the north
fork of the Yellowstone, near Yellowstone Lake. Though the amount of
furs taken on the spring hunt was considerable, it was by no means equal
to former years. The fact was becoming apparent that the beaver was
being rapidly exterminated.
However there was beaver enough in camp to furnish the means for the
usual profligacy. Horse-racing, betting, gambling, drinking, were freely
indulged in. In the midst of this "fun," there appeared at the
rendezvous Mr. Gray, now accompanied by Mrs. Gray and six other
missionary ladies and gentlemen. Here also were two gentlemen from the
Methodist mission on the Wallamet, who were returning to the States.
Captain Stuart was still traveling with the Fur Company, and was also
present with his party; besides which a Hudson's Bay trader named
Ematinger was encamped near by. As if actuated to extraordinary displays
by the unusual number of visitors, especially the four ladies, both
trappers and Indians conducted themselves like the mad-caps they were.
The Shawnees and Delawares danced their great war-dance before the tents
of the missionaries; and Joe Meek, not to be outdone, arrayed himself in
a suit of armor belonging to Captain Stuart and strutted about the
encampment; then mounting his horse played the part of an ancient
knight, with a good deal of _eclat_.
Meek had not abstained from the alcohol kettle, but had offered it and
partaken of it rather more freely than usual; so that when rendezvous
was broken up, the St. Louis Company gone to the Popo Agie, and the
American Company going to Wind River, he found that his wife, a Nez
Perce who had succeeded Umentucken in his affections, had taken offence,
or a fit of homesickness, which was synonymous, and departed with the
party of Ematinger and the missionaries, intending to visit her people
at Walla-Walla. This desertion wounded Meek's feelings; for he prided
himself on his courtesy to the sex, and did not like to think that he
had not behaved handsomely. All the more was he vexed with himself
because his spouse had carried with her a pretty and sprightly
baby-daughter, of whom the father was fond and proud, and who had been
christened Helen Mar, after one of the heroines of Miss Porter's
_Scottish Chiefs_--a book much admired in the mountains, as it has been
elsewhere.
Therefore at the first camp of the American Company, Meek resolved to
turn his back on the company, and go after the mother and daughter.
Obtaining a fresh kettle of alcohol, to keep up his spirits, he left
camp, returning toward the scene of the late rendezvous. But in the
effort to keep up his spirits he had drank too much alcohol, and the
result was that on the next morning he found himself alone on the Wind
River Mountain, with his horses and pack mules, and very sick indeed.
Taking a little more alcohol to brace up his nerves, he started on
again, passing around the mountain on to the Sweetwater; thence to the
Sandy, and thence across a country without water for seventy-five miles,
to Green River, where the camp of Ematinger was overtaken.
The heat was excessive; and the absence of water made the journey across
the arid plain between Sandy and Green Rivers one of great suffering to
the traveler and his animals; and the more so as the frequent references
to the alcohol kettle only increased the thirst-fever instead of
allaying it. But Meek was not alone in suffering. About half way across
the scorching plain he discovered a solitary woman's figure standing in
the trail, and two riding horses near her, whose drooping heads
expressed their dejection. On coming up with this strange group, Meek
found the woman to be one of the missionary ladies, a Mrs. Smith, and
that her husband was lying on the ground, dying, as the poor sufferer
believed himself, for water.
Mrs. Smith made a weeping appeal to Meek for water for her dying
husband; and truly the poor woman's situation was a pitiable one. Behind
camp, with no protection from the perils of the desert and
wilderness--only a terrible care instead--the necessity of trying to
save her husband's life. As no water was to be had, alcohol was offered
to the famishing man, who, however, could not be aroused from his stupor
of wretchedness. Seeing that death really awaited the unlucky missionary
unless something could be done to cause him to exert himself, Meek
commenced at once, and with unction, to abuse the man for his
unmanliness. His style, though not very refined, was certainly very
vigorous.
"You're a ---- pretty fellow to be lying on the ground here, lolling
your tongue out of your mouth, and trying to die. Die, if you want to,
you're of no account and will never be missed. Here's your wife, who you
are keeping standing here in the hot sun; why don't _she_ die? She's got
more pluck than a white-livered chap like you. But I'm not going to
leave her waiting here for you to die. Thar's a band of Indians behind
on the trail, and I've been riding like ---- to keep out of their way.
If you want to stay here and be scalped, you can stay; Mrs. Smith is
going with me. Come, madam," continued Meek, leading up her horse, "let
me help you to mount, for we must get out of this cursed country as fast
as possible."
Poor Mrs. Smith did not wish to leave her husband; nor did she relish
the notion of staying to be scalped. Despair tugged at her
heart-strings. She would have sunk to the ground in a passion of tears,
but Meek was too much in earnest to permit precious time to be thus
wasted. "Get on your horse," said he rather roughly. "You can't save
your husband by staying here, crying. It is better that one should die
than two; and he seems to be a worthless dog anyway. Let the Indians
have him."
Almost lifting her upon the horse, Meek tore the distracted woman away
from her husband, who had yet strength enough to gasp out an entreaty
not to be left.
"You can follow us if you choose," said the apparently merciless
trapper, "or you can stay where you are. Mrs. Smith can find plenty of
better men than you. Come, madam!" and he gave the horse a stroke with
his riding-whip which started him into a rapid pace.
The unhappy wife, whose conscience reproached her for leaving her
husband to die alone, looked back, and saw him raising his head to gaze
after them. Her grief broke out afresh, and she would have gone back
even then to remain with him: but Meek was firm, and again started up
her horse. Before they were quite out of sight, Meek turned in his
saddle, and beheld the dying man sitting up. "Hurrah;" said he: "he's
all right. He will overtake us in a little while:" and as he predicted,
in little over an hour Smith came riding up, not more than half dead by
this time. The party got into camp on Green River, about eleven o'clock
that night, and Mrs. Smith having told the story of her adventures with
the unknown trapper who had so nearly kidnaped her, the laugh and the
cheer went round among the company. "That's Meek," said Ematinger, "you
may rely on that. He's just the one to kidnap a woman in that way." When
Mrs. Smith fully realized the service rendered, she was abundantly
grateful, and profuse were the thanks which our trapper received, even
from the much-abused husband, who was now thoroughly alive again. Meek
failed to persuade his wife to return with him. She was homesick for her
people, and would go to them. But instead of turning back, he kept on
with Ematinger's camp as far as Fort Hall, which post was then in charge
of Courtenay Walker.
While the camp was at Soda Springs, Meek observed the missionary ladies
baking bread in a tin reflector before a fire. Bread was a luxury
unknown to the mountain-man,--and as a sudden recollection of his
boyhood, and the days of bread-and-butter came over him, his mouth began
to water. Almost against his will he continued to hang round the
missionary camp, thinking about the bread. At length one of the Nez
Perces, named James, whom the missionary had taught to sing, at their
request struck up a hymn, which he sang in a very creditable manner. As
a reward of his pious proficiency, one of the ladies gave James a
biscuit. A bright thought struck our longing hero's brain. "Go back,"
said he to James, "and sing another hymn; and when the ladies give you
another biscuit, bring it to me." And in this manner, he obtained a
taste of the coveted luxury, bread--of which, during nine years in the
mountains he had not eaten.
At Fort Hall, Meek parted company with the missionaries, and with his
wife and child. As the little black-eyed daughter took her departure in
company with this new element in savage life,--the missionary
society,--her father could have had no premonition of the fate to which
the admixture of the savage and the religious elements was step by step
consigning her.
After remaining a few days at the fort, Meek, who found some of his old
comrades at this place, went trapping with them up the Portneuf, and
soon made up a pack of one hundred and fifty beaver-skins. These, on
returning to the fort, he delivered to Jo Walker, one of the American
Company's traders at that time, and took Walker's receipt for them. He
then, with Mansfield and Wilkins, set out about the first of September
for the Flathead country, where Wilkins had a wife. In their company was
an old Flathead woman, who wished to return to her people, and took this
opportunity.
The weather was still extremely warm. It had been a season of great
drought, and the streams were nearly all entirely dried up. The first
night out, the horses, eight in number, strayed off in search of water,
and were lost. Now commenced a day of fearful sufferings. No water had
been found since leaving the fort. The loss of the horses made it
necessary for the company to separate to look for them; Mansfield and
Wilkins going in one direction, Meek and the old Flathead woman in
another. The little coolness and moisture which night had imparted to
the atmosphere was quickly dissipated by the unchecked rays of the
pitiless sun shining on a dry and barren plain, with not a vestige of
verdure anywhere in sight. On and on went the old Flathead woman,
keeping always in the advance, and on and on followed Meek, anxiously
scanning the horizon for a chance sight of the horses. Higher and higher
mounted the sun, the temperature increasing in intensity until the great
plain palpitated with radiated heat, and the horizon flickered almost
like a flame where the burning heavens met the burning earth. Meek had
been drinking a good deal of rum at the fort, which circumstance did not
lessen the terrible consuming thirst that was torturing him.
Noon came, and passed, and still the heat and the suffering increased,
the fever and craving of hunger being now added to that of thirst. On
and on, through the whole of that long scorching afternoon, trotted the
old Flathead woman in the peculiar traveling gait of the Indian and the
mountaineer, Meek following at a little distance, and going mad, as he
thought, for a little water. And mad he probably was, as famine
sometimes makes its victims. When night at last closed in, he laid down
to die, as the missionary Smith had done before. But he did not remember
Smith: he only thought of water, and heard it running, and fancied the
old woman was lapping it like a wolf. Then he rose to follow her and
find it; it was always just ahead, and the woman was howling to him to
show him the trail.
Thus the night passed, and in the cool of the early morning he
experienced a little relief. He was really following his guide, who as
on the day before was trotting on ahead. Then the thought possessed him
to overtake and kill her, hoping from her shriveled body to obtain a
morsel of food, and drop of moisture. But his strength was failing, and
his guide so far ahead that he gave up the thought as involving too
great exertion, continuing to follow her in a helpless and hopeless kind
of way.
At last! There was no mistake this time: he heard running water, and the
old woman _was_ lapping it like a wolf. With a shriek of joy he ran and
fell on his face in the water, which was not more than one foot in
depth, nor the stream more than fifteen feet wide. But it had a white
pebbly bottom; and the water was clear, if not very cool. It was
something to thank God for, which the none too religious trapper
acknowledged by a fervent "Thank God!"
For a long time he lay in the water, swallowing it, and by thrusting his
finger down his throat vomiting it up again, to prevent surfeit, his
whole body taking in the welcome moisture at all its million pores. The
fever abated, a feeling of health returned, and the late perishing man
was restored to life and comparative happiness. The stream proved to be
Godin's Fork, and here Meek and his faithful old guide rested until
evening, in the shade of some willows, where their good fortune was
completed by the appearance of Mansfield and Wilkins with the horses.
The following morning the men found and killed a fat buffalo cow,
whereby all their wants were supplied, and good feeling restored in the
little camp.
From Godin's Fork they crossed over to Salmon River, and presently
struck the Nez Perce trail which leads from that river over into the
Beaver-head country, on the Beaver-head or Jefferson Fork of the
Missouri, where there was a Flathead and Nez Perce village, on or about
the present site of Virginia City, in Montana.
Not stopping long here, Meek and his companions went on to the Madison
Fork with the Indian village, and to the shores of Missouri Lake,
joining in the fall hunt for buffalo.
[Illustration: HORSE-TAIL FALL.]