Chapter 40

40.

Traveller's tales Indian lurkers Prognostics of Buckeye

Signs and portents The medicine wolf An alarm An ambush

The captured provant Triumph of Buckeye Arrival of supplies

Grand carouse Arrangements for the year Mr. Wyeth and his

new-levied band.

THE horror and indignation felt by Captain Bonneville at the

excesses of the Californian adventurers were not participated by

his men; on the contrary, the events of that expedition were

favorite themes in the camp. The heroes of Monterey bore the palm

in all the gossipings among the hunters. Their glowing

descriptions of Spanish bear-baits and bull-fights especially,

were listened to with intense delight; and had another expedition

to California been proposed, the difficulty would have been to

restrain a general eagerness to volunteer.

The captain had not long been at the rendezvous when he

perceived, by various signs, that Indians were lurking in the

neighborhood. It was evident that the Blackfoot band, which he

had seen when on his march, had dogged his party, and were intent

on mischief. He endeavored to keep his camp on the alert; but it

is as difficult to maintain discipline among trappers at a

rendezvous as among sailors when in port.

Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was scandalized at this

heedlessness of the hunters when an enemy was at hand, and was

continually preaching up caution. He was a little prone to play

the prophet, and to deal in signs and portents, which

occasionally excited the merriment of his white comrades. He was

a great dreamer, and believed in charms and talismans, or

medicines, and could foretell the approach of strangers by the

howling or barking of the small prairie wolf. This animal, being

driven by the larger wolves from the carcasses left on the

hunting grounds by the hunters, follows the trail of the fresh

meat carried to the camp. Here the smell of the roast and

broiled, mingling with every breeze, keeps them hovering about

the neighborhood; scenting every blast, turning up their noses

like hungry hounds, and testifying their pinching hunger by long

whining howls and impatient barkings. These are interpreted by

the superstitious Indians into warnings that strangers are at

hand; and one accidental coincidence, like the chance fulfillment

of an almanac prediction, is sufficient to cover a thousand

failures. This little, whining, feast-smelling animal is,

therefore, called among Indians the "medicine wolf;" and such was

one of Buckeye's infallible oracles.

One morning early, the soothsaying Delaware appeared with a

gloomy countenance. His mind was full of dismal presentiments,

whether from mysterious dreams, or the intimations of the

medicine wolf, does not appear. "Danger," he said, "was lurking

in their path, and there would be some fighting before sunset."

He was bantered for his prophecy, which was attributed to his

having supped too heartily, and been visited by bad dreams. In

the course of the morning a party of hunters set out in pursuit

of buffaloes, taking with them a mule, to bring home the meat

they should procure. They had been some few hours absent, when

they came clattering at full speed into camp, giving the war cry

of Blackfeet! Blackfeet! Every one seized his weapon and ran to

learn the cause of the alarm. It appeared that the hunters, as

they were returning leisurely, leading their mule well laden with

prime pieces of buffalo meat, passed close by a small stream

overhung with trees, about two miles from the camp. Suddenly a

party of Blackfeet, who lay in ambush along the thickets, sprang

up with a fearful yell, and discharged a volley at the hunters.

The latter immediately threw themselves flat on their horses, put

them to their speed, and never paused to look behind, until they

found themselves in camp. Fortunately they had escaped without a

wound; but the mule, with all the "provant," had fallen into the

hands of the enemy This was a loss, as well as an insult, not to

be borne. Every man sprang to horse, and with rifle in hand,

galloped off to punish the Blackfeet, and rescue the buffalo

beef. They came too late; the marauders were off, and all that

they found of their mule was the dents of his hoofs, as he had

been conveyed off at a round trot, bearing his savory cargo to

the hills, to furnish the scampering savages with a banquet of

roast meat at the expense of the white men.

The party returned to camp, balked of their revenge, but still

more grievously balked of their supper. Buckeye, the Delaware,

sat smoking by his fire, perfectly composed. As the hunters

related the particulars of the attack, he listened in silence,

with unruffled countenance, then pointing to the west, "the sun

has not yet set," said he: "Buckeye did not dream like a fool!"

All present now recollected the prediction of the Indian at

daybreak, and were struck with what appeared to be its

fulfilment. They called to mind, also, a long catalogue of

foregone presentiments and predictions made at various times by

the Delaware, and, in their superstitious credulity, began to

consider him a veritable seer; without thinking how natural it

was to predict danger, and how likely to have the prediction

verified in the present instance, when various signs gave

evidence of a lurking foe.

The various bands of Captain Bonneville's company had now been

assembled for some time at the rendezvous; they had had their

fill of feasting, and frolicking, and all the species of wild and

often uncouth merrymaking, which invariably take place on these

occasions. Their horses, as well as themselves, had recovered

from past famine and fatigue, and were again fit for active

service; and an impatience began to manifest itself among the men

once more to take the field, and set off on some wandering

expedition.

At this juncture M. Cerre arrived at the rendezvous at the head

of a supply party, bringing goods and equipments from the States.

This active leader, it will be recollected, had embarked the year

previously in skin-boats on the Bighorn, freighted with the

year's collection of peltries. He had met with misfortune in the

course of his voyage: one of his frail barks being upset, and

part of the furs lost or damaged.

The arrival of the supplies gave the regular finish to the annual

revel. A grand outbreak of wild debauch ensued among the

mountaineers; drinking, dancing, swaggering, gambling,

quarrelling, and fighting. Alcohol, which, from its portable

qualities, containing the greatest quantity of fiery spirit in

the smallest compass, is the only liquor carried across the

mountains, is the inflammatory beverage at these carousals, and

is dealt out to the trappers at four dollars a pint. When

inflamed by this fiery beverage, they cut all kinds of mad pranks

and gambols, and sometimes burn all their clothes in their

drunken bravadoes. A camp, recovering from one of these riotous

revels, presents a seriocomic spectacle; black eyes, broken

heads, lack-lustre visages. Many of the trappers have squandered

in one drunken frolic the hard-earned wages of a year; some have

run in debt, and must toil on to pay for past pleasure. All are

sated with this deep draught of pleasure, and eager to commence

another trapping campaign; for hardship and hard work, spiced

with the stimulants of wild adventures, and topped off with an

annual frantic carousal, is the lot of the restless trapper.

The captain now made his arrangements for the current year.

Cerre and Walker, with a number of men who had been to

California, were to proceed to St. Louis with the packages of

furs collected during the past year. Another party, headed by a

leader named Montero, was to proceed to the Crow country, trap

upon its various streams, and among the Black Hills, and thence

to proceed to the Arkansas, where he was to go into winter

quarters.

The captain marked out for himself a widely different course. He

intended to make another expedition, with twenty-three men to the

lower part of the Columbia River, and to proceed to the valley of

the Multnomah; after wintering in those parts, and establishing a

trade with those tribes, among whom he had sojourned on his first

visit, he would return in the spring, cross the Rocky Mountains,

and join Montero and his party in the month of July, at the

rendezvous of the Arkansas; where he expected to receive his

annual supplies from the States.

If the reader will cast his eye upon a map, he may form an idea

of the contempt for distance which a man acquires in this vast

wilderness, by noticing the extent of country comprised in these

projected wanderings. Just as the different parties were about

to set out on the 3d of July, on their opposite routes, Captain

Bonneville received intelligence that Wyeth, the indefatigable

leader of the salmon-fishing enterprise, who had parted with him

about a year previously on the banks of the Bighorn, to descend

that wild river in a bull boat, was near at hand, with a new

levied band of hunters and trappers, and was on his way once more

to the banks of the Columbia,

As we take much interest in the novel enterprise of this eastern

man," and are pleased with his pushing and persevering spirit;

and as his movements are characteristic of life in the

wilderness, we will, with the reader's permission, while Captain

Bonneville is breaking up his camp and saddling his horses, step

back a year in time, and a few hundred miles in distance to the

bank of the Bighorn, and launch ourselves with Wyeth in his bull

boat; and though his adventurous voyage will take us many

hundreds of miles further down wild and wandering rivers; yet

such is the magic power of the pen, that we promise to bring the

reader safe to Bear River Valley, by the time the last horse is

saddled.