Chapter 49

Rendezvous at Wind River Campaign of Montero and his brigade in

the Crow country Wars between the Crows and Blackfeet Death

of Arapooish Blackfeet lurkers Sagacity of the horse

Dependence of the hunter on his horse Return to the

settlements.

ON the 22d of June Captain Bonneville raised his camp, and moved

to the forks of Wind River; the appointed place of rendezvous.

In a few days he was joined there by the brigade of Montero,

which had been sent, in the preceding year, to beat up the Crow

country, and afterward proceed to the Arkansas. Montero had

followed the early part of his instructions; after trapping upon

some of the upper streams, he proceeded to Powder River. Here he

fell in with the Crow villages or bands, who treated him with

unusual kindness, and prevailed upon him to take up his winter

quarters among them.

The Crows at that time were struggling almost for existence with

their old enemies, the Blackfeet; who, in the past year, had

picked off the flower of their warriors in various engagements,

and among the rest, Arapooish, the friend of the white men. That

sagacious and magnanimous chief had beheld, with grief, the

ravages which war was making in his tribe, and that it was

declining in force, and must eventually be destroyed unless some

signal blow could be struck to retrieve its fortunes. In a

pitched battle of the two tribes, he made a speech to his

warriors, urging them to set everything at hazard in one furious

charge; which done, he led the way into the thickest of the foe.

He was soon separated from his men, and fell covered with wounds,

but his self-devotion was not in vain. The Blackfeet were

defeated; and from that time the Crows plucked up fresh heart,

and were frequently successful.

Montero had not been long encamped among them, when he discovered

that the Blackfeet were hovering about the neighborhood. One day

the hunters came galloping into the camp, and proclaimed that a

band of the enemy was at hand. The Crows flew to arms, leaped on

their horses, and dashed out in squadrons in pursuit. They

overtook the retreating enemy in the midst of a plain. A

desperate fight ensued. The Crows had the advantage of numbers,

and of fighting on horseback. The greater part of the Blackfeet

were slain; the remnant took shelter in a close thicket of

willows, where the horse could not enter; whence they plied their

bows vigorously.

The Crows drew off out of bow-shot, and endeavored, by taunts and

bravadoes, to draw the warriors Out of their retreat. A few of

the best mounted among them rode apart from the rest. One of

their number then advanced alone, with that martial air and

equestrian grace for which the tribe is noted. When within an

arrow's flight of the thicket, he loosened his rein, urged his

horse to full speed, threw his body on the opposite side, so as

to hang by one leg, and present no mark to the foe; in this way

he swept along in front of the thicket, launching his arrows from

under the neck of his steed. Then regaining his seat in the

saddle, he wheeled round and returned whooping and scoffing to

his companions, who received him with yells of applause.

Another and another horseman repeated this exploit; but the

Blackfeet were not to be taunted out of their safe shelter. The

victors feared to drive desperate men to extremities, so they

forbore to attempt the thicket. Toward night they gave over the

attack, and returned all-glorious with the scalps of the slain.

Then came on the usual feasts and triumphs, the scalp-dance of

warriors round the ghastly trophies, and all the other fierce

revelry of barbarous warfare. When the braves had finished with

the scalps, they were, as usual, given up to the women and

children, and made the objects of new parades and dances. They

were then treasured up as invaluable trophies and decorations by

the braves who had won them.

It is worthy of note, that the scalp of a white man, either

through policy or fear, is treated with more charity than that of

an Indian. The warrior who won it is entitled to his triumph if

he demands it. In such case, the war party alone dance round the

scalp. It is then taken down, and the shagged frontlet of a

buffalo substituted in its place, and abandoned to the triumph

and insults of the million.

To avoid being involved in these guerillas, as well as to escape

from the extremely social intercourse of the Crows, which began

to be oppressive, Montero moved to the distance of several miles

from their camps, and there formed a winter cantonment of huts.

He now maintained a vigilant watch at night. Their horses, which

were turned loose to graze during the day, under heedful eyes,

were brought in at night, and shut up in strong pens, built of

large logs of cotton-wood. The snows, during a portion of the

winter, were so deep that the poor animals could find but little

sustenance. Here and there a tuft of grass would peer above the

snow; but they were in general driven to browse the twigs and

tender branches of the trees. When they were turned out in the

morning, the first moments of freedom from the confinement of the

pen were spent in frisking and gambolling. This done, they went

soberly and sadly to work, to glean their scanty subsistence for

the day. In the meantime the men stripped the bark of the

cotton-wood tree for the evening fodder. As the poor horses would

return toward night, with sluggish and dispirited air, the moment

they saw their owners approaching them with blankets filled with

cotton-wood bark, their whole demeanor underwent a change. A

universal neighing and capering took place; they would rush

forward, smell to the blankets, paw the earth, snort, whinny and

prance round with head and tail erect, until the blankets were

opened, and the welcome provender spread before them. These

evidences of intelligence and gladness were frequently recounted

by the trappers as proving the sagacity of the animal.

These veteran rovers of the mountains look upon their horses as

in some respects gifted with almost human intellect. An old and

experienced trapper, when mounting guard upon the camp in dark

nights and times of peril, gives heedful attention to all the

sounds and signs of the horses. No enemy enters nor approaches

the camp without attracting their notice, and their movements not

only give a vague alarm, but it is said, will even indicate to

the knowing trapper the very quarter whence the danger threatens.

In the daytime, too, while a hunter is engaged on the prairie,

cutting up the deer or buffalo he has slain, he depends upon his

faithful horse as a sentinel. The sagacious animal sees and

smells all round him, and by his starting and whinnying, gives

notice of the approach of strangers. There seems to be a dumb

communion and fellowship, a sort of fraternal sympathy between

the hunter and his horse. They mutually rely upon each other for

company and protection; and nothing is more difficult, it is

said, than to surprise an experienced hunter on the prairie while

his old and favorite steed is at his side.

Montero had not long removed his camp from the vicinity of the

Crows, and fixed himself in his new quarters, when the Blackfeet

marauders discovered his cantonment, and began to haunt the

vicinity, He kept up a vigilant watch, however, and foiled every

attempt of the enemy, who, at length, seemed to have given up in

despair, and abandoned the neighborhood. The trappers relaxed

their vigilance, therefore, and one night, after a day of severe

labor, no guards were posted, and the whole camp was soon asleep.

Toward midnight, however, the lightest sleepers were roused by

the trampling of hoofs; and, giving the alarm, the whole party

were immediately on their legs and hastened to the pens. The bars

were down; but no enemy was to he seen or heard, and the horses

being all found hard by, it was supposed the bars had been left

down through negligence. All were once more asleep, when, in

about an hour there was a second alarm, and it was discovered

that several horses were missing. The rest were mounted, and so

spirited a pursuit took place, that eighteen of the number

carried off were regained, and but three remained in possession

of the enemy. Traps for wolves, had been set about the camp the

preceding day. In the morning it was discovered that a Blackfoot

was entrapped by one of them, but had succeeded in dragging it

off. His trail was followed for a long distance which he must

have limped alone. At length he appeared to have fallen in with

some of his comrades, who had relieved him from his painful

encumbrance.

These were the leading incidents of Montero's campaign in the

Crow country. The united parties now celebrated the 4th of July,

in rough hunters' style, with hearty conviviality; after which

Captain Bonneville made his final arrangements. Leaving Montero

with a brigade of trappers to open another campaign, he put

himself at the head of the residue of his men, and set off on his

return to civilized life. We shall not detail his journey along

the course of the Nebraska, and so, from point to point of the

wilderness, until he and his band reached the frontier

settlements on the 22d of August.

Here, according to his own account, his cavalcade might have been

taken for a procession of tatterdemalion savages; for the men

were ragged almost to nakedness, and had contracted a wildness of

aspect during three years of wandering in the wilderness. A few

hours in a populous town, however, produced a magical

metamorphosis. Hats of the most ample brim and longest nap;

coats with buttons that shone like mirrors, and pantaloons of the

most ample plenitude, took place of the well-worn trapper's

equipments; and the happy wearers might be seen strolling about

in all directions, scattering their silver like sailors just from

a cruise.

The worthy captain, however, seems by no means to have shared the

excitement of his men, on finding himself once more in the

thronged resorts of civilized life, but, on the contrary, to have

looked back to the wilderness with regret. "Though the prospect,"

says he, "of once more tasting the blessings of peaceful society,

and passing days and nights under the calm guardianship of the

laws, was not without its attractions; yet to those of us whose

whole lives had been spent in the stirring excitement and

perpetual watchfulness of adventures in the wilderness, the

change was far from promising an increase of that contentment and

inward satisfaction most conducive to happiness. He who, like

myself, has roved almost from boyhood among the children of the

forest, and over the unfurrowed plains and rugged heights of the

western wastes, will not be startled to learn, that

notwithstanding all the fascinations of the world on this

civilized side of the mountains, I would fain make my bow to the

splendors and gayeties of the metropolis, and plunge again amidst

the hardships and perils of the wilderness."

We have only to add that the affairs of the captain have been

satisfactorily arranged with the War Department, and that he is

actually in service at Fort Gibson, on our western frontier,

where we hope he may meet with further opportunities of indulging

his peculiar tastes, and of collecting graphic and characteristic

details of the great western wilds and their motley inhabitants.

--

We here close our picturings of the Rocky Mountains and their

wild inhabitants, and of the wild life that prevails there; which

we have been anxious to fix on record, because we are aware that

this singular state of things is full of mutation, and must soon

undergo great changes, if not entirely pass away. The fur trade

itself, which has given life to all this portraiture, is

essentially evanescent. Rival parties of trappers soon exhaust

the streams, especially when competition renders them heedless

and wasteful of the beaver. The furbearing animals extinct, a

complete change will come over the scene; the gay free trapper

and his steed, decked out in wild array, and tinkling with bells

and trinketry; the savage war chief, plumed and painted and ever

on the prowl; the traders' cavalcade, winding through defiles or

over naked plains, with the stealthy war party lurking on its

trail; the buffalo chase, the hunting camp, the mad carouse in

the midst of danger, the night attack, the stampede, the scamper,

the fierce skirmish among rocks and cliffs -- all this romance

of savage life, which yet exists among the mountains, will then

exist but in frontier story, and seem like the fictions of

chivalry or fairy tale.

Some new system of things, or rather some new modification, will

succeed among the roving people of this vast wilderness; but just

as opposite, perhaps, to the inhabitants of civilization. The

great Chippewyan chain of mountains, and the sandy and volcanic

plains which extend on either side, are represented as incapable

of cultivation. The pasturage which prevails there during a

certain portion of the year, soon withers under the aridity of

the atmosphere, and leaves nothing but dreary wastes. An immense

belt of rocky mountains and volcanic plains, several hundred

miles in width, must ever remain an irreclaimable wilderness,

intervening between the abodes of civilization, and affording a

last refuge to the Indian. Here roving tribes of hunters, living

in tents or lodges, and following the migrations of the game, may

lead a life of savage independence, where there is nothing to

tempt the cupidity of the white man. The amalgamation of various

tribes, and of white men of every nation, will in time produce

hybrid races like the mountain Tartars of the Caucasus.

Possessed as they are of immense droves of horses should they

continue their present predatory and warlike habits, they may in

time become a scourge to the civilized frontiers on either side

of the mountains, as they are at present a terror to the

traveller and trader.

The facts disclosed in the present work clearly manifest the

policy of establishing military posts and a mounted force to

protect our traders in their journeys across the great western

wilds, and of pushing the outposts into the very heart of the

singular wilderness we have laid open, so as to maintain some

degree of sway over the country, and to put an end to the kind of

"blackmail," levied on all occasions by the savage "chivalry of

the mountains."