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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.
