The Collected Historical Works of Washington Irving (Illustrated Edition). Washington Irving
the horses in the winter, but they reject it the moment the young grass affords sufficient pasturage.
On the 6th of March, having cured sufficient meat, the party resumed their march, and moved on with comparative ease, excepting where they had to make their way through snow-drifts which had been piled up by the wind.
On the 11th, a small cloud of smoke was observed rising in a deep part of the defile. An encampment was instantly formed and scouts were sent out to reconnoitre. They returned with intelligence that it was a hunting party of Flatheads, returning from the buffalo range laden with meat. Captain Bonneville joined them the next day, and persuaded them to proceed with his party a few miles below to the caches, whither he proposed also to invite the Nez Perces, whom he hoped to find somewhere in this neighborhood. In fact, on the 13th, he was rejoined by that friendly tribe who, since he separated from them on Salmon River, had likewise been out to hunt the buffalo, but had continued to be haunted and harassed by their old enemies the Blackfeet, who, as usual, had contrived to carry off many of their horses.
In the course of this hunting expedition, a small band of ten lodges separated from the main body in search of better pasturage for their horses. About the 1st of March, the scattered parties of Blackfoot banditti united to the number of three hundred fighting men, and determined upon some signal blow. Proceeding to the former camping ground of the Nez Perces, they found the lodges deserted; upon which they hid themselves among the willows and thickets, watching for some straggler who might guide them to the present “whereabout” of their intended victims. As fortune would have it Kosato, the Blackfoot renegade, was the first to pass along, accompanied by his blood-bought bride. He was on his way from the main body of hunters to the little band of ten lodges. The Blackfeet knew and marked him as he passed; he was within bowshot of their ambuscade; yet, much as they thirsted for his blood, they forbore to launch a shaft; sparing him for the moment that he might lead them to their prey. Secretly following his trail, they discovered the lodges of the unfortunate Nez Perces, and assailed them with shouts and yellings. The Nez Perces numbered only twenty men, and but nine were armed with fusees. They showed themselves, however, as brave and skilful in war as they had been mild and long-suffering in peace. Their first care was to dig holes inside of their lodges; thus ensconced they fought desperately, laying several of the enemy dead upon the ground; while they, though Some of them were wounded, lost not a single warrior.
During the heat of the battle, a woman of the Nez Perces, seeing her warrior badly wounded and unable to fight, seized his bow and arrows, and bravely and successfully defended his person, contributing to the safety of the whole party.
In another part of the field of action, a Nez Perce had crouched behind the trunk of a fallen tree, and kept up a galling fire from his covert. A Blackfoot seeing this, procured a round log, and placing it before him as he lay prostrate, rolled it forward toward the trunk of the tree behind which his enemy lay crouched. It was a moment of breathless interest; whoever first showed himself would be in danger of a shot. The Nez Perce put an end to the suspense. The moment the logs touched he Sprang upon his feet and discharged the contents of his fusee into the back of his antagonist. By this time the Blackfeet had got possession of the horses, several of their warriors lay dead on the field, and the Nez Perces, ensconced in their lodges, seemed resolved to defend themselves to the last gasp. It so happened that the chief of the Blackfeet party was a renegade from the Nez Perces; unlike Kosato, however, he had no vindictive rage against his native tribe, but was rather disposed, now he had got the booty, to spare all unnecessary effusion of blood. He held a long parley, therefore, with the besieged, and finally drew off his warriors, taking with him seventy horses. It appeared, afterward, that the bullets of the Blackfeet had been entirely expended in the course of the battle, so that they were obliged to make use of stones as substitute.
At the outset of the fight Kosato, the renegade, fought with fury rather than valor, animating the others by word as well as deed. A wound in the head from a rifle ball laid him senseless on the earth. There his body remained when the battle was over, and the victors were leading off the horses. His wife hung over him with frantic lamentations. The conquerors paused and urged her to leave the lifeless renegade, and return with them to her kindred. She refused to listen to their solicitations, and they passed on. As she sat watching the features of Kosato, and giving way to passionate grief, she thought she perceived him to breathe. She was not mistaken. The ball, which had been nearly spent before it struck him, had stunned instead of killing him. By the ministry of his faithful wife he gradually recovered, reviving to a redoubled love for her, and hatred of his tribe.
As to the female who had so bravely defended her husband, she was elevated by the tribe to a rank far above her sex, and beside other honorable distinctions, was thenceforward permitted to take a part in the war dances of the braves!
CHAPTER 17.
Opening of the caches — Detachments of Cerre and Hodgkiss Salmon River Mountains — Superstition of an Indian trapper — Godin’s River — Preparations for trapping — An alarm — An interruption — A rival band — Phenomena of Snake River Plain Vast clefts and chasms — Ingulfed streams — Sublime scenery — A grand buffalo hunt.
CAPTAIN BONNEVILLE found his caches perfectly secure, and having secretly opened them he selected such articles as were necessary to equip the free trappers and to supply the inconsiderable trade with the Indians, after which he closed them again. The free trappers, being newly rigged out and supplied, were in high spirits, and swaggered gayly about the camp. To compensate all hands for past sufferings, and to give a cheerful spur to further operations, Captain Bonneville now gave the men what, in frontier phrase, is termed “a regular blow-out.” It was a day of uncouth gambols and frolics and rude feasting. The Indians joined in the sports and games, and all was mirth and good-fellowship.
It was now the middle of March, and Captain Bonneville made preparations to open the spring campaign. He had pitched upon Malade River for his main trapping ground for the season. This is a stream which rises among the great bed of mountains north of the Lava Plain, and after a winding course falls into Snake River. Previous to his departure the captain dispatched Mr. Cerre, with a few men, to visit the Indian villages and purchase horses; he furnished his clerk, Mr. Hodgkiss, also, with a small stock of goods, to keep up a trade with the Indians during the spring, for such peltries as they might collect, appointing the caches on Salmon River as the point of rendezvous, where they were to rejoin him on the 15th of June following.
This done he set out for Malade River, with a band of twenty-eight men composed of hired and free trappers and Indian hunters, together with eight squaws. Their route lay up along the right fork of Salmon River, as it passes through the deep defile of the mountains. They travelled very slowly, not above five miles a day, for many of the horses were so weak that they faltered and staggered as they walked. Pasturage, however, was now growing plentiful. There was abundance of fresh grass, which in some places had attained such height as to wave in the wind. The native flocks of the wilderness, the mountain sheep, as they are called by the trappers, were continually to be seen upon the hills between which they passed, and a good supply of mutton was provided by the hunters, as they were advancing toward a region of scarcity.
In the course of his journey Captain Bonneville had occasion to remark an instance of the many notions, and almost superstitions, which prevail among the Indians, and among some of the white men, with respect to the sagacity of the beaver. The Indian hunters of his party were in the habit of exploring all the streams along which they passed, in search of “beaver lodges,” and occasionally set their traps with some success. One of them, however, though an experienced and skilful trapper, was invariably unsuccessful. Astonished and mortified at such unusual bad luck, he at length conceived the idea that there was some odor about his person of which the beaver got scent and retreated at his approach. He immediately set about a thorough purification. Making a rude sweating-house on the banks of the river, he would shut himself up until in a reeking perspiration, and then suddenly emerging, would plunge into the river. A number of these sweatings and plungings having, as he supposed, rendered his person perfectly “inodorous,”