CHAPTER XLVI.
Travellers Unhorsed- Pedestrian Preparations- Prying Spies.- Bonfires of Baggage- A
March on Foot.- Rafting a River - The Wounded Elk.- Indian Trails.- Willful Conduct of
Mr. M'Lellan.- Grand Prospect From a Mountain.- Distant Craters of Volcanoes- Illness
of Mr. Crooks.
FEW reverses in this changeful world are more complete and disheartening than that of
a traveller, suddenly unhorsed, in the midst of the wilderness. Our unfortunate
travellers contemplated their situation, for a time, in perfect dismay. A long journey over
rugged mountains and immeasurable plains lay before them, which they must painfully
perform on foot, and everything necessary for subsistence or defense must be carried
on their shoulders. Their dismay, however, was but transient, and they immediately set
to work, with that prompt expediency produced by the exigencies of the wilderness, to
fit themselves for the change in their condition.
Their first attention was to select from their baggage such articles as were
indispensable to their journey; to make them up into convenient packs, and to deposit
the residue in caches. The whole day was consumed in these occupations; at night,
they made a scanty meal of their remaining provisions, and lay down to sleep with
heavy hearts. In the morning, they were up and about at an early hour, and began to
prepare their knapsacks for a march, while Ben Jones repaired to an old beaver trap
which he had set in the river bank at some little distance from the camp. He was
rejoiced to find a middle-sized beaver there, sufficient for a morning's meal to his
hungry comrades. On his way back with his prize, he observed two heads peering over
the edge of an impending cliff, several hundred feet high, which he supposed to be a
couple of wolves. As he continued on, he now and then cast his eye up; heads were
still there, looking down with fixed and watchful gaze. A suspicion now flashed across
his mind that they might be Indian scouts; and, had they not been far above the reach
of his rifle, he would undoubtedly have regaled them with a shot.
On arriving at the camp, he directed the attention of his comrades to these aerial
observers. The same idea was at first entertained, that they were wolves; but their
immovable watchfulness soon satisfied every one that they were Indians. It was
concluded that they were watching the movements of the party, to discover their place
of concealment of such articles as they would be compelled to leave behind. There was
no likelihood that the caches would escape the search of such keen eyes and
experienced rummagers, and the idea was intolerable that any more booty should fall
into their hands. To disappoint them, therefore, the travellers stripped the caches of the
articles deposited there, and collecting together everything that they could not carry
away with them, made a bonfire of all that would burn, and threw the rest into the river.
There was a forlorn satisfaction in thus balking the Crows, by the destruction of their
own property; and, having thus gratified their pique, they shouldered their packs, about
ten o'clock in the morning, and set out on their pedestrian wayfaring.
The route they took was down along the banks of Mad River. This stream makes its
way through the defiles of the mountains, into the plain below Fort Henry, where it
terminates in Snake River. Mr. Stuart was in hopes of meeting with Snake
encampments in the plain, where he might procure a couple of horses to transport the
baggage. In such case, he intended to resume his eastern course across the
mountains, and endeavor to reach the Cheyenne River before winter. Should he fail,
however, of obtaining horses, he would probably be compelled to winter on the Pacific
side of the mountains, somewhere on the head waters of the Spanish or Colorado
River.
With all the care that had been observed in taking nothing with them that was not
absolutely necessary, the poor pedestrians were heavily laden, and their burdens
added to the fatigues of their rugged road. They suffered much, too, from hunger. The
trout they caught were too poor to yield much nourishment; their main dependence,
therefore, was upon an old beaver trap, which they had providentially retained.
Whenever they were fortunate enough to entrap a beaver, it was cut up immediately
and distributed, that each man might carry his share.
After two days of toilsome travel, during which they made but eighteen miles, they
stopped on the 21st, to build two rafts on which to cross to the north side of the river.
On these they embarked on the following morning, four on one raft, and three on the
other , and pushed boldly from shore. Finding the rafts sufficiently firm and steady to
withstand the rough and rapid water, they changed their minds, and instead of
crossing, ventured to float down with the current. The river was, in general, very rapid,
and from one to two hundred yards in width, winding in every direction through
mountains of hard black rock, covered with pines and cedars. The mountains to the
east of the river were spurs of the Rocky range, and of great magnitude; those on the
west were little better than hills, bleak and barren, or scantily clothed with stunted
grass.
Mad River, though deserving its name from the impetuosity of its current, was free from
rapids and cascades, and flowed on in a single channel between gravel banks, often
fringed with cotton-wood and dwarf willows in abundance. These gave sustenance to
immense quantities of beaver, so that the voyagers found no difficulty in procuring food.
Ben Jones, also, killed a fallow deer and a wolverine, and as they were enabled to
carry the carcasses on their rafts, their larder was well supplied. Indeed, they might
have occasionally shot beavers that were swimming in the river as they floated by, but
they humanely spared their lives, being in no want of meat at the time. In this way, they
kept down the river for three days, drifting with the current and encamping on land at
night, when they drew up their rafts on shore. Towards the evening of the third day,
they came to a little island on which they descried a gang of elk. Ben Jones landed,
and was fortunate enough to wound one, which immediately took to the water, but,
being unable to stem the current, drifted above a mile, when it was overtaken and
drawn to shore. As a storm was gathering, they now encamped on the margin of the
river, where they remained all the next day, sheltering themselves as well as they could
from the rain and snow - a sharp foretaste of the impending winter. During their
encampment, they employed themselves in jerking a part of the elk for future supply. In
cutting up the carcass, they found that the animal had been wounded by hunters, about
a week previously, an arrow head and a musket ball remaining in the wounds. In the
wilderness, every trivial circumstance is a matter of anxious speculation. The Snake
Indians have no guns; the elk, therefore, could not have been wounded by one of them.
They were on the borders of the country infested by the Blackfeet, who carry fire-arms.
It was concluded, therefore, that the elk had been hunted by some of that wandering
and hostile tribe, who, of course, must be in the neighborhood. The idea put an end to
the transient solace they had enjoyed in the comparative repose and abundance of the
river.
For three days longer they continued to navigate with their rafts. The recent storm had
rendered the weather extremely cold. They had now floated down the river about
ninety-one miles, when finding the mountains on the right diminished to moderate sized
hills, they landed, and prepared to resume their journey on foot. Accordingly, having
spent a day in preparations, making moccasins, and parceling out their jerked meat in
packs of twenty pounds to each man, they turned their backs upon the river on the 29th
of September and struck off to the northeast, keeping along the southern skirt of the
mountain on which Henry's Fort was situated.
Their march was slow and toilsome; part of the time through an alluvial bottom, thickly
grown with cotton-wood, hawthorn, and willows, and part of the time over rough hills.
Three antelopes came within shot, but they dared not fire at them, lest the report of
their rifles should betray them to the Blackfeet. In the course of the day, they came
upon a large horse-track, apparently about three weeks old, and in the evening
encamped on the banks of a small stream, on a spot which had been the camping
place of this same band.
On the following morning they still observed the Indian track, but after a time they came
to where it separated in every direction, and was lost. This showed that the band had
dispersed in various hunting parties, and was, in all probability, still in the
neighborhood; it was necessary, therefore, to proceed with the utmost caution. They
kept a vigilant eye as they marched, upon every height where a scout might be posted,
and scanned the solitary landscapes and the distant ravines, to observe any column of
smoke; but nothing of the kind was to be seen; all was indescribably stern and lifeless.
Towards evening they came to where there were several hot springs, strongly
impregnated with iron and sulphur, and sending up a volume of vapor that tainted the
surrounding atmosphere, and might be seen at the distance of a couple of miles.
Near to these they encamped in a deep gully, which afforded some concealment. To
their great concern, Mr. Crooks, who had been indisposed for the two preceding days,
had a violent fever in the night.
Shortly after daybreak they resumed their march. On emerging from the glen, a
consultation was held as to their course. Should they continue round the skirt of the
mountain, they would be in danger of falling in with the scattered parties of Blackfeet,
who were probably hunting in the plain. It was thought most advisable, therefore, to
strike directly across the mountain, since the route, though rugged and difficult, would
be most secure. This counsel was indignantly derided by M'Lellan as pusillanimous.
Hot-headed and impatient at all times, he had been rendered irascible by the fatigues
of the journey, and the condition of his feet, which were chafed and sore. He could not
endure the idea of encountering the difficulties of the mountain, and swore he would
rather face all the Blackfeet in the country. He was overruled, however, and the party
began to ascend the mountain, striving, with the ardor and emulation of young men,
who should be first up. M'Lellan, who was double the age of some of his companions,
soon began to lose breath, and fall in the rear. In the distribution of burdens, it was his
turn to carry the old beaver trap. Piqued and irritated, he suddenly came to a halt,
swore he would carry it no further, and jerked it half-way down the hill. He was offered
in place of it a package of dried meat, but this he scornfully threw upon the ground.
They might carry it, he said, who needed it; for his part, he could provide his daily
bread with his rifle. He concluded by flinging off from the party, and keeping along the
skirts of the mountain, leaving those, he said, to climb rocks, who were afraid to face
Indians. It was in vain that Mr. Stuart represented to him the rashness of his conduct,
and the dangers to which he exposed himself: he rejected such counsel as craven. It
was equally useless to represent the dangers to which he subjected his companions;
as he could be discovered at a great distance on those naked plains, and the Indians,
seeing him, would know that there must be other white men within reach. M'Lellan
turned a deaf ear to every remonstrance, and kept on his wilful way.
It seemed a strange instance of perverseness in this man thus to fling himself off alone,
in a savage region, where solitude itself was dismal, and every encounter with his
fellow-man full of peril. Such, however, is the hardness of spirit, and the insensibility to
danger that grow upon men in the wilderness. M'Lellan, moreover, was a man of
peculiar temperament, ungovernable in his will, of a courage that absolutely knew no
fear, and somewhat of a braggart spirit, that took a pride in doing desperate and hair-brained things.
Mr. Stuart and his party found the passages of the mountain somewhat difficult, on
account of the snow, which in many places was of considerable depth, though it was
but the 1 st of October. They crossed the summit early in the afternoon, and beheld
below them, a plain about twenty miles wide, bounded on the opposite side by their old
acquaintances, the Pilot Knobs, those towering mountains which had served Mr. Hunt
as landmarks in part of his route of the preceding year. Through the intermediate plain
wandered a river about fifty yards wide, sometimes gleaming in open day, but oftener
running through willowed banks, which marked its serpentine course.
Those of the party who had been across these mountains, pointed out much of the
bearings of the country to Mr. Stuart. They showed him in what direction must lie the
deserted post called Henry's Fort, where they had abandoned their horses and
embarked in canoes, and they informed him that the stream which wandered through
the plain below them, fell into Henry River, half way between the fort and the mouth of
Mad or Snake River. The character of all this mountain region was decidedly volcanic;
and to the northwest, between Henry's Fort and the source of the Missouri, Mr. Stuart
observed several very high peaks covered with snow, from two of which smoke
ascended in considerable volumes, apparently from craters in a state of eruption.
On their way down the mountain, when they had reached the skirts, they descried
M'Lellan at a distance, in the advance, traversing the plain. Whether he saw them or
not, he showed no disposition to rejoin them, but pursued his sullen and solitary way.
After descending into the plain, they kept on about six miles, until they reached the little
river, which was here about knee deep, and richly fringed with willow. Here they
encamped for the night. At this encampment the fever of Mr. Crooks increased to such
a degree that it was impossible for him to travel. Some of the men were strenuous for
Mr. Stuart to proceed without him, urging the imminent danger they were exposed to by
delay in that unknown and barren region, infested by the most treacherous and
inveterate foes. They represented that the season was rapidly advancing; the weather
for some days had been extremely cold; the mountains were already almost impassable
from snow, and would soon present effectual barriers. Their provisions were exhausted;
there was no game to be seen, and they did not dare to use their rifles, through fear of
drawing upon them the Blackfeet.
The picture thus presented was too true to be contradicted, and made a deep
impression on the mind of Mr. Stuart; but the idea of abandoning a fellow being, and a
comrade, in such a forlorn situation, was too repugnant to his feelings to be admitted
for an instant. He represented to the men that the malady of Mr. Crooks could not be of
long duration, and that, in all probability, he would be able to travel in the course of a
few days. It was with great difficulty, however, that he prevailed upon them to abide the
event.