In a few days the camp passing found the skull, which grinned its threat at the angry
Booshways, as the chuckling trapper had calculated that it would. To prevent its
execution runners were sent after him, who, however, failed to find him, and nothing
was known of the supposed renegade for some time. But as Bridger passed through
Pierre's Hole, on his way to Green river to winter, he was surprised at Meek's
appearance in camp. He was soon invited to the lodge of the Booshways, and called to
account for his supposed apostacy.
Meek, for a time, would neither deny nor confess, but put on his free trapper airs, and
laughed in the face of the Booshways. Bridger, who half suspected some trick, took the
matter lightly, but Dripps was very much annoyed, and made some threats, at which
Meek only laughed the more. Finally the certificate from their own trader, Jo. Walker,
was produced, the new pack of furs surrendered, and Dripps' wrath turned into smiles
of approval.
Here again Meek parted company with the main camp, and went on an expedition with
seven other trappers, under John Larison, to the Salmon River: but found the cold very
severe on this journey, and the grass scarce and poor, so that the company lost most of
their horses.
On arriving at the Nez Perce village in the Forks of the Salmon, Meek found the old
chief Kow-e-so-te full of the story of the missionaries and their religion, and anxious to
hear preaching. Reports were continually arriving by the Indians, of the wonderful
things which were being taught by Mr. and Mrs. Spalding at Lapwai, on the Clearwater,
and at Waiilatpu, on the Walla-Walla River. It was now nearly two years since these
missions had been founded, and the number of converts among the Nez Perces and
Flatheads was already considerable.
Here was an opening for a theological student, such as Joe Meek was! After some little
assumption of modesty Meek intimated that he thought himself capable of giving
instruction on religious subjects; and being pressed by the chief, finally consented to
preach to Kow-e-so-te's people. Taking care first to hold a private council with his
associates, and binding them not to betray him, Meek preached his first sermon that
evening, going regularly through with the ordinary services of a " meeting."
These services were repeated whenever the Indians seemed to desire it, until
Christmas. Then, the village being about to start upon a hunt, the preacher took
occasion to intimate to the chief that a wife would be an agreeable present. To this,
however, Kow-e-so-te demurred, saying that Spalding's religion did not permit men to
have two wives: that the Nez Perces had many of them given up their wives on this
account; and that therefore, since Meek already had one wife among the Nez Perces,
he could not have another without being false to the religion he professed.
To this perfectly clear argument Meek replied, that among white men, if a man's wife
left him without his consent, as his had done, he could procure a divorce, and take
another wife. Besides, he could tell him how the Bible related many stories of its best
men having several wives. But Kow-e-so-te was not easily convinced. He could not see
how, if the Bible approved of polygamy, Spalding should insist on the Indians putting
away all but one of their wives. "However," says Meek, "after about two weeks'
explanation of the doings of Solomon and David, I succeeded in getting the chief to
give me a young girl, whom I called Virginia;--my present wife, and the mother of
seven children."
After accompanying the Indians on their hunt to the Beaver-head country, where they
found plenty of buffalo, Meek remained with the Nez Perce village until about the first of
March, when he again intimated to the chief that it was the custom of white men to pay
their preachers. Accordingly the people were notified, and the winter's salary began to
arrive. It amounted altogether to thirteen horses, and many packs of beaver, beside
sheep-skins and buffalo-robes; so that he " considered that with his young wife, he had
made a pretty good winter's work of it."
In March he set out trapping again, in company with one of his comrades named Allen,
a man to whom he was much attached. They traveled along up and down the Salmon,
to Godin's River, Henry's Fork of the Snake, to Pierre's Fork, and Lewis' Fork, and the
Muddy, and finally set their traps on a little stream that runs out of the pass which leads
to Pierre's Hole.
Leaving their camp one morning to take up their traps they were discovered and
attacked by a party of Blackfeet just as they came near the trapping ground. The only
refuge at hand was a thicket of willows on the opposite side of the creek, and towards
this the trappers directed their flight. Meek, who was in advance, succeeded in gaining
the thicket without being seen; but Allen stumbled and fell in crossing the stream, and
wet his gun. He quickly recovered his footing and crossed over; but the Blackfeet had
seen him enter the thicket, and came up to within a short distance, yet not approaching
too near the place where they knew he was concealed. Unfortunately Allen, in his
anxiety to be ready for defense, commenced snapping caps on his gun to dry it. The
quick ears of the savages caught the sound, and understood the meaning of it.
Knowing him to be defenceless, they plunged into the thicket after him, shooting him
almost immediately and dragging him out still breathing to a small prairie about two
rods away.
And now commenced a scene which Meek was compelled to witness, and which he
declares nearly made him insane through sympathy, fear, horror, and suspense as to
his own fate. Those devils incarnate deliberately cut up their still palpitating victim into
a hundred pieces, each taking a piece; accompanying the horrible and inhuman
butchery with every conceivable gesture of contempt for the victim, and of hellish
delight in their own acts.
Meek, who was only concealed by the small patch of willows, and a pit in the sand
hastily scooped out with his knife until it was deep enough to lie in, was in a state of the
most fearful excitement. All day long he had to endure the horrors of his position. Every
moment seemed an hour, every hour a day, until when night came, and the Indians left
the place, he was in a high state of fever.
About nine o'clock that night he ventured to creep to the edge of the little prairie, where
he lay and listened a long time, without hearing anything but the squirrels running over
the dry leaves; but which he constantly feared was the stealthy approach of the enemy.
At last, however, he summoned courage to crawl out on to the open ground, and
gradually to work his way to a wooded bluff not far distant. The next day he found two
of his horses, and with these set out alone for Green River, where the American
Company was to rendezvous. After twenty-six days of solitary and cautious travel he
reached the appointed place in safety, having suffered fearfully from the recollection of
the tragic scene he had witnessed in the death of his friend, and also from solitude and
want of food.
The rendezvous of this year was at Bonneville's old fort on Green River, and was the
last one held in the mountains by the American Fur Company. Beaver was growing
scarce, and competition was strong. On the disbanding of the company, some went to
Santa Fe, some to California, others to the Lower Columbia, and a few remained in the
mountains trapping, and selling their furs to the Hudson's Bay Company at Fort Hall. As
to the leaders, some of them continued for a few years longer to trade with the Indians,
and others returned to the States, to lose their fortunes more easily far than they made
them.
Of the men who remained in the mountains trapping, that year, Meek was one. Leaving
his wife at Fort Hall, he set out in company with a Shawnee, named Big Jim, to take
beaver on Salt River, a tributary of the Snake. The two trappers had each his riding and
his pack horse, and at night generally picketed them all; but one night Big Jim allowed
one of his to remain loose to graze. This horse, after eating for some hours, came back
and laid down behind the other horses, and every now and then raised up his head;
which slight movement at length aroused Big Jim's attention, and his suspicions also.
"My friend," said he in a whisper to Meek, " Indian steal our horses."
"Jump up and shoot," was the brief answer.
Jim shot, and ran out to see the result. Directly he came back saying: " My friend, I
shoot my horse; break him neck ;" and Big Jim became disconsolate over what his
white comrade considered a very good joke.
The hunt was short and not very remunerative in furs. Meek soon returned to Fort Hall;
and when he did so, found his new wife had left that post in company with a party under
Newell, to go to Fort Crockett, on Green River,--Newell's wife being a sister of
Virginia's,--on learning which he started on again alone, to join that party. On Bear
River, he fell in with a portion of that Quixotic band, under Farnham, which was looking
for paradise and perfection, something on the Fourier plan, somewhere in this western
wilderness. They had already made the discovery in crossing the continent, that perfect
disinterestedness was lacking among themselves; and that the nearer they got to their
western paradise the farther off it seemed in their own minds.
Continuing his journey alone, soon after parting from Farnham, he lost the hammer of
his gun, which accident deprived him of the means of subsisting himself, and he had no
dried meat, nor provisions of any kind. The weather, too, was very cold, increasing the
necessity for food to support animal heat. However, the deprivation of food was one of
the accidents to which mountain-men were constantly liable, and one from which he
had often suffered severely; therefore he pushed on, without feeling any unusual alarm,
and had arrived within fifteen miles of the fort before he yielded to the feeling of
exhaustion, and laid down beside the trail to rest. Whether he would ever have finished
the journey alone he could not tell; but fortunately for him, he was discovered by Jo.
Walker, and Gordon, another acquaintance, who chanced to pass that way toward the
fort.
Meek answered their hail, and inquired if they had anything to eat. Walker replied in
the affirmative, and getting down from his horse, produced some dried buffalo meat
which he gave to the famishing trapper. But seeing the ravenous manner in which he
began to eat, Walker inquired how long it had been since he had eaten anything.
"Five days since I had a bite."
"Then, my man, you can't have any more just now," said Walker, seizing the meat in
alarm lest Meek should kill himself.
"It was hard to see that meat packed away again," says Meek in relating his sufferings,
"I told Walker that if my gun had a hammer I'd shoot and eat him. But he talked very
kindly, and helped me on my horse, and we all went on to the Fort."
At Fort Crockett were Newell and his party, the remainder of Farnham's party, a trading
party under St. Clair, who owned the fort, Kit Carson, and a number of Meek's former
associates, including Craig and Wilkins. Most of these men, Othello-like, had lost their
occupation since the disbanding of the American Fur Company, and were much at a
loss concerning the future. It was agreed between Newell and Meek to take what
beaver they had to Fort Hall, to trade for goods, and return to Fort Crockett, where they
would commence business on their own account with the Indians.
Accordingly they set out, with one other man belonging to Farnham's former adherents.
They traveled to Henry's Fork, to Black Fork, where Fort Bridger now is, to Bear River,
to Soda Springs, and finally to Fort Hall, suffering much from cold, and finding very little
to eat by the way. At Fort Hall, which was still in charge of Courtenay Walker, Meek
and Newell remained a week, when, having purchased their goods and horses to pack
them, they once more set out on the long, cold journey to Fort Crockett. They had
fifteen horses to take care of and only one assistant, a Snake Indian called Al. The
return proved an arduous and difficult undertaking. The cold was very severe; they had
not been able to lay in a sufficient stock of provisions at Fort Hall, and game there was
none, on the route. By the time they arrived at Ham's Fork the only atom of food they
had left was a small piece of bacon which they had been carefully saving to eat with
any poor meat they might chance to find.
The next morning after camping on Ham's Fork was stormy and cold, the snow filling
the air; yet Snake Al, with a promptitude by no means characteristic of him, rose early
and went out to look after the horses.
"By that same token," said Meek to Newell, "Al has eaten the bacon." And so it proved,
on investigation. Al's uneasy conscience having acted as a goad to stir him up to begin
his duties in season. On finding his conjecture confirmed, Meek declared his intention,
should no game be found before next day night, of killing and eating Al, to get back the
stolen bacon. But Providence interfered to save Al's bacon. On the following afternoon
the little party fell in with another still smaller but better supplied party of travelers,
comprising a Frenchman and his wife. These had plenty of fat antelope meat, which
they freely parted with to the needy ones, whom also they accompanied to Fort
Crockett.
It was now Christmas; and the festivities which took place at the Fort were attended
with a good deal of rum drinking, in which Meek, according to his custom, joined, and
as a considerable portion of their stock in trade consisted of this article, it may fairly be
presumed that the home consumption of these two "lone traders" amounted to the
larger half of what they had with so much trouble transported from Fort Hall. In fact,
"times were bad enough" among the men so suddenly thrown upon their own resources
among the mountains, at a time when that little creature, which had made mountain life
tolerable, or possible, was fast being exterminated.
To make matters more serious, some of the worst of the now unemployed trappers had
taken to a life of thieving and mischief which made enemies of the friendly Indians, and
was likely to prevent the better disposed from enjoying security among any of the
tribes. A party of these renegades, under a man named Thompson, went over to Snake
River to steal horses from the Nez Perces. Not succeeding in this, they robbed the
Snake Indians of about forty animals, and ran them off to the Uintee, the Indians
following and complaining to the whites at Fort Crockett that their people had been
robbed by white trappers, and demanding restitution.
According to Indian law, when one of a tribe offends, the whole tribe is responsible.
Therefore if whites stole their horses they might take vengeance on any whites they
met, unless the property was restored. In compliance with this well understood
requisition of Indian law, a party was made up at Fort Crockett to go and retake the
horses, and restore them to their rightful owners. This party consisted of Meek, Craig,
Newell, Carson, and twenty-five others, under the command of Jo Walker.
The horses were found on an island in Green River, the robbers having domiciled
themselves in an old fort at the mouth of the Uintee. In order to avoid having a fight with
the renegades, whose white blood the trappers were not anxious to spill, Walker made
an effort to get the horses off the island undiscovered. But while horses and men were
crossing the river on the ice, the ice sinking with them until the water was knee-deep,
the robbers discovered the escape of their booty, and charging on the trappers tried to
recover the horses. In this effort they were not successful; while Walker made a
masterly flank movement and getting in Thompson's rear, ran the horses into the fort,
where he stationed his men, and succeeded in keeping the robbers on the outside.
Thompson then commenced giving the horses away to a village of Utes in the
neighborhood of the fort, on condition that they should assist in retaking them. On his
side, Walker threatened the Utes with dire vengeance if they dared interfere. The Utes
who had a wholesome fear not only of the trappers, but of their foes the Snakes,
declined to enter into the quarrel. After a day of strategy, and of threats alternated with
arguments, strengthened by a warlike display, the trappers marched out of the fort
before the faces of the discomfitted thieves, taking their booty with them, which was
duly restored to the Snakes on their return to Fort Crockett, and peace secured once
more with that people.
Still times continued bad. The men not knowing what else to do, went out in small parties in all directions seeking adventures, which generally were not far to find. On one of these excursions Meek went with a party down the canyon of Green River, on the ice. For nearly a hundred miles they traveled down this awful canyon without finding but one place where they could have come out; and left it at last at the mouth of the Uintee.
This passed the time until March. Then the company of Newell and Meek was joined by
Antoine Rubideau, who had brought goods from Sante Fe to trade with the Indians.
Setting out in company, they traded along up Green River to the mouth of Ham's fork,
and camped. The snow was still deep in the mountains, and the trappers found great
sport in running antelope. On one occasion a large herd, numbering several hundreds,
were run on to the ice, on Green River, where they were crowded into an air hole, and
large numbers slaughtered only for the cruel sport which they afforded.
But killing antelope needlessly was not by any means the worst of amusements
practiced in Rubideau's camp. That foolish trader occupied himself so often and so
long in playing Hand, (an Indian game,) that before he parted with his new associates
he had gambled away his goods, his horses, and even his wife; so that he returned to
Santa Fe much poorer than nothing--since he was in debt.
On the departure of Rubideau, Meek went to Fort Hall, and remained in that
neighborhood, trapping and trading for the Hudson's Bay Company, until about the last
of June, when he started for the old rendezvous places of the American Companies,
hoping to find some divisions of them at least, on the familiar camping ground. But his
journey was in vain. Neither on Green River or Wind River, where for ten years he had
been accustomed to meet the leaders and their men, his old comrades in danger, did
he find a wandering brigade even. The glory of the American companies was departed,
and he found himself solitary among his long familiar haunts.
With many melancholy reflections, the man of twenty eight years of age recalled how, a
mere boy, he had fallen half unawares into the kind of life he had ever since led
amongst the mountains, with only other men equally the victims of circumstance, and
the degraded savages, for his companions. The best that could be made of it, such life
had been and must be constantly deteriorating to the minds and souls of himself and
his associates. Away from all laws, and refined habits of living; away from the society of
religious, modest, and accomplished women; always surrounded by savage scenes,
and forced to cultivate a taste for barbarous things--what had this life made of him ?
what was he to do with himself in the future ?
Sick of trapping and hunting, with brief intervals of carousing, he felt himself to be. And
then, even if he were not, the trade was no longer profitable enough to support him.
What could he do ? where could he go ? He remembered his talk with Mrs. Whitman,
that fair, tall, courteous, and dignified lady who had stirred in him longings to return to
the civilized life of his native state. But he felt unfit for the society of such as she.
Would he ever, could he ever attain to it now ? He had promised her he might go over
into Oregon and settle down. But could he settle down ? Should he not starve at trying
to do what other men, mechanics and farmers, do? And as to learning, he had none of
it; there was no hope then of " living by his wits," as some men did--missionaries and
artists and school teachers, some of whom he had met at the rendezvous. Heigho! to
be checkmated in life at twenty-eight, that would never do.
At Fort Hall, on his return, he met two more missionaries and their wives going to
Oregon, but these four did not affect him pleasantly; he had no mind to go with them.
Instead, he set out on what proved to be his last trapping expedition, with a Frenchman,
named Mattileau.
They visited the old trapping grounds on Pierre's Fork, Lewis' Lake, Jackson's River, Jackson's Hole; Lewis River and Salt River: but beaver were scarce; and it was with a feeling of relief that, on returning by way of Bear River, Meek heard from a Frenchman whom he met there, that he was wanted at Fort Hall, by his friend Newell, who had something to propose to him.