Finding their rivals in possession of the ground, Bridger and Milton Sublette resolved to
spend but a few days in that country. But so far as Sublette was concerned,
circumstances ordered differently. A Rockway Chief, named Gray, and seven of his
people, had accompanied the camp from Ogden's Hole, in the capacity of trappers. But
during the sojourn on Bear River, there was a quarrel in camp on account of some
indignity, real or fancied, which had been offered to the chief's daughter, and in the
affray Gray stabbed Sublette so severely that it was thought he must die.
It thus fell out that Sublette had to be left behind; and Meek who was his favorite, was
left to take care of him while he lived, and bury him if he died; which trouble Sublette
saved him, however, by getting well. But they had forty lonesome days to themselves
after the camps had moved off,--one on the heels of the other, to the great vexation of
Bridger. Time passed slowly in Sublette's lodge, while waiting for his wound to heal.
Day passed after day, so entirely like each other that the monotony alone seemed
sufficient to invite death to an easy conquest. But the mountain-man's blood, like the
Indians, is strong and pure, and his flesh heals readily, therefore, since death would
not have him, the wounded man was forced to accept of life in just this monotonous
form. To him Joe Meek was everything,--hands, feet, physician, guard, caterer, hunter,
cook, companion, friend. What long talks they had, when Sublette grew better: what
stories they told; what little glimpses of a secret chamber in their hearts, and a better
than the every-day spirit, in their bosoms, was revealed,--as men will reveal such
things in the isolation of sea-voyages, or the solitary presence of majestic Nature.
To the veteran mountaineer there must have been something soothing in the care and
friendship of the youth of twenty-two, with his daring disposition, his frankness, his
cheerful humor, and his good looks;--for our Joe was growing to be a maturely
handsome man--tall, broad shouldered, straight, with plenty of dash, and none too
much of it; a Southerner's olive complexion; frank, dark eyes, and a classical nose and
chin. What though in the matter of dress he was ignorant of the latest styles?-- grace
imparts elegance even to the trapper's beaver-skin cap and blanket capote.
At the end of forty days, as many as it took to drown a world, Sublette found himself
well enough to ride; and the two set out on their search for camp. But now other
adventures awaited them. On a fork of Green River, they came suddenly upon a band
of Snake Indians feeding their horses. As soon as the Snakes discovered the white
men, they set up a yell, and made an instinctive rush for their horses. Now was the
critical moment. One word passed between the travelers, and they made a dash past
the savages, right into the village, and never slacked rein until they threw themselves
from their horses at the door of the Medicine lodge. This is a large and fancifully
decorated lodge, which stands in the centre of a village, and like the churches of
Christians, is sacred. Once inside of this, the strangers were safe for the present; their
blood could not be shed there.
The warriors of the village soon followed Sublette and Meek into their strange house of refuge. In half an hour it was filled. Not a word was addressed to the strangers; nor by them to the Indians, who talked among themselves with a solemn eagerness, while they smoked the medicine pipe, as inspiration in their councils. Great was the excitement in the minds of the listeners, who understood the Snake tongue, as the question of their life or death was gravely discussed; yet in their countenances appeared only the utmost serenity. To show fear, is to whet an Indian's appetite for blood: coolness confounds and awes him when anything will.
If Sublette had longed for excitement, while an invalid in his lonely lodge on Bear River, he longed equally now for that blissful seclusion. Listening for, and hearing one's death-warrant from a band of blood-thirsty savages, could only prove with bitter sharpness how sweet was life, even the most uneventful. For hours the council continued, and the majority favored the death-sentence. But one old chief, called the good Gotia, argued long for an acquittal: he did not see the necessity of murdering two harmless travelers of the white race. Nothing availed, however, and just at sunset their doom was fixed.
The only hope of escape was, that, favored by darkness, they might elude the vigilance
of their jailers; and night, although so near, seemed ages away, even at sundown.
Death being decreed, the warriors left the lodge one by one to attend to the preparation
of the preliminary ceremonies. Gotia, the good, was the last to depart. As he left the
Medicine lodge he made signs to the captives to remain quiet until he should return;
pointing upwards to signify that there was a chance of life; and downwards to show that
possibly they must die.
What an age of anxiety was that hour of waiting! Not a word had been exchanged
between the prisoners since the Indians entered the lodge, until now; and now very
little was said, for speech would draw upon them the vigilance of their enemy, by whom
they desired most ardently to be forgotten.
About dusk there was a great noise, and confusion, and clouds of dust, in the south
end of the village. Something was going wrong among the Indian horses. Immediately
all the village ran to the scene of the disorder, and at the same moment Gotia, the
good, appeared at the door of the Medicine lodge, beckoning the prisoners to follow
him. With alacrity they sprang up and after him, and were led across the stream, to a
thicket on the opposite side, where their horses stood, ready to mount, in the charge of
a young Indian girl. They did not stop for compliments, though had time been less
precious, they might well have bestowed some moments of it in admiration of
Umentucken Tukutsey Undewatsey, the Mountain Lamb. Soon after, the beautiful
Snake girl became the wife of Milton Sublette; and after his return to the States, of the
subject of this narrative; from which circumstance the incident above related takes on
something of the rosy hue of romance.
As each released captive received his bridle from the delicate hand of the Mountain
Lamb, he sprang to the saddle. By this time the chief had discovered that the strangers
understood the Snake dialect. "Ride, if you wish to live," said he: "ride without stopping,
all night: and to-morrow linger not." With hurried thanks our mountain-men replied to
this advice, and striking into a gallop, were soon far away from the Snake village. The
next day at noon found them a hundred and fifty miles on their way to camp.
Proceeding without further accident, they crossed the Teton Mountains, and joined the
company at Pierre's Hole, after an absence of nearly four months.
Here they found the ubiquitous if not omnipresent American Fur Company encamped at
the rendezvous of the Rocky Mountain Company. The partners being anxious to be
freed from this sort of espionage, and obstinate competition on their own ground, made
a proposition to Vanderburg and Dripps to divide the country with them, each company
to keep on its own territory. This proposition was refused by the American Company;
perhaps because they feared having the poorer portion set off to themselves by their
more experienced rivals. On this refusal, the Rocky Mountain Company determined to
send an express to meet Capt. William Sublette, who was on his way out with a heavy
stock of merchandise, and hurry him forward, lest the American Company should have
the opportunity of disposing of its goods, when the usual gathering to rendezvous
began. On this decision being formed, Fitzpatrick determined to go on this errand
himself; which he accordingly did, falling in with Sublette, and Campbell, his associate,
somewhere near the Black Hills. To them he imparted his wishes and designs, and
receiving the assurance of an early arrival at rendezvous, parted from them at the
Sweetwater, and hastened back, alone, as he came, to prepare for business.
Captain Sublette hurried forward with his train, which consisted of sixty men with
pack-horses, three to a man. In company with him, was Mr. Nathaniel Wyeth, a history of
whose fur-trading and salmon-fishing adventures has already been given. Captain
Sublette had fallen in with Mr. Wyeth at Independence, Missouri; and finding him
ignorant of the undertaking on which he was launched, offered to become pilot and
traveling companion, an offer which was gratefully accepted.
The caravan had reached the foot-hills of the Wind River Mountains, when the raw
recruits belonging to both these parties were treated to a slight foretaste of what Indian
fighting would be, should they ever have to encounter it. Their camp was suddenly
aroused at midnight by the simultaneous discharge of guns and arrows, and the
frightful whoops and yells with which the savages make an attack. Nobody was
wounded, however; but on springing to arms, the Indians fled, taking with them a few
horses which their yells had frightened from their pickets. These marauders were
Blackfeet, as Captain Sublette explained to Mr. Wyeth, their moccasin tracks having
betrayed them; for as each tribe has a peculiar way of making or shaping the moccasin,
the expert in Indian habits can detect the nationality of an Indian thief by his foot-print.
After this episode of the night assault, the leaders redoubled their watchfulness, and
reached their destination in Pierre's hole about the first of July.
When Sublette arrived in camp, it was found that Fitzpatrick was missing. If the other
partners had believed him to be with the Captain, the Captain expected to find him with
them; but since neither could account to the other for his non-appearance, much
anxiety was felt, and Sublette remembered with apprehension the visit he had received
from Blackfeet. However, before anything had been determined upon with regard to
him, he made his appearance in camp, in company with two Iroquois half-breeds,
belonging to the camp, who had been out on a hunt.
Fitzpatrick had met with an adventure, as had been conjectured. While coming up the
Green river valley, he descried a small party of mounted men, whom he mistook for a
company of trappers, and stopped to reconnoiter; but almost at the same moment the
supposed trappers, perceiving him, set up a yell that quickly undeceived him, and
compelled him to flight. Abandoning his pack-horse, he put the other to its topmost
speed, and succeeded in gaining the mountains, where in a deep and dark defile he
secreted himself until he judged the Indians had left that part of the valley. In this he
was deceived, for no sooner did he emerge again into the open country, than he was
once more pursued, and had to abandon his horse, to take refuge among the cliffs of
the mountains. Here he remained for several days, without blankets or provisions, and
with only one charge of ammunition, which was in his rifle, and kept for self-defense. At
length, however, by frequent reconnoitering, he managed to elude his enemies,
traveling by night, until he fortunately met with the two hunters from camp, and was
conveyed by them to the rendezvous.
All the parties were now safely in. The lonely mountain valley was populous with the
different camps. The Rocky Mountain and American companies had their separate
camps; Wyeth had his; a company of free trappers, fifteen in number, led by a man
named Sinclair, from Arkansas, had the fourth; the Nez Perces and Flatheads, the
allies of the Rocky Mountain company, and the friends of the whites, had their lodges
along all the streams; so that altogether there could not have been less than one
thousand souls, and two or three thousand horses and mules gathered in this place.
"When the pie was opened then the birds began to sing." When Captain Sublette's
goods were opened and distributed among the trappers and Indians, then began the
usual gay carousel; and the "fast young men" of the mountains outvied each other in all
manner of mad pranks. In the beginning of their spree many feats of horsemanship and
personal strength were exhibited, which were regarded with admiring wonder by the
sober and inexperienced New Englanders under Mr. Wyeth's command. And as
nothing stimulated the vanity of the mountainmen like an audience of this sort, the feats
they performed were apt to astonish themselves. In exhibitions of the kind, the free
trappers took the lead, and usually carried off the palm, like the privileged class that
they were.
But the horse-racing, fine riding, wrestling, and all the manlier sports, soon
degenerated into the baser exhibitions of a " crazy drunk " condition. The vessel in
which the trapper received and carried about his supply of alcohol was one of the small
camp kettles. "Passing round" this clumsy goblet very freely, it was not long before a
goodly number were in the condition just named, and ready for any mad freak
whatever. It is reported by several of the mountain-men that on the occasion of one of
these "frolics," one of their number seized a kettle of alcohol, and poured it over the
head of a tall, lank, redheaded fellow, repeating as he did so the baptismal ceremony.
No sooner had he concluded, than another man with a lighted stick, touched him with
the blaze, when in an instant he was enveloped in flames Luckily some of the company
had sense enough left to perceive his danger, and began beating him with pack-saddles to put out
the blaze. But between the burning and the beating, the unhappy
wretch nearly lost his life, and never recovered from the effects of his baptism by fire.
Beaver being plenty in camp, business was correspondingly lively, there being a great
demand for goods. When this demand was supplied, as it was in the course of about
three weeks, the different brigades were set in motion. One of the earliest to move was
a small party under Milton Sublette, including his constant companion, Meek. With this
company, no more than thirty in number, Sublette intended to explore the country to the
south-west, then unknown to the fur companies, and to proceed as far as the Humboldt
river in that direction.
On the 17th of July they set out toward the south end of the valley, and having made
but about eight miles the first day, camped that night near a pass in the mountains.
Wyeth's party of raw New Englanders, and Sinclair's free trappers, had joined
themselves to the company of Milton Sublette, and swelled the number in camp to
about sixty men, many of them new to the business of mountain life.
Just as the men were raising camp for a start the next morning, a caravan was
observed moving down the mountain pass into the valley. No alarm was at first felt, as
an arrival was daily expected of one of the American company's partisans, Mr.
Fontenelle, and his company. But on reconnoitering with a glass, Sublette discovered
them to be a large party of Blackfeet, consisting of a few mounted men, and many
more, men, women, and children, on foot. At the instant they were discovered, they set
up the usual yell of defiance, and rushed down like a mountain torrent into the valley,
flourishing their weapons, and fluttering their gay blankets and feathers in the wind.
There was no doubt as to the warlike intentions of the Blackfeet in general, nor was it
for a moment to be supposed that any peaceable overture on their part meant anything
more than that they were not prepared to fight at that particular juncture; therefore let
not the reader judge too harshly of an act which under ordinary circumstances would
have been infamous. In Indian fighting, every man is his own leader, and the bravest
take the front rank. On this occasion there were two of Sublette's men, one a half-breed
Iroquois, the other a Flathead Indian, who had wrongs of their own to avenge, and they
never let slip a chance of killing a Blackfoot. These two men rode forth alone to meet
the enemy, as if to hold a " talk" with the principal chief, who advanced to meet them,
bearing the pipe of peace. When the chief extended his hand, Antonio Godin, the half-breed, took
it, but at the same moment he ordered the Flathead to fire, and the chief fell
dead. The two trappers galloped back to camp, Antoine bearing for a trophy the scarlet
blanket of his enemy.
This action made it impossible to postpone the battle, as the dead chief had meant to
do by peaceful overtures, until the warriors of his nation came up. The Blackfeet
immediately betook themselves to a swamp formed by an old beaver dam, and thickly
overgrown with cotton-wood and willow, matted together with tough vines. On the edge
of this dismal covert the warriors skulked, and shot with their guns and arrows, while in
its very midst the women employed themselves in digging a trench and throwing up a
breastwork of logs, and whatever came to hand. Such a defence as the thicket afforded
was one not easy to attack; its unseen but certain dangers being sufficient to appal the
stoutest heart.
Meantime, an express had been sent off to inform Captain Sublette of the battle, and
summon assistance. Sinclair and his free trappers, with Milton Sublette's small
company, were the only fighting men at hand. Mr. Wyeth, knowing the inefficiency of
his men in an Indian fight, had them entrenched behind their packs, and there left them
to take care of themselves, but charged them not to appear in open field. As for the
fighting men, they stationed themselves in a ravine, where they could occasionally pick
off a Blackfoot, and waited for reinforcements.
Great was the astonishment of the Blackfeet, who believed they had only Milton
Sublette's camp to fight, when they beheld first one party of white men and then
another; and not only whites, but Nez Perces and Flatheads came galloping up the
valley. If before it had been a battle to destroy the whites, it was now a battle to defend
themselves. Previous to the arrival of Captain Sublette, the opposing forces had kept
up only a scattering fire, in which nobody on the side of the trappers had been either
killed or wounded. But when the impetuous captain arrived on the battle-field, he
prepared for less guarded warfare. Stripped as if for the prize-ring, and armed
cap-a-pie, he hastened to the scene of action, accompanied by his intimate friend and
associate in business, Robert Campbell.
At sight of the reinforcements, and their vigorous movements, the Indians at the edge
of the swamp fell back within their fort. To dislodge them was a dangerous undertaking,
but Captain Sublette was determined to make the effort. Finding the trappers generally
disinclined to enter the thicket, he set the example, together with Campbell, and thus
induced some of the free trappers, with their leader, Sinclair, to emulate his action.
However, the others took courage at this, and advanced near the swamp, firing at
random at their invisible foe, who, having the advantage of being able to see them,
inflicted some wounds on the party.
The few white " braves" who had resolved to enter the swamp, made their wills as they went, feeling that they were upon perilous business. Sublette, Campbell, and Sinclair succeeded in penetrating the thicket without alarming the enemy, and came at length to a more open space from whence they could get a view of the fort. From this they learned that the women and children had retired to the mountains, and that the fort was a slight affair, covered with buffalo robes and blankets to keep out prying eyes. Moving slowly on, some slight accident betrayed their vicinity, and the next moment a shot struck Sinclair, wounding him mortally. He spoke to Campbell, requesting to be taken to his brother. By this time some of the men had come up, and he was given in charge to
be taken back to camp. Sublette then pressed forward, and seeing an Indian looking
through an aperture, aimed at him with fatal effect. No sooner had he done so, and
pointed out the opening to Campbell, than he was struck with a ball in the shoulder,
which nearly prostrated him, and turned him so faint that Campbell took him in his arms
and carried him, assisted by Meek, out of the swamp. At the same time one of the men
received a wound in the head. The battle was now carried on with spirit, although from
the difficulty of approaching the fort, the firing was very irregular.
The mountaineers who followed Sublette, took up their station in the woods on one side
of the fort, and the Nez Perces, under Wyeth, on the opposite side, which accidental
arrangement, though it was fatal to many of the Blackfeet in the fort, was also the
occasion of loss to themselves by the cross-fire. The whites being constantly reinforced
by fresh arrivals from the rendezvous, were soon able to silence the guns of the enemy,
but they were not able to drive them from their fort, where they remained silent and
sullen after their ammunition was exhausted.
Seeing that the women of the Nez Perces and Flatheads were gathering up sticks to set fire to their breastwork of logs, an old chief proclaimed in a loud voice from within, the startling intelligence that there were four hundred lodges of his people close at hand, who would soon be there to avenge their deaths, should the whites choose to reduce them to ashes. This harangue, delivered in the usual high-flown style of Indian oratory, either was not clearly understood, or was wrongly interpreted, and the impression got abroad that an attack was being made on the great encampment. This intelligence occasioned a diversion, and a division of forces; for while a small party was left to watch the fort, the rest galloped in hot haste to the rescue of the main camp. When they arrived, they found it had been a false alarm, but it was too late to return that night, and the several camps remained where they were until the next day.
Meantime the trappers left to guard the fort remained stationed within the wood all
night, firmly believing they had their enemy " corraled," as the horsemen of the plains
would say. On the return, in the morning, of their comrades from the main camp, they
advanced cautiously up to the breastwork of logs, and behold! not a buffalo skin nor
red blanket was to be seen! Through the crevices among the logs was seen an empty
fort. On making this discovery there was much chagrin among the white trappers, and
much lamentation among the Indian allies, who had abandoned the burning of the fort
expressly to save for themselves the fine blankets and other goods of their hereditary
foes.
From the reluctance displayed by the trappers, in the beginning of the battle, to engage
with the Indians while under cover of the woods, it must not be inferred that they were
lacking in courage. They were too well informed in Indian modes of warfare to venture
recklessly into the den of death, which a savage ambush was quite sure to be. The very
result which attended the impetuosity of their leaders, in the death of Sinclair and the
wounding of Captain Sublette, proved them not over cautious.
On entering the fort, the dead bodies of ten Blackfeet were found, besides others dead outside the fort, and over thirty horses, some of which were recognized as those stolen from Sublette's night camp on the other side of the mountains, besides those abandoned by Fitzpatrick. Doubtless the rascals had followed his trail to Pierre's
Hole, not thinking, however, to come upon so large a camp as they found at last. The
savage garrison which had so cunningly contrived to elude the guard set upon them,
carried off some of their wounded, and, perhaps, also some of their dead; for they
acknowledged afterwards a much larger loss than appeared at the time. Besides
Sinclair, there were five other white men killed, one half-breed, and seven Nez Perces.
About the same number of whites and their Indian allies were wounded.
An instance of female devotion is recorded by Bonneville's historian as having occurred
at this battle. On the morning following it, as the whites were exploring the thickets
about the fort, they discovered a Blackfoot woman leaning silent and motionless
against a tree. According to Mr. Irving, whose fine feeling for the sex would incline him
to put faith in this bit of romance, " their surprise at her lingering here alone, to fall into
the hands of her enemies, was dispelled when they saw the corpse of a warrior at her
feet. Either she was so lost in grief as not to perceive their approach, or a proud spirit
kept her silent and motionless. The Indians set up a yell on discovering her, and before
the trappers could interfere, her mangled body fell upon the corpse which she had
refused to abandon.'' This version is true in the main incidents, but untrue in the
sentiment. The woman's leg had been broken by a ball, and she was unable to move
from the spot where she leaned. When the trappers approached her, she stretched out
her hands supplicatingly, crying out in a wailing voice, " kill me! kill me! O white men,
kill me! "--but this the trappers had no disposition to do. While she was entreating
them, and they refusing, a ball from some vengeful Nez Perce or Flathead put an end
to her sufferings.
Still remembering the threats of the Blackfoot chief, that four hundred lodges of his
brethren were advancing on the valley, all the companies returned to rendezvous, and
remained for several days, to see whether an attack should take place. But if there had
ever been any such intention on the part of the Blackfoot nation, the timely lesson
bestowed on their advance guard had warned them to quit the neighborhood of the
whites.
Captain Sublette's wound was dressed by Mr. Wyeth's physician, and although it hindered his departure for St. Louis for some time, it did not prevent his making his usual journey later in the season. It was as well, perhaps, that he did not set out earlier, for of a party of seven who started for St. Louis a few days after the battle, three were killed in Jackson's Hole, where they fell in with the four hundred warriors with whom the Blackfoot chief threatened the whites at the battle of Pierre's Hole. From the story of the four survivors who escaped and returned to camp, there could no longer be any doubt that the big village of the Blackfeet had actually been upon the trail of Capt. Sublette, expecting an easy victory when they should overtake him. How they were disappointed by the reception met with by the advance camp, has already been related.