Part 4 (1/2)
When Captain Sublette arrived, he urged to penetrate the swa back in awe of the dis such desperadoes in their savage den The very Indian allies, though accustoarded it as aler Sublette was not to be turned from his purpose, but offered to lead the way into the swamp
Ca the perilous wood, Sublette took his brothers aside, and told them that in case he fell, Campbell, who knew his will, was to be his executor This done, he grasped his rifle and pushed into the thickets, followed by Campbell
Sinclair, the partisan froe of the ith his brother and a few of his allant example of the two friends, he pressed forward to share their dangers
The sas produced by the labors of the beaver, which, by da up a stream, had inundated a portion of the valley The place was all overgrooods and thickets, so closely led that it was impossible to see ten paces ahead, and the three associates in peril had to crawl along, one after another,the branches and vines aside; but doing it with caution, lest they should attract the eye of soabout twenty yards at a ti to their radually entered the swamp, and followed a little distance in their rear
They had now reached a limpses of the rude fortress from between the trees It was a s and branches, with blankets, buffalo robes, and the leathern covers of lodges, extended round the top as a screen The roped their way, had been descried by the sharp-sighted ene soh the body He fell on the spot ”Take ave hie to some of the men, who conveyed him out of the swamp
Sublette now took the advance As he was reconnoitring the fort, he perceived an Indian peeping through an aperture In an instant his rifle was levelled and discharged, and the ball struck the savage in the eye
While he was reloading, he called to Campbell, and pointed out to him the hole; ”Watch that place,” said he, ”and you will soon have a fair chance for a shot” Scarce had he uttered the words, when a ball struck him in the shoulder, and alht was to take hold of his arm with his other hand, and move it up and down He ascertained, to his satisfaction, that the bone was not broken
The next moment he was so faint that he could not stand Campbell took him in his arms and carried him out of the thicket The same shot that struck Sublette wounded another man in the head
A brisk fire was now opened by the mountaineers from the wood, answered occasionally from the fort Unluckily, the trappers and their allies, in searching for the fort, had got scattered, so that Wyeth, and a number of Nez Perces, approached the fort on the northwest side, while others did the same on the opposite quarter A cross-fire thus took place, which occasionally did mischief to friends as well as foes An Indian was shot down, close to Wyeth, by a ball which, he was convinced, had been sped from the rifle of a trapper on the other side of the fort
The number of whites and their Indian allies had by this time so much increased by arrivals from the rendezvous, that the Blackfeet were coedly in their fort, however,into the breastas kept up during the day Now and then, one of the Indian allies, in bravado, would rush up to the fort, fire over the ramparts, tear off a buffalo robe or a scarlet blanket, and return with it in triuarrison that fell, however, were killed in the first part of the attack
At one time it was resolved to set fire to the fort; and the squaws belonging to the allies were employed to collect co unwilling to destroy the robes and blankets, and other spoils of the enemy, which they felt sure would fall into their hands
The Indians, when fighting, are prone to taunt and revile each other
During one of the pauses of the battle, the voice of the Blackfeet chief was heard
”So long,” said he, ”as we had powder and ball, we fought you in the open field: when those were spent, we retreated here to die with our women and children You may burn us in our fort; but, stay by our ashes, and you who are so hungry for fighting will soon have enough There are four hundred lodges of our brethren at hand They will soon be here--their are us!”
This speech was translated two or three times by Nez Perce and creole interpreters By the tilish, the chief was es of his tribe were attacking the encampment at the other end of the valley Every one noas for hurrying to the defence of the rendezvous A party was left to keep watch upon the fort; the rest galloped off to the caht came on, the trappers drew out of the swa, their companions returned from the rendezvous with the report that all was safe As the day opened, they ventured within the swamp and approached the fort All was silent They advanced up to it without opposition They entered: it had been abandoned in the night, and the Blackfeet had effected their retreat, carrying off their wounded on litters e The bodies of ten Indians were found within the fort; a them the one shot in the eye by Sublette The Blackfeet afterward reported that they had lost twenty-six warriors in this battle Thirty-two horses were likewise found killed; a them were some of those recently carried off froht; which showed that these were the very savages that had attacked him They proved to be an advance party of the main body of Blackfeet, which had been upon the trail of Sublette's party Five white men and one halfbreed were killed, and several wounded Seven of the Nez Perces were also killed, and six wounded They had an old chief, as reputed as invulnerable In the course of the action he was hit by a spent ball, and threw up blood; but his skin was unbroken His people were now fully convinced that he was proof against powder and ball
A striking circu after the battle As so the fort through the woods, they beheld an Indian woainst a tree 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 andher, and before the trappers could interfere, her led body fell upon the corpse which she had refused to abandon We have heard this anecdote discredited by one of the leaders who had been in the battle: but the factit, and been concealed from him It is an instance of female devotion, even to the death, which we are well disposed to believe and to record
After the battle, the brigade of Milton Sublette, together with the free trappers, and Wyeth's New England band, remained some days at the rendezvous, to see if theof the kind occurring, they once more put themselves in motion, and proceeded on their route toward the southwest Captain Sublette having distributed his supplies, had intended to set off on his return to St Louis, taking with him the peltries collected froed him to postpone his departure Several ere to have acco these was a young Bostonian, Mr Joseph More, one of the followers of Mr Wyeth, who had seen enough of er to return to the abodes of civilization
He and six others, a ere a Mr Foy, of Mississippi, Mr Alfred K Stephens, of St Louis, and two grandsons of the celebrated Daniel Boon, set out together, in advance of Sublette's party, thinking they would h the mountains
It was just five days after the battle of the swah Jackson's Hole, a valley not far fro a hill, a party of Blackfeet that lay in a Bostonian, as in front, wheeled round with affright, and threw his unskilled rider The young man scrambled up the side of the hill, but, unaccustomed to such wild scenes, lost his presence of e of a bank, until the Blackfeet came up and slew him on the spot His comrades had fled on the first alarer, paused when they got half way up the hill, turned back, dismounted, and hastened to his assistance Foy was instantly killed
Stephens was severely wounded, but escaped, to die five days afterward
The survivors returned to the cas of this new disaster That hardy leader, as soon as he could bear the journey, set out on his return to St Louis, accompanied by Campbell As they had a number of pack-horses richly laden with peltries to convoy, they chose a different route through thebands of Blackfeet They succeeded inthe frontier in safety We remember to have seen them with their band, about two or three h a skirt of woodland in the upper part of Missouri Their long cavalcade stretched in single file for nearly half a
Thedresses, ar their pack-horses down a hill of the forest, looked like banditti returning with plunder On the top of some of the packs were perched several half-breed children, perfect little i elf locks These, I was told, were children of the trappers; pledges of love from their squaw spouses in the wilderness
7
Retreat of the Blackfeet--Fontenelle's caer-- Captain Bonneville and the Blackfeet--Free trappers--Their character, habits, dress, equipments, horses--Game fellows of the ood cheer--A carouse--A swagger, a brawl, and a reconciliation
THE BLACKFEET WARRIORS, when they effected their ht retreat from their wild fastness in Pierre's Hole, fell back into the valley of the Seeds-ke-dee, or Green River where they joined the main body of their band The whole force aloomy and exasperated by their late disaster They had with them their wives and children, which incapacitated them from any bold and extensive enterprise of a warlike nature; but when, in the course of their wanderings they caht of the encampment of Fontenelle, who had moved some distance up Green River valley in search of the free trappers, they put up tremendous war-cries, and advanced fiercely as if to attack it Second thoughts caused them to moderate their fury They recollected the severe lesson just received, and could not but reth of Fontenelle's position; which had been chosen with great judg of the late battle, of which Fontenelle had as yet received no accounts; the latter, however, knew the hostile and perfidious nature of these savages, and took care to inforht know there were hborhood The conference ended, Fontenelle sent a Delaware Indian of his party to conduct fifteen of the Blackfeet to the camp of Captain Bonneville There was [sic]
at that time two Crow Indians in the captain's camp, who had recently arrived there They looked with disave the captain a terrible character of the he could possibly do, was to put those Blackfeet deputies to death on the spot The captain, however, who had heard nothing of the conflict at Pierre's Hole, declined all corim warriors with his usual urbanity They passed so was conducted with ilance; and that such an enemy was not to be easily surprised, nor to be molested with impunity, and then departed, to report all that they had seen to their comrades