Volume IV Part 19 (2/2)

Council with the Sioux.

At the beautiful falls of St. Anthony, Pike held a council with the Sioux, and got them to make a grant of about a hundred thousand acres in the neighborhood of the falls; and he tried vainly to make peace between the Sioux and the Chippewas. In his search for the source of the Mississippi he penetrated deep into the lovely lake-dotted region of forests and prairies which surrounds the head-waters of the river. He did not reach Lake Itasca; but he did explore the Leech Lake drainage system, which he mistook for the true source.

Hoists the American Flag.

At the British trading-posts, strong log structures fitted to repel Indian attacks, Pike was well received. Where he found the British flag flying he had it hauled down and the American flag hoisted in its place, making both the Indians and the traders understand that the authority of the United States was supreme in the land. In the spring he floated down stream and reached St. Louis on the last day of April, 1806.

Returns to St. Louis and Starts Westward.

In July he was again sent out, this time on a far more dangerous and important trip. He was to march west to the Rocky Mountains, and explore the country towards the head of the Rio Grande, where the boundary line between Mexico and Louisiana was very vaguely determined. His party numbered twenty-three all told, including Lieutenant J. B. Wilkinson, a son of the general, and a Dr. J. H. Robinson, whose special business it was to find out everything possible about the Spanish provinces, or, in plain English, to act as a spy. The party was also accompanied by fifty Osage Indians, chiefly women and children who had been captured by the Potowatomies, and whose release and return to their homes had been brought about by the efforts of the United States Government. The presence of these redeemed captives of course kept the Osages in good humor with Pike's party.

Pike Journeys to the Osage and p.a.w.nee Villages.

The party started in boats, and ascended the Osage River as far as it was navigable. They then procured horses and travelled to the great p.a.w.nee village known as the p.a.w.nee Republic, which gave its name to the Republican River. Before reaching the p.a.w.nee village they found that a Spanish military expedition, several hundred strong, under an able commander named Malgares, had antic.i.p.ated them, by travelling through the debatable land, and seeking to impress upon the Indians that the power of the Spanish nation was still supreme. Malgares had travelled from New Mexico across the Arkansas into the p.a.w.nee country; during much of his subsequent route Pike followed the Spaniard's trail. The p.a.w.nees had received from Malgares Spanish flags, as tokens of Spanish sovereignty. Doubtless the ceremony meant little or nothing to them; and Pike had small difficulty in getting the chiefs and warriors of the village to hoist the American flag instead. But they showed a very decided disinclination to let him continue his journey westward.

However, he would not be denied. Though with perfect good temper, he gave them to understand that he would use force if they ventured to bar his pa.s.sage; and they finally let him go by. Later he had a somewhat similar experience with a large p.a.w.nee war party.

The Swarms of Game.

The explorers had now left behind them the fertile, tree-clad country, and had entered on the great plains, across which they journeyed to the Arkansas, and then up that river. Like Lewis and Clark, Pike found the country literally swarming with game; for all the great plains region, from the Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande, formed at this time one of the finest hunting grounds to be found in the whole world. At one place just on the border of the plains Pike mentions that he saw from a hill buffalo, elk, antelope, deer, and panther, all in sight at the same moment. When he reached the plains proper the three characteristic animals were the elk, antelope, and, above all, the buffalo.

The Bison.

The myriads of huge s.h.a.ggy-maned bison formed the chief feature in this desolate land; no other wild animal of the same size, in any part of the world, then existed in such incredible numbers. All the early travellers seem to have been almost equally impressed by the interminable seas of gra.s.s, the strange, s.h.i.+fting, treacherous plains rivers, and the swarming mult.i.tudes of this great wild ox of the West. Under the blue sky the yellow prairie spread out in endless expanse; across it the horseman might steer for days and weeks through a landscape almost as unbroken as the ocean. It was a region of light rainfall; the rivers ran in great curves through beds of quicksand, which usually contained only trickling pools of water, but in times of freshet would in a moment fill from bank to bank with boiling muddy torrents. Hither and thither across these plains led the deep buffalo-trails, worn by the hoofs of the herds that had pa.s.sed and re-pa.s.sed through countless ages. For hundreds of miles a traveller might never be out of sight of buffalo. At noon they lay about in little groups all over the prairie, the yellow calves clumsily frisking beside their mothers, while on the slight mounds the great bulls moaned and muttered and pawed the dust. Towards nightfall the herds filed down in endless lines to drink at the river, walking at a quick, shuffling pace, with heads held low and beards almost sweeping the ground. When Pike reached the country the herds were going south from the Platte towards their wintering grounds below the Arkansas. At first he pa.s.sed through nothing but droves of bulls. It was not until he was well towards the mountains that he came upon great herds of cows.

Other Game.

The prairie was dotted over with innumerable antelope. These have always been beasts of the open country; but the elk, once so plentiful in the great eastern forests, and even now plentiful in parts of the Rockies, then also abounded on the plains, where there was not a tree of any kind, save the few twisted and wind-beaten cottonwoods that here and there, in sheltered places fringed the banks of the rivers.

Indians Hunting.

Lewis and Clark had seen the Mandan hors.e.m.e.n surround the buffalo herds and kill the great clumsy beasts with their arrows. Pike records with the utmost interest how he saw a band of p.a.w.nees in similar fas.h.i.+on slaughter a great gang of elk, and he dwells with admiration on the training of the horses, the wonderful horsemans.h.i.+p of the naked warriors, and their skill in the use of bow and spear. It was a wild hunting scene, such as belonged properly to times primeval. But indeed the whole life of these wild red nomads, the plumed and painted horse-Indians of the great plains, belonged to time primeval. It was at once terrible and picturesque, and yet mean in its squalor and laziness.

From the Blackfeet in the north to the Comanches in the south they were all alike; grim lords of war and the chase; warriors, hunters, gamblers, idlers; fearless, ferocious, treacherous, inconceivably cruel; revengeful and fickle; foul and unclean in life and thought; disdaining work, but capable at times of undergoing unheard-of toil and hards.h.i.+p, and of braving every danger; doomed to live with ever before their eyes death in the form of famine or frost, battle or torture, and schooled to meet it, in whatever shape it came, with fierce and mutterless fort.i.tude. [Footnote: Fortunately these horse-Indians, and the game they chiefly hunted, have found a fit historian. In his books, especially upon the p.a.w.nees and Blackfeet, Mr. George Bird Grinnell has portrayed them with a master hand; it is hard to see how his work can be bettered.]

Wilkinson Descends the Arkansas.

When the party reached the Arkansas late in October Wilkinson and three or four men journied down it and returned to the settled country.

Wilkinson left on record his delight when he at last escaped from the bleak windswept plains and again reached the land where deer supplanted the buffalo and antelope and where the cottonwood was no longer the only tree.

Pike Reaches Pike's Peak.

The others struck westward into the mountains, and late in November reached the neighborhood of the bold peak which was later named after Pike himself. Winter set in with severity soon after they penetrated the mountains. They were poorly clad to resist the bitter weather, and they endured frightful hards.h.i.+ps while endeavoring to thread the tangle of high cliffs and sheer canyons. Moreover, as winter set in, the blacktail deer, upon which the party had begun to rely for meat, migrated to the wintering grounds, and the explorers suffered even more from hunger than from cold. They had nothing to eat but the game, not even salt.

Sufferings from Cold and Hunger.

The travelling through the deep snow, whether exploring or hunting, was heart-breaking work. The horses suffered most; the extreme toil, and scant pasturage weakened them so that some died from exhaustion; others fell over precipices and the magpies proved evil foes, picking the sore backs of the wincing, saddle-galled beasts. In striving to find some pa.s.s for the horses the whole party was more than once strung out in detachments miles apart, through the mountains. Early in January, near the site of the present Canyon City, Pike found a valley where deer were plentiful. Here he built a fort of logs, and left the saddle-band and pack-animals in charge of two of the members of the expedition; intending to send back for them when he had discovered some practicable route.

He Strikes Across the Mountains on Foot.

<script>