Chapter 4 - Page 2

maneuver, extended to him

the hand of friendship. The pipe of peace was smoked, and now all

was good fellowship.

The Crows were in pursuit of a band of Cheyennes, who had

attacked their village in the night and killed one of their

people. They had already been five and twenty days on the track

of the marauders, and were determined not to return home until

they had sated their revenge.

A few days previously, some of their scouts, who were ranging the

country at a distance from the main body, had discovered the

party of Captain Bonneville. They had dogged it for a time in

secret, astonished at the long train of wagons and oxen, and

especially struck with the sight of a cow and calf, quietly

following the caravan; supposing them to be some kind of tame

buffalo. Having satisfied their curiosity, they carried back to

their chief intelligence of all that they had seen. He had, in

consequence, diverged from his pursuit of vengeance to behold the

wonders described to him. "Now that we have met you," said he to

Captain Bonneville, "and have seen these marvels with our own

eyes, our hearts are glad." In fact, nothing could exceed the

curiosity evinced by these people as to the objects before them.

Wagons had never been seen by them before, and they examined them

with the greatest minuteness; but the calf was the peculiar

object of their admiration. They watched it with intense interest

as it licked the hands accustomed to feed it, and were struck

with the mild expression of its countenance, and its perfect

docility.

After much sage consultation, they at length determined that it

must be the "great medicine" of the white party; an appellation

given by the Indians to anything of supernatural and mysterious

power that is guarded as a talisman. They were completely thrown

out in their conjecture, however, by an offer of the white men to

exchange the calf for a horse; their estimation of the great

medicine sank in an instant, and they declined the bargain.

At the request of the Crow chieftain the two parties encamped

together, and passed the residue of the day in company. The

captain was well pleased with every opportunity to gain a

knowledge of the "unsophisticated sons of nature," who had so

long been objects of his poetic speculations; and indeed this

wild, horse-stealing tribe is one of the most notorious of the

mountains. The chief, of course, had his scalps to show and his

battles to recount. The Blackfoot is the hereditary enemy of the

Crow, toward whom hostility is like a cherished principle of