Chapter 9 - Page 2

hard

fare. If they could not teach the white men their practical

stoicism, they at least made them acquainted with the edible

properties of roots and wild rosebuds, and furnished them a

supply from their own store. The necessities of the camp at

length became so urgent that Captain Bonneville determined to

dispatch a party to the Horse Prairie, a plain to the north of

his cantonment, to procure a supply of provisions. When the men

were about to depart, he proposed to the Nez Perces that they, or

some of them, should join the hunting-party. To his surprise,

they promptly declined. He inquired the reason for their refusal,

seeing that they were in nearly as starving a situation as his

own people. They replied that it was a sacred day with them, and

the Great Spirit would be angry should they devote it to hunting.

They offered, however, to accompany the party if it would delay

its departure until the following day; but this the pinching

demands of hunger would not permit, and the detachment proceeded.

A few days afterward, four of them signified to Captain

Bonneville that they were about to hunt. "What! " exclaimed he,

"without guns or arrows; and with only one old spear? What do you

expect to kill? " They smiled among themselves, but made no

answer. Preparatory to the chase, they performed some religious

rites, and offered up to the Great Spirit a few short prayers for

safety and success; then, having received the blessings of their

wives, they leaped upon their horses and departed, leaving the

whole party of Christian spectators amazed and rebuked by this

lesson of faith and dependence on a supreme and benevolent Being.

"Accustomed," adds Captain Bonneville, "as I had heretofore been,

to find the wretched Indian revelling in blood, and stained by

every vice which can degrade human nature, I could scarcely

realize the scene which I had witnessed. Wonder at such

unaffected tenderness and piety, where it was least to have been

sought, contended in all our bosoms with shame and confusion, at

receiving such pure and wholesome instructions from creatures so

far below us in the arts and comforts of life." The simple

prayers of the poor Indians were not unheard. In the course of

four or five days they returned, laden with meat. Captain

Bonneville was curious to know how they had attained such success

with such scanty means. They gave him to understand that they had

chased the buffalo at full speed, until they tired them down,

when they easily dispatched them with the spear, and made use of

the same weapon to