Chapter 16 - Page 2

them, Le Roy and

Ross, after fighting desperately, were captured by the savages;

the remaining two vaulted into their saddles and saved themselves

by headlong flight, being pursued for nearly thirty miles. They

got safe back to Matthieu's camp, where their story inspired such

dread of lurking Indians that the hunters could not be prevailed

upon to undertake another foray in quest of provisions. They

remained, therefore, almost starving in their camp; now and then

killing an old or disabled horse for food, while the elk and the

mountain sheep roamed unmolested among the surrounding mountains.

The disastrous surprisal of this hunting party is cited by

Captain Bonneville to show the importance of vigilant watching

and judicious encampments in the Indian country. Most of this

kind of disasters to traders and trappers arise from some

careless inattention to the state of their arms and ammunition,

the placing of their horses at night, the position of their

camping ground, and the posting of their night watches. The

Indian is a vigilant and crafty foe, by no means given to

hair-brained assaults; he seldom attacks when he finds his foe

well prepared and on the alert. Caution is at least as

efficacious a protection against him as courage.

The Indians who made this attack were at first supposed to be

Blackfeet; until Captain Bonneville found subsequently, in the

camp of the Bannecks, a horse, saddle, and bridle, which he

recognized as having belonged to one of the hunters. The

Bannecks, however, stoutly denied having taken these spoils in

fight, and persisted in affirming that the outrage had been

perpetrated by a Blackfoot band.

Captain Bonneville remained on Snake River nearly three weeks

after the arrival of Matthieu and his party. At length his horses

having recovered strength sufficient for a journey, he prepared

to return to the Nez Perces, or rather to visit his caches on

Salmon River; that he might take thence goods and equipments for

the opening season. Accordingly, leaving sixteen men at Snake

River, he set out on the 19th of February with sixteen others on

his journey to the caches.

Fording the river, he proceeded to the borders of the deep snow,

when he encamped under the lee of immense piles of burned rock.

On the 21st he was again floundering through the snow, on the

great Snake River plain, where it lay to the depth of thirty

inches. It was sufficiently incrusted to bear a pedestrian, but

the poor horses broke through the crust, and plunged and strained

at every step. So lacerated were they