Chapter 29

29.

Winter camp at the Portneuf Fine springs The Bannack

Indians Their honesty Captain Bonneville prepares for an

expedition Christmas The American Falls Wild scenery Fishing

Falls Snake Indians Scenery on the Bruneau View of volcanic

country from a mountain Powder River Shoshokoes, or Root

Diggers Their character, habits, habitations, dogs Vanity at its

last shift

IN ESTABLISHING his winter camp near the Portnenf, Captain

Bonneville had drawn off to some little distance from his Bannack

friends, to avoid all annoyance from their intimacy or

intrusions. In so doing, however, he had been obliged to take up

his quarters on the extreme edge of the flat land, where he was

encompassed with ice and snow, and had nothing better for his

horses to subsist on than wormwood. The Bannacks, on the

contrary, were encamped among fine springs of water, where there

was grass in abundance. Some of these springs gush out of the

earth in sufficient quantity to turn a mill; and furnish

beautiful streams, clear as crystal, and full of trout of a large

size, which may be seen darting about the transparent water.

Winter now set in regularly. The snow had fallen frequently, and

in large quantities, and covered the ground to a depth of a foot;

and the continued coldness of the weather prevented any thaw.

By degrees, a distrust which at first subsisted between the

Indians and the trappers, subsided, and gave way to mutual

confidence and good will. A few presents convinced the chiefs

that the white men were their friends; nor were the white men

wanting in proofs of the honesty and good faith of their savage

neighbors. Occasionally, the deep snow and the want of fodder

obliged them to turn their weakest horses out to roam in quest of

sustenance. If they at any time strayed to the camp of the

Bannacks, they were immediately brought back. It must be

confessed, however, that if the stray horse happened, by any

chance, to be in vigorous plight and good condition, though he

was equally sure to be returned by the honest Bannacks, yet it

was always after the lapse of several days, and in a very gaunt

and jaded state; and always with the remark that they had found

him a long way off. The uncharitable were apt to surmise that he

had, in the interim, been well used up in a buffalo hunt; but

those accustomed to Indian morality in the matter of horseflesh,

considered it a singular evidence of honesty that he should be

brought back at all.

Being convinced, therefore, from these, and other circumstances,

that his people