Chapter 40

40.

Traveller's tales Indian lurkers Prognostics of Buckeye

Signs and portents The medicine wolf An alarm An ambush

The captured provant Triumph of Buckeye Arrival of supplies

Grand carouse Arrangements for the year Mr. Wyeth and his

new-levied band.

THE horror and indignation felt by Captain Bonneville at the

excesses of the Californian adventurers were not participated by

his men; on the contrary, the events of that expedition were

favorite themes in the camp. The heroes of Monterey bore the palm

in all the gossipings among the hunters. Their glowing

descriptions of Spanish bear-baits and bull-fights especially,

were listened to with intense delight; and had another expedition

to California been proposed, the difficulty would have been to

restrain a general eagerness to volunteer.

The captain had not long been at the rendezvous when he

perceived, by various signs, that Indians were lurking in the

neighborhood. It was evident that the Blackfoot band, which he

had seen when on his march, had dogged his party, and were intent

on mischief. He endeavored to keep his camp on the alert; but it

is as difficult to maintain discipline among trappers at a

rendezvous as among sailors when in port.

Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was scandalized at this

heedlessness of the hunters when an enemy was at hand, and was

continually preaching up caution. He was a little prone to play

the prophet, and to deal in signs and portents, which

occasionally excited the merriment of his white comrades. He was

a great dreamer, and believed in charms and talismans, or

medicines, and could foretell the approach of strangers by the

howling or barking of the small prairie wolf. This animal, being

driven by the larger wolves from the carcasses left on the

hunting grounds by the hunters, follows the trail of the fresh

meat carried to the camp. Here the smell of the roast and

broiled, mingling with every breeze, keeps them hovering about

the neighborhood; scenting every blast, turning up their noses

like hungry hounds, and testifying their pinching hunger by long

whining howls and impatient barkings. These are interpreted by

the superstitious Indians into warnings that strangers are at

hand; and one accidental coincidence, like the chance fulfillment

of an almanac prediction, is sufficient to cover a thousand

failures. This little, whining, feast-smelling animal is,

therefore, called among Indians the "medicine wolf;" and such was

one of Buckeye's infallible oracles.

One morning early, the soothsaying Delaware