The Poor Partisan, Therefore, Was Fain To
Leave His Vagabonds Among These Birds Of Their Own Feather, And
Being Too
Weak in numbers to attempt the dangerous pass across
the mountains to meet Captain Bonneville on Salmon River, he
made,
With the few that remained faithful to him, for the
neighborhood of Tullock's Fort, on the Yellowstone, under the
protection of which he went into winter quarters.
He soon found out that the neighborhood of the fort was nearly as
bad as the neighborhood of the Crows. His men were continually
stealing away thither, with whatever beaver skins they could
secrete or lay their hands on. These they would exchange with the
hangers-on of the fort for whiskey, and then revel in drunkeness
and debauchery.
The unlucky partisan made another move. Associating with his
party a few free trappers, whom he met with in this neighborhood,
he started off early in the spring to trap on the head waters of
Powder River. In the course of the journey, his horses were so
much jaded in traversing a steep mountain, that he was induced to
turn them loose to graze during the night. The place was lonely;
the path was rugged; there was not the sign of an Indian in the
neighborhood; not a blade of grass that had been turned by a
footstep. But who can calculate on security in the midst of the
Indian country, where the foe lurks in silence and secrecy, and
seems to come and go on the wings of the wind?
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 174 of 442
Words from 46545 to 46801
of 118673
