After A Time, They Began To Have Vexatious Proofs That, If The
Shoshokoes Were Quiet By Day, They Were Busy At Night.
The camp
was dogged by these eavesdroppers; scarce a morning, but various
articles were missing, yet nothing could be seen of the
marauders.
What particularly exasperated the hunters, was to have
their traps stolen from the streams. One morning, a trapper of a
violent and savage character, discovering that his traps had been
carried off in the night, took a horrid oath to kill the first
Indian he should meet, innocent or guilty. As he was returning
with his comrades to camp, he beheld two unfortunate Diggers,
seated on the river bank, fishing. Advancing upon them, he
levelled his rifle, shot one upon the spot, and flung his
bleeding body into the stream. The other Indian fled and was
suffered to escape. Such is the indifference with which acts of
violence are regarded in the wilderness, and such the immunity an
armed ruffian enjoys beyond the barriers of the laws, that the
only punishment this desperado met with, was a rebuke from the
leader of the party. The trappers now left the scene of this
infamous tragedy, and kept on westward, down the course of the
river, which wound along with a range of mountains on the right
hand, and a sandy, but somewhat fertile plain, on the left. As
they proceeded, they beheld columns of smoke rising, as before,
in various directions, which their guilty consciences now
converted into alarm signals, to arouse the country and collect
the scattered bands for vengeance.
After a time, the natives began to make their appearance, and
sometimes in considerable numbers, but always pacific; the
trappers, however, suspected them of deep-laid plans to draw them
into ambuscades; to crowd into and get possession of their camp,
and various other crafty and daring conspiracies, which, it is
probable, never entered into the heads of the poor savages. In
fact, they are a simple, timid, inoffensive race, unpractised in
warfare, and scarce provided with any weapons, excepting for the
chase. Their lives are passed in the great sand plains and along
the adjacent rivers; they subsist sometimes on fish, at other
times on roots and the seeds of a plant, called the cat's-tail.
They are of the same kind of people that Captain Bonneville found
upon Snake River, and whom he found so mild and inoffensive.
The trappers, however, had persuaded themselves that they were
making their way through a hostile country, and that implacable
foes hung round their camp or beset their path, watching for an
opportunity to surprise them. At length, one day they came to the
banks of a stream emptying into Ogden's River, which they were
obliged to ford. Here a great number of Shoshokoes were posted on
the opposite bank. Persuaded they were there with hostile intent,
they advanced upon them, levelled their rifles, and killed twenty
five of them upon the spot. The rest fled to a short distance,
then halted and turned about, howling and whining like wolves,
and uttering the most piteous wailings.
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