A Breastwork Was Thrown Up Of Saddles, Baggage,
And Camp Furniture, And All Hands Waited Anxiously For Daylight.
The Indians, In The Meantime, Collected On A Neighboring Height,
Kept Up The Most Horrible Clamor, In Hopes Of Striking A Panic
Into The Camp, Or Frightening Off The Horses.
When the day
dawned, the trappers attacked them briskly and drove them to some
distance.
A desultory fire was kept up for an hour, when the
Indians, seeing nothing was to be gained, gave up the contest and
retired. They proved to be a war party of Blackfeet, who, while
in search of the Crow tribe, had fallen upon the trail of Captain
Bonneville on the Popo Agie, and dogged him to the Bighorn; but
had been completely baffled by his vigilance. They had then
waylaid the present detachment, and were actually housed in
perfect silence within their fort, when the mule of the trapper
made such a dead point.
The savages went off uttering the wildest denunciations of
hostility, mingled with opprobrious terms in broken English, and
gesticulations of the most insulting kind.
In this melee, one white man was wounded, and two horses were
killed. On preparing the morning's meal, however, a number of
cups, knives, and other articles were missing, which had,
doubtless, been carried off by the fictitious elk, during the
slumber of the very sagacious sentinel.
As the Indians had gone off in the direction which the trappers
had intended to travel, the latter changed their route, and
pushed forward rapidly through the "Bad Pass," nor halted until
night; when, supposing themselves out of the reach of the enemy,
they contented themselves with tying up their horses and posting
a guard.
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