Many Attempts
Were Made To Coax Or Catch Them, But In Vain.
Their quick and
suspicious eyes caught the slightest sinister movement, and they
turned and scampered off.
At length one was taken. He was
terribly alarmed, and crouched and trembled as if expecting
instant death. Soothed, however, by caresses, he began after a
time to gather confidence and wag his tail, and at length was
brought to follow close at the heels of his captors, still,
however, darting around furtive and suspicious glances, and
evincing a disposition to scamper off upon the least alarm.
On the first of July the band of Crow warriors again crossed
their path. They came in vaunting and vainglorious style;
displaying five Cheyenne scalps, the trophies of their vengeance.
They were now bound homewards, to appease the manes of their
comrade by these proofs that his death had been revenged, and
intended to have scalp-dances and other triumphant rejoicings.
Captain Bonneville and his men, however, were by no means
disposed to renew their confiding intimacy with these crafty
savages, and above all, took care to avoid their pilfering
caresses. They remarked one precaution of the Crows with respect
to their horses; to protect their hoofs from the sharp and jagged
rocks among which they had to pass, they had covered them with
shoes of buffalo hide.
The route of the travellers lay generally along the course of the
Nebraska or Platte, but occasionally, where steep promontories
advanced to the margin of the stream, they were obliged to make
inland circuits. One of these took them through a bold and stern
country, bordered by a range of low mountains, running east and
west. Everything around bore traces of some fearful convulsion
of nature in times long past. Hitherto the various strata of rock
had exhibited a gentle elevation toward the southwest, but here
everything appeared to have been subverted, and thrown out of
place. In many places there were heavy beds of white sandstone
resting upon red. Immense strata of rocks jutted up into crags
and cliffs; and sometimes formed perpendicular walls and
overhanging precipices. An air of sterility prevailed over these
savage wastes. The valleys were destitute of herbage, and
scantily clothed with a stunted species of wormwood, generally
known among traders and trappers by the name of sage. From an
elevated point of their march through this region, the travellers
caught a beautiful view of the Powder River Mountains away to the
north, stretching along the very verge of the horizon, and
seeming, from the snow with which they were mantled, to be a
chain of small white clouds, connecting sky and earth.
Though the thermometer at mid-day ranged from eighty to ninety,
and even sometimes rose to ninety-three degrees, yet occasional
spots of snow were to be seen on the tops of the low mountains,
among which the travellers were journeying; proofs of the great
elevation of the whole region.
The Nebraska, in its passage through the Black Hills, is confined
to a much narrower channel than that through which it flows n the
plains below; but it is deeper and clearer, and rushes with a
stronger current.
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