These, However,
Appear To Have Forfeited The Title, For They Had With Them A Fine
Lot Of Skins Of Beaver, Elk, Deer, And Mountain Sheep.
These,
Captain Bonneville purchased from them at a fair valuation, and
sent them off astonished at their own wealth, and no doubt
objects of envy to all their pitiful tribe.
Being now reinforced by Hodgkiss and his band of free trappers,
Captain Bonneville put himself at the head of the united parties,
and set out to rejoin those he had recently left at the Beer
Spring, that they might all go into winter quarters on Snake
River. On his route, he encountered many heavy falls of snow,
which melted almost immediately, so as not to impede his march,
and on the 4th of December, he found his other party, encamped at
the very place where he had partaken in the buffalo hunt with the
Bannacks.
That braggart horde was encamped but about three miles off, and
were just then in high glee and festivity, and more swaggering
than ever, celebrating a prodigious victory. It appeared that a
party of their braves being out on a hunting excursion,
discovered a band of Blackfeet moving, as they thought, to
surprise their hunting camp. The Bannacks immediately posted
themselves on each side of a dark ravine, through which the enemy
must pass, and, just as they were entangled in the midst of it,
attacked them with great fury. The Blackfeet, struck with sudden
panic, threw off their buffalo robes and fled, leaving one of
their warriors dead on the spot.
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