We Do Not Find That Any After Claims Were
Made On Account Of This Colt.
This donation may be regarded,
therefore, as a signal punctilio of Indian honor; but it will be
found that the animal soon proved an unlucky acquisition to the
party.
While at this village, the Nez Perce guide had held consultations
with some of the inhabitants as to the mountain tract the party
were about to traverse. He now began to wear an anxious aspect,
and to indulge in gloomy forebodings. The snow, he had been told,
lay to a great depth in the passes of the mountains, and
difficulties would increase as he proceeded. He begged Captain
Bonneville, therefore, to travel very slowly, so as to keep the
horses in strength and spirit for the hard times they would have
to encounter. The captain surrendered the regulation of the march
entirely to his discretion, and pushed on in the advance, amusing
himself with hunting, so as generally to kill a deer or two in
the course of the day, and arriving, before the rest of the
party, at the spot designated by the guide for the evening's
encampment.
In the meantime, the others plodded on at the heels of the guide,
accompanied by that merry vagabond, She-wee-she. The primitive
garb worn by this droll left all his nether man exposed to the
biting blasts of the mountains. Still his wit was never frozen,
nor his sunshiny temper beclouded; and his innumerable antics and
practical jokes, while they quickened the circulation of his own
blood, kept his companions in high good-humor.
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