The rivers, in general, were skirted
with willows and bitter cottonwood trees, and the prairies
covered with wormwood. In the hollow breast of the mountains
which they were now penetrating, the surrounding heights were
clothed with pine; while the declivities of the lower hills
afforded abundance of bunch grass for the horses.
As the Indians had represented, they were now in a natural
fastness of the mountains, the ingress and egress of which was by
a deep gorge, so narrow, rugged, and difficult as to prevent
secret approach or rapid retreat, and to admit of easy defence.
The Blackfeet, therefore, refrained from venturing in after the
Nez Perces, awaiting a better chance, when they should once more
emerge into the open country.
Captain Bonneville soon found that the Indians had not
exaggerated the advantages of this region. Besides the numerous
gangs of elk, large flocks of the ahsahta or bighorn, the
mountain sheep, were to be seen bounding among the precipices.
These simple animals were easily circumvented and destroyed. A
few hunters may surround a flock and kill as many as they please.
Numbers were daily brought into camp, and the flesh of those
which were young and fat was extolled as superior to the finest
mutton.
Here, then, there was a cessation from toil, from hunger, and
alarm. Past ills and dangers were forgotten. The hunt, the game,
the song, the story, the rough though good-humored joke, made
time pass joyously away, and plenty and security reigned
throughout the camp.
Idleness and ease, it is said, lead to love, and love to
matrimony, in civilized life, and the same process takes place in
the wilderness. Filled with good cheer and mountain mutton, one
of the free trappers began to repine at the solitude of his
lodge, and to experience the force of that great law of nature,
"it is not meet for man to live alone.''
After a night of grave cogitation he repaired to Kowsoter, the
Pierced-nose chief, and unfolded to him the secret workings of
his bosom.
"I want," said he, "a wife. Give me one from among your tribe.
Not a young, giddy-pated girl, that will think of nothing but
flaunting and finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw;
one that will share my lot without flinching, however hard it may
be; that can take care of my lodge, and be a companion and a
helpmate to me in the wilderness." Kowsoter promised to look
round among the females of his tribe, and procure such a one as
he desired. Two days were requisite for the search. At the
expiration of these, Kowsoter, called at his lodge, and informed
him that he would bring his bride to him in the course of the
afternoon. He kept his word. At the appointed time he approached,
leading the bride, a comely copper-colored dame attired in her
Indian finery. Her father, mother, brothers by the half dozen and
cousins by the score, all followed on to grace the ceremony and
greet the new and important relative.
The trapper received his new and numerous family connection with
proper solemnity; he placed his bride beside him, and, filling
the pipe, the great symbol of peace, with his best tobacco, took
two or three whiffs, then handed it to the chief who transferred
it to the father of the bride, from whom it was passed on from
hand to hand and mouth to mouth of the whole circle of kinsmen
round the fire, all maintaining the most profound and becoming
silence.
After several pipes had been filled and emptied in this solemn
ceremonial, the chief addressed the bride, detailing at
considerable length the duties of a wife which, among Indians,
are little less onerous than those of the pack-horse; this done,
he turned to her friends and congratulated them upon the great
alliance she had made. They showed a due sense of their good
fortune, especially when the nuptial presents came to be
distributed among the chiefs and relatives, amounting to about
one hundred and eighty dollars. The company soon retired, and now
the worthy trapper found indeed that he had no green girl to deal
with; for the knowing dame at once assumed the style and dignity
of a trapper's wife: taking possession of the lodge as her
undisputed empire, arranging everything according to her own
taste and habitudes, and appearing as much at home and on as easy
terms with the trapper as if they had been man and wife for
years.
We have already given a picture of a free trapper and his horse,
as furnished by Captain Bonneville: we shall here subjoin, as a
companion picture, his description of a free trapper's wife, that
the reader may have a correct idea of the kind of blessing the
worthy hunter in question had invoked to solace him in the
wilderness.
"The free trapper, while a bachelor, has no greater pet than his
horse; but the moment he takes a wife (a sort of brevet rank in
matrimony occasionally bestowed upon some Indian fair one, like
the heroes of ancient chivalry in the open field), he discovers
that he has a still more fanciful and capricious animal on which
to lavish his expenses.
"No sooner does an Indian belle experience this promotion, than
all her notions at once rise and expand to the dignity of her
situation, and the purse of her lover, and his credit into the
bargain, are taxed to the utmost to fit her out in becoming
style. The wife of a free trapper to be equipped and arrayed like
any ordinary and undistinguished squaw? Perish the grovelling
thought! In the first place, she must have a horse for her own
riding; but no jaded, sorry, earth-spirited hack, such as is
sometimes assigned by an Indian husband for the transportation of
his squaw and her pappooses:
