Some
Pointed Their Guns At The Boat, And Threatened To Fire; Others
Stripped, Plunged Into The Stream, And Came Swimming Across.
Making A Virtue Of Necessity, Wyeth Threw A Cord To The First
That Came Within Reach, As If He Wished To Be Drawn To The Shore.
In this way he was overhauled by every band, and by the time he
and his people came out of the busy hands of the last, they were
eased of most of their superfluities.
Nothing, in all
probability, but the proximity of the American trading post, kept
these land pirates from making a good prize of the bull boat and
all its contents.
These bands were in full march, equipped for war, and evidently
full of mischief. They were, in fact, the very bands that overran
the land in the autumn of 1833; partly robbed Fitzpatrick of his
horses and effects; hunted and harassed Captain Bonneville and
his people; broke up their trapping campaigns, and, in a word,
drove them all out of the Crow country. It has been suspected
that they were set on to these pranks by some of the American Fur
Company, anxious to defeat the plans of their rivals of the Rocky
Mountain Company; for at this time, their competition was at its
height, and the trade of the Crow country was a great object of
rivalry. What makes this the more probable, is, that the Crows in
their depredation seemed by no means bloodthirsty, but intent
chiefly on robbing the parties of their traps and horses, thereby
disabling them from prosecuting their hunting.
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