ON The 22d Of June Captain Bonneville Raised His Camp, And Moved
To The Forks Of Wind River; The Appointed Place Of Rendezvous.
In a few days he was joined there by the brigade of Montero,
which had been sent, in the preceding year, to beat up the Crow
country, and afterward proceed to the Arkansas.
Montero had
followed the early part of his instructions; after trapping upon
some of the upper streams, he proceeded to Powder River. Here he
fell in with the Crow villages or bands, who treated him with
unusual kindness, and prevailed upon him to take up his winter
quarters among them.
The Crows at that time were struggling almost for existence with
their old enemies, the Blackfeet; who, in the past year, had
picked off the flower of their warriors in various engagements,
and among the rest, Arapooish, the friend of the white men. That
sagacious and magnanimous chief had beheld, with grief, the
ravages which war was making in his tribe, and that it was
declining in force, and must eventually be destroyed unless some
signal blow could be struck to retrieve its fortunes. In a
pitched battle of the two tribes, he made a speech to his
warriors, urging them to set everything at hazard in one furious
charge; which done, he led the way into the thickest of the foe.
He was soon separated from his men, and fell covered with wounds,
but his self-devotion was not in vain. The Blackfeet were
defeated; and from that time the Crows plucked up fresh heart,
and were frequently successful.
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