In His
Heat And Fury, The Bull Lolls Out His Tongue; This Is Instantly
Clutched By The Bear; With A Desperate Effort He Overturns His
Huge Antagonist; And Then Dispatches Him Without Difficulty.
Beside this diversion, the travellers were likewise regaled with
bull-fights, in the genuine style of Old Spain; the Californians
being considered the best bull-fighters in the Mexican dominions.
After a considerable sojourn at Monterey, spent in these very
edifying, but not very profitable amusements, the leader of this
vagabond party set out with his comrades, on his return journey.
Instead of retracing their steps through the mountains, they
passed round their southern extremity, and, crossing a range of
low hills, found themselves in the sandy plains south of Ogden's
River; in traversing which, they again suffered, grievously, for
want of water.
In the course of their journey, they encountered a party of
Mexicans in pursuit of a gang of natives, who had been stealing
horses. The savages of this part of California are represented as
extremely poor, and armed only with stone-pointed arrows; it
being the wise policy of the Spaniards not to furnish them with
firearms. As they find it difficult, with their blunt shafts, to
kill the wild game of the mountains, they occasionally supply
themselves with food, by entrapping the Spanish horses. Driving
them stealthily into fastnesses and ravines, they slaughter them
without difficulty, and dry their flesh for provisions. Some they
carry off to trade with distant tribes; and in this way, the
Spanish horses pass from hand to hand among the Indians, until
they even find their way across the Rocky Mountains.
The Mexicans are continually on the alert, to intercept these
marauders; but the Indians are apt to outwit them, and force them
to make long and wild expeditions in pursuit of their stolen
horses.
Two of the Mexican party just mentioned joined the band of
trappers, and proved themselves worthy companions. In the course
of their journey through the country frequented by the poor Root
Diggers, there seems to have been an emulation between them,
which could inflict the greatest outrages upon the natives. The
trappers still considered them in the light of dangerous foes;
and the Mexicans, very probably, charged them with the sin of
horse-stealing; we have no other mode of accounting for the
infamous barbarities of which, according to their own story, they
were guilty; hunting the poor Indians like wild beasts, and
killing them without mercy. The Mexicans excelled at this savage
sport; chasing their unfortunate victims at full speed; noosing
them round the neck with their lasos, and then dragging them to
death!
Such are the scanty details of this most disgraceful expedition;
at least, such are all that Captain Bonneville had the patience
to collect; for he was so deeply grieved by the failure of his
plans, and so indignant at the atrocities related to him, that he
turned, with disgust and horror, from the narrators. Had he
exerted a little of the Lynch law of the wilderness, and hanged
those dexterous horsemen in their own lasos, it would but have
been a well-merited and salutary act of retributive justice. The
failure of this expedition was a blow to his pride, and a still
greater blow to his purse. The Great Salt Lake still remained
unexplored; at the same time, the means which had been furnished
so liberally to fit out this favorite expedition, had all been
squandered at Monterey; and the peltries, also, which had been
collected on the way. He would have but scanty returns,
therefore, to make this year, to his associates in the United
States; and there was great danger of their becoming
disheartened, and abandoning the enterprise.
40
Traveller's tales Indian lurkers Prognostics of Buckeye
Signs and portents The medicine wolf An alarm An ambush
The captured provant Triumph of Buckeye Arrival of supplies
Grand carouse Arrangements for the year Mr. Wyeth and his
new-levied band.
THE horror and indignation felt by Captain Bonneville at the
excesses of the Californian adventurers were not participated by
his men; on the contrary, the events of that expedition were
favorite themes in the camp. The heroes of Monterey bore the palm
in all the gossipings among the hunters. Their glowing
descriptions of Spanish bear-baits and bull-fights especially,
were listened to with intense delight; and had another expedition
to California been proposed, the difficulty would have been to
restrain a general eagerness to volunteer.
The captain had not long been at the rendezvous when he
perceived, by various signs, that Indians were lurking in the
neighborhood. It was evident that the Blackfoot band, which he
had seen when on his march, had dogged his party, and were intent
on mischief. He endeavored to keep his camp on the alert; but it
is as difficult to maintain discipline among trappers at a
rendezvous as among sailors when in port.
Buckeye, the Delaware Indian, was scandalized at this
heedlessness of the hunters when an enemy was at hand, and was
continually preaching up caution. He was a little prone to play
the prophet, and to deal in signs and portents, which
occasionally excited the merriment of his white comrades. He was
a great dreamer, and believed in charms and talismans, or
medicines, and could foretell the approach of strangers by the
howling or barking of the small prairie wolf. This animal, being
driven by the larger wolves from the carcasses left on the
hunting grounds by the hunters, follows the trail of the fresh
meat carried to the camp. Here the smell of the roast and
broiled, mingling with every breeze, keeps them hovering about
the neighborhood; scenting every blast, turning up their noses
like hungry hounds, and testifying their pinching hunger by long
whining howls and impatient barkings. These are interpreted by
the superstitious Indians into warnings that strangers are at
hand; and one accidental coincidence, like the chance fulfillment
of an almanac prediction, is sufficient to cover a thousand
failures.
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