Unluckily, However, We Lost One Of The Horses
By The Negligence Of The Person To Whose Charge He Was Committed.
The rest were, therefore, hobbled and tied; but as the nations here
do not understand gelding, all the horses but
One were stallions;
this being the season when they are most vicious, we had great difficulty
in managing them, and were obliged to keep watch over them all night.
. . . . . . . . . .
As it was obviously our interest to preserve the goodwill of
these people, we passed over several small thefts which they committed,
but this morning we learnt that six tomahawks and a knife had been
stolen during the night. We addressed ourselves to the chief,
who seemed angry with his people, and made a harangue to them;
but we did not recover the articles, and soon afterward two of our
spoons were missing. We therefore ordered them all from our camp,
threatening to beat severely any one detected in purloining.
This harshness irritated them so much that they left us in an
ill-humor, and we therefore kept on our guard against any insult.
Besides this knavery, the faithlessness of the people
is intolerable; frequently, after receiving goods in exchange
for a horse, they return in a few hours and insist on
revoking the bargain or receiving some additional value.
We discovered, too, that the horse which was missing yesterday
had been gambled away by the fellow from whom we had purchased him,
to a man of a different nation, who had carried him off.
We succeeded in buying two more horses, two dogs, and some chappelell,
and also exchanged a couple of elk-skins for a gun belonging
to the chief . . . One of the canoes, for which the Indians would
give us very little, was cut up for fuel; two others, together with
some elk-skins and pieces of old iron, we bartered for beads,
and the remaining two small ones were despatched early next morning,
with all the baggage which could not be carried on horseback.
We had intended setting out at the same time, but one of our horses
broke loose during the night, and we were under the necessity
of sending several men in search of him.
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