He Concluded By Thanking Them For Their
Present, And Advising Them To Encamp On The Opposite Side Of The
River, As He Had Some Young Men Among His Warriors For Whose
Discretion He Could Not Be Answerable, And Who Might Be
Troublesome.
Here ended the conference:
They all arose, shook hands, and
parted. Mr. Hunt and his companions re-embarked, and the boats
proceeded on their course unmolested.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Great Bend of the Missouri- Crooks and M'Lellan Meet With Two
of Their Indian Opponents- Wanton Outrage of a White Man the
Cause of Indian Hostility- Dangers and Precautions.-An Indian War
Party.- Dangerous Situation of Mr. Hunt.- A Friendly Encampment.
-Feasting and Dancing.- Approach of Manuel Lisa and His Party -.A
Grim Meeting Between Old Rivals.- Pierre Dorion in a Fury.- A
Burst of chivalry.
ON the afternoon of the following day (June 1st) they arrived at
the great bend, where the river winds for about thirty miles
round a circular peninsula, the neck of which is not above two
thousand yards across. On the succeeding morning, at an early
hour, they descried two Indians standing on a high bank of the
river, waving and spreading their buffalo robes in signs of
amity. They immediately pulled to shore and landed. On
approaching the savages, however, the latter showed evident
symptoms of alarm, spreading out their arms horizontally,
according to their mode of supplicating clemency. The reason was
soon explained. They proved to be two chiefs of the very war
party that had brought Messrs. Crooks and M'Lellan to a stand two
years before, and obliged them to escape down the river. They ran
to embrace these gentlemen, as if delighted to meet with them;
yet they evidently feared some retaliation of their past
misconduct, nor were they quite at ease until the pipe of peace
had been smoked.
Mr. Hunt having been informed that the tribe to which these men
belonged had killed three white men during the preceding summer,
reproached them with the crime, and demanded their reasons for
such savage hostility. "We kill white men," replied one of the
chiefs, "because white men kill us. That very man," added he,
pointing to Carson, one of the new recruits, "killed one of our
brothers last summer. The three white men were slain to avenge
his death."
Their chief was correct in his reply. Carson admitted that, being
with a party of Arickaras on the banks of the Missouri, and
seeing a war party of Sioux on the opposite side, he had fired
with his rifle across. It was a random shot, made without much
expectation of effect, for the river was full half a mile in
breadth. Unluckily it brought down a Sioux warrior, for whose
wanton destruction threefold vengeance had been taken, as has
been stated. In this way outrages are frequently committed on the
natives by thoughtless or mischievous white men; the Indians
retaliate according to a law of their code, which requires blood
for blood; their act, of what with them is pious vengeance,
resounds throughout the land, and is represented as wanton and
unprovoked; the neighborhood is roused to arms; a war ensues,
which ends in the destruction of half the tribe, the ruin of the
rest, and their expulsion from their hereditary homes.
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