The Northeast Wind Blew Keenly Across The Naked
Waste, And They Were Fain To Decamp From Their Inhospitable
Bivouac Before The Dawn.
For two days they kept on in an eastward direction, against
wintry blasts and occasional snow storms.
They suffered, also,
from scarcity of water, having occasionally to use melted snow;
this, with the want of pasturage, reduced their old pack-horse
sadly. They saw many tracks of buffalo, and some few bulls,
which, however, got the wind of them, and scampered off.
On the 26th of October, they steered east-northeast, for a wooded
ravine in a mountain, at a small distance from the base of which,
to their great joy, they discovered an abundant stream, running
between willowed banks. Here they halted for the night, and Ben
Jones having luckily trapped a beaver, and killed two buffalo
bulls, they remained all the next day encamped, feasting and
reposing, and allowing their jaded horse to rest from his labors.
The little stream on which they were encamped, was one of the
head waters of the Platte River, which flows into the Missouri;
it was, in fact, the northern fork, or branch of that river,
though this the travellers did not discover until long
afterwards. Pursuing the course of this stream for about twenty
miles, they came to where it forced a passage through a range of
high hills, covered with cedars, into an extensive low country,
affording excellent pasture to numerous herds of buffalo. Here
they killed three cows, which were the first they had been able
to get, having hitherto had to content themselves with bull beef,
which at this season of the year is very poor. The hump meat
afforded them a repast fit for an epicure.
Late on the afternoon of the 30th, they came to where the stream,
now increased to a considerable size, poured along in a ravine
between precipices of red stone, two hundred feet in height. For
some distance it dashed along, over huge masses of rock, with
foaming violence, as if exasperated by being compressed into so
narrow a channel, and at length leaped down a chasm that looked
dark and frightful in the gathering twilight.
For a part of the next day, the wild river, in its capricious
wanderings, led them through a variety of striking scenes. At one
time they were upon high plains, like platforms among the
mountains, with herds of buffaloes roaming about them; at another
among rude rocky defiles, broken into cliffs and precipices,
where the blacktailed deer bounded off among the crags, and the
bighorn basked in the sunny brow of the precipice.
In the after part of the day, they came to another scene,
surpassing in savage grandeur those already described. They had
been travelling for some distance through a pass of the
mountains, keeping parallel with the river, as it roared along,
out of sight, through a deep ravine. Sometimes their devious path
approached the margin of cliffs below which the river foamed, and
boiled, and whirled among the masses of rock that had fallen into
its channel. As they crept cautiously on, leading their solitary
pack-horse along these giddy heights, they all at once came to
where the river thundered down a succession of precipices,
throwing up clouds of spray, and making a prodigious din and
uproar. The travellers remained, for a time, gazing with mingled
awe and delight, at this furious cataract, to which Mr. Stuart
gave, from the color of the impending rocks, the name of "The
Fiery Narrows."
CHAPTER XLIX.
Wintry Storms.- A Halt and Council.- Cantonment for the Winter. -
Fine Hunting Country.- Game of the Mountains and Plains.-
Successful Hunting- Mr. Crooks and a Grizzly Bear.- The Wigwam. -
Bighorn and Black-Tails.- Beef and Venison.- Good Quarters and
Good Cheer.- An Alarm.- An Intrusion.- Unwelcome Guests.-
Desolation of the Larder. - Gormandizing Exploits of Hungry
Savages. - Good Quarters Abandoned.
THE travellers encamped for the night on the banks of the river
below the cataract. The night was cold, with partial showers of
rain and sleet. The morning dawned gloomily, the skies were
sullen and overcast, and threatened further storms; but the
little band resumed their journey, in defiance of the weather.
The increasing rigor of the season, however, which makes itself
felt early in these mountainous regions, and on these naked and
elevated plains, brought them to a pause, and a serious
deliberation, after they had descended about thirty miles further
along the course of the river.
All were convinced that it was in vain to attempt to accomplish
their journey, on foot, at this inclement season. They had still
many hundred miles to traverse before they should reach the main
course of the Missouri, and their route would lay over immense
prairies, naked and bleak, and destitute of fuel. The question
then was, where to choose their wintering place, and whether or
not to proceed further down the river. They had at first imagined
it to be one of the head waters, or tributary streams, of the
Missouri. Afterwards they had believed it to be the Rapid, or
Quicourt River, in which opinion they had not come nearer to the
truth; they now, however, were persuaded, with equal fallacy, by
its inclining somewhat to the north of east, that it was the
Cheyenne. If so, by continuing down it much further they must
arrive among the Indians, from whom the river takes its name.
Among these they would be sure to meet some of the Sioux tribe.
These would appraise their relatives, the piratical Sioux of the
Missouri, of the approach of a band of white traders; so that, in
the spring time, they would be likely to be waylaid and robbed on
their way down the river, by some party in ambush upon its banks.
Even should this prove to be the Quicourt or Rapid River, it
would not be prudent to winter much further down upon its banks,
as, though they might be out of the range of the Sioux, they
would be in the neighborhood of the Poncas, a tribe nearly as
dangerous.
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