It Was With Great Difficulty, However, That He Prevailed
Upon Them To Abide The Event.
CHAPTER XLVII.
Ben Jones and a Grizzly Bear.- Rocky Heights- Mountain Torrents.
-Traces of M'Lellan.- Volcanic Remains- Mineral Earths.- Peculiar
Clay for Pottery.- Dismal Plight of M'Lellan.- Starvation.-
Shocking Proposition of a Desperate Man.- A Broken-Down Bull.- A
Ravenous Meal.-Indian Graves- Hospitable Snakes.-A Forlorn
Alliance.
AS the travellers were now in a dangerous neighborhood, where the
report of a rifle might bring the savages upon them, they had to
depend upon their old beaver-trap for subsistence. The little
river on which they were encamped gave many "beaver signs," and
Ben Jones set off at daybreak, along the willowed banks, to find
a proper trapping-place. As he was making his way among the
thickets, with his trap on his shoulder and his rifle in his
hand, he heard a crushing sound, and turning, beheld a huge
grizzly bear advancing upon him, with terrific growl. The sturdy
Kentuckian was not to be intimidated by man or monster. Leveling
his rifle, he pulled the trigger. The bear was wounded, but not
mortally: instead, however, of rushing upon his assailant, as is
generally the case with this kind of bear, he retreated into the
bushes. Jones followed him for some distance, but with suitable
caution, and Bruin effected his escape.
As there was every prospect of a detention of some days in this
place, and as the supplies of the beaver-trap were too precarious
to be depended upon, it became absolutely necessary to run some
risk of discovery by hunting in the neighborhood. Ben Jones,
therefore, obtained permission to range with his rifle some
distance from the camp, and set off to beat up the river banks,
in defiance of bear or Blackfeet.
He returned in great spirits in the course of a few hours, having
come upon a gang of elk about six. miles off, and killed five.
This was joyful news, and the party immediately moved forward to
the place where he had left the carcasses. They were obliged to
support Mr. Crooks the whole distance, for he was unable to walk.
Here they remained for two or three days, feasting heartily on
elk meat, and drying as much as they would be able to carry away
with them.
By the 5th of October, some simple prescriptions, together with
an "Indian sweat," had so far benefited Mr. Crooks, that he was
enabled to move about; they therefore set forward slowly,
dividing his pack and accoutrements among them, and made a
creeping day's progress of eight miles south. Their route for the
most part lay through swamps caused by the industrious labors of
the beaver; for this little animal had dammed up numerous small
streams, issuing from the Pilot Knob Mountains, so that the low
grounds on their borders were completely inundated. In the course
of their march they killed a grizzly bear, with fat on its flanks
upwards of three inches in thickness.
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