On The Other Horse
She Mounted With Her Two Children, And Hurried Away From This
Dangerous Neighborhood, Directing Her Flight To Mr. Reed's
Establishment.
On the third day, she descried a number of Indians
on horseback proceeding in an easterly direction.
She immediately
dismounted with her children, and helped LeClerc likewise to
dismount, and all concealed themselves. Fortunately they escaped
the sharp eyes of the savages, but had to proceed with the utmost
caution. That night they slept without fire or water; she managed
to keep her children warm in her arms; but before morning, poor
Le Clerc died.
With the dawn of day the resolute woman resumed her course, and,
on the fourth day, reached the house of Mr. Reed. It was
deserted, and all round were marks of blood and signs of a
furious massacre. Not doubting that Mr. Reed and his party had
all fallen victims, she turned in fresh horror from the spot. For
two days she continued hurrying forward, ready to sink for want
of food, but more solicitous about her children than herself. At
length she reached a range of the Rocky Mountains, near the upper
part of the Wallah-Wallah River. Here she chose a wild lonely
ravine, as her place of winter refuge.
She had fortunately a buffalo robe and three deer-skins; of
these, and of pine bark and cedar branches, she constructed a
rude wigwam, which she pitched beside a mountain spring. Having
no other food, she killed the two horses, and smoked their flesh.
The skins aided to cover her hut. Here she dragged out the
winter, with no other company than her two children. Towards the
middle of March her provisions were nearly exhausted. She
therefore packed up the remainder, slung it on her back, and,
with her helpless little ones, set out again on her wanderings.
Crossing the ridge of mountains, she descended to the banks of
the Wallah-Wallah, and kept along them until she arrived where
that river throws itself into the Columbia. She was hospitably
received and entertained by the Wallah-Wallahs, and had been
nearly two weeks among them when the two canoes passed.
On being interrogated, she could assign no reason for this
murderous attack of the savages; it appeared to be perfectly
wanton and unprovoked. Some of the Astorians supposed it an act
of butchery by a roving band of Blackfeet; others, however, and
with greater probability of correctness, have ascribed it to the
tribe of Pierced-nose Indians, in revenge for the death of their
comrade hanged by order of Mr. Clarke. If so, it shows that these
sudden and apparently wanton outbreakings of sanguinary violence
on the part of the savages have often some previous, though
perhaps remote, provocation.
The narrative of the Indian woman closes the checkered adventures
of some of the personages of this motley story; such as the
honest Hibernian Reed, and Dorion the hybrid interpreter. Turcot
and La Chapelle were two of the men who fell off from Mr. Crooks
in the course of his wintry journey, and had subsequently such
disastrous times among the Indians.
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