With
These Precautions They All Passed Unmolested.
The only accident
that happened was the upsetting of one of the canoes, by which
some of the goods sunk, and others floated down the stream.
The
alertness and rapacity of the hordes which infest these rapids,
were immediately apparent. They pounced upon the floating
merchandise with the keenness of regular wreckers. A bale of
goods which landed upon one of the islands was immediately ripped
open, one half of its contents divided among the captors, and the
other half secreted in a lonely hut in a deep ravine. Mr. Robert
Stuart, however, set out in a canoe with five men and an
interpreter, ferreted out the wreckers in their retreat, and
succeeded in wrestling from them their booty.
Similar precautions to those already mentioned, and to a still
greater extent, were observed in passing the Long Narrows, and
the falls, where they would be exposed to the depredations of the
chivalry of Wish-ram, and its freebooting neighborhood. In fact,
they had scarcely set their first watch one night, when an alarm
of "Indians!" was given. "To arms" was the cry, and every man was
at his post in an instant. The alarm was explained; a war party
of Shoshonies had surprised a canoe of the natives just below the
encampment, had murdered four men and two women, and it was
apprehended they would attack the camp. The boats and canoes were
immediately hauled up, a breastwork was made of them and the
packages, forming three sides of a square, with the river in the
rear, and thus the party remained fortified throughout the night.
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