Rugged Mountains Appeared Ahead, Crowding Down To The Water Edge,
And Offering A Barrier To Further Progress On The Side They Were
Ascending.
Crossing the river, therefore, they encamped on its
northwest bank, where they found good pasturage and buffalo in
abundance.
The weather was overcast and rainy, and a general
gloom pervaded the camp; the voyageurs sat smoking in groups,
with their shoulders as high as their heads, croaking their
foreboding, when suddenly towards evening a shout of joy gave
notice that the lost men were found. They came slowly lagging
into camp, with weary looks, and horses jaded and wayworn. They
had, in fact, been for several days incessantly on the move. In
their hunting excursion on the prairies they had pushed so far in
pursuit of buffalo, as to find it impossible to retrace their
steps over plains trampled by innumerable herds; and were baffled
by the monotony of the landscape in their attempts to recall
landmarks. They had ridden to and fro until they had almost lost
the points of the compass, and became totally bewildered; nor did
they ever perceive any of the signal fires and columns of smoke
made by their comrades. At length, about two days previously,
when almost spent by anxiety and hard riding, they came, to their
great joy, upon the "trail" of the party, which they had since
followed up steadily.
Those only who have experienced the warm cordiality that grows up
between comrades in wild and adventurous expeditions of the kind,
can picture to themselves the hearty cheering with which the
stragglers were welcomed to the camp. Every one crowded round
them to ask questions, and to hear the story of their mishaps;
and even the squaw of the moody half-breed, Pierre Dorion, forgot
the sternness of his domestic rule, and the conjugal discipline
of the cudgel, in her joy at his safe return.
CHAPTER XXVI.
The Black Mountains.- Haunts of Predatory Indians.- Their Wild
and Broken Appearance.- Superstitions Concerning Them - Thunder
Spirits.- Singular Noises in the Mountains- Secret Mines.-Hidden
Treasures.- Mountains in Labor. - Scientific Explanation.-
Impassable Defiles.- Black-Tailed Deer.-The Bighorn or Ahsahta.-
Prospect From a Lofty Height.- Plain With Herds of Buffalo.-
Distant Peaks of the Rocky Mountains.- Alarms in the Camp.-
Tracks of Grizzly Bears.- Dangerous Nature of This Animal.-
Adventures of William Cannon and John Day With Grizzly Bears.
MR. Hunt and his party were now on the skirts of the Black Hills,
or Black Mountains, as they are sometimes called; an extensive
chain, lying about a hundred miles east of the Rocky Mountains,
and stretching in a northeast direction from the south fork of
the Nebraska, or Platte River, to the great north bend of the
Missouri. The Sierra or ridge of the Black Hills, in fact, forms
the dividing line between the waters of the Missouri and those of
the Arkansas and the Mississippi, and gives rise to the Cheyenne,
the Little Missouri, and several tributary streams of the
Yellowstone.
The wild recesses of these hills, like those of the Rocky
Mountains, are retreats and lurking-places for broken and
predatory tribes, and it was among them that the remnants of the
Cheyenne tribe took refuge, as has been stated, from their
conquering enemies, the Sioux.
The Black Hills are chiefly composed of sandstone, and in many
places are broken into savage cliffs and precipices, and present
the most singular and fantastic forms; sometimes resembling towns
and castellated fortresses. The ignorant inhabitants of plains
are prone to clothe the mountains that bound their horizon with
fanciful and superstitious attributes. Thus the wandering tribes
of the prairies, who often behold clouds gathering round the
summits of these hills, and lightning flashing, and thunder
pealing from them, when all the neighboring plains are serene and
sunny, consider them the abode of the genii or thunder-spirits
who fabricate storms and tempests. On entering their defiles,
therefore, they often hang offerings on the trees, or place them
on the rocks, to propitiate the invisible "lords of the
mountains," and procure good weather and successful hunting; and
they attach unusual significance to the echoes which haunt the
precipices. This superstition may also have arisen, in part, from
a natural phenomenon of a singular nature. In the most calm and
serene weather, and at all times of the day or night, successive
reports are now and then heard among these mountains, resembling
the discharge of several pieces of artillery. Similar reports
were heard by Messrs. Lewis and Clarke in the Rocky Mountains,
which they say were attributed by the Indians to the bursting of
the rich mines of silver contained in the bosom of the mountains.
In fact, these singular explosions have received fanciful
explanations from learned men, and have not been satisfactorily
accounted for even by philosophers. They are said to occur
frequently in Brazil. Vasconcelles, Jesuit father, describes one
which he heard in the Sierra, or mountain region of Piratininga,
and which he compares to the discharges of a park of artillery.
The Indians told him that it was an explosion of stones. The
worthy father had soon a satisfactory proof of the truth of their
information, for the very place was found where a rock had burst
and exploded from its entrails a stony mass, like a bomb-shell,
and of the size of a bull's heart. This mass was broken either in
its ejection or its fall, and wonderful was the internal
organization revealed. It had a shell harder even than iron;
within which were arranged, like the seeds of a pomegranate,
jewels of various colors; some transparent as crystals; others of
a fine red, and others of mixed hues. The same phenomenon is said
to occur occasionally in the adjacent province of Guayra, where
stones of the bigness of a man's hand are exploded, with a loud
noise, from the bosom of the earth, and scatter about glittering
and beautiful fragments that look like precious gems, but are of
no value.
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