The Prospect Of Abundance Of Horse Flesh
Diffused Universal Joy, For By This Time The Whole Stock Of
Travelling Provisions Was Reduced To The Skeleton Steed Of Pierre
Dorion, And Another Wretched Animal, Equally Emaciated, That Had
Been Repeatedly Reprieved During The Journey.
A forced march soon brought the weary and hungry travellers to
the camp.
It proved to be a strong party of Sciatogas and Tusche-
pas. There were thirty-four lodges, comfortably constructed of
mats; the Indians, too, were better clothed than any of the
wandering bands they had hitherto met on this side of the Rocky
Mountains. Indeed, they were as well clad as the generality of
the wild hunter tribes. Each had a good buffalo or deer skin
robe; and a deer skin hunting shirt and leggins. Upwards of two
thousand horses were ranging the pastures around their
encampment; but what delighted Mr. Hunt was, on entering the
lodges, to behold brass kettles, axes, copper tea-kettles, and
various other articles of civilized manufacture, which showed
that these Indians had an indirect communication with the people
of the sea-coast who traded with the whites. He made eager
inquiries of the Sciatogas, and gathered from them that the great
river (the Columbia) was but two days' march distant, and that
several white people had recently descended it; who he hoped
might prove to be M'Lellan, M'Kenzie, and their companions.
It was with the utmost joy and the most profound gratitude to
heaven, that Mr. Hunt found himself and his band of weary and
famishing wanderers thus safely extricated from the most perilous
part of their long journey, and within the prospect of a
termination of their tolls. All the stragglers who had lagged
behind arrived, one after another, excepting the poor Canadian
voyageur, Carriere. He had been seen late in the preceding
afternoon, riding behind a Snake Indian, near some lodges of that
nation, a few miles distant from the last night's encampment; and
it was expected that he would soon make his appearance. The first
object of Mr. Hunt was to obtain provisions for his men. A little
venison, of an indifferent quality, and some roots were all that
could be procured that evening; but the next day he succeeded in
purchasing a mare and colt, which were immediately killed, and
the cravings of the half-starved people in some degree appeased.
For several days they remained in the neighborhood of these
Indians, reposing after all their hardships, and feasting upon
horse flesh and roots, obtained in subsequent traffic. Many of
the people ate to such excess as to render themselves sick,
others were lame from their past journey; but all gradually
recruited in the repose and abundance of the valley. Horses were
obtained here much more readily, and at a cheaper rate, than
among the Snakes. A blanket, a knife, or a half pound of blue
beads would purchase a steed, and at this rate many of the men
bought horses for their individual use.
This tribe of Indians, who are represented as a proud-spirited
race, and uncommonly cleanly, never eat horses or dogs, nor would
they permit the raw flesh of either to be brought into their
huts. They had a small quantity of venison in each lodge, but set
so high a price upon it that the white men, in their impoverished
state could not afford to purchase it. They hunted the deer on
horseback, "ringing," or surrounding them, and running them down
in a circle. They were admirable horsemen, and their weapons were
bows and arrows, which they managed with great dexterity. They
were altogether primitive in their habits, and seemed to cling to
the usages of savage life, even when possessed of the aids of
civilization. They had axes among them, yet they generally made
use of a stone mallet wrought into the shape of a bottle, and
wedges of elk horn, in splitting their wood. Though they might
have two or three brass kettles hanging, in their lodges, yet
they would frequently use vessels made of willow, for carrying
water, and would even boll their meat in them, by means of hot
stones. Their women wore caps of willow neatly worked and
figured.
As Carriere, the Canadian straggler, did not make his appearance
for two or three days after the encampment in the valley two men
were sent out on horseback in search of him. They returned,
however, without success. The lodges of the Snake Indians near
which he had been seen were removed, and the could find no trace
of him. Several days more elapsed, yet nothing was seen or heard
of him, or the Snake horseman, behind whom he had been last
observed. It was feared, therefore, that he had either perished
through hunger and fatigue; had been murdered by the Indians; or,
being left to himself, had mistaken some hunting tracks for the
trail of the party, and been led astray and lost.
The river on the banks of which they were encamped, emptied into
the Columbia, was called by the natives the Eu-o-tal-la, or
Umatilla, and abounded with beaver. In the course of their
sojourn in the valley which it watered, they twice shifted their
camp, proceeding about thirty miles down its course, which was to
the west. A heavy fall of rain caused the river to overflow its
banks, dislodged them from their encampment, and drowned three of
their horses which were tethered in the low ground.
Further conversation with the Indians satisfied them that they
were in the neighborhood of the Columbia. The number of the white
men who they said had passed down the river, agreed with that of
M'Lellan, M'Kenzie, and their companions, and increased the hope
of Mr. Hunt that they might have passed through the wilderness
with safety.
These Indians had a vague story that white men were coming to
trade among them; and they often spoke of two great men named Ke-
Koosh and Jacquean, who gave them tobacco, and smoked with them.
Jacquean, they said, had a house somewhere upon the great river.
Some of the Canadians supposed they were speaking of one Jacquean
Finlay, a clerk of the Northwest Company, and inferred that the
house must be some trading post on one of the tributary streams
of the Columbia.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 99 of 163
Words from 99919 to 100975
of 165649
