The Same Effect Will Often Follow From A Series Of
Calamities, Or A Long Run Of Ill Success, And The
Sufferer has been
known to ride into the midst of an enemy's camp, or attack a grizzly
bear single-handed,
To get rid of a life which he supposed to lie
under the doom of misfortune.
Thus after all his fasting, dreaming, and calling upon the Great
Spirit, the White Shield's war party was pitifully broken up.
CHAPTER XVI
THE TRAPPERS
In speaking of the Indians, I have almost forgotten two bold
adventurers of another race, the trappers Rouleau and Saraphin.
These men were bent on a most hazardous enterprise. A day's journey
to the westward was the country over which the Arapahoes are
accustomed to range, and for which the two trappers were on the point
of setting out. These Arapahoes, of whom Shaw and I afterward fell
in with a large village, are ferocious barbarians, of a most brutal
and wolfish aspect, and of late they had declared themselves enemies
to the whites, and threatened death to the first who should venture
within their territory. The occasion of the declaration was as
follows:
In the previous spring, 1845, Colonel Kearny left Fort Leavenworth
with several companies of dragoons, and marching with extraordinary
celerity reached Fort Laramie, whence he passed along the foot of the
mountains to Bent's Fort and then, turning eastward again, returned
to the point from whence he set out. While at Fort Larantie, he sent
a part of his command as far westward as Sweetwater, while he himself
remained at the fort, and dispatched messages to the surrounding
Indians to meet him there in council. Then for the first time the
tribes of that vicinity saw the white warriors, and, as might have
been expected, they were lost in astonishment at their regular order,
their gay attire, the completeness of their martial equipment, and
the great size and power of their horses. Among the rest, the
Arapahoes came in considerable numbers to the fort. They had lately
committed numerous acts of outrage, and Colonel Kearny threatened
that if they killed any more white men he would turn loose his
dragoons upon them, and annihilate their whole nation. In the
evening, to add effect to his speech, he ordered a howitzer to be
fired and a rocket to be thrown up. Many of the Arapahoes fell
prostrate on the ground, while others ran screaming with amazement
and terror. On the following day they withdrew to their mountains,
confounded with awe at the appearance of the dragoons, at their big
gun which went off twice at one shot, and the fiery messenger which
they had sent up to the Great Spirit. For many months they remained
quiet, and did no further mischief. At length, just before we came
into the country, one of them, by an act of the basest treachery,
killed two white men, Boot and May, who were trapping among the
mountains. For this act it was impossible to discover a motive.
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