They Were The Pawnees Whom Kearsley Had Encountered The Day Before,
And Belonged To A Large Hunting Party Known To Be Ranging The Prairie
In The Vicinity.
They strode rapidly past, within a furlong of our
tents, not pausing or looking toward us, after the manner of Indians
when meditating mischief or conscious of ill-desert.
I went out and
met them; and had an amicable conference with the chief, presenting
him with half a pound of tobacco, at which unmerited bounty he
expressed much gratification. These fellows, or some of their
companions had committed a dastardly outrage upon an emigrant party
in advance of us. Two men, out on horseback at a distance, were
seized by them, but lashing their horses, they broke loose and fled.
At this the Pawnees raised the yell and shot at them, transfixing the
hindermost through the back with several arrows, while his companion
galloped away and brought in the news to his party. The panic-
stricken emigrants remained for several days in camp, not daring even
to send out in quest of the dead body.
The reader will recollect Turner, the man whose narrow escape was
mentioned not long since. We heard that the men, whom the entreaties
of his wife induced to go in search of him, found him leisurely
driving along his recovered oxen, and whistling in utter contempt of
the Pawnee nation. His party was encamped within two miles of us;
but we passed them that morning, while the men were driving in the
oxen, and the women packing their domestic utensils and their
numerous offspring in the spacious patriarchal wagons. As we looked
back we saw their caravan dragging its slow length along the plain;
wearily toiling on its way, to found new empires in the West.
Our New England climate is mild and equable compared with that of the
Platte. This very morning, for instance, was close and sultry, the
sun rising with a faint oppressive heat; when suddenly darkness
gathered in the west, and a furious blast of sleet and hail drove
full in our faces, icy cold, and urged with such demoniac vehemence
that it felt like a storm of needles. It was curious to see the
horses; they faced about in extreme displeasure, holding their tails
like whipped dogs, and shivering as the angry gusts, howling louder
than a concert of wolves, swept over us. Wright's long train of
mules came sweeping round before the storm like a flight of brown
snowbirds driven by a winter tempest. Thus we all remained
stationary for some minutes, crouching close to our horses' necks,
much too surly to speak, though once the captain looked up from
between the collars of his coat, his face blood-red, and the muscles
of his mouth contracted by the cold into a most ludicrous grin of
agony. He grumbled something that sounded like a curse, directed as
we believed, against the unhappy hour when he had first thought of
leaving home. The thing was too good to last long; and the instant
the puffs of wind subsided we erected our tents, and remained in camp
for the rest of a gloomy and lowering day.
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