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. It
seemed to spring from one of those inexplicable impulses which often
actuate Indians and appear no better than the mere outbreaks of
native ferocity. No sooner was the murder committed than the whole
tribe were in extreme consternation. They expected every day that
the avenging dragoons would arrive, little thinking that a desert of
nine hundred miles in extent lay between the latter and their
mountain fastnesses. A large deputation of them came to Fort
Laramie, bringing a valuable present of horses, in compensation for
the lives of the murdered men. These Bordeaux refused to accept.
They then asked him if he would be satisfied with their delivering up
the murderer himself; but he declined this offer also. The Arapahoes
went back more terrified than ever. Weeks passed away, and still no
dragoons appeared. A result followed which all those best acquainted
with Indians had predicted. They conceived that fear had prevented
Bordeaux from accepting their gifts, and that they had nothing to
apprehend from the vengeance of the whites. From terror they rose to
the height of insolence and presumption. They called the white men
cowards and old women; and a friendly Dakota came to Fort Laramie and
reported that they were determined to kill the first of the white
dogs whom they could lay hands on.
Had a military officer, intrusted with suitable powers, been
stationed at Fort Laramie, and having accepted the offer of the
Arapahoes to deliver up the murderer, had ordered him to be
immediately led out and shot, in presence of his tribe, they would
have been awed into tranquillity, and much danger and calamity
averted; but now the neighborhood of the Medicine-Bow Mountain and
the region beyond it was a scene of extreme peril. Old Mene-Seela, a
true friend of the whites, and many other of the Indians gathered
about the two trappers, and vainly endeavored to turn them from their
purpose; but Rouleau and Saraphin only laughed at the danger. On the
morning preceding that on which they were to leave the camp, we could
all discern faint white columns of smoke rising against the dark base
of the Medicine-Bow. Scouts were out immediately, and reported that
these proceeded from an Arapahoe camp, abandoned only a few hours
before. Still the two trappers continued their preparations for
departure.
Saraphin was a tall, powerful fellow, with a sullen and sinister
countenance. His rifle had very probably drawn other blood than that
of buffalo or even Indians. Rouleau had a broad ruddy face marked
with as few traces of thought or care as a child's. His figure was
remarkably square and strong, but the first joints of both his feet
were frozen off, and his horse had lately thrown and trampled upon
him, by which he had been severely injured in the chest. But nothing
could check his inveterate propensity for laughter and gayety. He
went all day rolling about the camp on his stumps of feet, talking
and singing and frolicking with the Indian women, as they were
engaged at their work. In fact Rouleau had an unlucky partiality for
squaws. He always had one whom he must needs bedizen with beads,
ribbons, and all the finery of an Indian wardrobe; and though he was
of course obliged to leave her behind him during his expeditions, yet
this hazardous necessity did not at all trouble him, for his
disposition was the very reverse of jealous. If at any time he had
not lavished the whole of the precarious profits of his vocation upon
his dark favorite, he always devoted the rest to feasting his
comrades. If liquor was not to be had - and this was usually the
case - strong coffee was substituted. As the men of that region are
by no means remarkable for providence or self-restraint, whatever was
set before them on these occasions, however extravagant in price, or
enormous in quantity, was sure to be disposed of at one sitting.
Like other trappers, Rouleau's life was one of contrast and variety.
It was only at certain seasons, and for a limited time, that he was
absent on his expeditions. For the rest of the year he would be
lounging about the fort, or encamped with his friends in its
vicinity, lazily hunting or enjoying all the luxury of inaction; but
when once in pursnit of beaver, he was involved in extreme privations
and desperate perils. When in the midst of his game and his enemies,
hand and foot, eye and ear, are incessantly active. Frequently he
must content himself with devouring his evening meal uncooked, lest
the light of his fire should attract the eyes of some wandering
Indian; and sometimes having made his rude repast, he must leave his
fire still blazing, and withdraw to a distance under cover of the
darkness, that his disappointed enemy, drawn thither by the light,
may find his victim gone, and be unable to trace his footsteps in the
gloom. This is the life led by scores of men in the Rocky Mountains
and their vicinity. I once met a trapper whose breast was marked
with the scars of six bullets and arrows, one of his arms broken by a
shot and one of his knees shattered; yet still, with the undaunted
mettle of New England, from which part of the country he had come, he
continued to follow his perilous occupation. To some of the children
of cities it may seem strange that men with no object in view should
continue to follow a life of such hardship and desperate adventure;
yet there is a mysterious, restless charm in the basilisk eye of
danger, and few men perhaps remain long in that wild region without
learning to love peril for its own sake, and to laugh carelessly in
the face of death.
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