He Told Me Also Another Story, Which I Did Not Believe Until I Had It
Confirmed From So Many Independent Sources That No Room Was Left For
Doubt.
I am tempted to introduce it here.
Six years ago a fellow named Jim Beckwith, a mongrel of French,
American, and negro blood, was trading for the Fur Company, in a very
large village of the Crows. Jim Beckwith was last summer at St.
Louis. He is a ruffian of the first stamp; bloody and treacherous,
without honor or honesty; such at least is the character he bears
upon the prairie. Yet in his case all the standard rules of
character fail, for though he will stab a man in his sleep, he will
also perform most desperate acts of daring; such, for instance, as
the following: While he was in the Crow village, a Blackfoot war
party, between thirty and forty in number came stealing through the
country, killing stragglers and carrying off horses. The Crow
warriors got upon their trail and pressed them so closely that they
could not escape, at which the Blackfeet, throwing up a semicircular
breastwork of logs at the foot of a precipice, coolly awaited their
approach. The logs and sticks, piled four or five high, protected
them in front. The Crows might have swept over the breastwork and
exterminated their enemies; but though out-numbering them tenfold,
they did not dream of storming the little fortification. Such a
proceeding would be altogether repugnant to their notions of warfare.
Whooping and yelling, and jumping from side to side like devils
incarnate, they showered bullets and arrows upon the logs; not a
Blackfoot was hurt, but several Crows, in spite of their leaping and
dodging, were shot down. In this childish manner the fight went on
for an hour or two. Now and then a Crow warrior in an ecstasy of
valor and vainglory would scream forth his war song, boasting himself
the bravest and greatest of mankind, and grasping his hatchet, would
rush up and strike it upon the breastwork, and then as he retreated
to his companions, fall dead under a shower of arrows; yet no
combined attack seemed to be dreamed of. The Blackfeet remained
secure in their intrenchment. At last Jim Beckwith lost patience.
"You are all fools and old women," he said to the Crows; "come with
me, if any of you are brave enough, and I will show you how to
fight."
He threw off his trapper's frock of buckskin and stripped himself
naked like the Indians themselves. He left his rifle on the ground,
and taking in his hand a small light hatchet, he ran over the prairie
to the right, concealed by a hollow from the eyes of the Blackfeet.
Then climbing up the rocks, he gained the top of the precipice behind
them. Forty or fifty young Crow warriors followed him. By the cries
and whoops that rose from below he knew that the Blackfeet were just
beneath him; and running forward, he leaped down the rock into the
midst of them.
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