"Of course we might have done it had we made this our business; but we were hastening from the El Dorado, after a four years' absence from our homes. So much for our extemporised buffalo hunting. In twenty-four hours after striking them, we had passed the buffalo, and saw no more of them. As we estimated it, we had seen in that time at least fifty thousand; we had crossed the trail of fifteen lines of them crossing the river after we left camp this morning."
We have quoted this to show the way in which travelers—emigrants now—meet the buffalo. Sometimes a huge drove of them overrun an emigrant party; but this seldom occurs, nor do parties often see more of them than did the one we have just presented, though usually they see them for a longer time. So much have the times changed since Carson was a trapper.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
With fresh animals, and men well fed and rested, McCoy and Carson and all their party soon started from Fort Hall, for the rendezvous again upon Green River, where they were detained some weeks for the arrival of other parties, enjoying as they best might the occasion, and preparing for future operations.
A party of an hundred was here organized, with Mr. Fontenelle and Carson for its leaders, to trap upon the Yellowstone, and the head waters of the Missouri. It was known that they would probably meet the Blackfeet in whose grounds they were going, and it was therefore arranged, that, while fifty were to trap and furnish the food for the party, the remainder should be assigned to guard the camp and cook. There was no disinclination on the part of any to another meeting with the Blackfeet, so often had they troubled members of the party, especially Carson, who, while he could be magnanimous towards an enemy, would not turn aside from his course, if able to cope with him; and now he was in a company which justly felt itself strong enough to punish the "thieving Blackfeet," as they spoke of them, he was anxious to pay off some old scores.
They saw nothing, however, of these Indians; but afterwards learned that the small-pox had raged terribly among them, and that they had kept themselves retired in mountain valleys, oppressed with fear and severe disease.
The winter's encampment was made in this region, and a party of Crow Indians which was with them, camped at a little distance, on the same stream. Here they had secured an abundance of meat, and passed the severe weather with a variety of amusements in which the Indians joined them in their lodges, made of buffalo hides. These lodges, very good substitutes for houses, are made in the form of a cone, spread by the means of poles spreading from a common centre, where there was a hole at the top for the passage of the smoke. These were often twenty feet in height, and as many feet in diameter, where they were pinned to the ground with stakes. In a large village the Indians often had one lodge large enough to hold fifty persons, and within were performed their war dances around a fire made in the centre. During the palmy days of the British Fur Company, in a lodge like this only made, instead, of birch-bark, Irving says the Indians of the north held their "primitive fairs," outside the city of Montreal, where they disposed of their furs.
There was one drawback upon conviviality for this party, in the extreme difficulty of getting food for their animals; for the food and fuel so abundant for themselves did not suffice for their horses. Snow covered the ground, and the trappers were obliged to gather willow twigs, and strip the bark from cottonwood trees, in order to keep them alive. The inner bark of the cottonwood is eaten by the Indians when reduced to extreme want. Beside, the cold brought the buffalo down upon them in large herds, to share the nourishment they had provided for their horses.