“Wall,” remarked the quiet voice of Kit Carson, as, among his men, for a moment he reflectively watched the two Sioux ride off as if glad to escape, “I’ve fought Injuns an’ they’ve fought me, in mountains an’ on plains, for over fifteen year, now—but sometimes I don’t blame ’em. ’Tain’t natural for ’em to sit by an’ let their country be occupied by whites—their country that they’ve owned. An’ that’s what it means—this settler travel to Oregon: it means white people on both sides the mountains. Beaver air thinned, buff’ler air getting scarce, an’ some day thar won’t be any room for the Injun. An’ they suspect it. Pore critters!”
[VII]
OVER THE FAMED SOUTH PASS
“The best advice that I can give you is to turn back at once,” declared Mr. Bissonette, flatly, to Lieutenant Frémont.
’Twas near noon of the fifth day after the adventure with the first of the Indians. Other Indians, mainly Sioux, had been met, in small parties, as the Frémont company had travelled on up the Platte. This morning the trail finally had intercepted the road to Oregon, which here crossed the river, and four miles beyond more Indians were met. The obliging Mr. Bissonette had come far enough; by the Oregon Trail he was going back to Fort Platte at the mouth of the Laramie Creek, but he lingered to have an interview with these latest of the Sioux.
“They say that the country ahead is very bad,” he reported. “Their main village has made a wide detour from the river to the south, looking for game. There are no buffalo in this whole region, because on account of the drought and the grasshoppers there is no grass. The trail of the village is marked by lodges thrown away in flight, and by the skeletons of the horses that the people must eat for food, or that have starved to death. The best advice that I can give you, is to turn back at once.”
“No, sir; I am under instructions to go on to the South Pass, and on I go,” replied Lieutenant Frémont, loudly enough for all the men to hear. “But if anybody wishes to turn back with you, now that there is the opportunity, he has my permission.”
Ensued a moment of expectancy, as man looked upon man; no one made the move or said the word.
“Ma foi! (My goodness!)” exclaimed Basil Lajeunesse, breaking the spell. “We’ll eat the mules!”