The uninvited guests, squatting in expectant half-circle, like hungry but dignified mastiffs, willingly passed the pipe of peace around, and as willingly accepted tobacco and scarlet cloth and knives.
“They’ve been up ag’in the Snakes, over on the Green River,” repeated William New, to Oliver, after having chatted with one or two. “They surprised a village near Jim Bridger’s fort, while most o’ the men folks were off on an antelope surround, an’ carried away a few scalps an’ a lot o’ hosses. Most the hosses belonged to the fort. Wagh! I bet ye Bridger war mad! How-some-ever, ’fore this hyar war party got very fur, with their plunder, the Snakes overtuk ’em, seized the hosses, killed several warriors an’ wounded some more. These Injuns warn’t feeling very happy, coming home licked, an’ they war on the ready for revenge o’ any kind that happened. Red an’ white scalps air alike to Injuns in that frame o’ mind; everybody’s an enemy. But look at that ’ere Snake woman. She’s b’iling under her blanket!”
Apart, secluded at the edge of the grove, with her blanket drawn entirely over herself and two children, crouched the Snake widow, motionless.
The band of Cheyennes and Arapahoes—two tribes who called one another cousin—stayed here until sunset; then they rode away; and then the Snake woman emerged from her blanket, and glaring after them shook her fist, at these the enemies of her people.
That night double guards were placed; however, the camp slept unmolested, here 200 miles from Fort St. Vrain.
The road this next day was very rough; and during the next day the roughness increased, with dense sage, interminable, blocking the way. To the north uplifted a divide forming the Sweetwater Valley of the Oregon Trail. Therefore diverging from the west into the north, and abandoning the unseen trail over which, in less than a score of years, would hasten the stages from Denver to Salt Lake, the Frémont and Carson men marched across Great Divide Basin of southern Wyoming for the familiar country of the Sweetwater.
In a cold rain storm, the evening of August 9, they camped beside the Sweetwater River, about twenty miles above the famous Devil’s Gate. From St. Vrain’s Fort they had travelled 315 miles.