Beyond the Old Frontier: Adventures of Indian-Fighters, Hunters, and Fur-Traders

by George Bird Grinnell

“At the hour of breakfast they put ashore on some green plot. The tea-kettle is boiling; a variegated mat is spread, and a cold collation set out. Twenty minutes—and they start anew. The dinner-hour arrives, they put aground again. The liquor-can accompanies the provision-basket; the contents are quickly set forth in simple style; and, after a refreshment of twenty minutes more, off they set again, until the twilight checks their progress.

“When it is practicable to make way in the dark, four hours is the voyageurs’ allowance of rest; and at times, on boisterous lakes and bold shores, they keep for days and nights together on the water, without intermission, and without repose. They sing to keep time to their paddles; they sing to keep off drowsiness, caused by their fatigue; and they sing because the bourgeois likes it.

“Through hardships and dangers, wherever he leads, they are sure to follow with alacrity and cheerfulness—over mountains and hills, along valleys and dales, through woods and creeks, across lakes and rivers. They look not to the right, nor to the left; they make no halt in foul or fair weather. Such is their skill, that they venture to sail in the midst of waters like oceans, and, with amazing aptitude, they shoot down the most frightful rapids; and they generally come off safely.

“When about to arrive at the place of their destination, they dress with neatness, put on their plumes, and a chosen song is raised. They push up against the beach, as if they meant to dash the canoe into splinters; but most adroitly back their paddles at the right moment; whilst the foreman springs on shore, and, seizing the prow, arrests the vessel in its course. On this joyful occasion, every person advances to the waterside, and great guns are fired to announce the bourgeois’ arrival. A general shaking of hands takes place, as it often happens that people have not met for years: even the bourgeois goes through this mode of salutation with the meanest. There is, perhaps, no country where the ties of affection are more binding than here. Each addresses his comrades as his brothers; and all address themselves to the bourgeois with reverence, as if he were their father.”

About this time, Mr. McKenzie retired from the fur trade and went to live in northern New York. This left without occupation a number of hunters and trappers in the country, where Ross was stationed, and Ross made up his mind to leave the country and abandon the business which he had so long followed. He was still merely a clerk in the service of the great company. Finan McDonald, a Northwest veteran, now in the service of the Hudson Bay Company, was to be in charge of the people in the Snake country, and a little later John Warren Dease, a chief trader in the new company, reached Fort Nez Percés and told Ross that he had been named to take charge of the fort and the country immediately about it, while Ross was to succeed McKenzie in charge of the Snake country.

Nevertheless, Ross was determined to go back to the East and had started with his family, but on his way—when he reached the Rocky Mountains—he received a letter from Governor Simpson, offering him the management of the Snake country for three years at a liberal salary. Ross hesitated to accept, but finally did so, and went to Spokane House to make up his party. McDonald had recently come in there and with much grumbling; for he had had trouble with the Piegan Blackfeet, in which one of his men had been shot by treachery, and in a pitched battle afterward had with the same party he lost seven more of his men.

The account of this battle may properly be inserted here:

“One day, when they had travelled until dark in search of water, they found some at the bottom of a deep and rocky ravine, down which they went and encamped. They had seen no traces of enemies during the day, and being tired, they all went to sleep, without keeping watch. In the morning, however, just at the dawn of day, they were saluted from the top of the ravine before they got up, with a volley of balls about their ears; without, however, any being killed or wounded: one of them had the stock of his gun pierced through with a ball, and another of them his powder-horn shivered to pieces; but this was all the injury they sustained from the enemy’s discharge. The alarm was instantly given, all hands in confusion sprang up and went out to see what was the matter; some with one shoe on and the other off, others naked, with a gun in one hand and their clothes in the other. When they perceived the Indians on the top of the rocks, yelling and flourishing their arms, the whites gave a loud huzza, and all hands were collected together in an instant; but the Indians instead of taking advantage of their position, wheeled about and marched off without firing another shot.

“McDonald, at the head of thirty men, set out to pursue them; but finding the ravine too steep and rocky to ascend, they were apprehensive that the sudden disappearance of the Indians was a stratagem to entrap them, when they might have been popped off by the enemy from behind stones and trees, without having an opportunity of defending themselves. Acting on this opinion, they returned, and taking a supply of powder and ball with them, they mounted their horses, to the number of forty-five, and then pursued the enemy, leaving twenty men behind to guard the camp. When our people got to the head of the ravine, the Indians were about a mile off, and all on foot, having no horses, with the exception of five for carrying their luggage; and our people, before they could get up with them, had to pass another ravine still deeper and broader than the one they were encamped in, so that before they got down on one side of it the enemy had got up on the other side. And here again the Indians did not avail themselves of their advantage, but allowed our people to follow without firing a shot at them, as if encouraging them on; and so bold and confident were they, that many of them bent themselves down in a posture of contempt, by way of bidding them defiance.

“As soon as our people had got over the second ravine, they took a sweep, wheeled about, and met the Indians in the teeth; then dismounting, the battle began, without a word being spoken on either side. As soon as the firing commenced, the Indians began their frantic gestures, and whooped and yelled with the view of intimidating; they fought like demons, one fellow all the time waving a scalp on the end of a pole: nor did they yield an inch of ground till more than twenty of them lay dead; at last, they threw down their guns, and held up their hands as a signal of peace. By this time our people had lost three men, and not thinking they had yet taken ample vengeance for their death, they made a rush on the Indians, killed the fellow who held the pole, and carried off the scalp and the five horses. The Indians then made a simultaneous dash on one side, and got into a small coppice of wood, leaving their dead on the spot where they fell. Our people supposed that they had first laid down their arms and next taken to the bush because they were short of ammunition, as many of the shots latterly were but mere puffs. Unfortunately for the Indians, the scalp taken proved to be none other than poor Anderson’s, and this double proof of their guilt so enraged our people, that to the bush they followed them.