WAGONS PARKED FOR THE NIGHT.
From Gregg’s Commerce of the Prairies.
In 1838, Gregg returned across the plains, meeting a few adventures, among which the most important was an attack on the train by Indians, who were supposed to be Pawnees. The effort was merely to steal their horses, which, happily, they saved.
CHAPTER XXII
THE COMMERCE OF THE PRAIRIES II
In 1839, after having been only a few months in the “States,” Gregg was unable to resist his longing for the free life of the prairies and began to make preparations for another trip to the Mexican settlements. At that time the ports of Mexico were blockaded by French men-of-war, and the demand for goods was great, with a prospect of correspondingly high prices. Late in April the wagon train, loaded with twenty-five thousand dollars’ worth of goods, crossed the Arkansas, not far from the mouth of the Canadian fork. They had not proceeded far before they lost a teamster; “a Cherokee shopkeeper came up to us with an attachment for debt against a free mulatto, whom we had engaged as teamster. The poor fellow had no alternative but to return with the importunate creditor, who committed him at once to the care of ‘Judge Lynch’ for trial. We ascertained afterward that he had been sentenced to ‘take the benefit of the bankrupt law’ after the manner of the Cherokees of that neighborhood. This is done by stripping and tying the victim to a tree; when each creditor, with a good cowhide or hickory switch in his hand, scores the amount of the bill due upon his bare back. One stripe for every dollar due is the usual process of ‘whitewashing’; and as the application of the lash is accompanied by all sorts of quaint remarks, the exhibition affords no small merriment to those present, with the exception, no doubt, of the delinquent himself. After the ordeal is over, the creditors declare themselves perfectly satisfied: nor could they, as is said, ever be persuaded thereafter to receive one red cent of the amount due, even if it were offered to them. As the poor mulatto was also in our debt, and was perhaps apprehensive that we might exact payment in the same currency, he never showed himself again.”
The leaders of the party just setting out were well armed with Colt’s repeating rifles and revolvers, and carried, besides, two small cannon. Among the men were a number of young fellows from the East, most of them quite without prairie experience. They had not been many days out when one of the party, out hunting, became lost, and not returning at night, muskets were fired to guide him to camp; but he imagined that the firing was done by hostile Indians, and fled from the sound. Finally, according to his statement, he was attacked during the night by a panther, which he succeeded in beating off with the butt of his gun. It was imagined, however, from the peculiar odor with which the shattered gun was still redolent when he reached camp, that the “painter” that he had driven off was not many degrees removed in affinity from a skunk.
When the train reached the north fork of the Canadian, they met with a considerable camp of Comanches, with whom they had some friendly intercourse. With them was a body of United States Dragoons, under Lieutenant Bowman, to whom had been intrusted the task of trying to make peace with the Comanches, and so protecting the settlements of the border. Among these Comanches were a number of Mexican captives—women, boys, and small children—of whom Gregg notes that a number of them were still well able to speak Spanish. In other words, their captivity had been so short that they had a clear memory of the events of earlier life. An effort was made to purchase several of these captives, in order to return them to their homes. Most of them, however, were unwilling to go, and for a variety of reasons; one of the lads, only ten or twelve years old, explaining that by his life among the Indians he had become “now too much of a brute to live among Christians.” One lad Gregg did purchase, and was repaid by much gratitude.