Day breaking soon after, one of their band was discovered to be missing; and it was then found that a man who had been standing horse-guard at the time of the attack, had not come into camp with his companions. At that moment a thin spiral column of smoke was seen to rise from the banks of the creek, telling but too surely the fate of the missing mountaineer. It was the signal of the Indians to their people that a coup had been struck, and that an enemy's scalp remained in their triumphant hands.
"H——!" exclaimed the trappers in a breath; and soon imprecations and threats of revenge, loud and deep, were showered upon the heads of the treacherous Indians. Some of the party rushed to the spot where the guard had stood, and there lay the body of their comrade, pierced with lance and arrow, the scalp gone, and the body otherwise mutilated in a barbarous manner. Five were quickly in the saddle, mounted upon the strongest horses, and flying along the track of the Indians, who had made off towards the mountains with their prize and booty. We will not follow them in their work of bloody vengeance, save by saying that they followed the savages to their village, into which they charged headlong, recovered their stolen horses, and returned to camp at sundown with thirteen scalps dangling from their rifles, in payment for the loss of their unfortunate companion. *
* In Frémont's expedition to California, on a somewhat
similar occasion, two mountaineers—one the celebrated Kit
Carson, the other a St. Louis Frenchman named Godey, and
both old trappers—performed a feat surpassing the one
described above, inasmuch as they were but two. They charged
into an Indian village to rescue some stolen horses, and
avenge the slaughter of two New Mexicans who had been
butchered by the Indians; both which objects they effected,
returning to camp with the lost animals and a couple of
propitiatory scalps.
In their further advance, hunger and thirst were their daily companions: they were compelled to kill several of their animals for food, but were fortunate enough to replace them by a stroke of good-luck in meeting a party of Indians returning from an excursion against one of the Californian settlements with a tolerably large band of horses. Our hunters met this band one fine morning, and dashed into the midst at once; half-a-dozen Indians bit the dust, and twenty horses were turned over from red to white masters in as many seconds, which remounted those whose animals had been eaten, and enabled the others to exchange their worn-out steeds for fresh ones. This fortunate event was considered a coup, and the event was celebrated by the slaughter of a fat young horse, which furnished an excellent supper that night—a memorable event in these starveling regions.
They were now devouring their horses and mules at the rate of one every alternate day; for so poor were the animals that one scarcely furnished an ample meal for the thirteen hungry hunters. They were once more reduced to the animals they rode on; and after a fast of twenty-four hours' duration, were debating on the propriety of drawing lots as to whose Rosinante should fill the kettle, when some Indians suddenly appeared making signs of peace upon the bluff, and indicating a disposition to enter the camp for the purpose of trading. Being invited to approach, they offered to trade a few dressed elk-skins; but being asked for meat, they said that their village was a long way off, and they had nothing with them but a small portion of some game they had lately killed. When requested to produce this they hesitated; but the trappers looking hungry and angry at the same moment, an old Indian drew from under his blanket several flaps of portable dried meat, which he declared was bear's. It was but a small ration amongst so many; but, being divided, was quickly laid upon the fire to broil. The meat was stringy, and of whitish color, altogether unlike any flesh the trappers had before eaten. Killbuck was the first to discover this. He had been quietly masticating the last mouthful of his portion, the stringiness of which required more than usual dental exertion, when the novelty of the flavor struck him as something singular. Suddenly his jaws ceased their work, he thought a moment, took the morsel from his mouth, looked at it intently, and dashed it into the fire.
"Man-meat, by G——!" he cried out; and at the words every jaw stopped work: the trappers looked at the meat and each other.
"I'm dog-gone if it ain't!" cried old Walker, looking at his piece, "and white meat at that, wagh!" (and report said it was not the first time he had tasted such viands;) and the conviction seizing each mind, every mouthful was quickly spat into the fire, and the ire of the deceived whites was instantly turned upon the luckless providers of the feast. They saw the storm that was brewing, and without more ado turned tail from the camp, and scuttled up the bluffs, where, turning round, they fired a volley of arrows at the tricked mountaineers, and instantly disappeared.
However, the desert and its nomad pilferers were at length passed; the sandy plains became grass-covered prairies; the monstrous cottonwood on the creeks was replaced by oak and ash; the surface of the country grew more undulating, and less broken up into canons and ravines; elk and deer leaped in the bottoms, and bands of antelope dotted the plains, with occasional troops of wild horses, too wary to allow the approach of man. On the banks of a picturesque stream called the San Joaquim the party halted a few days to recruit themselves and animals, feasting the while on the fattest of venison and other game. They then struck to the south-east for two days, until they reached a branch of the Las Animas, a clear stream running through a pretty valley, well timbered and abounding in game. Here, as they wound along the river-banks, a horseman suddenly appeared upon the bluff above them, galloping at a furious rate along the edge. His dress approached in some degree to civilized attire. A broad-brimmed sombrero surmounted his swarthy face; a colored blanket, through a slit in which his head was thrust, floated in the air from his shoulders; leathern leggings incased his lower limbs; and huge spurs jingled on his heels. He rode in a high-peaked Mexican saddle, his feet thrust in ponderous stirrups, and in his hand swung a coil of ready lasso, his only offensive arm. One of the trappers knew a little Spanish, and instantly hailed him.
"Compadre," he shouted, "por onde va?" The Californian reined in suddenly, throwing the horse he rode on its very haunches, and, darting down the bluff, galloped unhesitatingly into the midst of the hunters.
"Americanos!" he exclaimed, glancing at them; and continued, smiling —"Y caballos quieren, por eso vienen tan lejitos. Jesus, que mala gente!"—"It's horses you want, and for this you come all this way. Ah, what rogues you are!"