The Fourth of July was spent in crossing the Bitter Root, which was at this point one hundred and fifty yards wide, with a swift, strong current, and fordable only at the lowest stage of water in fall and winter. It was now swollen from recent rains and melting snows in the mountains. All hands set to work felling trees and building rafts, with which to effect a crossing. While thus laboriously engaged, a large band of Flathead Indians, who were encamped here, took down their lodges, and ferried themselves over the swift and broad river, with all their women, children, horses, dogs, lodges, and effects, in less than an hour’s time, and in a simple and ingenious manner, which put the whites quite to the blush. The buffalo-skin lodge was spread out on a smooth, flat place at the water’s edge, all the blankets, robes, clothing, bundles of provisions, saddles, packs, everything in short in the way of goods and chattels were piled in a broad, circular pile upon it, and the ends and edges of the skin were stretched up and tied together on top, as one would tie up a bundle of clothes in a handkerchief. This being completed, a brave rode his horse into the river until almost swimming, holding by his teeth the end of a line; the bundle was then pushed and lifted into the river; the squaws climbed on top of it with the children and babies around them, one of them took and held the other end of the line, and the brave started his pony swimming across the stream, holding by the mane or tail with one hand, and swimming with the other, and soon reached the opposite bank in safety. It was a curious and exciting spectacle to see ten or twelve of these bundles, the size of large haycocks, surmounted by groups of squaws and pappooses, rapidly floating down the stream, while being slowly towed across, nothing visible of the ponies and braves except their heads, while the loud, labored breathing of the swimming horses and the shouts and splashings of the Indians echoed across the water.
The Flatheads were accustomed to train and exercise their horses in swimming, and were very skillful in crossing streams in this manner. The buffalo-skin lodges were impervious to water for only a short time, and would become leaky and useless by a prolonged soaking.
The party built three large rafts, loaded all the goods upon them, and poled them across the river with long poles. The animals were compelled to swim. The last, bearing the governor, was the largest and least manageable, and came near escaping down the river on a voyage of its own choosing. It was carried farther down than the others, and on nearing the other bank got into a swifter current, where the poles were quite useless, and was swept along at break-neck speed, flying past the rocks and trees of the bank only forty feet away. At this juncture Higgins seized the end of a pack rope and plunged headfirst into the raging current, gained the shore in a few powerful strokes, raced along it at top speed to keep the rope from being jerked out of his hands by the flying raft until he came to a tree, threw a turn of the rope around it, and checked the raft, which then swung inshore under the pressure of the current. In these few minutes the unwieldy craft was carried down two miles. But everything was gotten together and a comfortable camp pitched before night. The tired men smoked their pipes around the camp-fire after supper and recounted the adventures of the day, with great satisfaction that the river was behind them.
After a late start the next morning the party moved eighteen miles up the right bank of the beautiful river, traversing tracts of open woods and prairies, alternating in pleasing variety with the dark, rugged range just surmounted, frowning on the right. Large schools of salmon or trout were seen in the clear, pellucid water, motionless over the spawning-beds, fairly covering and hiding the river’s bed, in such numbers were they. The next day’s march was thirty-seven miles. On the 7th, soon after leaving camp, they were met and received by three hundred chiefs and braves of the Flathead, Pend Oreille, and Koo-te-nay tribes, in the most cordial manner, with a salute of musketry, and escorted to their camp near Hell Gate River. After spending some hours with them, learning their condition, and establishing pleasant relations between them and his own party, the governor moved to the main river, a mile distant, and established his camp and council ground.
In the afternoon the three head chiefs, Victor of the Flatheads, Alexander of the Pend Oreilles, and Michelle of the Koo-te-nays, accompanied by a number of other chiefs, visited Governor Stevens, and after the pipe had passed around,—the indispensable introduction to every Indian conference,—the latter spoke to them in his usual vein, proposing a treaty, referring to the great council just held with so many Indians in the Walla Walla valley, and appointing the next Monday for opening the council with them. He also spoke of his efforts to make peace with the Blackfeet, and urged them to send a delegation to the proposed council with these, their inveterate and bloody foes. This was a sore subject with the Flatheads, for the Blackfeet had but faithlessly kept their promises of amity and good conduct towards their neighbors. Many of their young braves, despite the efforts of the chiefs and elders to restrain them, had continued their predatory raids, saying, “Let us steal all the horses we can before the great white chief returns and makes peace with all the tribes, and stops horse-stealing forever,” and had inflicted severe losses upon the Flatheads since the governor passed through their country nearly two years before, notwithstanding, and that was what made it all the harder to bear; the Flatheads had scrupulously heeded the governor’s admonitions, and refrained from retaliation. On one occasion, when some young Pend Oreilles ran off a number of Blackfoot horses, the chiefs sent them back, at the risk of the lives of the party returning them. When the governor finished, Victor said:—
“The Blackfeet have troubled us very much. I am going to tell what has happened since you were here. Twelve men have been killed when out hunting, not on war-parties. I fear the whites and keep quiet. I cannot tell how many horses have been stolen since. Now I listen, and hear what you wish me to do. Were it not for you, I would have had my revenge ere this. They have stolen horses seven times this spring.”
The chiefs then returned to their camp, promising to attend the council the following Monday.
The Flatheads or Salish, including the Pend Oreilles and Koo-te-nays, were among those who had been driven westward by the Blackfeet, and now occupied the pleasant valleys of the mountains. They were noted for their intelligence, honesty, and bravery, and although of medium stature and inferior in physique to the brawny Blackfeet, never hesitated to attack them if the odds were not greater than five to one. Having been supplied by the early fur traders with firearms, which enabled them to make a stand against their outnumbering foe, they had always been the firm friends of the whites, and, like the Nez Perces, often hunted with the mountain men, and entertained them in their lodges. A number of Iroquois hunters and half-breeds had joined and intermarried with them. The Bitter Root valley was the seat of the Flatheads proper. The Pend Oreilles lived lower down the river, or northward, in two bands, the upper Pend Oreilles on the Horse Plains and Jocko prairies, and the lower Pend Oreilles on Clark’s Fork, below the lake of their name, and were canoe Indians, owning few horses. The Koo-te-nays lived about the Flathead River and Lake. All these, except the lower Pend Oreilles, went to buffalo, and their hunting-trips were spiced with the constant peril and excitement of frequent skirmishes with their hereditary enemies. The Jesuits, in 1843, established a mission among the lower Pend Oreilles, but in 1854 moved to the Flathead River, near the mouth of the Jocko. They also started a mission among the Flatheads in the Bitter Root valley, forty miles above Hell Gate, where they founded the beautiful village of St. Mary, amid charming scenery; but the incessant raids of the Blackfeet were slowly but surely “wiping out” these brave and interesting Indians, and the mission was abandoned in 1850 as too much exposed. The Owen brothers then started a trading-post at this point, which they named Fort Owen; and fourteen miles above it Lieutenant Mullan built his winter camp in 1853, known as Cantonment Stevens, which has been succeeded by the town of Stevensville. The term “Flathead” was a misnomer, as none of them practiced the custom of flattening the head.