The Great Salt Lake Trail

by Henry Inman; Buffalo Bill

A sheltered spot was selected for their camp, near a stream, and while Souk gathered some sticks to make a small fire, his bride walked down to the water's edge. He saw her turn up the stream, and in a moment more she was lost from view. The fire was soon lighted, and Souk busy preparing the evening meal, when suddenly he heard a fearful shriek at no great distance.

Seizing his battle-axe, he rushed toward the spot from whence the sound proceeded, but could see no one. Calling the name of his bride, he dashed forward through the thicket, but could see or hear nothing of her. He called loudly again, but received no response. The silence was agonizing, and he listened for several moments, when he heard the crackling of some branches in the distance. He rushed frantically to the spot, but his career was quickly stopped by an object on the ground. It was the torn and now bloody mantle of his beloved. The mystery was in part explained—she had retired to this secluded spot to offer up a prayer to the Great Spirit for their safe deliverance, and, as was her custom, had taken off her mantle and spread it on the earth. On this she had knelt, when a grizzly bear, that terrible beast of the Rocky Mountains, had rushed upon her and killed her before she could utter a second cry. His huge paws were deeply imprinted on the sand, and the trail along which he had dragged his victim was distinctly visible. Souk, taking the rent garment, plunged into the brushwood.

He crossed the thicket in several directions, but in vain; it was dark, and he could not follow the trail. He returned to the camp in a frame of mind bordering on despair. Raising his hand to heaven, he swore by the great Wa-con Ton-ka to track the beast to his den and slay him, or perish in the conflict. It seemed to him an age before the light appeared, but at length the gray streamers began to streak the east, and Souk was on the trail. Again and again he lost it, but the growing light enabled him to find it, and he pushed on. He found the lair half a mile out, where the beast had eaten a part of his beloved, and, as he looked at the blood-stains on the ground, his brain seemed about to burst from his skull. Pieces of garments were left on some of the bushes where the bear had dragged the body along. Far up into the mountains Souk followed the trail, but at length lost it among the rocks. All day he hunted for it in vain, and when night came he returned to his camp. He expected the enemy had come up during his absence, but he found the horses where he had left them, and the camp undisturbed. How he wished the Brûlés would come and kill him. He cursed himself, and wished to die, but could not. Then he slept, how long he knew not, but the sun was far up in the heavens and shining brightly when he awoke.

Mounting one of the horses, and leading the other, he started at full speed. He wished to leave as quickly as possible, and forever, the cursed spot that had witnessed the destruction of all his earthly happiness. It afforded him some relief to ride fast, and he dashed onward, he neither knew nor cared where. His well-trained steed took the road for him, and as the evening shadows were beginning to creep over the valley, he saw far ahead the teepees of his father's village. He lashed his horse and rode like a madman into the town. His faithful warriors had returned, but they hardly knew their beloved young chief, so changed was he. At the door of his father's lodge his brave horse fell dead, and Souk rolled over on the ground insensible.

He was carefully lifted up and laid on his own bed, where for many days he remained in a raging fever, at times delirious, and calling wildly on the name of Chaf-fa-ly-a. Little by little he recovered, and at length went about the village again, but he hardly ever spoke to any one; and for years the Brûlés and Ogallallas never visited each other.

In the early days the celebrated Kit Carson and Lucien B. Maxwell trapped on every tributary of the Platte and Yellowstone, long before they joined General Fremont's first exploring expedition as principal scouts and guides in company with Jim Bridger, Jim Baker, and others.

In the early '40's, Kit Carson as the leader, with a hundred subordinates, organized a party of trappers to operate upon the Yellowstone and its many tributaries. The Blackfeet, upon whose ground the men were to encroach, were bitter enemies of the whites, and it was well known that serious difficulties with those savages could not be avoided, so Carson prepared his plans for considerable fighting. He assigned one half his followers to the work of trapping exclusively, while the remainder were to attend to the camp duties and vigilantly guard it.

As Carson, on many previous occasions, had had tussles with the hostile Blackfeet, he was not at all disinclined to meet them again on their own ground; and as he felt doubly strong with such a large party of old mountaineers, he rather hoped that the savages would attack him, as he wished to settle some ancient scores with them.

Carson was, however, disappointed that season, and he could not at first understand why the Blackfeet had left him so severely alone; but he found out, later, that the smallpox had decimated them, and they were only too glad to retire to their mountain fastnesses, completely humbled, and hide in terror hoping to escape further attacks of the dreaded disease.

Carson and his party spent the winter in that region with the friendly Crows, passing a delightful season, with an abundance of food, living in the comfortable buffalo-skin lodges of the tribe, and joining in their many amusements.