W. S. Chapman
Colter and Potts under attack.
The Blackfeet were now swarming through the brush, but Colter, calm and poised, raised his hand palm forward in the peace signal. Potts, now convinced that flight was the only hope, nosed the canoe toward mid-stream. Suddenly a bowstring twanged, and Potts cried out, “Colter, I’m wounded.” Colter urged him to come ashore, but instead he leveled his rifle at an Indian and fired. Instantly a score of arrows entered his body or, in Colter’s language, “he was made a riddle of,” and he slumped lifeless in the canoe.[52] Calm and flintlike Colter stood his ground. As the chief sized up the situation, a dozen warriors identified the survivor as the white man who raised havoc among them in a battle with a band of Crow Indians.[53] This knowledge caused the braves to clamor for setting him up as a mark to shoot at, but their chief interfered. He stood in great dignity and said, “This is a brave warrior. We will see how bravely he can die.”[54] Then, seizing the victim by the shoulders, he asked him if he could run fast. To this query Colter replied with a chop-fallen air that he was slow. Actually, he was an excellent sprinter. Several hundred Indians swarmed about, working up their emotions toward the victim. First they denuded him, then motioned him to move forward perhaps a hundred yards, from whence he was signalled to run toward a “v” shaped open prairie of some six miles expanse. Colter had drawn a chance to save himself if he could! He accepted the challenge and resolved to make the most of it. As the war whoops sounded, Colter was away with the dash of an antelope. He bounded and ran until his lungs burned within him, and he ruptured a blood vessel in his nose. On he sped, mile after mile, until the chorus of Indian yells grew fainter and fainter. All of Colter’s muscles cried out for a moment’s respite. He looked around and beheld a spear-armed warrior some twenty yards behind him, coming fast to split him in two. Upon impulse, Colter whirled in his tracks, and running obliquely, gave the signal for mercy. The reply was a thrust spear, but the brave made a false step, stumbled, and fell. He was obviously astonished at Colter’s gory appearance. The badly launched spear struck in the ground and was broken off. In a surge of hope and strength, the powerful Colter lunged like a stag at bay, and overpowering the Indian, he seized the barbed half and impaled his fallen foe to the earth!
If the Blackfeet had possessed a spirit of chivalry they would have called quits to this ordeal by running and combat. Here was a man who had outrun the cream of the redskin sprinters and, unarmed, had slain an armed warrior. Surely such a performance should have won the captive’s freedom. But the Blackfoot code made no allowance for heroic behavior in the enemy.
On came the braves, more ruddy than usual by reason of their exertions and more fleet than normal because of the caliber of the quarry. Colter needed no spear now; he fairly vaulted until he gained the river bank, and diving into the stream he concealed himself under a jam of driftwood or beaver dam that impinged upon an island. Here he secreted himself while they howled and thrashed about for hours, yelling, as Colter said, “like a legion of devils.” When darkness came, like an angel of mercy, he dragged his aching body from its watery prison, silently swam across the river, and started the second excruciating lap in his race for life.[55] Manuel Lisa’s Fort was two hundred miles away.
After seven days of hiding and nights of painful travel and exposure he found his way through Bozeman Pass and eventually reached the fort at the mouth of the Bighorn. During this “ordeal by travel” he had no sustenance other than roots known as psoralea esculenta, or sheep sorrel.[56] Again there was momentary disposition among the trappers to question Colter’s veracity, but the evidence was unimpeachable, and it was written plainly where all might see. He seemed only a shadow of his former self.
According to James, even this terrible experience did not daunt the lion-hearted trapper, “Dangers seemed to have for him a kind of fascination.”[57] Colter could not reconcile himself to the loss of the traps he had dropped in the river during the attack. Soon after his recovery, he ventured again into the forbidden Three Forks region. At his first night’s camp he was attacked, but he contrived to escape. Whereupon, he vowed to his maker that he would never return.[58]
Acting upon this resolution Colter started his third voyage down the Missouri. While he was resting in one of the upper Minnetarre villages, probably in September of 1809, Manuel Lisa arrived. The Three Forks country was his destination and Colter must show him the way.
By midwinter a strong detachment was on its way, headed by Pierre Menard as bourgeois commander, Andrew Henry as field captain, and John Colter as guide. The party arrived at Three Forks on April 3, 1810 and built a post. Within a fortnight the Blackfeet attacked. Five trappers were killed, and most of the horses and equipment disappeared. It was a crushing blow to the enterprise, and for Colter, the final straw. James states that Colter came into the fort, spoke of his promise to God, repented of his foolhardy return, and said, “If God will only forgive me this time and let me off I will leave the country day after tomorrow and be d——d if I ever come into it again.”[59] Several days later he and a companion slipped through the Indian lines and in due time reached Fort Manuel. From there the two men departed for St. Louis in a dugout and reached that frontier capital on the last day of May. They had negotiated the distance of 2,500 water miles in the incredible time of thirty days.[60] Is it any wonder that other trappers referred to “Colter’s large experience”?
For over five years he had been among barbarian people, and of certain torments he had more than enough. His life had been one of hard toil and high adventure; now he would seek peace and quiet.
Captain Meriwether Lewis had passed away, but William Clark was a person of authority. He was Brigadier General of Militia and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. To Clark, Colter gave geographical data, a part of which appeared on the map published in 1814 in the Biddle-Allen edition of the journals. Colter was unable to collect the wages due him as a member of the famous expedition so he brought suit against the Lewis estate and secured partial compensation. His trapping claims for services to Thomas James were unavailing as the latter could not collect from the fur company. While in St. Louis attending to this vexatious business he undoubtedly related his experiences to General William Clark. The latter, in turn, passed the story along to John Bradbury, the English scientist, and James M. Brackenridge, an American author. Such men accepted his report at face value. Concerning him, James wrote, “His veracity was never questioned among us.”[61] Lesser people were more incredulous, and Colter’s reputation suffered accordingly.