Two years before, at the conclusion of the treaty of peace, he had boasted to Berger, at the very first interview, that he had already shot five Whites; and it was not without the greatest difficulty that we could now get rid of this savage.
During the night Mr. Mitchell sent all the good horses belonging to the fort, about twenty in number, to Fort Union, by land, because we were not able to feed them any longer. Dechamp and his brother, with Papin and Vachard, were charged with this business, and arrived safe at Fort Union. The speedy removal of the horses was the more necessary, as the Indians intended to steal them, and so advantage was taken of the fine moonlight night to send them away.
{284} It was my intention to pass the winter in the Rocky Mountains, and I had the execution of this project much at heart; but circumstances had arisen which rendered it very difficult, nay, impossible. A great number of the most dangerous Indians surrounded us on all sides, and had in particular occupied the country towards the Falls of the Missouri, which was precisely the direction we should have to take. They had obliged Mr. Mitchell to send away all the serviceable horses; so that, with the best will in the world, he could not have supplied us with these animals, which were indispensably necessary. Without an interpreter we could not undertake a journey which was very difficult for a few persons, and, Doucette having been sent away, Mr. Mitchell had not one left; at the same time, a long stay, which would be absolutely necessary for our researches in natural history, was quite out of the question, as we should be obliged, in some sort, to make our way by stealth. We had before asked old Tatsiki-Stomik whether we should encounter much danger in such an undertaking? and his answer was, that "the Piekanns might, perhaps, rob us, but would not probably treat us as enemies; but that the Kahna and the Siksekai were fools, and we must be on our guard against them;" and, in truth, we might judge of the intentions of the latter, since they had fired with ball at the Piekanns, though of their own nation, near the fort. For all these reasons, I therefore found myself compelled to give up my plan of going further up the Missouri, and therefore asked Mr. Mitchell for a vessel to return down the rivers; but, as he had not one to spare, he promised to have a new one built for me. As we might any day be attacked by the Assiniboins, and such an attack might have proved more serious than the preceding, and, at all events, much valuable time would be lost by our being again imprisoned in the fort, as, in this case, we should be, not to mention that, autumn being already far advanced, a longer delay promised us a very unpleasant voyage, I endeavoured to have the work hastened as much as possible, in which Mr. Mitchell willingly co-operated. We had, besides, got pretty well acquainted with the Blackfeet Indians, and collected a great number of interesting portraits of them, and could not hope to observe anything new during the winter, or to add to our collection. As the Assiniboins were our enemies, to whom our scalps would doubtless have been a very welcome acquisition, I intended, in case of need, to make use of the night also, and had therefore no time to lose.
Planks were cut for my new Mackinaw boat, and the carpenter or shipwright immediately set to work in the court-yard of the fort. The weather was rather cool, and the Gros Ventres des Prairies, who visited us early in the morning, came with their teeth chattering with cold, the nights being already frosty. A sign of autumn was, that the locusts sought their food on the shrubs, there being nothing more in the prairies, and the crows began to take their flight in large flocks to the south.
On the 7th of September, at noon, a band of about sixty Gros Ventres des Prairies, of whom twenty-nine were mounted, approached the fort. They marched abreast, and then alighted. Mr. Mitchell went to meet them, and received from them a large horse, blind of one eye, as a present; {285} after which the Indians were received in the usual manner. Two chiefs, Mexkemauastan and Eh-Siss (the sun), were the leading men; the latter was a good old man, with a very expressive countenance. The fort was filled with these Indians, who importuned us for medicines, many of them having old wounds which had been neglected. Remedies were given to some for inflammation in the eye, on which they embraced and kissed us. They had but few things to dispose of. The women and children begged, and were so troublesome, that it was necessary to shut the gates.
Mr. Bodmer had now taken several views in the environs, and among the rest had begun that of the Rocky Mountains and the Bear's Paw from the heights behind the fort.[132] We went there every day, but were obliged always to have somebody to keep a sharp look-out while Bodmer was drawing, because we were never safe from a visit of the Indians. Sometimes we were alarmed by false reports, and returned home without doing anything. We, however, accomplished our object, and Mr. Bodmer's above-mentioned drawings give a correct idea of that country.
On the 29th [9th] of September, Mr. Mitchell sent Harvey, with thirty more, to begin the erection of the new fort. They took with them the only pirogue that was left, and also the horses, for which there was no hay in the fort. After this diminution of our numbers, we had only twenty-eight persons remaining in the fort. So many Indians had been seen on this day, at a distance, who did not come to the fort, that it was necessary to have a stronger guard during the night; and when it was dark, we were alarmed by a shot, but we soon found that it was some of our people returning from the new fort, who fired as a signal to be brought across the ice. They brought word that the Gros Ventres had, on the preceding day, killed thirty buffaloes, and we might, therefore, expect some fresh provision, of which we had been for some time deprived. Our breakfast as well as our dinner had, for a long time, consisted of old dried meat, in the morning with coffee, and some bread baked with fat, and at noon with maize boiled in broth. The maize was now all consumed, and we had only the dry meat, as tough as leather, to eat; we had, therefore, the more reason to be rejoiced, when, on the 10th of September, the Gros Ventres brought eighteen horse-loads of fresh meat, all of which we purchased of them with knives, powder, ball, and other things. On the 11th of September, twenty-one men, belonging to the fort, took the boat, which had been built for me by the carpenter, Saucier, to the Missouri: the necessary arrangements for our voyage were made; large cages were made for my two live bears; and kitchen utensils and beds were procured. The cases, containing my collections, filled a great part of the boat, which, unfortunately, proved too small. I had received from the Company Henry Morrin as steersman, and, besides him, three young, inexperienced Canadians, Beauchamp, Urbin, and Thiebaut, who were ill qualified for such a voyage, and did not even possess serviceable fire-arms. Thus, there were only seven persons in the boat, but the time was most valuable, and I fixed my departure for the 14th of September.
FOOTNOTES:
[105] According to Catlin's Indian vocabulary, "Natose" means any form of medicine or mystery.—Ed.