In 1840, when threatened by a formidable band of Black-Feet, amounting to nearly eight hundred warriors, the Flat-Heads and Pends-d’Oreilles, scarcely numbering sixty, betook themselves to prayer, imploring the aid of Heaven, which alone could save them in the unequal contest. Confident of success, they rose from their knees in the presence of their enemies, and engaged the overwhelming odds against them. The battle lasted five days. The Black-Feet were defeated, leaving eighty warriors dead upon the field; while the Flat-Heads and Pends-d’Oreilles sustained a loss of only one man; who, however, survived the battle four months, and had the happiness of receiving baptism the day before his death.
{294} In 1842, four Pends-d’Oreilles and a Pointed Heart were met and immediately attacked by a party of Black-Feet. At the first onset, the Black-Feet had to deplore the loss of their chief. Aroused by the noise of the musketry, the camp of the Pends-d’Oreilles rushed to the assistance of their companions, and without losing a single man, completely routed the enemy. Their escape is the more remarkable, as rushing into the entrenchments of the Black-Feet, they received a volley of shot poured in upon them by the enemy.
The Flat-Heads were again attacked, during the winter hunt of 1845, by a party of the Banax, which, though outnumbering them nearly three times, they soon put to flight, with the loss of three of the Banax party. The Flat-Heads acknowledge that the Banax are the bravest of their enemies; yet this did not deter them, though but seven in number, from fighting a whole village of the latter, that had rashly violated the rights of hospitality.
During the summer hunt of the same year, the united camp of Flat-Heads and Pends-d’Oreilles, when threatened, hesitated not a moment to engage with a band of Black-Feet four times their number. The latter, fearing the “medicine {295} of the Black-gowns,” skulked around their enemies, avoiding an open fight. The former perceiving this, pretended flight, in order to draw the Black-Feet into the open plain: the snare succeeded; and the Flat-Heads and Pends-d’Oreilles suddenly wheeling, attacked and repulsed them with considerable loss, driving the enemy before them in hot pursuit, as they would a herd of buffaloes. Twenty-three Black-Feet warriors lay dead on the field, after the engagement, while the Pends-d’Oreilles lost but three, and the Flat-Heads only one.
I shall close these sketches of Indian warfare, so remarkably evincing, as they do, the special protection of Heaven, with an account of an engagement which, as it was the occasion of my first interview with the Black-Feet, and by its consequence contributed much towards my favourable reception among them, will not, I trust, prove entirely devoid of interest, if given a little more in detail.
In 1846, while engaged in one of these hunting excursions, the camp of the Flat-Heads was reinforced by thirty lodges of the Nez-percés, and a dozen lodges of the Black-Feet at their own solicitation. The Flat-Heads encamped in the neighbourhood of the Crows,[304] purposely to renew {296} the terms of peace, if the latter felt so disposed. The Crows, perceiving in the united camp, the Nez-Percés and Black-Feet, with whom they were at war, and knowing their own superiority both in numbers and bodily strength, (they are the most robust of the Indian tribes) rushed into it like a torrent, evidently more anxious to provoke a contest than to make overtures of peace. The calm remonstrances of the Flat-Heads, and the wise admonitions of their own chief, were lost upon the now almost infuriated mutinous band of the Crows.
If the threatened outbreak had occurred at that moment, it is probable that the whole united camp would have been massacred in the hand-fight, for which evidently the Crows came prepared, with loaded guns and other destructive weapons, while the Flat-Heads and the others were totally unprovided. At this critical juncture, fortunately, indeed I may say providentially, my interpreter Gabriel, and a Pend-d’Oreille named Charles, forced their way breathless into the disordered camp, and announced the arrival of the Black-gown who had visited them four years ago. The alarming scene they witnessed was indeed what they had expected for as we travelled to overtake the Flat-Head {297} camp at the place designed for their interview with the Crows, we perceived from the marks of their daily encampments, that some Black-Feet and Pends-d’Oreilles were with the Flat-Heads; we accordingly feared a collision would result from the interview. I therefore despatched with all possible speed, Gabriel and Charles, to announce my arrival. Well did they execute the commission—they rode almost at full gallop during a whole day and night, performing in this short period a journey which occupied the camp fourteen days. This intelligence roused the Crow chiefs to an energetic exercise of their authority. They now seized the first missiles at hand, and enforced the weight of their arguments upon their mutinous subjects, as long as there was left in the united camp the back of a Crow on which to inflict punishment. This forced separation, though it may have checked the present ebullition, could not be of long duration. It needed but a spark to rekindle their hostile dispositions into open war. The next day, as if to provoke a rupture, the disaffected Crows stole thirty horses from the Flat-Heads. Two innocent persons were unfortunately charged with the crime, and punished. The mistake being discovered, the amende honorable was {298} made, but to no purpose. The Flat-Heads, aware of their dangerous position, employed the interval in fortifying their camp, stationing their women and children in a place of safety, and arming themselves for the contest. An immense cloud of dust in the neighborhood of the Crow camp at ten o’clock, announced the expected attack. On they came, with the impetuosity of an avalanche, until within musket shot of the advanced guard of the allied camp, who had just risen to their feet to listen to a few words addressed them by their chief, Stiettietlotso, and to meet the foe. “My friends,” said Moses, (the name I gave him in baptism) “if it be the will of God, we shall conquer—if it be not his will, let us humbly submit to whatever it shall please his goodness to send us. Some of us must expect to fall in this contest: if there be any one here unprepared to die, let him retire; in the meanwhile let us constantly keep Him in mind.” He had scarcely finished speaking, when the fire of the enemy was returned by his band, with such terrible effect as to make them shift their mode of attack into another, extremely fatiguing to their horses. After the battle had raged for some time in this way, Victor, the grand chief of the Flat-Heads,[305] {299} perceiving the embarrassed position of the enemy, cried out: “Now, my men, mount your best horses, and charge them.” The manœuvre was successful. The Crows fled in great disorder, the Flat-Heads abandoning the pursuit only at sun-down, when they had driven the enemy two miles from their camp.
Fourteen warriors of the Crows fell in the engagement, and nine were severely wounded, as we subsequently learned from three Black-Feet prisoners, who availed themselves of their capturers’ defeat to recover their liberty. On the part of the allied camp, only one was killed, the son of a Nez-Percé chief, who fell by the hand of a Crow chief, in so cowardly a manner, that the indignation of the allied camp was at once raised into immediate action—it was in fact, the first shot fired and the first blood drawn on either side; the boy was yet quite a child. Besides this loss, though the engagement lasted for several hours, only three were wounded, two of them so slightly that by application of the remedies I brought with me, they recovered in a short time; the third died a few days after my arrival in the camp.
This defeat was the more mortifying to the Crows, as they had been continually boasting {300} of their superior prowess in war, and taunting their enemies with the most insulting, opprobrious epithets. They had besides, forcibly and most unjustly drawn on the engagement.
Indeed, I look upon the miraculous escape of our Christian warriors, in this fierce contest, as further evidence of the peculiar protection of Heaven; especially when I consider the numerous instances of individual bravery, perhaps I should say reckless daring, displayed on the part of the allied camp. The son of a Flat-Head chief named Raphael, quite a youth, burning to engage in the contest, requested his father to let him have his best horse. To this the father reluctantly consented, as the boy had been rather weak from sickness. When mounted, off he bounded like an arrow from the bow, and the superior mettle of his steed soon brought him close upon the heels of a large Crow chief, who, turning his head round to notice his pursuer, pulled up his horse to punish the temerity of the boy, at the same time bending to escape the arrow then levelled at him. The boy must have shot the arrow with enormous force, for it entered under the lower left rib, the barb passing out under the right shoulder, leaving nothing but the feathers to be seen where it entered. {301} The chief fell dead. In an instant a volley was poured in upon the boy—his horse fell perfectly riddled, with the rider under him.—He was stunned by the fall, and lay to all appearance dead. According to the custom of the Indians, of inflicting a heavy blow upon the dead body of their enemy, he received while in this position, a severe stroke from each individual of the several bands of Crows that passed him.—He was taken up half dead, by his own tribe, when they passed in pursuit of the enemy. The ardour and impetuosity of the young man belonging to the Flat-Head camp amazed the oldest warriors present, and formed the theme of universal admiration, as well as the dread of their enemies. Even the women of the Flat-Heads mingled in the fray. One, the mother of seven children, conducted her own sons into the battlefield. Having perceived that the horse of her eldest son was breaking down in a single combat with a Crow, she threw herself between the combatants, and with a knife put the Crow to flight. Another, a young woman perceiving that the quivers of her party were nearly exhausted, coolly collected, amidst a shower of arrows, those that lay scattered around her, and brought them to replenish the {302} nearly exhausted store. The celebrated Mary Quille, already distinguished in numerous battles, pursued, with axe in hand, a Crow, and having failed to come up with him, returned, saying: “I thought that these great talkers were men. I was mistaken: it is not worth while even for women to attempt to chase them.”