At about eleven o'clock we came to a stream of good water and halted to slake our thirst and cook the remainder of our dog mutton. Our animals' sufferings had nearly equalled our own. And while we ate and rested under the shade of a tree, it added much to our enjoyment to see the famished beasts regale themselves upon a plat of short wiry grass beside the stream. Some marks of dragging lodge poles along the now well defined trail, indicated to us that a portion of the Shoshonie or Snake tribe had lately left Brown's Hole. From this circumstance we began to fear what afterwards proved true, that our hopes of finding the Snakes at that post and of getting meat from them would prove fallacious. Our filthy meal being finished, we gathered {12} up our little caravan and moved forward at a round pace for three hours, when the bluffs opened before us the beautiful plain of Brown's Hole.[155] As we entered it we crossed two cool streams that tumbled down from the stratified cliffs near at hand on the right; and a few rods beyond, the whole area became visible. The Fort, as it is called, peered up in the centre, upon the winding bank of the Sheetskadee. The dark mountains rose around it sublimely, and the green fields swept away into the deep precipitous gorges more beautifully than I can describe.
How glad is man to see his home again after a weary absence! Every step becomes quicker as he approaches its sacred portals; and kind smiles greet him; and leaping hearts beat upon his; and warm lips press his own. It is the holy sacrament of friendship. Yet there is another class of these emotions that appears to be not less holy. They arise when, after having been long cut off from every habit and sympathy of civilized life, long wandering among the deep and silent temples of the eternal mountains, long and hourly exposed to the scalping knife of savages and the agonies of {13} starvation, one beholds the dwellings of civilized men—kindred of the old Patriot blood, rearing their hospitable roofs among those heights, inviting the houseless, wayworn wanderer to rest; to relax the tension of his energies, close his long watching eyes, and repose the heart awhile among generous spirits of his own race. Is not the hand that grasps yours then, an honest hand? Does it not distil, by its sacred warmth and hearty embrace, some of the dearest emotions of which the soul is capable; friendship unalloyed, warm, holy, and heavenly?
Thus it seemed to me, at all events, as we rode into the hollow square and received from St. Clair, the person in charge, the hearty welcome of an old hunter to "Fort David Crockett."[156] A room was appropriated immediately for our reception, our horses were given to the care of his horse guard, and every other arrangement within his means, was made, to make us feel that within that little nest of fertility, amid the barrenness of the great Stony Range—far from the institutions of law and religion—far from the sweet ties of family relations, and all those nameless endearing influences that shed their rich {14} fragrance over human nature in its cultivated abiding places—that there even could be given us the fruits of the sincerest friendship. Such kindness can be appreciated fully by those only who have enjoyed it in such places; who have seen it manifested in its own way; by those only, who have starved and thirsted in these deserts and been welcomed, and made thrice welcome, after months of weary wandering, to "Fort David Crockett."
After partaking of the hospitality of Mr. St. Clair, I strolled out to examine more minutely this wonderful little valley. It is situated in or about latitude 42° north; one hundred miles south of Wind River mountains, on the Sheetskadee (Prairie Cock) River. Its elevation is something more than eight thousand feet above the level of the sea. It appeared to be about six miles in diameter; shut in, in all directions, by dark frowning mountains, rising one thousand five hundred feet above the plain. The Sheetskadee, or Green River, runs through it, sweeping in a beautiful curve from the north-west to the south-west part of it, where it breaks its way through the encircling mountains, between cliffs, one thousand feet in height, broken and hanging as {15} if poised on the air. The area of the plain is thickly set with the rich mountain grasses, and dotted with little copses of cotton wood and willow trees. The soil is alluvial, and capable of producing abundantly all kinds of small grains, vegetables, &c., that are raised in the northern States. Its climate is very remarkable. Although in all the country, within a hundred miles of it, the winter months bring snows, and the severe cold that we should expect in such a latitude, and at such an elevation above the level of the sea, yet in this little nook, the grass grows all the winter; so that, while the storm rages on the mountains in sight, and the drifting snows mingle in the blasts of December, the old hunters here heed it not. Their horses are cropping the green grass on the banks of the Sheetskadee, while they themselves are roasting the fat loins of the mountain sheep, and laughing at the merry tale and song.
The Fort is a hollow square of one story log cabins, with roofs and floors of mud, constructed in the same manner as those of Fort William. Around these we found the conical skin lodges of the squaws of the white trappers, who were away on their "fall hunt," and also the lodges of a few {16} Snake Indians, who had preceded their tribe to this, their winter haunt. Here also were the lodges of Mr. Robinson, a trader, who usually stations himself here to traffic with the Indians and white trappers. His skin lodge was his warehouse; and buffalo robes were spread upon the ground and counter, on which he displayed his butcher knives, hatchets, powder, lead, fish-hooks, and whisky. In exchange for these articles he receives beaver skins from trappers, money from travellers, and horses from the Indians. Thus, as one would believe, Mr. Robinson drives a very snug little business. And indeed, when all the "independent trappers" are driven by approaching winter into this delightful retreat, and the whole Snake village, two or three thousand strong, impelled by the same necessity, pitch their lodges around the Fort, and the dances and merry makings of a long winter are thoroughly commenced, there is no want of customers.
These winters in Brown's hole are somewhat like winters among the mountains of New England, in the effects they produce on the rise and progress of the art of all arts—the art of love. For, as among the good old hills of my native clime, quiltings, {17} and singing-schools, and evening dances, when the stars are shining brightly on the snow crust, do soften the heart of the mountain lad and lassie, and cause the sigh and blush to triumph over all the counsels of maiden aunts and fortune-tellers; so here in this beautiful valley, and in the skin lodge village of the Snakes, there are bright evenings, beaming stars, and mellow moons, and social circles for singing the wild ditties of their tribe, and for sewing with the sinews of the deer, their leggings, moccasins and buffalo robes, and for being bewitched with the tender passion.
The dance, too, enlivens the village. The musician chants the wild song, and marks the time by regular beatings with a stick upon a sounding board; and light heels, and sturdy frames, and buxom forms respond to his call. To these, and other gatherings, the young go, to see who are the fairest, and best, and most loved of the throng. Our friend Cupid goes there too. Yes, Cupid at an Indian dance! And there measuring bow and arrow with those who invented them, he often lays at his feet, I am told, the proudest hawk's feather that adorns the brow of Chief or Chiefess. For, on the {18} morning after the dance, it not unfrequently happens that he of the beard is compelled, by force of certain uneasy sensations about the heart, to apply to some beardless one for the balm of sweet smiles for his relief.
He does not wait for the calm hour of a Sunday night. Nor does he delay putting the question by poetical allusions to the violet and firmament. No! Calm hours and the poetry of nature have no charms for him. He wants none of these. Our friend Cupid has cast an arrow into his heart, bearded with the stings of irresistible emotion; and he seeks that mischievous fair one, her alone who selected the arrow and the victim; her alone who was a "particeps criminis" in the loss of that great central organ of his life, called in the annals of Christian countries, "the heart." No! his course is vastly more philosophical and single-minded, (I mean no offence to my countrymen—none to you, ye Britons over the waters,) than the ginger-bread, sugar-candy courtships of Christian people. He first pays his addresses to his band of horses; selects the most beautiful and valuable of them all, and then goes with his chosen horse to the lodge of his chosen {19} girl's father or mother, or if both these be dead, to the lodge of her eldest sister, ties the animal to the tent pole, and goes away. After his departure, the inmates of the lodge issue from it, and in due form examine the horse, and if it appears to be worth as much as the girl whom the owner seeks, an interview is had, the horse taken by the parents, or sister, as the case may be, and the lover takes the girl. A fair business transaction, you perceive, my readers—"a quid pro quo"—a compensation in kind.
The girl, received in exchange for the horse, becomes the absolute personal property of the enamoured jockey, subject to be re-sold whenever the state of the market and his own affection will allow. But if those, whose right it is to judge in the matter, are of opinion that the girl is worth more than the horse, another is brought; and if these are not enough, he of the beard may bring another, or get Cupid to shoot his heart in another direction.
There are many benefits in this mode of obtaining that description of legal chattels called a wife, over the mode usually adopted among us. As for example: by this mode there is a price given for a valuable article. Now to my apprehension, this is an improvement upon our plan; for it {20} removes entirely from certain old daddies, the necessity of disposing of their daughters by gift, to certain worthless, portionless young men, who are merely virtuous, talented, honest and industrious; an evil of no small magnitude, as may be learned by inquiry in the proper quarter. But the Indian system of matrimony extirpates it. Wealth measures off affection and property by the peck, yard or dollar's worth, as circumstances require; and no young lady of real genuine property, respectability and standing, and family, will think of placing her affections upon a talented, virtuous and industrious, promising and prosperous coxcomb of poverty; nor, vice versâ, will a young man of these vulgar qualities have unfathomable barefacedness to propose himself to a young lady of real genuine property respectability, property form, property face, property virtue, property modesty, and property intelligence.