Samuel Parker, missionary to the Oregon tribes, and now come hither to the mountain market of 1835 as knight-errant of the Gospel, pulled up his horse at the edge of the encampment and gazed in sheer amazement. His party—except Whitman, who reined in his horse at his friend's side—passed on and joined the shouting throng. Apparently they conveyed certain news as they rode; for now out of the circling ranks of wild horsemen there swept toward the strangers a group of yelling riders.
Long ribbons and waving eagle feathers streamed from the manes and tails of their ponies. Some riders, even of the white men, wore the great war-bonnets of the northern tribes, the long crests of feathers sweeping back upon the croups of the rough-coated steeds they rode. Weapons were in the hands of all. Loud speech and many oaths were on their lips. They might well have disturbed bolder hearts than that of a peaceful missionary.
The leader of the approaching band was a man of gigantic stature, more than six inches above the six-feet mark. He was dark of hair and eye; a wide mustache swept back across his face, and his heavy, untrimmed beard, matted and sunburned at the edges, gave him an expression savage and forbidding.
Clad in the buckskin of a mountain trapper, none the less this personage affected a certain finery. A brilliant sash encircled his waist, his hat bore a wide plume. At his belt hung pistols, and in his hand was a long rifle. He pulled up his horse squatting, its nose high in air.
"How, friend!" he cried. "Or be you friend, who come thus without word to Bill Shunan's camp?"
"Sir," replied the missionary, "my name is Parker—Samuel Parker.
I am from far New England, and am bound upon my way to Oregon.
I have come aside from the Sublette Cutoff trail to be present at
this rendezvous. Yourself I do not know."
"What! Not know Bill Shunan, the bully of the Rockies, and the owner of this camp? Hark ye, stranger, ye're treading on dangerous ground. I've whipped half a dozen men to-day, and driven every fighter of the rendezvous back into his lodge. They know Bill Shunan, and they show him respect, as you shall yourself."
Samuel Parker made no reply, and found no way to move forward, even had he been sure that friends awaited him in the village. The giant went on:
"Now, what's your business, man? Ye look like no trapper nor good mountain man. As for more Yankee traders, we've enough of them now, and more than enough. Look ye at their packs, laid out there, half of them not opened! The traders are robbing us mountain men at this market. Two skins they ask for a pint of sugar, if one would please his squaw. As much goes for a knife; and three skins for coffee as much as you could put in a pint cup. Powder they hold as high as gold-dust, and a blanket is worth a pair of horses. It's robbery, and I'll have no more of it. If Jim Bridger and Bill Williams, and their half-black Beckwourth, and Gervais, and Fraeb, and their other offscourings of old Ashley, will not rebel against such doings, then, for one, Bill Shunan is not afraid. My people were French back in old Canada. It is the French who found the Rockies, and who ought to own them! These Americans—I whip them with switches! And so I'll whip you if ye come here as a trader and give us no better measure than these others! Now, I say, who are ye?"
The dark eye of the missionary lighted again with its hidden fire.