Every year, owing to the disappearance of the buffalo from their former haunts, the Indians are necessitated to encroach upon each other's hunting-grounds, which is a fruitful cause of war between the different tribes. It is a curious fact, that the buffalo retire before the whites, while the presence of Indians in their pastures appears in no degree to disturb them. Wherever a few white hunters are congregated in a trading port, or elsewhere, so sure it is that, if they remain in the same locality, the buffalo will desert the vicinity, and seek pasture elsewhere; and in this, the Indians affirm the wah-keitcha, or "bad medicine," of the pale-faces is very apparent; and ground their well-founded complaints of the encroachments made upon their hunting-grounds by the white hunters.
In the winter, many of the tribes are reduced to the very verge of starvation—the buffalo having passed from their country into that of their enemies, when no other alternative is offered them, but to remain where they are and starve, or follow the game into a hostile region, entailing a war and all its horrors upon them.
Reckless, moreover, of the future, in order to prepare robes for the traders, and procure the pernicious fire-water, they wantonly slaughter vast numbers of buffalo cows every year, (the skins of which sex only are dressed,) and thus add to the evils in store for them. When questioned on this subject, and such want of foresight being pointed out to them, they answer, that however quickly the buffalo disappears, the Red man "goes under" in greater proportion; and that the Great Spirit has ordained that both shall be "rubbed out" from the face of nature at one and the same time,—"that arrows and bullets are not more fatal to the buffalo than the small-pox and fire-water to them, and that before many winters' snows have disappeared, the buffalo and the Red man will only be remembered by their bones, which will strew the plains."—"They look forward, however, to a future state, when, after a long journey, they will reach the happy hunting-grounds, where buffalo will once more blacken the prairies; where the pale-faces daren't come to disturb them; where no winter snows cover the ground, and the buffalo are always plentiful and fat."
As soon as the streams opened, La Bonté, now reduced to but two animals and four traps, sallied forth again, this time seeking the dangerous country of the Blackfeet, on the head waters of the Yellow Stone and Upper Missouri. He was accompanied by three others, a man named Wheeler, and one Cross-Eagle, a Swede, who had been many years in the western country. Reaching the fork of a small creek, on both of which appeared plenty of beaver sign, La Bonté followed the left-hand one alone, whilst the others trapped the right in company, the former leaving his squaw in the company of a Sioux woman, who followed the fortunes of Cross-Eagle, the party agreeing to rendezvous at the junction of the two forks as soon as they had trapped to their heads and again descended them. The larger party were the first to reach the rendezvous, and camped on the banks of the main stream to await the arrival of La Bonté.
The morning after their return, they had just risen from their blankets, and were lazily stretching themselves before the fire, when a volley of firearms rattled from the bank of the creek, and two of their number fell dead to the ground, at the same moment that the deafening yells of Indians broke upon the ears of the frightened squaws. Cross-Eagle seized his rifle, and, though severely wounded, rushed to the cover of a hollow tree which stood near, and crawling into it, defended himself the whole day with the greatest obstinacy, killing five Indians outright, and wounding several more. Unable to drive the gallant trapper from his retreat, the savages took advantage of a favourable wind which sprang up suddenly, and fired the long and dried-up grass which surrounded the tree. The rotten log catching fire at length compelled the hunter to leave his retreat, and, clubbing his rifle, he charged amongst the Indians, and fell at last pierced through and through with wounds, but not before two more of his assailants had fallen by his hand.
The two squaws were carried off, and, shortly after, one was sold to some white men at the trading ports on the Platte; but La Bonté never recovered the "Bending Reed," nor even heard of her existence from that day. So once more was the mountaineer bereft of his better half; and when he returned to the rendezvous, a troop of wolves were feasting on the bodies of his late companions, and of the Indians killed in the affray, of which he only heard the particulars a long time after from a trapper, who had been present when one of the squaws was offered at the trading post for sale, and who had recounted the miserable fate of her husband and his companions on the forks of the creek, which, from the fact of that trapper being the leader of the party, is still called La Bonté's Creek.
Nevertheless, he continued his solitary hunt, passing through the midst of the Crow and Blackfeet country; encountering many perils, often hunted by the Indians, but escaping all; and speedily loading both his animals with beaver, he thought of bending his steps to some of the trading rendezvous on the other side of the mountains, where employés of the Great Northwest Fur Company meet the trappers with the produce of their hunts, on Lewis's fork of the Columbia, or one of its numerous affluents, and intending to pass the winter at some of the company's trading posts in Oregon, into which country he had never yet penetrated.