Immediate preparations were set on foot at the appointed rendezvous for entertaining a multitude. Large parties were sent out in quest of game. The women of the vicinity assembled to prepare the meats, the camash, the wappato, and the bitter root, for a great feast.
During the three days succeeding the transactions related above, multitudes were to be seen gathering from all quarters, and taking their course to the village where they were to meet, in profound silence, and with the grave composure befitting an assembly before which the tremendous issues of life and death were to be discussed.
The trapper came with a large party of the fiercest warriors whom the wiles of the "Northwester" had deceived. Several priests from scattered missions, more or less remote, with their converted Indians, arrived. Numerous savages of both sides advanced in parties by themselves, caring for nothing but blood and plunder should war be the word, or feasting and revelry should it be peace. French creoles, half-breeds, Canadian voyageurs, coureurs des bois, and free trappers, completed the list of this wild and miscellaneous assemblage.
Arrangements were made with great precision for the opening of the council. When the council lodge was in readiness, notice for the assembling of the various delegates was proclaimed from its roof by an Indian crier.
The missionaries passed in first, followed by the chiefs, and seated themselves on a semicircular platform slightly elevated from the earthen floor at the further end of the lodge, the priests sitting in the centre, between the two parties, as umpires. Then the elders, the delegates, and the warriors took their seats upon the floor along each side of the lodge.
The oldest chief of the injured confederates arose, and proceeded with calm dignity to explain the relations which the two parties, although ancient enemies even unto blood, had maintained with each other since they had been mutually moved by the message of peace, delivered by the holy Black Gowns, to bury the hatchet and live, as Christian brethren should, in peace and amity. He showed how faithfully those of his side, on their part, had kept the compact, depicting in vivid colors their grief and horror at the perfidy of their brothers, and the cruel slaughter of their innocent and unsuspecting friends. When he described the ambush, the sudden attack, the death of the old chief, and the murder of his followers; the plunder of their goods, the massacre of the women and children, and the capture of the cherished daughter of her race, it was fearful to see among the warriors the kindling passion for revenge flashing from fiery eyes which glared like those of the tiger thirsting for blood, though their manner remained otherwise cool, collected, and subdued.
At the close of this harangue, he called upon his brother,[163] the oldest chief of the opposite party, to reply, and state what he could in justification of their conduct.
With the same lofty composure, the respondent recapitulated and confirmed all that had been stated as to the former enmity and the friendly relations promoted and established between them by the labors and influence of the Black Gowns.
He then set forth in glowing language the dismay with which his people and their allies had heard that these their pretended friends were joining among themselves and with the new American companies—under the sanction of the missionaries—for their destruction and the possession of their hunting-grounds. That their good friends of the Northwest Company had warned them of their impending ruin, and furnished arms and ammunition, that they might avert the calamity by making the first attack themselves. That this was their sole motive for the act, and in self-defence, for self-preservation, they were ready to pursue the war-path as long as a man was left of their tribes to fight. But as to the massacre at the encampment, and abduction of the maiden, he indignantly denied for himself, his people, and their allies, all knowledge of any such place, or aid in its fulfilment, or of the instruments by which it had been executed.
Convictions of the crafty fabrications by which the Northwest Company, through its wily commander, had beguiled them, fastened gradually upon the minds of both parties, as their history was thus opened.