USA > Oregon > The Oregon trail : sketches of prairie and Rocky Mountain life > Part 9
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At last we gained the Platte. Following it for about 35 five miles, we saw, just as the sun was sinking, a great meadow, dotted with hundreds of cattle, and beyond them an emigrant encampment. A party of about a dozen came out to meet us, looking upon us at first with cold and sus- picious faces. Seeing four men, different in appearance 40 and equipment from themselves, emerging from the hills,
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they had taken us for the van of the much-dreaded Mor- mons, whom they were very apprehensive of encountering. We made known our true character, and then they greeted us cordially. They expressed much surprise that so small 5 a party should venture to traverse that region, though in fact such attempts are not unfrequently made by trappers and Indian traders. We rode with them to their camp. The wagons, some fifty in number, with here and there a tent intervening, were arranged as usual in a circle; in the Io arca within the best horses were picketed, and the whole circumference was glowing with the dusky light of the fires, displaying the forms of the women and children who were crowded around them. This patriarchal scene was curious and striking enough; but we made our escape from the 15 place with all possible dispatch, being tormented by the intrusive curiosity of the men who crowded around us. Yankee curiosity was nothing to theirs. They demanded our names, where we came from, where we were going, and what was our business. The last query was particu- 20 larly embarrassing; since traveling in that country, or indeed anywhere, from any other motive than gain, was an idea of which they took no cognizance. Yet they were fine-looking fellows, with an air of frankness, generosity, and even courtesy, having come from one of the least bar- 25 barous of the frontier counties.
We passed about a mile beyond them, and encamped. Being too few in number to stand guard without excessive fatigue, we extinguished our fire, lest it should attract the notice of wandering Indians; and picketing our horses close 3º around us, slept undisturbed until morning. For three days we traveled without interruption, and on the evening of the third encamped by the well-known spring on Scott's bluff.º
Henry Chatillon and I rode out in the morning, and de- scending the western side of the bluff, were crossing the 35 plain beyond. Something that seemed to me a file of buffalo came into view, descending the hills several miles before us. But Henry reined in his horse, and keenly peering across the prairie with a better and more practiced eye, soon discovered its real nature. "Indians !" he said. 40 "Old Smoke's lodges, I b'lieve. Come ! let us go ! Wah ! get up, now, Five Hundred Dollar !" And laying on the
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lash with good will, he galloped forward, and I rode by his side. Not long after, a black speck became visible on the prairie, full two miles off. It grew larger and larger; it assumed the form of a man and horse; and soon we could discern a naked Indian, careering at full gallop toward us. 5 When within a furlong he wheeled his horse in a wide circle, and made him describe various mystic figures upon the prairie; and Henry immediately compelled Five Hundred Dollar to execute similar evolutions. "It is Old Smoke's village," said he, interpreting these signals; "didn't I Io say so ?"
As the Indian approached we stopped to wait for him, when suddenly he vanished, sinking, as it were, into the earth. He had come upon one of the deep ravines that everywhere intersect these prairies. In an instant the 15 rough head of his horse stretched upward from the edge, and the rider and steed came scrambling out, and bounded up to us; a sudden jerk of the rein brought the wildly act- ing horse to a full stop. Then followed the needless for- mality of shaking hands. I forget our visitor's name. 20 He was a young fellow, of no note in his nation; yet in his person and equipments he was a good specimen of a Dahcotah warrior in his ordinary traveling dress. Like most of his people, he was nearly six feet high; lithely and gracefully, yet strongly proportioned; and with a skin 25 singularly clear and delicate. He wore no paint; his head was bare; and his long hair was gathered in a clump be- hind, to the top of which was attached transversely, both by way of ornament and talisman, the mystic whistle, made of the wingbone of the war eagle, and endowed with 30 various magic virtues. From the back of his head de- scended a line of glittering brass plates, tapering from the size of a doubloon to that of a half-dime, a cumbrous orna- ment, in high vogue among the Dahcotahs, and for which they pay the traders a most extravagant price; his chest 35 and arms were naked, the buffalo robe, worn over them when at rest, had fallen about his waist, and was confined there by a belt. This, with the gay moccasins on his feet, completed his attire. For arms he carried a quiver of dog- skin at his back, and a rude but powerful bow in his hand. 40 His horse had no bridle; a cord of hair, lashed around his
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jaw, served in place of one. The saddle was of most sin gular construction; it was made of wood covered with raw- hide, and both pommel and cantleº rose perpendicularly full eighteen inches, so that the warrior was wedged firmly 5 in his seat, whence nothing could dislodge him but the burst- ing of the girths.º
Advancing with our new companion, we found more of his people seated in a circle on the top of a hill; while a rude procession came straggling down the neighboring Io hollow, men, women, and children, with horses dragging the lodge-poles behind them. All that morning, as we moved forward, tall savages were stalking silently about us. At noon we reached Horse creek; and as we waded through the shallow water, we saw a wild and striking scene. The 15 main body of the Indians had arrived before us. On the farther bank stood a large and strong man, nearly naked, holding a white horse by a long cord, and eying us as we approached. This was the chief, whom Henry called Old Smoke. Just behind him his youngest and favorite squaw 20 sat astride of a fine mule; it was covered with caparisons of whitened skins, garnished with blue and white beads, and fringed with little ornaments of metal that tinkled with every movement of the animal. The girl had a light clear complexion, enlivened by a spot of vermilion on each cheek ; 25 she smiled, not to say grinned, upon us, showing two gleam- ing rows of white teeth. In her hand, she carried the tall lance of her unchivalrous lord, fluttering with feathers; his round white shield hung at the side of her inule; and his pipe was slung at her back. Her dress was a tunic of deer- 3º skin, made beautifully white by means of a species of clay found on the prairie, and ornamented with beads, arrayed in figures more gay than tasteful, and with long fringes at all the seams. Not far from the chief stood a group of stately figures, their white buffalo robes thrown over their 35 shoulders, gazing coldly upon us; and in the rear, for several acres, the ground was covered with a temporary encampment; men, women, and children swarmed like bees; hundreds of dogs, of all sizes and colors, ran restlessly about; and, close at hand, the wide shallow stream was 40 alive with boys, girls, and young squaws, splashing, scream- ing, and laughing in the water. At the same time a long
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train of emigrant wagons was crossing the creek. Dragging on in their slow, heavy procession, they passed the en- campment of the people whom they and their descendants, in the space of a century, are to sweep from the face of the earth.
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The encampment itself was merely a temporary one during the heat of the day. None of the lodges were erected ; but their heavy leather coverings, and the long poles used to support them, were scattered everywhere around, among weapons, domestic utensils, and the rude harness of mules 10 and horses. The squaws of each lazy warrior had made him a shelter from the sun, by stretching a few buffalo robes, or the corner of a lodge-covering upon poles; and here he sat in the shade, with a favorite young squaw, perhaps, at his side, glittering with all imaginable trinkets. Before 15 him stood the insignia of his rank as a warrior, his white shield of bull-hide, his medicine bag, his bow and quiver, his lance and his pipe, raised aloft on a tripod of three poles. Except the dogs, the most active and noisy tenants of the camp were the old women, ugly as Macbeth's witches,º 20 with their hair streaming loose in the wind, and nothing but the tattered fragment of an old buffalo robe to hide their shriveled wiry limbs. The day of their favoritism passed two generations ago; now the heaviest labors of the camp devolved upon them; they were to harness the horses, 25 pitch the lodges, dress the buffalo robes, and bring in meat for the hunters. With the cracked voices of these hags, the clamor of dogs, the shouting and laughing of children and girls, and the listless tranquillity of the warriors, the whole scene had an effect too lively and picturesque ever 30 to be forgotten.
We stopped not far from the Indian camp, and having invited some of the chiefs and warriors to dinner, placed before them a sumptuous repast of biscuit and coffee. Squatted in a half circle on the ground, they soon disposed of it. As we rode forward on the afternoon journey, several of our late guests accompanied us. Among the rest was a huge bloated savage of more than three hundred pounds' weight, christened Le Cochon, in consideration of his pre- posterous dimensions and certain corresponding traits of 40 his character. The Hog bestrode a little white pony,
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scarce able to bear up under the enormous burden, though by way of keeping up the necessary stimulus, the rider kept both feet in constant motion, playing alternately against his ribs. The old man was not a chief ; he had never had am- 5 bition enough to become one; he was not a warrior nor a hunter, for he was too fat and lazy : but he was the richest man in the whole village. Riches among the Dahcotahs consist in horses, and of these The Hog had accumulated
inore than thirty. He had already ten times as many as Io he wanted, yet still his appetite for horses was insatiable. Trotting up to me he shook me by the hand, and gave ine to understand that he was a very devoted friend; and then he began a series of most carnest signs and gesticulations, his oily countenance radiant with smiles, and his little eyes 15 peeping out with a cunning twinkle from between the masses of flesh that almost obscured them. Knowing nothing at that time of the sign language of the Indians, I could only guess at his meaning. So I called on Henry to explain it. The Hog, it seems, was anxious to conclude a matrimo- 20 nial bargain. He said he had a very pretty daughter in his lodge, whom he would give me, if I would give him my horse. These flattering overtures I chose to reject; at which The Hog, still laughing with undiminished good hu- mor, gathered his robe about his shoulders, and rode away.
25 Where we encamped that night, an arm of the Platte ran between high bluffs; it was turbid and swift as heretofore, but trees were growing on its crumbling banks, and there was a nook of grass between the water and the hill. Just before entering this place, we saw the emigrants encamping 30 at two or three miles' distance on the right ; while the whole Indian rabble were pouring down the neighboring hill in hope of the same sort of entertainment which they had ex- perienced from us. In the savage landscape before our camp, nothing but the rushing of the Platte broke the 35 silence. Through the ragged boughs of the trees, dilapidated and half dead, we saw the sun setting in crimson behind the peaks of the Black hills;º the restless bosom of the river was suffused with red; our white tent was tinged with it, and the sterile bluffs, up to the rocks that crowned them, par- 40 took of the same fiery hue. It soon passed away ; no light remained, but that from our fire, blazing high among the
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dusky trees and bushes. We lay around it wrapped in our blankets, smoking and conversing until a late hour, and then withdrew to our tent.
We crossed a sun-scorched plain on the next morning; the line of old cotton-wood trees that fringed the bank of 5 the Platte forming its extreme verge. Nestled apparently close beneath them, we could discern in the distance some- thing like a building. . As we came nearer, it assumed form and dimensions, and proved to be a rough structure of logs. It was a little trading fort, belonging to two 10 private traders; and originally intended, like all the forts of the country, to form a hollow square, with rooms for lodging and storage opening upon the area within. Only two sides of it had been completed; the place was now as ill-fitted for the purposes of defense as any of those little 15 log-houses, which upon our constantly shifting frontier have been so often successfully maintained against over- whelming odds of Indians. Two lodges were pitched close to the fort; the sun beat scorching upon the logs; no living thing was stirring except one old squaw, who 20 thrust her round head from the opening of the nearest lodge, and three or four stout young pups, who were peep- ing with looks of eager inquiry from under the covering. In a moment a door opened, and a little, swarthy black- eyed Frenchman came out. His dress was rather singular ; 25 his black curling hair was parted in the middle of his head, and fell below his shoulders; he wore a tight frock of smoked deerskin, very gayly ornamented with figures worked in dyed porcupine quills. His moccasins and leggings were also gaudily adorned in the same manner; and the latter 30 had in addition a line of long fringes, reaching down the seams. The small frame of Richard, for by this name Henry made him known to us, was in the highest degree athletic and vigorous. There was no superfluity, and indeed there seldom is among the active white men of this country, but 35 every limb was compact and hard; every sinew had its full tone and elasticity, and the whole man wore an air of mingled hardihood and buoyancy.
Richard committed our horses to a Navaho slave, a mean- looking fellow taken prisoner on the Mexican frontier; 40 and, relieving us of our rifles with ready politeness, led the
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way into the principal apartment of his establishment. This was a room ten feet square. The walls and floor were of black mud, and the roof of rough timber; there was a huge fireplace made of four flat rocks, picked up on the 5 prairie. An Indian bow and otterskin quiver, several gaudy articles of Rocky mountain finery, an Indian medicine bag, and a pipe and tobacco pouch, garnished the walls, and rifles rested in a corner. There was no furniture ex- cept a sort of rough settle covered with buffalo robes, upon Io which lolled a tall half-breed, with his hair glued in masses upon each temple, and saturated with vermilion. Two or three more "mountain-men" sat cross-legged on the floor. Their attire was not unlike that of Richard himself; but the most striking figure of the group was a naked Indian boy 15 of sixteen, with a handsome face, and light, active pro- portions, who sat in an easy posture in the corner near the door. Not one of his limbs moved the breadth of a hair; his eye was fixed immovably, not on any person pres- ent, but, as it appeared, on the projecting corner of the fire- 20 place opposite to him.
On these prairies the custom of smoking with friends is seldom omitted, whether among Indians or whites. The pipe, therefore, was taken from the wall, and its great red bowl crammed with the tobacco and shongsasha,º mixed 25 in suitable proportions. Then it passed round the circle, each man inhaling a few whiffs and handing it to his neigh- bor. Having spent half an hour here, we took our leave; first inviting our new friends to drink a cup of coffee with us at our camp, a mile farther up the river. By this time, 30 as the reader may conceive, we had grown rather shabby; our clothes had burst into rags and tatters; and what was worse, we had very little means of renovation. Fort Lara- mie was but seven miles before us. Being totally averse to appearing in such plight among any society that could boast 35 an approximation to the civilized, we soon stopped by the river to make our toilet in the best way we could. We hung up small looking-glasses against the trees and shaved, an operation neglected for six weeks; we performed our ablutions in the Platte, though the utility of such a proceed- 40 ing was questionable, the water looking exactly like a cup of chocolate, and the banks consisting of the softest and
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richest yellow mud, so that we were obliged, as a preliminary, to build a causeway of stout branches and twigs. Having also put on radiant moccasins, procured from a squaw of Richard's establishment, and made what other improve- ments our narrow circumstances allowed, we took our seats 5 on the grass with a feeling of greatly increased respectability, to await the arrival of our guests. They came; the ban- quet was concluded, and the pipe smoked. Bidding them adieu, we turned our horses' heads toward the fort.
An hour elapsed. The barren hills closed across our Io front, and we could see no farther; until having surmounted them, a rapid stream appeared at the foot of the descent, running into the Platte; beyond was a green meadow, dotted with bushes, and in the midst of these, at the point where the two rivers joined, were the low clay walls of a fort. 15 This was not Fort Laramie, but another post of less recent date, which having sunk before its successful competitor, was now deserted and ruinous. A moment after the hills, seeming to draw apart as we advanced, disclosed Fort Laramie itself, its high bastions and perpendicular walls 20 of clay crowning an eminence on the left beyond the stream, while behind stretched a line of arid and desolate ridges, and behind these again, towering aloft seven thousand feet, arose the grim Black hills.
We tried to ford Laramie creek at a point nearly opposite 25 the fort, but the stream, swollen with the rains in the moun- tains, was too rapid. We passed up along its bank to find a better crossing place. Men gathered on the wall to look at us. "There's Bordeaux !" called Henry, his face brightening as he recognized his acquaintance; "him there 30 with the spyglass; and there's old Vaskiss, and Tucker, and May; and, by George! there's Simoneau !" This Simoneau was Henry's fast friend, and the only man in the country who could rival him in hunting.
We soon found a ford. Henry led the way, the pony 35 approaching the bank with a countenance of cool indif- ference, bracing his feet and sliding into the stream with the most unmoved composure. We followed; the water boiled against our saddles, but our horses bore us easily through. The unfortunate little mules came near going 40 down with the current, cart and all; and we watched them
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with some solicitude scrambling over the loose round stones at the bottom, and bracing stoutly against the stream. All landed safely at last; we crossed a little plain, descended a hollow, and riding up a steep bank found ourselves before 5 the gateway of Fort Laramie, under the impending block- house erected above it to defend the entrance.
CHAPTER IX
SCENES AT FORT LARAMIE
LOOKING back, after the expiration of a year, upon Fort Laramie and its inmates, they seem less like a reality than like some fanciful picture of the olden time; so different was the scene from any which this tamer side of the world can present. Tall Indians, enveloped in their white buffalo 5 robes, were striding across the area or reclining at full length on the low roofs of the buildings which inclosed it. Nu- merous squaws, gayly bedizened,º sat grouped in front of the apartments they occupied; their mongrel offspring, restless and vociferous, rambled in every direction through 10 the fort; and the trappers, traders, and engagésº of the establishment were busy at their labor or their amusement.
We were met at the gate, but by no means cordially welcomed. Indeed, we seemed objects of some distrust and suspicion until Henry Chatillon explained that we 15 were not traders,° and we, in confirmation, handed to the bourgeois a letter of introduction from his principals. He took it, turned it upside down, and tried hard to read it; but his literary attainments not being adequate to the task, he applied for relief to the clerk, a sleek, smiling Frenchman, 20 named Montalon. The letter read, Bordeaux (the bourgeois) seemed gradually to awaken to a sense of what was expected of him. Though not deficient in hospitable intentions, he was wholly unaccustomed to act as master of ceremonies. Discarding all formalities of reception, he did not honor us 25 with a single word, but walked swiftly across the area, while we followed in some admiration to a railing and a flight of steps opposite the entrance. He signed to us that we had better fasten our horses to the railing; then he walked up the steps, tramped along a rude balcony, and kicking open a 30 door displayed a large room, rather more elaborately finished than a barn. For furniture it had a rough bedstead, but
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no bed; two chairs, a chest of drawers, a tin pail to hold water, and a board to cut tobacco upon. A brass crucifix hung on the wall, and close at hand a recent scalp, with hair full a yard long, was suspended from a nail. I shall again 5 have occasion to mention this dismal trophy, its history being connected with that of our subsequent proceedings.
This apartment, the best in Fort Laramie, was that usually occupied by the legitimate bourgeois, Papin; in whose ah- sence the command devolved upon Bordeaux. The latter, Io a stout, bluff little fellow, much inflated by a sense of his new authority, began to roar for buffalo robes. These being brought and spread upon the floor formed our beds; much better ones than we had of late been accustomed to. Our arrangements made, we stepped out to the balcony 15 to take a more leisurely survey of the long-looked-for haven at which we had arrived at last. Beneath us was the square area surrounded by little rooms, or rather cells, which opened upon it. These were devoted to various purposes, but served chiefly for the accommodation of the inen employed 20 at the fort, or of the equally numerous squaws, whom they were allowed to maintain in it. Opposite to us rose the blockhouse above the gateway; it was adorned with a figure which even now haunts my memory; a horse at full speed, daubed upon the boards with red paint, and exhib- 25 iting a degree of skill which might rival that displayed by the Indians in executing similar designs upon their robes and lodges. A busy scene was enacting in the area. The wagons of Vaskiss, an old trader, were about to set out for a remote post in the mountains, and the Canadians were 30 going through their preparations with all possible bustle, while here and there an Indian stood looking on with im- perturbable gravity.
Fort Laramie is one of the posts established by the Ameri- can fur company, who well-nigh monopolize the Indian 35 trade of this whole region. Here their officials rule with an absolute sway; the arın of the United States has little force; for when we were there, the extreme outposts of her troops were about seven hundred miles to the castward. The little fort is built of bricks dried in the sun, and externally 40 is of an oblong forin, with bastions of clay, in the form of ordinary blockhouses, at two of the corners. The walls
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are about fifteen feet high, and surmounted by a slender palisade. º The roofs of the apartments within, which are built close against the walls, serve the purpose of a ban- quette.º Within, the fort is divided by a partition; on one side is the square area surrounded by the storerooms, 5 offices, and apartments of the inmates; on the other is the corral, a narrow place, encompassed by the high clay walls, where at night, or in presence of dangerous Indians, the horses and mules of the fort are crowded for safe-keeping. The main entrance has two gates, with an arched passage Ic intervening. A little square window, quite high above the ground, opens laterally from an adjoining chamber into this passage; so that when the inner gate is closed and barred, a person without may still hold communication with those within through this narrow aperture. This obviates 15 the necessity of admitting suspicious Indians, for purposes of trading, into the body of the fort; for when danger is apprehended, the inner gate is shut fast, and all traffic is carried on by means of the little window. This precaution, though highly necessary at some of the company's posts, 20 is now seldom resorted to at Fort Laramie; where, though men are frequently killed in its neighborhood, no apprehen- sions are now entertained of any general designs of hostility from the Indians.
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