Contents ▼▲
Front Matter The Fur Traders Why I Am Not a Fur Trader Plan For the Future An Inquisitive Stranger An Unexpected Proposition I Set Out as a Guide John Mitchell's Outfit Making the Bargain We Leave St. Louis Hardships Encountered The Camp at Independence A Frontier Town The Start from Independence Careless Travelers Overrun by Wild Horses Searching for Live Stock Abandoning Missing Animals Meeting with Other Emigrants A Tempest Facing the Indians Teaching the Pawnees The Pawnee Village A Bold Demand I Gain Credit as a Guide A Difficult Crossing Wash Day Indian Pictures A Plague of Wood Ticks Another Tempest Cattle Stampeded Again Difficult Traveling Colonel Kearny's Dragoons Disagreeable Visitors Driving Away the Indians Turkey Hunting Eager Hunters Antelope Country Shooting Antelopes A Pawnee Visitor The Pawnees Frighten Us Defending Ourselves Scarcity of Fuel Lame Oxen An Army of Emigrants The Buffalo Country Hunting Buffaloes My Mother's Advice Ash Hollow Post Office New Comrades Fort Laramie A Sioux Encampment Indians on the March The Fourth of July Multitudes of Buffaloes We Meet Colonel Kearny Across the Divide Fort Bridger Trading at Fort Hall Thievish Snakes The Hot Springs Falls of the Snake River Signs of the Indians Beset with Danger Hunger and Thirst Nearly Exhausted Arrival at Fort Boise On the Trail Once More Cayuse Indians The Columbla River An Indian Ferry The Dalles of the Columbia Our Live Stock My Work as Guide Ended I Become a Farmer

Antoine of Oregon - James Otis




A Bold Demand

Within a minute he came out from one of the lodges, and it gave me more courage when I noted the fact that he was looking disturbed in mind.

I demanded that he, or some of his tribe, return to us the cows which had been driven away.

If there had ever been such a being as an honest Indian, then I might have believed we had come upon him, for this chief, knowing there were men enough in our company to wipe out his entire hand, declared again and again, with no little show of innocence, that neither he nor his young men had had anything to do with our cattle.

[Illustration] from Antoine of Oregon by James Otis

Straightway I pointed here to one fellow and there to another, as two whom I recognized among those who had ridden over the ridge, and called the attention of the chief to the ponies at the farther end of the village, which were yet covered with perspiration.

Instead of staying there to parley with the fellows, I insisted that the cows be brought to us before another day had passed, and made many threats as to what would happen in case my demands were not complied with.

Then we rode out of the village. When we were some distance away, John Mitchell asked in a bantering tone if I really expected to see the cows again, whereupon I told him we would not move from the present encampment, save to punish the rascally Pawnees, until every head of the three had been brought to us.

Because he laughed I saw that he believed that he never would see his cattle again; but I was better acquainted with the Pawnees than he.