Opening the West with Lewis and Clark - Edwin Sabin |
"The white men are coming back! The white men are coming!" sped the glad word among the Chop-un-nish or Pierced Noses, in their villages 100 miles up, on the Kooskooskee. "They will make us well."
And the white men were indeed coming, by the trail from the Walla Walla, with the Snake Indian prisoner and Sa-ca-ja-we-a as interpreters; with the Skilloot and the three Walla Walla young men as guides (for the Pierced Nose and family had taken another trail); with some twenty horses, for the baggage, and for William Bratton, and for the men who had sore feet; and with the healing medicine box containing, especially, the celebrated eye-water.
"Let us wance get the horses we left with Twisted-hair an' we'll all ride, b' gorry," quoth Sergeant Pat,
limping along.
"On ze Kamass Prairie dere will be plenty root, plenty game," rejoiced Chaboneau. "An' mebbe dere we rest, while leetle Toussaint get well." For little Toussaint seemed to be ailing.
First they were met, before reaching any village, by an old friend, Chief We-ah-koo-nut, and ten warriors. We-ah-koo-nut was called the Bighorn, because he always wore, hanging from his left arm, the horn of a mountain ram.
"We have heard that you were coming, and have ridden to greet you," said Bighorn. "The sight of you makes our sore eyes well. We have no food for you here, but to-morrow you will reach a lodge where everything will be supplied."
Before breakfast, in the morning, the lodge was found, on the bank of the Lewis or Snake River; but the families living there could supply only two dogs and some root bread.
Next was met Chief Tetoh, or Sky—the honest fellow who, with Twisted-hair, had helped the expedition get through from the Kamass Prairie to the Timm falls of the Columbia.
"Glad to see you. You are welcome," exclaimed Tetoh.
"Where is Chief Twisted-hair? We have come to visit our friends, the Pierced Noses, again, and to get our horses," explained Captain Lewis.
"You must cross the Kin-oo-e-nim (Snake River), here, and go to the Kooskooskee," replied Chief Tetoh. "There you will find the Twisted-hair, who has your horses."
So they crossed, in canoes lent to them by Tetoh, and arrived at the Kooskooskee or Clearwater.
"Eye-water, eye-water," begged the Indians. Captain Clark traded a small bottle of the eye-water for a gray mare.
"You're the doctor, Will,' laughed Captain. Lewis. "From now on we'd better charge a fee. We'll get more meat that way than with our guns or goods."
Accordingly Captain Clark, who handled the medicines, exchanged his services for provisions. But the Indians appeared to be very poor, and the "doctor's "fees in dogs and horses and roots did not amount to much.
"Marse Will won't nebber make a libbin' at doctorin', dat's suah," finally admitted York, with a shake of his head. "Anyhow, he ain't killed anybody yet."
Chief Twisted-hair's village was up the Kooskooskee some miles. Chief Sky, and another chief named Cut-nose, rode along with the captains. When questioned about the horses and the saddles, they would give no straight answer; but
"S'pose no get 'urn horse, no get 'urn saddle," said Sa-ca-ja-we-a.
"Why is that?"
"Sho-sho-ne say he hear saddles gone, horses gone."
That was alarming news.
"An' Twisted-hair seemed like a fine gentleman," bemoaned Sergeant Pat.
"We can get more horses, can't we, Pat?" queried Peter. "We see lots of horses."
"Yes, an' how'll we buy 'em, when each man of us is down to a couple o' needles, a bit of thread an' a yard or so of ribbon, with a pinch o' paint for an extry?" retorted Pat. ".We'll have to cut the buttons off our clothes, I guess. Cross the mountains on foot ag'in we won't an' can't. They're waist-deep in snow."
For the mountains were looming ahead, white and wintry, although this was May.
"The Twisted-hair," announced Chief Sky, pointing before. And Chief Twisted-hair, with six men, met the procession.
Twisted-hair was not at all in a good humor. He refused to shake hands, he scarcely noticed the captains, and suddenly he and Cut-nose (a very ugly man whose nose had been laid open by a Snake lance, in battle) were quarreling in a loud voice.
"What's this all about, Chaboneau?" demanded Captain Lewis. "Ask Sa-ca-ja-we-a to have the Sho-sho-ne interpret."
"Ze Sho-sho-ne will not," reported Chaboneau. "He say dees is quarrel between two chiefs an' he haf no right to interfere."
"We'll go on a bit and camp and hold a council, Will," directed Captain Lewis to Captain Clark. "Then we'll get at the bottom of this business. There's evidently something wrong with the horses and saddles we left."
At camp the captains first smoked and talked with Twisted-hair. He said it was true that the horses were scattered, but Cut-nose and another chief, the Broken-arm, were to blame. They had been jealous of him because he had the white men's horses; and being an old man, he had given up the horses. Some were near, and some were at the village of the Broken-arm, a half-day's march east. As for the saddles, the cache had fallen in and they might have been stolen, but he had hidden them again.
Then the Cut-nose talked. He said that the Twisted-hair was a bad old man, of two faces; that he had not taken care of the horses but had let his young men ride them, to hunt, until the Broken-arm, who was a higher chief, and he, Cut-nose, had forbidden.
"It is not well that the chiefs quarrel," reproved Captain Lewis. "Only children quarrel. We will take what horses there are here and we will go on to the village of the Broken-arm, for the other horses."
This seemed to satisfy everybody. Twisted-hair's young men brought in twenty-one of the forty-three horses and half the saddles, besides some of the powder and lead that had been buried, also. That night Cut-nose and Twisted-hair slept together.
The Broken-arm and his Nez Perces lived in one large straw-and-mud house 150 feet long. Over it was flying the United States flag that had been given to the nation on the way down last fall. Broken-arm ordered a hide tent erected for the white chiefs; his women hastened there with roots and fish; and when the captains offered to trade a lean horse for a fat one which might be killed, Broken-arm declined.
"When our guests come hungry, we do not sell them food," he declared. "We have many young horses. All those you see on these plains belong to me and my people. Take what you need for food."
"Niver before did we have the Injuns offer us somethin' for nothin'," gasped Patrick Gass. "At laste, niver before were we told to go help ourselves!"
"The Walla Wallas were as obliging. Don't forget the Walla Wallas, and Yellept," reminded George Shannon.
Two weeks were spent near the big house of the Broken-arm, for whom another name was Black Eagle. Captain Clark was appointed official doctor; he had fifty patients at a time. Captain Lewis held a council, and told the warriors about the United States. They promised to make peace with the Sho-sho-nes. Labiche killed a bear.
"These are great hunters. They kill the bear, alone," exclaimed the Pierced Noses.
Hunters were sent out every day, to get bear, and deer, and elk—whatever they could. The other men were sent out to trade for roots and fish.
Little Toussaint grew better. William Bratton could not walk, but he was put into a hut of boughs and blankets built over a hole in which there had been a fire. Water was sprinkled into the hole. The hot steam soaked William through and through. He was then plunged into cold water, and sweated again in the hut. This was Indian treatment, not white man's. And it cured Bratton, after even Doctor Red Head had failed.
Most of the saddles and all the horses except two were delivered. These two, said Broken-arm, had been stolen last fall by old Toby and his son on their way back to Chief Ca-me-ah-wait. There now were sixty-five horses on hand—enough for the baggage and for the men. Everybody might ride. So much food had been purchased, that buttons (as Pat had predicted) were being traded in, and John Shields, blacksmith, was *making awls out of the links of a beaver-trap chain.
"We must start on, or we won't reach Fort Mandan before winter," announced Captain Lewis.
"No, no," objected Twisted-hair and Sky, and all. "Too much snow. Much water come down. The trail over the mountains is not open. Wait till the next full moon, and the snows will have melted."
"The salmon will soon be running up the river. Wait, and you shall have food," said Cut-nose.
"If the white chiefs are hungry, let them kill and eat my horses," said Chief Ho-has-til-pilp, the Red Wolf, with a wave of his arm.
"We thank the Red Wolf. But we shall need guides. Will the chiefs send some young men with us, to show us the way over the mountains?" asked Captain Lewis.
"When there is grass for the horses, on the Road-to-the-Buffalo, we will send young men," promised Chief Broken-arm. "But not until after the grand council of all the Pierced Nose nation, on the Kamass Prairie. In the summer we will all go to the buffalo plains of the Missouri, if the white chiefs will protect us from the Snakes and Pahkees."
"Hold high the peace flag we have given you, and it will turn your enemies into friends," instructed Captain Lewis.
The Grand Council was not to be held for two or three weeks yet. By the close of the first week of June the river had fallen six feet, showing that the snows were partially melted. The captains decided to push along without guides.
"We cannot wait till July and the full moon, boys," declared Captain Lewis, in an address to the company. "It's only 160 miles from the Kamass Prairie to our old camp on the other side at Traveler's Rest Creek, and there we'll be done with the snow. If no guides overtake us, Drouillard and Labiche and some of the rest of you are as good trailers as the Indians, and can lead us through."
"Hooray!" cheered all. They were as anxious as the captains to go. They were in fine fettle. They had been playing prisoner's base, among themselves, and had been running foot-races with the Nez Perces, to harden their muscles. In the races only one Indian had proved as fast as Peter and John Colter, the American champions.
Now on June 10 camp was broken, and the march to the mountains begun.
"Ten days 'll see us through," confidently declared Pat.