The Adventures of Captain Bonneville, U. S. A., in the Rocky Mountains and the Far West

burst suddenly upon their prey.
    They had not advanced within striking distance, however, before they were discovered by one of the trappers. He immediately but silently gave the alarm to his companions. They all sprang upon their horses and prepared to retreat to a safe position. One of the party, however, named Jennings, doubted the correctness of the alarm, and before he mounted his horse wanted to ascertain the fact. His companions urged him to mount, but in vain; he was incredulous and obstinate. A volley of firearms by the savages dispelled his doubts, but so overpowered his nerves that he was unable to get into his saddle. His comrades, seeing his peril and confusion, generously leaped from their horses to protect him. A shot from a rifle brought him to the earth; in his agony he called upon the others not to desert him. Two of them, Le Roy and Ross, after fighting desperately, were captured by the savages; the remaining two vaulted into their saddles and saved themselves by headlong flight, being pursued for nearly thirty miles. They got safe back to Matthieu’s camp, where their story inspired such dread of lurking Indians that the hunters could not be prevailed upon to undertake another foray in quest of provisions. They remained, therefore, almost starving in their camp; now and then killing an old or disabled horse for food, while the elk and the mountain sheep roamed unmolested among the surrounding mountains.
    The disastrous surprisal of this hunting party is cited by Captain Bonneville to show the importance of vigilant watching and judicious encampments in the Indian country. Most of this kind of disasters to traders and trappers arise from some careless inattention to the state of their arms and ammunition, the placing of their horses at night, the position of their camping ground, and the posting of their night watches. The Indian is a vigilant and crafty foe, by no means given to hair-brained assaults; he seldom attacks when he finds his foe well prepared and on the alert. Caution is at least as efficacious a protection against him as courage.
    The Indians who made this attack were at first supposed to be Blackfeet; until Captain Bonneville found subsequently, in the camp of the Bannecks, a horse, saddle, and bridle, which he recognized as having belonged to one of the hunters. The Bannecks, however, stoutly denied having taken these spoils in fight, and persisted in affirming that the outrage had been perpetrated by a Blackfoot band.
    Captain Bonneville remained on Snake River nearly three weeks after the arrival of Matthieu and his party. At length his horses having recovered strength sufficient for a journey, he prepared to return to the Nez Perces, or rather to visit his caches on Salmon River; that he might take thence goods and equipments for the opening season. Accordingly, leaving sixteen men at Snake River, he set out on the 19th of February with sixteen others on his journey to the caches.
    Fording the river, he proceeded to the borders of the deep snow, when he encamped under the lee of immense piles of burned rock. On the 21st he was again floundering through the snow, on the great Snake River plain, where it lay to the depth of thirty inches. It was sufficiently incrusted to bear a pedestrian, but the poor horses broke through the crust, and plunged and strained at every step. So lacerated were they by the ice that it was necessary to change the front every hundred yards, and put a different one in advance to break the way. The open prairies were swept by a piercing and biting wind from the northwest. At night, they had to task their ingenuity to provide shelter and keep from freezing. In the first place, they dug deep holes in the snow, piling it up in ramparts to windward as a protection against the blast. Beneath these they spread buffalo skins, upon which they stretched themselves in full dress, with caps, cloaks, and moccasins, and covered themselves with numerous blankets; notwithstanding all which they were often severely pinched with the cold.
    On the 28th of February they arrived on the banks of Godin River. This stream emerges from the mountains opposite an eastern branch of the Malade River, running southeast, forms a deep and swift current about twenty yards wide, passing rapidly through a defile to which it gives its name, and then enters the great plain where, after meandering about forty miles, it is finally lost in the region of the Burned Rocks.
    On the banks of this