第29章 Irving’s Bonneville - Chapter 9(1)

Horses turned loose--Preparations for winter quarters--Hungry times--Nez Perces,their honesty, piety, pacific habits, religious ceremonies--Captain Bonneville'sconversations with them--Their love of gambling IT WAS GRATIFYING to Captain Bonneville, after so long and toilsome a course oftravel, to relieve his poor jaded horses of the burden under which they were almostready to give out, and to behold them rolling upon the grass, and taking a long reposeafter all their sufferings. Indeed, so exhausted were they, that those employed underthe saddle were no longer capable of hunting for the daily subsistence of the camp.

All hands now set to work to prepare a winter cantonment. A temporary fortification wasthrown up for the protection of the party; a secure and comfortable pen, into which thehorses could be driven at night; and huts were built for the reception of themerchandise.

This done, Captain Bonneville made a distribution of his forces: twenty men were toremain with him in garrison to protect the property; the rest were organized into threebrigades, and sent off in different directions, to subsist themselves by hunting thebuffalo, until the snow should become too deep.

Indeed, it would have been impossible to provide for the whole party in thisneighborhood. It was at the extreme western limit of the buffalo range, and theseanimals had recently been completely hunted out of the neighborhood by the NezPerces, so that, although the hunters of the garrison were continually on the alert,ranging the country round, they brought in scarce game sufficient to keep famine fromthe door. Now and then there was a scanty meal of fish or wild-fowl, occasionally anantelope; but frequently the cravings of hunger had to be appeased with roots, or theflesh of wolves and muskrats. Rarely could the inmates of the cantonment boast ofhaving made a full meal, and never of having wherewithal for the morrow. In this waythey starved along until the 8th of October, when they were joined by a party of fivefamilies of Nez Perces, who in some measure reconciled them to the hardships of theirsituation by exhibiting a lot still more destitute. A more forlorn set they had neverencountered: they had not a morsel of meat or fish; nor anything to subsist on,excepting roots, wild rosebuds, the barks of certain plants, and other vegetableproduction; neither had they any weapon for hunting or defence, excepting an oldspear: yet the poor fellows made no murmur nor complaint; but seemed accustomed totheir hard fare. If they could not teach the white men their practical stoicism, they atleast made them acquainted with the edible properties of roots and wild rosebuds, andfurnished them a supply from their own store. The necessities of the camp at lengthbecame so urgent that Captain Bonneville determined to dispatch a party to the HorsePrairie, a plain to the north of his cantonment, to procure a supply of provisions. Whenthe men were about to depart, he proposed to the Nez Perces that they, or some ofthem, should join the hunting-party. To his surprise, they promptly declined. He inquiredthe reason for their refusal, seeing that they were in nearly as starving a situation as hisown people. They replied that it was a sacred day with them, and the Great Spirit wouldbe angry should they devote it to hunting. They offered, however, to accompany theparty if it would delay its departure until the following day; but this the pinching demandsof hunger would not permit, and the detachment proceeded.

A few days afterward, four of them signified to Captain Bonneville that they were aboutto hunt. "What! " exclaimed he, "without guns or arrows; and with only one old spear?

What do you expect to kill? " They smiled among themselves, but made no answer.