Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet
Page 10
CHAPTER TEN.
In narrating the unhappy death of the Prince, I have stated that theCrows bore no good-will to the white men established among theShoshones. That feeling, however, was not confined to that tribe; itwas shared by all the others within two or three hundred miles from theBuona Ventura river, and it was not surprising! Since our arrival, thetribe had acquired a certain degree of tactics and unity of action,which was sufficient in itself to bear down all their enemies,independent of the immense power they had obtained from their quantityof fire-arms and almost inexhaustible ammunition. All the other nationswere jealous of their strength and resources, and this jealousy beingnow worked up to its climax, they determined to unite and strike a greatblow, not only to destroy the ascendancy which the Shoshones hadattained, but also to possess themselves of the immense wealth whichthey foolishly supposed the Europeans had brought with them to thesettlement.
For a long time previous to the Crow and Umbiqua expedition, which Ihave detailed, messengers had been passing between tribe and tribe, and,strange to say, they had buried all their private animosities, to form aleague against the common enemy, as were considered the Shoshones. Itwas, no doubt, owing to this arrangement that the Crows and Umbiquasshewed themselves so hardy; but the prompt and successful retaliation ofthe Shoshones cooled a little the war spirit which was fomenting aroundus. However, the Arrapahoes having consented to join the league, theunited confederates at once opened the campaign, and broke upon ourcountry in every direction.
We were taken by surprise; for the first three weeks they carried everything before them, for the majority of our warriors were still hunting.But having been apprised of the danger, they returned in haste, and theaspect of affairs soon changed. The lost ground was regained inch byinch. The Arrapahoes having suffered a great deal, retired from theleague, and having now nothing to fear from the South, we turned againstour assailants on our northern boundaries. Notwithstanding thedesertion of the Arrapahoes, the united tribes were still three timesour number, but they wanted union, and did not act in concert. Theymustered about fifteen thousand warriors, from the Umbiquas, Callapoos,Cayuses, Nez-perces, Bonnaxes, Flat-heads, and some of the Crows, whohad not yet gained prudence from their last "brushing." The superiorityof our arms, our tactics, discipline, and art of intrenchment, togetherwith the good service of two clumsy old Spanish four-pounders, enabledus not only in a short time to destroy the league, but also to crush andannihilate for ever some of our treacherous neighbours. As it would betedious to a stranger to follow the movements of the whole campaign, Iwill merely mention that part of it in which I assisted.
The system of prairie warfare is so different from ours, that the campaign I have just related will not be easily understood by those acquainted only with European military tactics.
When a European army starts upon an expedition, it is always accompanied by waggons, carrying stores of provisions and ammunition of all kinds. There is a commissariat appointed for the purpose of feeding the troops. Among the Indians there is no such thing, and except a few pieces of dried venison, a pound weight of powder, and a corresponding quantity of lead, if he has a rifle, but if not, with his lance, bow, arrows, and tomahawk, the warrior enters the war-path. In the closer country, for water and fuel, he trusts to the streams and to the trees of the forests or mountains; when in the prairie, to the mud-holes and chasms for water, and to the buffalo-dung for his fire. His rifle and arrows will always give him enough of food.
But these supplies would not, of course, be sufficient for a great number of men; ten thousand, for example. A water-hole would be drained by the first two or three hundred men that might arrive, and the remainder would be obliged to go without any. Then, unless perchance they should fall upon a large herd of buffaloes, they would never be able to find the means of sustaining life. A buffalo, or three or four deer, can be killed every day, by hunters out of the tract of an expedition; this supply would suffice for a small war-party, but it would never do for an army.
Except in the buffalo ranges, where the Comanches, the Apaches, and the Southern Shoshones will often go by bands of thousands, the generality of the Indians enter the path in a kind of _echelonage_ that is to say, supposing the Shoshones to send two thousand men against the Crows, they would be divided into fifteen or twenty bands, each commanded by an inferior chief. The first party will start for reconnoitring. The next day the second band, accompanied by the great chiefs, will follow, but in another track; and so on with a third, till three hundred or three hundred and fifty are united together. Then they will begin their operations, new parties coming to take the place of those who have suffered, till they themselves retire to make room for others. Every new comer brings a supply of provisions, the produce of their chase in coming, so that those who are fighting need be in no fear of wanting the necessaries of life. By this the reader will see that a band of two thousand warriors, only four or five hundred are effectually fighting, unless the number of warriors agreed upon by the chiefs prove too small, when new reinforcements are sent forward.
We were divided into four war-parties: one which acted against theBonnaxes and the Flat-heads, in the north-east; the second, against theCayuses and Nez-perces, at the forks of the Buona Ventura and Calumetrivers; the third remained near the settlement, to protect it fromsurprise; while the fourth, a very small one, under my father's command,and to which I was attached, remained in or about the boat-house, at thefishing station. Independent of these four parties, well-armed bandswere despatched into the Umbiqua country both by land and sea.
In the beginning, our warfare on the shores of the Pacific amountedmerely to skirmishes, but by-and-by, the Callapoos having joined theUmbiquas with a numerous party, the game assumed more interest. We notonly lost our advantages in the Umbiqua country, but were obliged littleby little to retire to the Post; this, however, proved to be oursalvation. We were but one hundred and six men, whilst our adversariesmustered four hundred and eighty, and yet full one-fifth of their numberwere destroyed in one afternoon, during a desperate attack which theymade upon the Post, which had been put into an admirable state ofdefence.
The roof had been covered with sheets of copper, and holes had beenopened in various parts of the wall for the use of the cannon, of ourpossession of which the enemy was ignorant. The first assault wasgallantly conducted, and every one of the loopholes was choked withtheir balls and arrows. On they advanced, in a close and thick body,with ladders and torches, yelling like a million of demons. When at thedistance of sixty yards, we poured upon them the contents of our twoguns; they were heavily loaded with grape-shot, and produced a mostterrible effect. The enemy did not retreat; raising their war-whoop, asthey rushed, with a determination truly heroical.
The guns were again fired, and also the whole of our musketry, afterwhich a party of forty of our men made a sortie. This last charge wassudden and irresistible; the enemy fled in every direction, leavingbehind their dead and wounded. That evening we received a reinforcementof thirty-eight men from the settlement, with a large supply of buffalomeat and twenty fine young fat colts. This was a great comfort to us,as, for several days, we had been obliged to live upon our dried fish.
During seven days we saw nothing of the enemy; but our scouts scoured inevery direction, and our long-boat surprised, in a bay opposite GeorgePoint thirty-six large boats, in which the Callapoos had come from theirterritory. The boats were destroyed, and their keepers scalped. As theheat was very intense, we resolved not to confine ourselves any morewithin the walls of the Post; we formed a spacious camp, to the east ofthe block-house, with breastworks of uncommon strength. This planprobably saved us from some contagious disease; indeed, the bad smell ofthe dried fish, and the rarefied air in the building, had already begunto affect many of our men, especially the wounded.
At the end of a week, our enemy re-appeared, silent and determined.They had returned for revenge or for death; the st
ruggle was to be afearful one. They encamped in the little open prairie on the other sideof the river, and mustered about six hundred men.
The first war-party had overthrown and dispersed the Bonnaxes, as theywere on their way to join the Flat-heads; and the former tribe not beingable to effect the intended junction, threw itself among the Cayuses andNez-perces. These three combined nations, after a desultory warfare,gave way before the second war-party; and the Bonnaxes, being nowrendered desperate by their losses and the certainty that they would beexterminated if the Shoshones should conquer, joined the Callapoos andUmbiquas, to make one more attack upon our little garrison.
Nothing could have saved us, had the Flat-heads held out any longer; butthe Black-feet, their irreconcilable enemies, seizing the opportunity,had entered their territory. They sued to us for peace, and thendetachments from both war-parties hastened to our help. Of this we wereapprised by our runners; and having previously concerted measures withmy father, I started alone to meet these detachments, in the passes ofthe Mineral Mountains. The returning warriors were seven hundredstrong, and had not lost more than thirteen men in their twoexpeditions; they divided into three bands, and succeeded, withoutdiscovery, in surrounding the prairie in which the enemy were encamped;an Indian was then sent to cross the river, a few miles to the east, andcarry a message to my father.
The moon rose at one in the morning. It was arranged that, two hoursbefore its rising, the garrison of the block-house, which had alreadysuffered a great deal, during four days of a close siege, were to letoff the fire-works that I had received from the Mexicans at Monterey,and to watch well the shore on their side of the river; for we were tofall upon the enemy during their surprise, occasioned by such an unusualdisplay. All happened as was intended. At the first rocket, theBonnaxes, Callapoos, and Umbiquas were on the alert; but astonishmentand admiration very soon succeeded their fear of surprise, which theyknew could not be attempted from their opponents in front. The bombsburst, the wheels threw their large circles of coloured sparks, and thesavages gazed in silent admiration. But their astonishment was followedby fear of supernatural agency; confusion spread among them, and theirsilence was at last broken by hundreds of loud voices!! The moment hadnow come, the two Shoshone war-parties rushed upon their terrifiedvictims, and an hour afterwards, when the moon rose and shone above theprairie, its mild beams were cast upon four hundred corpses. The wholeof the Bonnax and Umbiqua party were entirely destroyed. The Callapoossuffered but little, having dispersed, and run toward the sea-shore atthe beginning of the affray.
Thus ended the great league against the Shoshones, which tradition willspeak of in ages yet to come. But these stirring events were followedby a severe loss to me. My father, aged as he was, had shown a greatdeal of activity during the last assault, and he had undergone muchprivation and fatigue: his high spirit sustained him to the very last ofthe struggle; but when all was over, and the reports of the rifles nolonger whizzed to his ears, his strength gave way, and, ten days afterthe last conflict, he died of old age, fatigue, and grief. On theborders of the Pacific Ocean, a few miles inland, I have raised hisgrave. The wild flowers that grow upon it are fed by the clear watersof the Nu eleje sha wako, and the whole tribe of the Shoshones will longwatch over the tomb of the Pale-face from a distant land, who was oncetheir instructor and their friend.
As for my two friends, Gabriel and Roche, they had been both seriouslywounded, and it was a long time before they were recovered.
We passed the remainder of the summer in building castles in the air forthe future, and at last agreed to go to Monterey to pass the winter.Fate, however, ordered otherwise, and a succession of adventures, thecurrent of which I could not oppose, forced me through many wild scenesand countries, which I have yet to describe.