CHAPTER X.
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; it wasshared 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 whichwas sufficient in itself to bear down all their enemies, independent ofthe immense power they had obtained from their quantity of fire-arms andalmost inexhaustible ammunition. All the other nations were jealous oftheir strength and resources, and this jealousy being now worked up toits climax, they determined to unite and strike a great blow, not onlyto destroy the ascendancy which the Shoshones had attained, but also topossess themselves of the immense wealth which they foolishly supposedthe Europeans had brought with them to the settlement.
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 Umbiquasshowed 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 carriedeverything before them, for the majority of our warriors were stillhunting. But having been apprised of the danger, they returned inhaste, and the aspect of affairs soon changed. The lost ground wasregained inch by inch. The Arrapahoes having suffered a great deal,retired from the league, and having now nothing to fear from the south,we turned against our assailants on our northern boundaries.Notwithstanding the desertion of the Arrapahoes, the united tribes werestill three times our number, but they wanted union, and did not act inconcert. They mustered about fifteen thousand warriors, from theUmbiquas, Callapoos, Cayuses, Nez-perces, Bonnaxes, Flat-heads, and someof the Crows, who had not yet gained prudence from their last"brushing." The superiority of our arms, our tactics, discipline, andart of intrenchment, together with the good service of two clumsy oldSpanish four-pounders, enabled us not only in a short time to destroythe league, but also to crush and annihilate for ever some of ourtreacherous neighbours. As it would be tedious to a stranger to followthe movements of the whole campaign, I will merely mention that part ofit in which I assisted[13].
[Footnote 13: The system of prairie warfare is so different from ours,that the campaign I have just related will not be easily understood bythose acquainted only with European military tactics.
When a European army starts upon an expedition, it is always accompaniedby 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 ofdried venison, a pound weight of powder, and a corresponding quantity oflead, if he has a rifle, but if not, with his lance, bow, arrows, andtomahawk, the warrior enters the war-path. In the closer country, forwater and fuel, he trusts to the streams and to the trees of the forestsor mountains; when in the prairie, to the mud holes and chasms forwater, and to the buffalo-dung for his fire. His rifle and arrows willalways give him enough of food.
But these supplies would not, of course, be sufficient for a greatnumber of men; ten thousand for example. A water-hole would be drainedby the first two or three hundred men that might arrive, and theremainder would be obliged to go without any. Then, unless perchancethey should fall upon a large herd of buffaloes, they would never beable to find the means of sustaining life. A buffalo, or three or fourdeer can be killed every day, by hunters out of the tract of anexpedition; this supply would suffice for a small war party, but itwould never do for an army.
Except in the buffalo ranges, where the Comanches, the Apaches, and theSouthern Shoshones will often go by bands of thousands, the generalityof 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, theywould be divided into fifteen or twenty bands, each commanded by aninferior chief. The first party will start for reconnoitering. The nextday the second band, accompanied by the great chiefs, will follow, butin another track; and so on with a third, till three hundred or threehundred and fifty are united together. Then they will begin theiroperations, new parties coming to take the place of those who havesuffered, till they themselves retire to make room for others. Every newcomer brings a supply of provisions, the produce of their chase incoming, so that those who are fighting need be in no fear of wanting thenecessaries of life. By this the reader will see that a band of twothousand 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 fourwar parties: one which acted against the Bonnaxes and the Flat-heads, inthe north-east; the second, against the Cayuses and Nez-perces, at theforks of the Buona Ventura and Calumet rivers; the third remained nearthe settlement, to protect it from surprise; while the fourth, a verysmall one, under my father's command, and to which I was attached,remained in or about the boat-house, at the fishing station. Independentof these four parties, well-armed bands were despatched into the Umbiquacountry both by land and sea.
In the beginning, our warfare on the shores of the Pacific amountedmerely to skirmishes, but by-and-bye, 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 stateof defence.
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, onthey 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 fromtheir territory. The boats were destroyed, and their keepers scalped. Asthe heat 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 reappeared, silent and determined. Theyhad returned for revenge or for death; the struggle was to be a fearfulone. They encamped in the little open prairie on the other side of theriver, and mustered about s
ix 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 hundred strong,and had not lost more than thirteen men in their two expeditions; theydivided into three bands, and succeeded, without discovery, insurrounding the prairie in which the enemy were encamped; an Indian wasthen sent to cross the river, a few miles to the east, and carry amessage 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 fireworks that I had received from the Mexicans at Monterey, andto watch well the shore on their side of the river; for we were to fallupon 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 towards 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 followed bya severe loss to me. My father, aged as he was, had shown a great dealof activity during the last assault, and he had undergone much privationand fatigue: his high spirit sustained him to the very last of thestruggle; 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 waters ofthe 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.
The Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet in California, Sonora, and Western Texas Page 10