A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  The original winter quarters this year were on the Salmon near the Forks. I frequently identify these places in modern terms in hopes it will make a-quick survey of movements easier for the reader. In this case it can’t be done. This is still a primitive area and quite as wild as it was when the wintering camps of '32-'33 were there. It’s about 100 miles southwest of, Butte, Montana, and 140 miles northeast of Boise, Idaho, in the Salmon National Forest.

  The total wintering party was huge, consisting of not only the RMF brigades but Drips’ men and assorted concentrations of Nez Perces and Flatheads that came and went.

  In addition to these familiar faces there was also an encampment belonging to Captain Bonneville. At the time of Rendezvous 1832 Bonneville had been camped in the valley of the Green River, near Fontenelle’s supply caravan. It had been his original intention to build a fort near the mouth of Horse Creek, and this post was in fact begun. (In the history books you will find it as Fort Bonneville or Bonneville’s Old Fort. The mountain men called it variously Fort Nonsense or Bonneville’s Folly. Four names, and it was never used.)

  Information received from Fontenelle had convinced the captain that winters on the high plateau of the Green were too severe, for a permanent post, and he moved on across the mountains. In transit he made a sort of grand tour of the summer’s battlefields. In Jackson’s Hole he found—and "decently interred"—the remains of the two men killed in the Gros Ventre ambush of Alfred Stephens’ little party. He moved across the Tetons, camped on the site of the battle of Pierre’s Hole, and was duly impressed by the evidences of recent activity there.

  By the 26th of September he had reached the upper waters of the Salmon. He put his horses to pasture, threw up a temporary fortification, got out his sextant, and meticulously noted his latitude some fifty miles too far north. (The captain was a handy man with navigational procedure; he had also gotten the longitude of Fort Bonneville wrong by about 125 miles.)

  The essentials accomplished, he settled down for his first winter in the mountains and was soon after joined by the wintering camps of RMF and the Company. During the fall his company was broken up into at least four smaller groups, trapping, getting lost, getting robbed, getting starved and shot up. Bonneville himself wandered about a good deal, acquiring, among other mementos of the mountains, a Nez Perce wife: "Not a young, giddy-pated girl, that will think of nothing but flaunting and finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw."

  When Washington Irving was writing his book about Bonneville, he worked directly from Bonneville’s journals and notes. Once in a while he quoted verbatim, apparently feeling that Bonneville’s style was temporarily adequate. One such case was Bonneville’s description of the free trapper’s bride, given in connection with his own marriage. With Meek’s description of Mountain Lamb in her finery this forms the classic picture of the white-married squaw:

  The free trapper, while a bachelor, has no greater pet than his horse; but the moment he takes a wife (a sort of brevet rank in matrimony occasionally bestowed upon some Indian fair one, like the heroes of ancient chivalry in the open Held), he discovers that he has a still more fanciful and capricious animal on which to lavish his expenses.

  No sooner does an Indian belle experience this promotion, than all her notions at once rise and expand to the dignity of her situation, and the purse of her lover, and his credit into the bargain, are taxed to the utmost to, fit her out in becoming style. The wife of a free trapper to be equipped and arrayed like any ordinary and undistinguished squaw? Perish the grovelling thought! In the first place, she must have a horse for her own riding; but no jaded, sorry, earth spirited hack, such as is sometimes assigned by an Indian husband for the transportation of his squaw and her pappooses: the wife of a free trader must have the most beautiful animal she can lay her eyes on. And then, as to his decoration: headstall, breastbands; saddle and crupper are lavishly embroidered with beads, and hung with thimbles, hawks' bells, and bunches of ribbons. From each side of the saddle hangs an esquimoot, a sort of pocket, in which she bestows the residue of her trinkets and nick-nacks, which cannot be crowded on the decoration of her horse or herself. Over this she folds, with great care, a drapery. of scarlet and bright-colored calicoes, and now considers the caparison of her steed complete.

  As to her own person, she is even still more extravagant. Her hair, esteemed beautiful in proportion to its length, is carefully plaited, and made to fall with seeming negligence over either breast. Her riding hat is stuck full of parti-colored feathers; her robe, fashioned somewhat after that of the white’s is of red, green, and sometimes gray cloth, but always of the finest texture that can be procured. Her leggings and moccasins are of the most beautiful and expensive workmanship, and fitted neatly to the foot and ankle, f which with the Indian woman are generally well formed and delicate. Then as to jewelry: in the way of finger-rings, ear-rings, necklaces, and other female glories, nothing within reach of the trapper’s means is omitted that can tend to impress the beholder with an g idea ofthe lady’s high estate. To finish the whole, she ° selects from among her blankets of various dyes one of some glowing color, and throwing it over her shoulders with a native grace, vaults into the saddle of her gay, prancing steed, and is ready to follow her mountaineer "to the last gasp with love and loyalty.”

  This description is a lot like a Hollywood Indian; a pretty white woman dressed up funny. Still, disregarding the genteelizing tone, the details are among the best we have. It is certainly true that—after liquor—most of the squaw men were kept broke buying foofaraw for their wives and had to get credit from the companies to outfit themselves with traps for the year’s hunt. (Joe Meek says he paid for Mountain Lamb’s outfitting: horse, $300; saddle, crupper and girths, $150; bridle, $50; 'musk-a-moots," $50. But he is lying.) It was even said that some of the free trappers bought foofaraw before liquor at rendezvous .... ‘

  Before the end of January, 1833, the companies were forced to move. The size of this encampment imposed an impossible drain on the grazing resources of the area. One RMF brigade moved across the Snake River plains to the junction of the Snake and Portneuf, present Pocatello, Idaho, while another moved to the Lemhi valley, not far from the Forks.

  Grazing was not the only problem this winter. There were a lot of Blackfeet around who hadn’t been listening attentively enough to McKenzie. War parties were on the prod all over eastern Idaho, even in the bitterest winter for many years. This was part of an early form of five-year plan. With the powder, lead, and guns they got from McKenzie's post the Backfeet had entered on a considered campaign to make the world safe for Blackfeet. Practically speaking, this worked out the way most such things have in history; it involved killing everybody that wasn’t Blackfeet. First, according to their schedule, the Flatheads, Crows, and other tribes. Last of all, the white men; one can’t cut the throat of one’s armaments dealer until near the very end.

  They made a good stab at it during the winter of '32-'33, but it was costly. On Godin’s River (present Big Lost River in central Idaho) they attacked a village of Bannocks and Snakes, which turned out to be more than they had bargained for. The Blackfeet retreated to a willow grove; a grave tactical error, because the Snakes promptly fired the grove and butchered Bug’s Boys as they were driven out by the flames.

  Several other attacks occurred during the winter, and in general things were kept lively. It was late in the spring when the Blackfeet started moving north again, back to their home country. They made a passing swipe at a bunch of Flatheads—killing all but one, but suffering heavy losses themselves.

  Ammunition was low by that time; some reports said the mountain marauders were down to using stones for balls. So maybe it was time to put on a good heart and go see McKenzie, with a white flag.

  ***

  There were at least two RMP brigades on the Spring '33 hunt, of which we have information on only one. This one, led by Milton Sublette and Jean Baptiste Gervais, intended to work the Malade River (present Big Woo
d) in southern Idaho. ("Malade"—I think—from the poison beaver sickness of Peter Skene Ogden’s HBC brigade there.)

  On the 6th of April they were on their way south to the Malade, and had holed up from the severe weather in the canyon of Godin’s River. There they were discovered by two "spies" who turned out to be from Captain Bonneville’s party.

  Bonneville was thoroughly disgusted at finding the RMF men moving in the same direction. He had been having troubles enough learning the trade, and this was the last straw. As he aptly evaluated the situation,

  to have to compete there with veteran trappers, perfectly at home among the mountains, and admirably mounted, while [we] were so poorly provided with horses and trappers, and had but one man . . acquainted with the country—it was out of the question.

  RMF and Bonneville now camped near each other; "not out of companionship," says Irving, "but to keep an eye upon each other." Both parties were held up here. The extraordinary snows of this winter had blocked all exit from Godin’s River toward the Malade. Several times Milton and Gervais tried to push through and were turned back. In the meantime Bonneville hoped his horses would be gaining strength; the delay was in his favor.

  Finally, toward the end of April, they made their way through.

  Lucien Fontenelle had begun Bonneville’s mountain educae tion by stealing off a couple of the latter’s Delaware hunters; RMF now put the polish to this rough learning.

  We shall not [says Irving] follow the captain throughout his trapping campaign, which lasted until the beginning of June, nor detail all the manoeuvres of the rival trapping parties and their various schemes to outwit and out-trap each other . . . after having visited and camped about various streams with varying success, Captain Bonneville set forward early in June for the appointed rendezvous.

  Which, freely translated, means it was a massacre. Milton and Gervais mopped up southern Idaho with Bonnevil1e’s men. He arrived at Rendezvous 1833 with only twenty-two packs of beaver, having learned just how much "out of the question" it was to compete directly with the RMP brigades.

  ***

  This is about the only information we have on RMF’s Spring '33.hunt. Fitzpatrick, Bridger, and Fraeb are unaccounted for. The one man who might have helped out, Joe Meek, didn’t. At the point in River of the West where Joe should have been detailing the spring hunt for the benefit of historians he was, instead, telling another story.

  This is my favorite, and it happened at the second winter camp (on the. Portneuf). Meek, Hawkins, Doughty, and Antoine Claymore3 were out on a htmting party:

  As they traveled along under a projecting ledge of rocks, they came to a place where there were the impressions in the snow of enormous grizzly bear feet. . . . .

  At length Doughty proposed to get up on the rocks above the mouth of the cavern and shoot the bear as he came out, if somebody would go in and dislodge him.

  "I‘m your man," answered Meek.

  "And I too," said Claymore.

  "I’ll be damned if we are not as brave as you are," said Hawkins, as he prepared to follow.

  On entering the cave, which was sixteen or twenty feet square, and high enough to stand erect in, instead of one, three bears were discovered. They were standing, the largest one in the middle, with their eyes staring at the entrance, but quite quiet, greeting the hunters only with a low growl. Finding that there was a bear apiece to be disposed of, the hunters kept close to the wall, and out of the stream of light from the entrance while they advanced a little way, cautiously, towards their game, which however, seemed to take no notice of them. After maneuvering a few minutes ..to get nearer, Meek finally struck the large bear on the head with his wiping-stick, when it immediately moved off and ran out of the cave. As it came out, Doughty shot, but only wounded it, and it came rushing back, snorting and running around in a circle, till the well directed shots from all three killed it on the spot. Two more bears now remained to be disposed of.

  The successful shot put Hawkins in high spirits. He began to hallo and laugh, dancing around, and with the others striking the next largest bear to make him run out, which he soon did, and was shot by Doughty. By this time their guns were reloaded, the men growing more and more elated, and Hawkins declaring they were "all Daniels in the lions’ den, and no mistake." This, and similar expressions, he constantly vociferated, while they drove out the third and smallest bear. As it reached the cave’s mouth, three simultaneous shots put an end to the last one, when Hawkins’ excitement knew no bounds. "Daniel was a humbug," said he. "Daniel in the lions' den! Of course it was winter, and the lions were sucking their paws! Tell me no more of Daniel’s exploits. We are as good Daniels as he ever dared to be. Hurrah for these Daniels!" With these expressions, and playing many antics by way of rejoicing, the delighted Hawkins finally danced himself out of his "lion’s den," and set to work with the others to prepare for a return to camp. . . .

  And ever after this singular exploit of the party, Hawkins continued to aver, in language more strong than elegant, that the Scripture Daniel was a humbug compared to himself, and Meek, and Claymore.

  CHAPTER 20

  "It appears that they make hats of silk"

  KENNETH McKENZIE, King of the Missouri, was one of the most energetic, capable men ever to engage in the trade. He was a man of extraordinary practical imagination; and I rather suspect he took the word "impossible" as a personal affront. We have seen his vigor—and some of his prose style—in the 1831 "treaty with the Blackfeet and Assini

  McKenzie, of course, was behind the various Company brigades whose movements we have sketched here. And while Vanderburgh-Fontenelle-Drips-Robidoux were carrying the battle to RMF in the field, McKenzie was backing them up with a prodigious show of energy. In order to understand the mountain situation in this year of 1833, we will have to catch up on activities Outside.

  McKenzie’s first major project on taking control of Fort Union was to dispatch the interpreter Berger Itoh the Blackfeet; which foray ended in the incredible treaty of 1831. He had, for a starter, opened trade with the most implacable enemies the whites ever encountered in the mountains.

  Even before the treaty had been formally concluded, McKenzie sent a trader into the heart of Blackfoot country. On August 25, 1831, James Kipp and twenty-five men set out from Fort Union to build a permanent post with Bug’s Boys. It was probably in the middle of October that Kipp arrived at the mouth of the Marias River and Commenced his fort on the angle between the Marias and the Missouri (roughly fifty miles-downstream from present Great Falls, Montana).

  This short-lived post was known, appropriately enough, as Fort Piegan, The Piegans were McKenzie’s principal contact among the Blackfeet; which was good. They were the least bloodthirsty of the tribal divisions and were also the beaver hunters of the tribe.

  McKenzie had no intention whatever of trapping in Blackfoot territory; that simply led to lifted hair and too little beaver. Lost scalps and gained furs ran too close to each other in number. (This is a feature of the fur trade observed by no less a body than the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose rather chilling motto was Pro Pelle Cutem: For a Pelt, a Skin.)

  And when white men set traps on Blackfoot land, the Piegans cheerfully joined in the massacre as a rudimentary conservation measure. This was no bright revelation, of course; the "wave of hostility" of 1823, resulting in the Aricara campaign, was directly attributable to just that. A great many Indians who were perfectly willing to trade their own catch were distinctly unreceptive to the idea of white men skimming off their beaver.

  The Piegans were among the most hostile in this respect. The Ashley-Henry innovation of direct trapping on Indian land (which is still illegal, incidentally, by 1833) was regarded as a threat and imposition amounting to war. Beyond their normal aggressiveness, this is the principal reason the Blackfeet were so implacably hostile to the American parties and were yet able to get along, within reason, with the HBC traders across the line.

  So, when McKenzie established Fort Piegan,
his trader was very well received; according to report, 2,400 skins were brought in during the Erst ten days of trade. This would have been a good year’s catch for twenty men; and gained without the enormous risk and usual loss that twenty men would sustain over a year.

  The experiment was successful. Fort Piegan was soon destroyed, true, but it was almost a gesture of affection. When Kipp returned with his furs to Fort Union in the spring of '32, his men were afraid to remain behind. But the Piegans had been most anxious to have the post remain open through the summer; when the whites refused to do so, they got mad and burned it.

  In fall '32 McKenzie dispatched another man, David Mitchell, to take charge of Blackfoot affairs at the Marias. This almost went badly. Mitchell’s party was accompanied by a number of Blackfeet, and he was carrying a load of presents for the tribes. On the plodding way up the Missouri from Fort Union, the keelboat Fora was broken from her moorings in a storm and lost on a sand bar, together with Mitchell’s outfit and all the presents. For some indeterminate reason, the accompanying Blackfeet got it in their minds that the loss of the keelboat was deliberate, and an insult to the Lords of the Soil. This, for a time, made a touchy situation. However, Mitchell was outfitted again, and made his way safely to the Marias, where he found Fort Piegan burned and the surrounding bands in a bad mood.

  Mitchell moved the location upriver six miles and began a frantic scurry to build a post before anything could happen to precipitate trouble. Several thousand Blackfeet were present at the beginning of this new post, and the whites lived precariously on their keelboat while the fort was being built. Mitchell somehow managed to maintain the peace, and when the stockade had been erected most of the hostiles drifted away. He named the post Fort McKenzie and settled down. The Company was now permanently enforted in the heart of the Blackfoot country.

  McKenzie was not a man to rest on his laurels. No sooner had Fort Piegan been established among the Blackfeet than McKenzie began planning a fort to grab up the trade of the Crows. About the same time that Mitchell was building Fort McKenzie, a post was being constructed at the confluence of the Bighorn and Yellowstone for the Crows. Samuel Tulloch, erstwhile Smith Jackson & Sublette man, built this post, and the official name was Fort Cass, after Lewis Cass, then Secretary of War. (One of Tulloch’s first orders of business was to relieve one of Bormeville’s parties of their furs, while the surrounding Crows relieved them of their horses; a pattern is being established here.)