第41章 Irving’s Bonneville - Chapter 14(1)

The party enters the mountain gorge--A wild fastness among hills--Mountainmutton--Peace and

plenty--The amorous trapper-A piebald wedding-A free trapper's wife-Her galaequipments-Christmas in the wilderness.

ON the 19th of December Captain Bonneville and his confederate Indians raised their camp,and

entered the narrow gorge made by the north fork of Salmon River. Up this lay the secure andplenteous hunting region so temptingly described by the Indians.

Since leaving Green River the plains had invariably been of loose sand or coarse gravel, andthe

rocky formation of the mountains of primitive limestone. The rivers, in general, were skirtedwith

willows and bitter cottonwood trees, and the prairies covered with wormwood. In the hollowbreast

of the mountains which they were now penetrating, the surrounding heights were clothed withpine;

while the declivities of the lower hills afforded abundance of bunch grass for the horses.

As the Indians had represented, they were now in a natural fastness of the mountains, theingress and

egress of which was by a deep gorge, so narrow, rugged, and difficult as to prevent secretapproach

or rapid retreat, and to admit of easy defence. The Blackfeet, therefore, refrained from venturingin

after the Nez Perces, awaiting a better chance, when they should once more emerge into the opencountry.

Captain Bonneville soon found that the Indians had not exaggerated the advantages of thisregion.

Besides the numerous gangs of elk, large flocks of the ahsahta or bighorn, the mountain sheep,were

to be seen bounding among the precipices. These simple animals were easily circumvented anddestroyed. A few hunters may surround a flock and kill as many as they please. Numbers weredaily

brought into camp, and the flesh of those which were young and fat was extolled as superior tothe

finest mutton.

Here, then, there was a cessation from toil, from hunger, and alarm. Past ills and dangerswere

forgotten. The hunt, the game, the song, the story, the rough though good-humored joke, madetime

pass joyously away, and plenty and security reigned throughout the camp.

Idleness and ease, it is said, lead to love, and love to matrimony, in civilized life, and thesame

process takes place in the wilderness. Filled with good cheer and mountain mutton, one of thefree

trappers began to repine at the solitude of his lodge, and to experience the force of that great lawof

nature, "it is not meet for man to live alone.''

After a night of grave cogitation he repaired to Kowsoter, the Pierced-nose chief, andunfolded to

him the secret workings of his bosom.

"I want," said he, "a wife. Give me one from among your tribe. Not a young, giddy-patedgirl, that

will think of nothing but flaunting and finery, but a sober, discreet, hard-working squaw; one thatwill share my lot without flinching, however hard it may be; that can take care of my lodge, andbe

a companion and a helpmate to me in the wilderness." Kowsoter promised to look round amongthe

females of his tribe, and procure such a one as he desired. Two days were requisite for the search.

At the expiration of these, Kowsoter, called at his lodge, and informed him that he would bringhis

bride to him in the course of the afternoon. He kept his word. At the appointed time heapproached,

leading the bride, a comely copper-colored dame attired in her Indian finery. Her father, mother,brothers by the half dozen and cousins by the score, all followed on to grace the ceremony andgreet

the new and important relative.

The trapper received his new and numerous family connection with proper solemnity; heplaced his

bride beside him, and, filling the pipe, the great symbol of peace, with his best tobacco, took twoor

three whiffs, then handed it to the chief who transferred it to the father of the bride, from whom itwas passed on from hand to hand and mouth to mouth of the whole circle of kinsmen round thefire,

all maintaining the most profound and becoming silence.

After several pipes had been filled and emptied in this solemn ceremonial, the chiefaddressed the

bride, detailing at considerable length the duties of a wife which, among Indians, are little lessonerous than those of the pack-horse; this done, he turned to her friends and congratulated themupon

the great alliance she had made. They showed a due sense of their good fortune, especially whenthe

nuptial presents came to be distributed among the chiefs and relatives, amounting to about onehundred and eighty dollars. The company soon retired, and now the worthy trapper found indeedthat

he had no green girl to deal with; for the knowing dame at once assumed the style and dignity ofa

trapper's wife: taking possession of the lodge as her undisputed empire, arranging everythingaccording to her own taste and habitudes, and appearing as much at home and on as easy termswith

the trapper as if they had been man and wife for years.

We have already given a picture of a free trapper and his horse, as furnished by CaptainBonneville:

we shall here subjoin, as a companion picture, his description of a free trapper's wife, that thereader