Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet. Фредерик Марриет
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but a stranger will ever trust them. They are as cowardly as cruel. Murder and robbery are the whole occupation of their existence, and woe to the traders or trappers whom they may meet with during their excursions, if they are not at least one-tenth of their own number. A proof of their cowardice is that once Roche, myself, and a young Parisian named Gabriel, having by chance fallen upon a camp of thirteen Crows and three Arrapahoes, they left us their tents, furs, and dried meats; the Arrapahoes alone showing some fight, in which one of them was killed: but to return to our subject. The chief heard the Prince Seravalle with a contemptuous air, clearly showing that he knew who the Prince was, and that he entertained no goodwill towards him. His duplicity, however, and greediness, getting the better of his hatred, he asked the prisoners what they would give to obtain their freedom. Upon their answer that they would give two rifles, two horses, with one hundred dollars, he said that all which the prisoners possessed when taken, being already his own, he expected much more than that. He demanded that one of the Canadians should go to Fort Hall, with five Crows, with an order from the Prince to the amount of sixty blankets, twenty rifles, and ten kegs of powder. In the meantime the prisoners were to be carried into the country of the Crows, where the goods were to follow them as soon as obtained; upon the reception of which, the white men should be set at liberty. Understanding now the intention of their enemies, and being certain that, once in the strong-holds of the Crows, they would never be allowed to return, the Prince rejected the offer; wishing, however, to gain time, he made several others, which, of course, were not agreed upon. When the chief saw that he was not likely to obtain anything more than that which he had already become master of, he threw away his mask of hypocrisy, and, resuming at once his real character, began to abuse his victims.
“The Pale-faces,” he said, “were base dogs, and too great cowards to fight against the Crows. They were less than women, concealing themselves in the lodges of the Shoshones, and lending them their rifles, so that having now plenty of arms and ammunition, that tribe had become strong, and feared by all. But now they would kill the Pale-faces, and they would see what colour was the blood of cowards. When dead, they could not give any more rifles, or powder, to the Shoshones, who would then bury themselves like prairie-dogs in their burrows, and never again dare to cross the path of a Crow.”
The Prince replied to the chief with scorn. “The Crows,” he said, “ought not to speak so loud, lest they should be heard by the Shoshone braves, and lies should never be uttered in open air. What were the Crows before the coming of the white men, on the shores of the Buona Ventura? They had no country of their own, for one part of it had been taken by the Black-feet, and the other by the Arrapahoes and the Shoshones. Then the Crows were like doves hunted by the hawks of the mountains. They would lie concealed in deep fissures of the earth, and never stir but during night, so afraid were they of encountering a Shoshone. But the white men assembled the Shoshones around their settlements, and taught them to remain at peace with their neighbours. They had been so for four years; the Crows had had time to build other wigwams. Why did they act like wolves, biting their benefactors instead of showing to them their gratitude?”
The Prince, though an old man, had much mettle in him, especially when his blood was up. He had become a Shoshone, in all except ferocity; he heartily despised the rascally Crows. As to the chief, he firmly grasped the handle of his tomahawk, so much did he feel the bitter taunts of his captive. Suddenly, a rustling was heard, then the sharp report of a rifle, and one of the Crows, leaping high in the air, fell down a corpse.
“The chief hath spoken too loud,” said the Prince, “I hear the step of a Shoshone; the Crows had better run away to the mountains, or their flesh will fatten the dogs of our village.”
An expression of rage and deep hatred shot across the features of the chief, but he stood motionless, as did all his men, trying to catch the sounds, to ascertain in which direction they should fly from the danger.
“Fear has turned the Crows into stones,” resumed the Prince, “what has become of their light feet? I see the Shoshones.”
“The dog of a Pale-face will see them no more,” replied the savage, as he buried his tomahawk in the skull of the unfortunate nobleman, who was thus doomed to meet with an inglorious death in a distant land.
The other prisoners, who were bound, could of course offer no resistance. The French savant and two of his guides were butchered in an instant, but before the remainder of the party could be sacrificed, a well-directed volley was poured upon the compact body of the Crows, who rushed immediately to the woods for cover, leaving behind them twenty dead and wounded, besides their cruel chief. Then from the thickets behind appeared thirty Shoshones, who immediately gave chase, leaving only one of their men to free the three remaining trappers, and watch over the body of their murdered friend and legislator.
A sharp tiralleur fire from their respective covers were carried on between the Shoshones and Crows for half an hour, in which the Crows lost ten more scalps, and having at length reached a rugged hill full of briars and bushes, they took fairly to their heels, without even attempting to answer the volleys poured after them. The victims were carried to the settlement, and the very day they were consigned to their grave, the Shoshones started for the land of the Crows. The results of the expedition I have mentioned already.
With my father I found the three trappers; two of whom were preparing to start for California, but the third, a young Parisian, who went by the name of Gabriel, preferred remaining with us, and never left me until a long time afterwards, when we parted upon the borders of the Mississippi, when I was forcing my way towards the Atlantic Ocean. He and Roche, when I parted with them, had directed their steps back to the Shoshones; they delighted too much in a life of wild and perilous adventure to leave it so soon, and the Irishman vowed that if he ever returned within the pale of civilisation, it would be to Monterey, the only place where, in his long wanderings, he had found a people congenial to his own ideas.
When, in the meeting of a great council, I apprised the tribe of the attack made upon the boat-house by the Umbiquas, and of its results, there was a loud burst of satisfaction. I was made a War-Chief on the spot; and it was determined that a party should immediately proceed to chastise the Umbiquas. My father did not allow me to join it, as there was much to be done in settling the affairs of the Prince, and paying the debts he had contracted at Fort Hall; consequently, I led a clerk’s life for two months, writing accounts, etcetera—rather a dull occupation, for which I had not the smallest relish. During this time, the expedition against the Umbiquas had been still more successful than that against the Crows; and, in fact, that year was a glorious one for the Shoshones, who will remember it a long while, as a period in which leggings and mocassins were literally sewn with human hair, and in which the blanched and unburied bones of their enemies, scattered on the prairie, scared even the wolves from crossing the Buona Ventura. Indeed, that year was so full of events, that my narration would be too much swelled if I were to enumerate them all.
I had not forgotten the cachette at our landing-place. Every thing was transferred to the boat-house, and the hot days of summer having already begun to render the settlement unpleasant, we removed to the sea-shore, while the major part of the tribe went to hunt in the rolling prairies of the south.
The presents of the good people of Monterey proved to be a treat acquisition to my father. There were many books, which he appropriated to himself; being now too aged and infirm to bear the fatigues of Indian life, he had become fond of retirement and reading. As to Gabriel and Roche, we became inseparable, and though in some points we were not on an equality, yet the habit of being constantly together and sharing the same tent united us like brothers.
As my readers will eventually discover, many daring deeds did we perform together, and many pleasant days did we pass, both in the northern cities of Mexico and western prairies of Texas, hunting with the Comanches, and occasionally unmasking some rascally Texians, who, under the paint of an Indian, would commit their murders and depredations upon the remote settlements of their own countrymen.
Chapter Nine
In the remarks which I am about to make relative to the Shoshones, I may as well observe that the same observations will equally apply to the Comanches, Apaches, and Arrapahoes, as they are but subdivisions and offsets from the original stock—the Shoshones. The Wakoes, who have not yet been mentioned, or even seen, by any other travellers,