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The voyagers were now out of range of Crows and Black-feet; but they were approaching the country of the Rees, or Arickaras; a tribe no less dangerous; and who were, generally, hostile to small parties. In passing through their country, Wyeth laid by all day, and drifted quietly down the river at night.
There never was any peace between the Crees and the Black-feet; they were always bitter enemies. When the battle began, the leader of the Crees came right up to our tepee and slit it, and said: ‘You people are sleeping yet, and I came,’ I fired a gun and killed him. The Crees took their knives and slit the tepees of our village down the sides and then rushed in.
The color in her cheeks deepened and it was she who now dropped her eyes. "We had arranged to join the train long before we left Rochester," she answered. "Everybody said it was dangerous to travel in a small party. Dr. Whitman told my father that." "There's been nothing dangerous so far." "No, it's later when we get into the country of the Sioux and the Black-feet.
For instance, during time of peace a Cree steals five horses from a Black-foot. In that case the particular branch of the Cree nation to which the thief belonged would have to give up ten horses to Government, which would be handed over to the Black-feet as restitution and atonement.
I have seen it in use among seven or eight Dakota sub-tribes, among the Iowas, Otoes, and Pawnees, and among the Black-feet, Crows, Assiniboines, and Crees. In 1878 I saw it in use among the Utes of Colorado. A collection of fifty of these tents, which would accommodate five hundred persons, make a picturesque appearance.
The history of this bold deed spread in a short time to even the remotest tribes of the North, and when, years afterwards, Boone fell a prisoner to the Black-feet Indians, they restored him to liberty and loaded him with presents, saying, that they could not hurt the great brave who had vanquished in his own den the evil spirit of the mountains.
And they pranced with their butterfly partners there, Coal-black maidens with pearls in their hair, Knee-skirts trimmed with the jassamine sweet, And bells on their ankles and little black-feet. There are those who call this nonsense and its author a mountebank. I call it poetry and its author a poet. You never heard anything like it before; but do not be afraid of your own enjoyment.
How the Black-feet caught the infection it is difficult to say as their immediate neighbours in the east escaped; but the sites of their villages were well calculated to render the disease more general and terrible: their settlements being generally built in some recess, deep in the heart of the mountains, or in valleys surrounded by lofty hills, which prevent all circulation of the air; and it is easy to understand that the atmosphere, once becoming impregnated with the effluvia, and having, no issue, must have been deadly.
Nothing could have saved us, had the Flat-heads held out any longer; but the Black-feet, their irreconcilable enemies, seizing the opportunity, had entered their territory. They sued to us for peace, and then detachments from both war-parties hastened to our help.
“Nor clasp nor nodding plume was there; But for feather he wore one lock of hair.” Marmion. Then, again, how will the watch-fires that blazed upon the mountains pale before the glare of a burning haggard; and what cheer that ever rose from Highland throats will vie with the wild yell of ten thousand Black-feet on the march of a midnight marauding?
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