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Show 76 AUTOBIOGL~APHY 0~' There lay the general's fortune in one immense pile, collected at the expense of severe toil, privation, suffering, peril, and, in some cases, los~ of life. It ':as supposed the general was indebted In the mountains and elsewhere to the amount of $7 5,000. The skins he had purchased of the Northwest Company and free trappers had cost him comparatively little; if he should meet with no misfortune on his way to St. Louis, he would receive enough to pay all his debts, and have an ample fortune besides. In about a week the general was ready to start for home. The packs were all arranged ; our Salt Lake friends offered him the loan of all the horses he wanted, and engaged to escort him to the head of Wind River, one of the branches of the Yell ow Stone. The number selected to return with the general was twenty men, including my humble self; thirty men were to accompany us as a guard, and to return the horses we had borrowed. The night previous to our departure, I and my boy Baptiste were sleeping among the packs, as were also some of the other men, when the sentinel came to me ~-o tell me that he had seen something which he believed to be Indians. I arose, and satisfied myself that he was correct. I sent a man to acquaint the general, at the same time waking the boy and two men near me. We noiselessly raised ourselves, took as good aim as possible, and, at a signal from me, all four fired. We saw two men run. By this time the whole camp was aroused; the general asked me what I had fired at. I told him I believed an Indian. " Very good," said he; "whenever you see an Indian about the camp at night, you do right to shoot him . " ' JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 77 Our whole force was on guard from that time till the morning, when we discovered two dead Indians lying where we had directed our aim in the night. We knew they had been killed by our guns, for the other two men fired with shot-guns loaded with buck-shot. One had been killed with a ball through the arm and body; the other was shot through the head. We at first supposed that the two Indians belonged to the Black Feet, but we subsequently found they were Crows. One of them wore a fine pair of buckskin leggins, which I took from him and put on myself. We started with an escort of fifty men, following the "VVind River down to the Yellow Stone, where we built our boats to descend the river. On the sixth day after leaving camp, while we were packing our effects for an early start, the alarm of "Indians ! " was given, and, on looking out, we saw an immense body of them, well mounted, charging directly down upon our camp. Every man seized his rifle, and prepared for the living tornado. The general gave orders for no man to fire until he did. By this time the Indians were within half pistol shot. Greenwood (one of our party) pronounced them Crows, and called out several times not to shoot. We kept our eyes upon our general; he pulled trigger, but his gun missed fire, and our camp was immediately filled with their warriors. Most fortunate was it for us that the general's gun did miss fire, for they numbered over a thousand warriors, and not a man of us would have escaped to see the Yellow Stone. Greenwood, who knew the Crows, •acted as interpreter between our general and the Indian chief, whose name was Ap-sar-o-ka Bet-set-sa, Sparrow- Hawk Chief. |
