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Show 142 AUTOBIOGRAPHY O.F' CHAPTER XII. Departure from the Rendezvous.-Trouble in Camp.-Leave the Party and Traps.-Arrival at the Crow Village.-Great Stir among the Crows.-Joyful Meeting with my Crow Parents, Brothers, and Sisters.- Three Years without seeing a White Man. · I NOW parted with very many of my friends for the last time. }lost of the n1embers of that large company now sleep in death, their waking ears no longer to be filled with the death-telling yell of the savage. The manly hearts that shrunk from no danger have ceased to beat; their bones whiten in the gloomy fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, or moulder on the ever-flowering prairies of the far West. A cloven skull is all that remains of my once gallant friends to tell the bloody death that they died, and invoke vengeance on the merciless hand that struck them down in their ruddy youth. Here I parted from the boy Baptiste, who had been my . faithful companion so long. I never saw him aga1n. . The party that I started with consisted of thirty-one men, most of them skillful trappers (Captain B · ger was in our party), and commanded by Robert Campbell. We started for Powder· River, a fork of theY el- . low Stone, and, arriving there ·without accident, were soon busied in our occupation. A circumstance occurred in our encampment on this stream, trivial in itself (for trivial events sometimes determine the course of a man's life), but which led to unexpected results. I had set my six traps over JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 143 • night, and on going to them the following morning I found four beavers, but one of rny traps was missing. I sought it in every direction, but without success, and on my return to camp mentioned the mystery. Captain Bridger (as skillful a hunter as ever lived in the mountains) offered to renew the search with me, expressing confidence that the trap could be found. We searched diligently along the river and the bank for a considerable distance, but the trap was among the missing. The float-pole also was gone-a pole ten or twelve feet long and four inches thick. We at length gave it up as lost. The next morning the whole party moved farther up the river. To shorten our route, Bridger and myself crossed the stream at the spot where I had set my missing trap. It was a buffalo-crossing, and there was a good trail worn in the banks, so that we could easily cross with our horses. After passing and traveling on some two miles, I discovered what I supposed to be a badger, and we both made a rush for him. On closer inspection, however, it proved to be my beaver, with trap, chain, and float-pole. It was apparent that some ·buffalo, in crossing the river, had become entangled in the chain, and, as we conceived, had carried the trap on his shoulder, with the beaver pendent on one s ·de and he pole on the other. We inferred that he bad • in some way got his head under the chain, between the trap and the pole, and, in his endeavors to extricate himself, had pushed his head through. The hump on his back w.ould prevent it passing over his body, and away he would speed with his burden, probably urged forward by the four sharp teeth of the beaver, which · would doubtless object to his sudden equestrian (or rather bovine) journey. We killed the beaver and |
