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Show 394 AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF Crane had said-that he would have his father back by the time the cherries turned red, or that he would suffer his head to be cut off, and deliver up his whites to the Crows, and would not fight. "It shall be so, my son," Yellow Belly assented; "go and tell the Crane to send for your father, for not a warrior shall follow the trail of the white runner, or even look upon it. If he does as he says, the whites shall all live; if he fails, they shall all die. Now go and harangue the people, and tell all the warriors that the Crane is going to send for your father, and the warrior who follows the runner's trail shall die. Yellow Belly has said it." He mounted a horse, and did as the chief had directed. Joseph Pappen volunteered to deliver the message to me: it was encountering a fea1ful hazard. I-Iis inducement was a bonus of one thousand dollars. The morning following the receipt of this intelligence I saw Mr. Chouteau, who was in receipt of a letter from Mr. Tulleck by the same messenger. He was in great uneasiness of mind. There was over one hundred thousand dollars' worth of goods in the fort, and he urged me to start without delay. The distance from St. Louis was estimated at two thousand seven hundred and fifty miles, and the safety of the men rendered the greatest expedition necessary. Any sum I might ask would be willingly paid me. "Go.' " s a1· a h e; '' engage as many men as you w1· sh; purchase all the horses you require : we will pay the bills." He also furnished me with instructions to all the agents on the way to provide me with wl1atever I inquired for. The price I demanded for my services was five thousand dollars, which was, without sc:ruple, JAMES P. BECKWOURTH. 395 allowed me. I hired two men to accompany me (Pappen being one), to wh01n I gave fifteen hundred and one thousand dollars respectively. Our horses being procured, and every necessary supplied us, away we started upon our journey, which occupied us fifty-three days, as the traveling -vvas bad. Our last resting-place was Fort Clarke. Thence we struck directly across through a hostile Indian country, arriving in safety within hailing distance of the fort before the cherries were ripe, although they ·were very near it. I rested on a gentle rise of ground to contemplate the mass of people I saw before me. ~:'here they lay, in their absorbing devotedness to their absent chief; day and night, for long months, they had staid by that wooden inclosure, watching for my return, or to take fearful vengeance upon their prey. They had loved the whites, but those whites had now killed their chief because he had returned to his own people to fight for his kindred and nation- · the chief who had loved them much, and made them rich and strong. They were now feared by their enemies, and respected by all; their prairies were covered with thousands of horses, and their lodges were full of the wealth derived from the whites. For 1his the white chief had killed him, and a war of extermination was denounced against them. The fort and its inn1ates were within their grasp; if the Crane would redeem his pledge and produce their missing chief, all were well ; but if the appointed time passed by, and he were not forthcoming, it was fearful to contemplate the vengeance they would inflict. When I thought of those contemptible wretches, who, merely to wanton with the faith that the artless |
