Part 3 (2/2)

In the summer of 1832, when the hunters came down to Pierre's Hole for their supplies, there were trappers who had never before summered away from Detroit and Mackinaw and Hudson Bay[27] There were half-wild Frenchmen from Quebec who had married Indian wives and cast off civilization as an ill-fitting garment There were Indian hunters with the mellow, rhythmic tones that always betray native blood There were lank New Englanders under Wyeth of Boston, erect as aclumsily to buckskins There were the Rocky Mountainbeards, and a trick of peering from their bushy brows like an enemy from ambush There were probably odd detachments froay ar his luck as fur trader and explorer And there was a new set of men, not yet weather-worn by the wilderness, alert, watchful, ubiquitous, scattering the, see all, tell nothing, always shadowing the Rocky Mountain ood pilots to the best hunting-grounds By the middle of July all business had been coht round ca yarns of the hunt

Early in thefrom the valley, they met a cavalcade of one hundred and fifty Blackfeet Each party halted to survey its opponent In less than ten years the Rocky Mountainhostiles Even now the Indians were flourishi+ng a flag captured from murdered Hudson's Bay hunters

The number of whites disconcerted the Indians Their warlike advance gave place to friendliness One chief came forith the hand of comity extended The whites were not deceived Many a time had Rocky Mountain trappers been lured to their death by such overtures

No excuse is offered for the hunters The code of the wilderness never lays the unction of a hypocritical excuse to conscience The trappers sent two scouts to parley with the detested enemy One trapper, with Indian blood in his veins and Indian thirst for the avengerasped the chief's extended hand with the clasp of a steel trap On the instant the other scout fired The powerless chief fell dead; and using their horses as a breastwork, the Blackfeet hastily threw themselves behind some timber, cast up trenches, and shot from cover

All the trappers at the _rendezvous_ spurred to the fight, pri their wills as they rode The battle lasted all day; and when under cover of night the Indians withdreelve men lay dead on the trappers' side, as many reat For years this tribe exacted heavy atonement for the death of warriors behind the trenches of Pierre's Hole

Leaving Pierre's Hole the mountaineers scattered to their rocky fastnesses, but no sooner had they pitched caers who had shadowed the camp, the Rocky Mountain men would steal away by new and unknown passes to another valley A day or two later, having followed by tent-poles dragging the ground, or brushwood broken by the passing packers, the pertinacious rivals would reappear This went on persistently for three months

Infuriated by such tactics, theinto the territory of hostiles they gave their pursuers the slip Neither party probably intended that matters should become serious; but that is always the fault of the white a party was ambushed, the leader slain, his flesh torn from his body and his skeleton thrown into the river A few months later the Rocky Mountain traders paid for this escapade Fitzpatrick, the saainst the spies, was robbed aated by whiteof the end with the Rocky Mountain trappers

The Aanized and stuck to through good repute and evil repute, was now officered by Ramsay Crooks and Farnham and Robert Stuart, who had remained loyal to Mr Astor in Astoria and been schooled in a discipline that offered no quarter to eneave the American Coht of land dividing the Mississippi and Missouri When Congress excluded foreign traders in 1816, all the Nor' Westers' posts south of the boundary fell to the American Fur Company; and sturdy old Nor' Westers, who had been thrown out by the aamation with the Hudson's Bay, also added to the Ath Kenneth MacKenzie, with Laidlaw, Lament, and Kipp, had a line of posts from Green Bay to the Missouri held by an American to evade the law, but known as the Coluanization[28] the A MacKenzie at the mouth of the Yellowstone, where he built Fort Union and becaal style like his ancestral Scottish chiefs ”King of the Missouri” whiteIndian me” he was to them, for he was the first trader to win both their friendshi+p and the Crows'

Here MacKenzie entertained Prince Maximilian of Wied and Catlin the artist and Audubon the naturalist, and had as his constant couise and working for the fur company Many an unmeant melodran

Once a free trapper ca down the Missouri with his canoe full of beaver-pelts, which he quickly exchanged for the gay attire to be obtained at Fort Union Oddly enough, though the felloas a French-Canadian, he had long, flaxen hair, of which he was inordinately vain Strutting about the court-yard, feeling himself a very prince of i Indian wife Each paid the other the tribute of adoration that armer than it ise The _denoue at the top of his speed through the fort gate, with the irate MacKenzie flourishi+ng a flail to the rear The ed Frenchates with a loaded rifle till MacKenzie was obliged to hire a ” the felloith a shot in the shoulder, when he was brought into the fort, nursed back to health, and sent away

At another time two Rocky Mountain trappers built an opposition fort just below Union and lay in wait for the co of the Blackfeet to trade with the American Fur Company MacKenzie posted a lookout on his bastion The moment the Indians were descried, out sallied froalia, with drum and trumpet and piccolo and fife--wonders that would have lured the astonished Indians to perdition

Behind the band caes, and as not supposed to be in the Indian country--liquor When these methods failed to outbuy rivals, MacKenzie did not hesitate to pay twelve dollars for a beaver-skin not worth two The Rocky Mountain trappers were forced to capitulate, and their post passed over to the American Fur Co _finale_ to the turbulent conflicts of the American traders The Deschamps family, who had perpetrated the worst butcheries on the field of Seven Oaks, in the fight between Hudson's Bay and Nor' Westers, had acted as interpreters for the Rocky Mountain trappers Boastful of their rown children were usually so violent in their carousals that Hae and prevent trouble by dropping laudanum in their cups Once they slept so heavily that the whole fort was in a panic lest their sleep lasted to eternity; but the revellers ca half-breed fellow by the name of Gardepie, whose life the Deschamps harpies attempted to take from sheer jealousy and love of crime Joined by two free trappers, Gardepie killed the elder Descharuesome mutilation of Indian custoer son Spurred by the hag-like mother and nerved to the deed with alcohol, the Descha all the whites of the fur post One man had fallen when the alarm was carried to Fort Union

Twice had the Deschamps robbed Fort Union Many trappers had been assassinated by a Deschaed by the on the doors of Fort Union, the wife of their last victim called out that the Deschamps were on the war-path

The traders of Fort Union solemnly raised hands and took an oath to exterone beyond MacKenzie's control Seizing cannon and ammunition, the traders crossed the prairie to the abandoned fort of the Rocky Mountain trappers, where the murderers were intrenched All valuables were reiven for the fauns were turned on the house Suddenly that old harpy of cri forward the Indian pipe of peace and begging for iven, and fell shot through the heart

At last the return firing ceased Who would enter and learn if the Deschamps were all dead? Treachery was feared The assailants set fire to the fort In the light of the fla in the bastion A trader rushed forward exultant to shoot the last of the Descha five feet into the air to fall back dead, and a yell of fiendish victory burst froain the assailants fired a volley No answering shot cah the smoke the traders found Francois Deschamps backed up in a corner like a beast at bay, one wrist broken and all aone A dozen rifle-shots cracked sharp The fellow fell and his body was thrown into the flames The old mother was buried without shroud or coffin in the clay bank of the river A young boy mortally wounded was carried from the ruins to die in Union

This dark acttraders A decline of values followed the civil war Settlers were rushi+ng overland to Oregon, and Fort Union went into the control of the militia To-day St Louis is still a centre of trade in manufactured furs, and St Paul yet receives raw pelts froh the forests of Minnesota and Idaho and the uides in thethe northern wilds and the Upper Missouri; but outside the rounds of the famous old trappers have been chalked off by the fences of settlers

In Canada, too, bloodshed marked the last of the conflict--once in the seventies when Louis Riel, a half-breed deainst the surveyors sent to prepare Red River for settleed rascal incited the half-breeds of the Saskatchewan to rebellion over title-deeds to their lands Though the Hudson's Bay Co to do with either coed round their forts

In the first affair the ragged army of rebels took possession of Fort Garry, and for no other reason than the love of killing that riots in savage blood as in a wolf's, shot down Scott outside the fort gates In the second rebellion Riel's allies ca, captured the fort, and took the factor, Mr

MacLean, and his fah swa floods, where General Middleton's troops could not follow The children of the faossips into telling stories by gifts of tobacco; and the friendshi+p now stood the white faht in all the weeks of captivity the friendly Indians never left the side of the trader's fa children, standing guard at the tepee door, giving the the whites

This tied, and the Hudson's Bay Company resumed its sway of all that realm between Labrador and the Pacific north of the Saskatchewan

Traders' lives are like a white paper with a black spot The world looks only at the black spot