Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/124

Rh confident he could make peace, without any loss of life or property; both of which were nearly equal importance to us, in the situation we then were. There was no time for words, and we yielded to his judgment, superior in such affairs to ours, and followed his advice. The Indians, about sixty in number, came yelling, and beating loudly on a kind of a drum. When within three hundred yards, they separated; the Chief, with one part, charged up, on the same side of the little stream on which we were encamped, yelling and flourishing their arms, and firing in the air; while the others, on the opposite side, with the same kind of music, swept away our animals. The Chief, with his party, reined up against our packs, and formed in a circle around us; except a few, who continued to fly back and forward, within eight or ten yards of us, yelling, firing and flourishing their arms. At this instant a hot headed Southerner, seizing his gun, and crying out that we were betrayed and should sell our lives as dearly as possible, was just in the act of firing on one of these yelling thieves, but was prevented, by the intervention of some of our party, and the remonstrance of Capt. Grant. Thus they stood around us, half naked, painted in the most hideous manner, and with their arms ready in their hands. The other Indians, having driven our horses beyond the hills, and performed a war dance, on one of the neighboring summits, at a signal given by those in our camp, came charging down with whoop and yell, and thickened the ranks around us. Our situation was uncertain; the Chief and Capt. Grant, with the Frenchman, were engaged in an excited parley, the event of which, we did not know. From the great disparity in numbers, we were perfectly in the power of our foes, who could have crushed us in an instant, with a single blow; which any act or expression of rashness, or want of boldness, would have probably have brought about.

But the most affecting scene which our confused camp presented, was that of two little girls, who, trembling with fear, and in tears, crouched at their father's feet, seemed to implore that protection from a parent which he could not give. To feel one's self in the power of a mean and miserable foe, whom he despises, is maddening; and when so surrounded, powerless, and submissive, we could not but dream of vengeance, as we looked about us, and hope to crush, at some sweet future period, those grim frowning wretches. After a long consulation, in which the Serpent refered to the death of his son, and to the Two Shoshonees, (Snakes,) that had been killed, forgetting the many injuries, robberies, and insults, which emigrants from