Page:Route Across the Rocky Mountains with a Description of Oregon and California.djvu/139

Rh threatened, saying that they would take away every thing we had. We showed them our guns in reply. Hastily reloading our animals, with our arms in our hands, we mounted, pointed them to the backward track, and took the other ourselves.

There was an old Indian who followed us a short distance, and either from friendship, or a desire to learn what course we intended to pursue, told us, with a great pretension of regard for our safety, that “it was good for us not to sleep,” but to continue traveling, “after the sun had gone down:” that some of their young men “had bad hearts,” and were “very angry;” and that they would follow and attack us in the night. We expressed our thanks for his kindness, without intimating our intentions, and left him.

We had not seen a single Buffalo, nor did we afterwards; and we thought that this was only a scheme they had laid, to get us into the village, where they might strip us more effectually, and withour our knowing who did it; and that finding we would not go willingly, they consented to our proposal, thinking that three times our number, would be sufficient to accomplish their object. They probably considered, in addition to this, that by the method which they adopted, the tribe would avoid the responsiblity of the act. As the greater portion of those who came to us, had gone away professing friendship, they would, with some degree of probability, have been able to assert their ignorance, of any intention on the part of those who went with us, to commit a robbery. It was our opinion, that they did not wish to take our lives, if they could do so by means, in which the tribe would not seem, generally, to participate. Could they have destroyed us entirely, without any possibility of detection, they would have been very willing to have done it; but they had made like attempts several times before, and failed; they were now a little fearful, for they had been threatened by officers of our government, and had, from experience, some confidence in their ability to execute. Had we gone to their village, they might have stolen almost every thing that we had, and in such case, all would have been innocent. Had the twenty-two succeeded, they only, and not the tribe, would have been criminally responsible. We had no doubt but that all were perfectly acquainted with the intentions of the party that undertook to rob us, and would have been sharers to some extent in the booty; and that, had they considered a failure at all probable, had taken, with as little force as possible. They feared us, and yielded; but