Page:The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, scout, pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians (IA lifeadventuresof00beckrich).pdf/387

Rh The chief made me a gratuity of forty robes. On two subsequent visits I paid him on his invitation, he made me further presents, until he had presented me with one hundred and eighty-five robes without receiving any equivalent. The extent of his "royal munificence" seriously alarmed Sublet. It was just this same profuse spirit, he said, that had bred disputes with other traders, often resulting in their losing their lives. It is as well a savage custom as civilized, to expect a commensurate return for any favours bestowed, and an Indian is so punctilious in the observance of this etiquette, that he will part with his last horse and his last blanket rather than receive a favour without requital.

Mo-he-nes-to, without intending it, was rather troublesome on this point. When he became sober after these drunken carousals, he would begin to reflect seriously on things. He would find his robes all gone; his women's labour—for it would take months of toil in dressing and ornamenting these robes—thrown unprofitably away; his people had nothing to show for their late pile of wealth, and their wants would remain unsupplied. They would have no guns or ammunition to fight the Crows, who were always well supplied, and their whole year's earnings were squandered. These reflections would naturally make him discontented and irritable, and he would betake himself to the post for reparation.

"White man," he would say, "I have given you my robes, which my warriors have spent months in hunting, and which my women have slaved a whole year in dressing; and what do you give me in return? I have nothing. You give me fire-water, which makes me and my people mad; and it is gone, and we have nothing to hunt more buffalo with, and to fight our enemies.”

The generality of traders will endeavour to make it apparent to him that there was a fair exchange of commodities effected, and that he had the worth of his wares, and they can do no more for him.

This angered him, and in his disappointment and vexation he would raise the war-whoop, his warriors would rush to him, he would harangue them for a moment, an assault would be made upon the trading-post, the goods would be seized,