Page:The life and adventures of James P. Beckwourth, mountaineer, scout, pioneer, and chief of the Crow nation of Indians (IA lifeadventuresof00beckrich).pdf/53

Rh sugar, and coffee might last over to the mountains; but those who held these articles asked exorbitant prices for them, and it was but few who tasted such luxuries.

We were now in the buffalo country, but the Indians had driven them all away. Before we left the settlements, our party made free use of the beehives, pigs, and poultry belonging to the settlers; a marauding practice commonly indulged in by the mountaineers, who well knew that the strength of their party secured them against any retaliation on the part of the sufferers.

There were two Spaniards in our company, whom we one morning left behind us to catch some horses which had strayed away from the camp. The two men stopped at a house inhabited by a respectable white woman, and they, seeing her without protection, committed a disgraceful assault upon her person. They were pursued to the camp by a number of the settlers, who made known the outrage committed upon the woman. We all regarded the crime with the utmost abhorrence, and felt mortified that any one of our party should be guilty of conduct so revolting. The culprits were arrested, and they at once admitted their guilt. A council was called in the presence of the settlers, and the culprits offered their choice of two punishments: either to be hung to the nearest tree, or to receive one hundred lashes each on the bare back. They chose the latter punishment, which was immediately inflicted upon them by four of our party. Having no cat-o'-nine-tails in our possession, the lashes were inflicted with hickory withes. Their backs were dreadfully lacerated, and the blood flowed in streams to the ground. The following morning the two Spaniards, and two of our best horses, were missing from the camp; we did not pursue them, but, by the tracks we discovered of them, it was evident they had started for New Mexico.