They Were Some Of The Very Men
Who Had Been Engaged, The Year Previously, In The Battle At
Pierre's Hole, And A Fierce-Looking Set Of Fellows They Were;
Tall And Hawk-Nosed, And Very Much Resembling The Crows.
They
professed to be on an amicable errand, to make peace with the
Crows, and set off in all
Haste, before night, to overtake them.
Wyeth predicted that they would lose their scalps; for he had
heard the Crows denounce vengeance on them, for having murdered
two of their warriors who had ventured among them on the faith of
a treaty of peace. It is probable, however, that this pacific
errand was all a pretence, and that the real object of the
Blackfeet braves was to hang about the skirts of the Crow band,
steal their horses, and take the scalps of stragglers.
At Fort Cass, Mr. Wyeth disposed of some packages of beaver, and
a quantity of buffalo robes. On the following morning (August
18th), he once more launched his bull boat, and proceeded down
the Yellowstone, which inclined in an east-northeast direction.
The river had alluvial bottoms, fringed with great quantities of
the sweet cotton-wood, and interrupted occasionally by "bluffs"
of sandstone. The current occasionally brings down fragments of
granite and porphyry.
In the course of the day, they saw something moving on the bank
among the trees, which they mistook for game of some kind; and,
being in want of provisions, pulled toward shore. They
discovered, just in time, a party of Blackfeet, lurking in the
thickets, and sheered, with all speed, to the opposite side of
the river.
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