The Nez Perces And Flathead Sages Upon This Held A Council Of War
Of Two Days' Duration, In Which There Was Abundance Of Hard
Smoking And Long Talking, And Both Eloquence And Tobacco Were
Nearly Exhausted.
At length they came to a decision to reject the
worthy captain's proposition, and upon pretty substantial
grounds, as the reader may judge.
"War," said the chiefs, "is a bloody business, and full of evil;
but it keeps the eyes of the chiefs always open, and makes the
limbs of the young men strong and supple. In war, every one is on
the alert. If we see a trail we know it must be an enemy; if the
Blackfeet come to us, we know it is for war, and we are ready.
Peace, on the other hand, sounds no alarm; the eyes of the chiefs
are closed in sleep, and the young men are sleek and lazy. The
horses stray into the mountains; the women and their little babes
go about alone. But the heart of a Blackfoot is a lie, and his
tongue is a trap. If he says peace it is to deceive; he comes to
us as a brother; he smokes his pipe with us; but when he sees us
weak, and off our guard, he will slay and steal. We will have no
such peace; let there be war!"
With this reasoning Captain Bonneville was fain to acquiesce;
but, since the sagacious Flatheads and their allies were content
to remain in a state of warfare, he wished them at least to
exercise the boasted vigilance which war was to produce, and to
keep their eyes open. He represented to them the impossibility
that two such considerable clans could move about the country
without leaving trails by which they might be traced. Besides,
among the Blackfeet braves were several Nez Perces, who had been
taken prisoners in early youth, adopted by their captors, and
trained up and imbued with warlike and predatory notions; these
had lost all sympathies with their native tribe, and would be
prone to lead the enemy to their secret haunts. He exhorted them,
therefore, to keep upon the alert, and never to remit their
vigilance while within the range of so crafty and cruel a foe.
All these counsels were lost upon his easy and simple-minded
hearers. A careless indifference reigned throughout their
encampments, and their horses were permitted to range the hills
at night in perfect freedom. Captain Bonneville had his own
horses brought in at night, and properly picketed and guarded.
The evil he apprehended soon took place. In a single night a
swoop was made through the neighboring pastures by the Blackfeet,
and eighty-six of the finest horses carried off. A whip and a
rope were left in a conspicuous situation by the robbers, as a
taunt to the simpletons they had unhorsed.
Long before sunrise the news of this calamity spread like
wildfire through the different encampments. Captain Bonneville,
whose own horses remained safe at their pickets, watched in
momentary expectation of an outbreak of warriors, Pierced-nose
and Flathead, in furious pursuit of the marauders; but no such
thing - they contented themselves with searching diligently over
hill and dale, to glean up such horses as had escaped the hands
of the marauders, and then resigned themselves to their loss with
the most exemplary quiescence.
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