The Whole
History Of The Aboriginal Population Of This Country, However, Is
An Enigma, And A Grand One - Will It Ever Be Solved?
CHAPTER XXIV.
New Distribution of Horses- Secret Information of Treason in the
Camp.- Rose the Interpreter- His Perfidious Character- His Plots.
-Anecdotes of the Crow Indians.- Notorious Horse Stealers.- Some
Account of Rose.- A Desperado of the Frontier.
0N the sixth of August the travellers bade farewell to the
friendly band of Cheyennes, and resumed their journey. As they
had obtained thirty-six additional horses by their recent
traffic, Mr. Hunt made a new arrangement. The baggage was made up
in smaller loads. A horse was allotted to each of the six prime
hunters, and others were distributed among the voyageurs, a horse
for every two, so that they could ride and walk alternately. Mr.
Crooks being still too feeble to mount the saddle, was carried on
a litter.
Their march this day lay among singular hills and knolls of an
indurated red earth, resembling brick, about the bases of which
were scattered pumice stones and cinders, the whole bearing
traces of the action of fire. In the evening they encamped on a
branch of Big River.
They were now out of the tract of country infested by the Sioux,
and had advanced such a distance into the interior that Mr. Hunt
no longer felt apprehensive of the desertion of any of his men.
He was doomed, however, to experience new cause of anxiety. As he
was seated in his tent after nightfall, one of the men came to
him privately, and informed him that there was mischief brewing
in the camp. Edward Rose, the interpreter, whose sinister looks
we have already mentioned, was denounced by this secret informer
as a designing, treacherous scoundrel, who was tampering with the
fidelity of certain of the men, and instigating them to a
flagrant piece of treason. In the course of a few days they would
arrive at the mountainous district infested by the Upsarokas or
Crows, the tribe among which Rose was to officiate as
interpreter. His plan was that several of the men should join
with him, when in that neighborhood, in carrying off a number of
the horses with their packages of goods, and deserting to those
savages. He assured them of good treatment among the Crows, the
principal chiefs and warriors of whom he knew; they would soon
become great men among them, and have the finest women, and the
daughters of the chiefs for wives; and the horses and goods they
carried off would make them rich for life.
The intelligence of this treachery on the part of Rose gave much
disquiet to Mr. Hunt, for he knew not how far it might be
effective among his men. He had already had proofs that several
of them were disaffected to the enterprise, and loath to cross
the mountains. He knew also that savage life had charms for many
of them, especially the Canadians, who were prone to intermarry
and domesticate themselves among the Indians.
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