Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far WestDrannan, William F.
History
Thirty-One Years on the Plains and in the Mountains, Or, the Last Voice from the Plains: An Authentic Record of a Life Time of Hunting, Trapping, Scouting and Indian Fighting in the Far West
Drannan, William F.
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America -- Wars
They held us there for about an hour, and had it not been for a
thunder storm that came up, I don't think one of us would have got
out of that canyon, for they had us completely surrounded. They
killed two horses from Jim Bridger's string and wounded Uncle Kit
in one shoulder severely.
When the thunder storm came up the Indians were gradually closing
in on us, and it commenced to thunder and lightning, and it
actually rained so hard that one person could not see another two
rods before him.
While it was raining so hard, we mounted and rode out of the
canyon.
I never saw it rain harder in my life than it did for a half hour.
When we were on open ground and it had quit raining, we stopped,
and Uncle Kit said: "Now who says the Almighty didn't save us this
time by sending that shower of rain just at the right time?"
That night we camped near the summit of the Rocky Mountains,
dividing the waters that run into the Pacific and Atlantic oceans.
Uncle Kit suffered all that night from his arrow wound, the arrow
going under his shoulder blade, and when we examined the wound we
found it much deeper than we had any idea of. This was the last
trouble with Indians on that trip.
The next morning we started very early, and were three days making
Fort Hall, having no trouble whatever on the way. On arriving at
the Fort we were very much disappointed in regard to raising our
crowd to go to the head of the Missouri river to trap the coming
winter. There were only about twenty trappers at Fort Hall at that
time, and they appeared to have no particular objections to living
a little while longer. Those of them who had never interviewed the
Blackfoot and Crow Indians personally were pretty well acquainted
with them by reputation, and they said they did not care to risk
their lives in that country. We remained here two weeks, after
which time--Uncle Kit's wound getting considerable better--Jim
Bridger, Uncle Kit and myself concluded to go on to the waters of
Green river and trap the coming winter.
While here, Jim Beckwith fell in with a man by the name of Reese,
who said he had trapped on the headwaters of Snake river the
winter previous, and that trapping was good there. He induced
Beckwith to go to that section of the country, saying it was only
one hundred miles from Fort Hall. This trapping ground was
immediately across the divide of the Rockies and south of the
Gallatin, where the Blackfoot and Crow Indians were so bad, but
Reese thought they could get out the next spring before the
Indians could get across the mountains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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