Volume 28 — CHAPTER IV (continued 2)
Reading edition
This is not merely an imagined scene in former times in Boyou Salade. All the essential incidents related, happened yearly in that and other hunting grounds, whenever the old braves assembled to celebrate the valorous deeds of their younger days. When these exciting relations were finished, the young men of the tribe, who had not yet distinguished themselves, were exhorted to seek glory in a similar way. Woe to him who passed his manhood without ornamenting the door of his lodge with the scalps of his enemies!
This valley is still frequented by some of these tribes as a summer haunt, when the heat of the plains renders them uncomfortable. The Eutaws were scouring it when we {250} passed. We therefore crossed the river to its northern bank, and followed up its northern branch eight miles,[129] with every eye keenly searching for the appearance of foes; and made our encampment for the night in a deep chasm, overhung by the long branches of a grove of white pines. We built our fire in the dry bed of a mountain torrent, shaded by bushes on the side towards the valley, and above, by a dense mass of boughs, so effectually, as not only to conceal the blaze from any one in the valley, but also to prevent the reflection from gilding too high the conspicuous foliage of the neighbouring trees. After our horses had fed themselves, we tied them close to our couches, that they might not, in case of an attack, be driven away before we had an opportunity of defending them; and when we retired, threw water upon our fire that it might not guide the Indians in a search for us; put new caps upon our arms, and trusting to our dog and mule, the latter in such cases always the most skilful to scent their approach, tried to sleep. But we were too near the snows. Chilling winds sucked down the vale, and drove us from our blankets to a shivering watch during the remainder of the night. Not a cap, however, was burst. Alas! for {251} our brave intentions, they ended in an ague fit.
Our guide informed us, that the Eutaws reside on both sides of the Eutaw or Anahuac mountains; that they are continually migrating from one side to the other; that they speak the Spanish language; that some few half breeds have embraced the Catholic faith; that the remainder yet hold the simple and sublime faith of their forefathers, in the existence of one great creating and sustaining cause, mingled with a belief in the ghostly visitations of their deceased Medicine men or diviners; and that they number a thousand families. He also stated that the Cheyennes are a band of renegadoes from the Eutaws and Cumanches; and that they are less brave and more thievish than any other tribe living in the plains south of Arkansas.[130]
We started at seven o'clock in the morning of the 24th, travelled eight miles in a north by west direction, killed another buffalo, and went into camp to jerk the meat. Again we were among the frosts and snows and storms of another dividing ridge. Our camp was on the height of land between the waters of the Platte and those of Grand River, the largest southern {252} branch of the Colorado of the west.[131]
From this eminence we had a fine view of Boyou Salade, and also of the Anahuac range, which we had before seen from the ridge between the Arkansas and the southern waters of the Platte. To the south-east, one hundred and sixty miles, towered the bald head of James' Peak; to the east, one hundred miles distant, were the broken and frowning cliffs through which the south fork of the Platte, after having gathered all its mountain tributaries, forces its roaring cascade course to the plains. To the north, the low, timbered and grassy hills, some tipped with snow, and others crowned with lofty pines, faded into a smooth, dim, and regular horizon.