The poor partisan,
therefore, was fain to leave his vagabonds among these birds of their
own feather, and being too weak in numbers to attempt the dangerous
pass across the mountains to meet Captain Bonneville on Salmon River, he
made, with the few that remained faithful to him, for the neighborhood
of Tullock's Fort, on the Yellowstone, under the protection of which he
went into winter quarters.
He soon found out that the neighborhood of the fort was nearly as bad
as the neighborhood of the Crows. His men were continually stealing
away thither, with whatever beaver skins they could secrete or lay their
hands on. These they would exchange with the hangers-on of the fort for
whiskey, and then revel in drunkeness and debauchery.
The unlucky partisan made another move. Associating with his party a
few free trappers, whom he met with in this neighborhood, he started off
early in the spring to trap on the head waters of Powder River. In the
course of the journey, his horses were so much jaded in traversing a
steep mountain, that he was induced to turn them loose to graze during
the night. The place was lonely; the path was rugged; there was not the
sign of an Indian in the neighborhood; not a blade of grass that had
been turned by a footstep. But who can calculate on security in the
midst of the Indian country, where the foe lurks in silence and secrecy,
and seems to come and go on the wings of the wind? The horses had scarce
been turned loose, when a couple of Arickara (or Rickaree) warriors
entered the camp.
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