The other Indian fled and was suffered
to escape. Such is the indifference with which acts of violence are
regarded in the wilderness, and such the immunity an armed ruffian
enjoys beyond the barriers of the laws, that the only punishment this
desperado met with, was a rebuke from the leader of the party. The
trappers now left the scene of this infamous tragedy, and kept on
westward, down the course of the river, which wound along with a range
of mountains on the right hand, and a sandy, but somewhat fertile plain,
on the left. As they proceeded, they beheld columns of smoke rising,
as before, in various directions, which their guilty consciences now
converted into alarm signals, to arouse the country and collect the
scattered bands for vengeance.
After a time, the natives began to make their appearance, and sometimes
in considerable numbers, but always pacific; the trappers, however,
suspected them of deep-laid plans to draw them into ambuscades; to crowd
into and get possession of their camp, and various other crafty and
daring conspiracies, which, it is probable, never entered into the heads
of the poor savages. In fact, they are a simple, timid, inoffensive
race, unpractised in warfare, and scarce provided with any weapons,
excepting for the chase. Their lives are passed in the great sand plains
and along the adjacent rivers; they subsist sometimes on fish, at other
times on roots and the seeds of a plant, called the cat's-tail.
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