XXIII
_CAMP CHOPUNNISH_
As Lewis and Clark with twenty-three horses set out over the camasmeadows that April morning a hundred years ago, the world seemedbrighter for the kindness of the Walla Wallas.
At the Dalles the forest had ended. Now they were on the greatColumbian plains that stretch to the Rockies, the northwest granary ofto-day. The dry exhilarating air billowed the verdure like a sea.
Meadow larks sang and flitted. Dove-coloured sage hens, the cock ofthe plains, two-thirds the size of a turkey, cackled like domesticfowl before the advancing cavalcade. Spotted black-and-white pheasantspecked in the grass like the little topknot "Dominicks" the men hadknown around their boyhood homes.
And everywhere were horses.
"More hor-r-ses between th' Gr-reat Falls av th' Columby and th' NezPerces than I iver saw in th' same space uv countery in me loifebefore," said Patrick Gass. "They are not th' lar-r-gest soize butvery good an' active."
"Of an excellent race, lofty, elegantly formed, and durable," thoseCayuse horses are described by Lewis and Clark. "Many of them appearlike fine English coursers, and resemble in fleetness and bottom, aswell as in form and colour, the best blooded horses of Virginia."
A hundred years ago, the Cayuse of the Columbian plains was a recentimportation from the bluest blooded Arabian stock of Spain.White-starred, white-footed, he was of noble pedigree. Traded orstolen from tribe to tribe, these Spanish horses found a home on theColumbia. All winter these wild horses fattened on the plain; madlytheir Indian owners rode them; and when they grew old, stiff, andblind, they went, so the Indians said, to Horse Heaven on the DesChutes to die.
Following the old Nez Perces trail, that became a stage road in thedays of gold, and then a railroad, Lewis and Clark came to the land ofthe Nez Perces,--Chopunnish.
Thirty-one years later the missionary Spalding planted an apple-treewhere Lewis and Clark reached the Snake at the mouth of Alpowa creek,May 4, 1806.
We-ark-koompt, the Indian express, came out to meet them. Over thecamp of Black Eagle the American flag was flying. Chiefs vied with oneanother to do them honour. Tunnachemootoolt, Black Eagle, spread hisleather tent and laid a parcel of wood at the door. "Make this yourlodge while you remain with me." Hohastilpilp, Red Wolf, came ridingover the hills with fifty people.
The Captains had a fire lighted, and all night in the leather tent onthe banks of the Kooskooske the chiefs smoked and pondered on thejourney of the white men.
Lewis and Clark drew maps and pointed out the far-away land of thePresident. Sacajawea and the Shoshone boy interpreted until worn out,and then fell asleep. And ever within Black Eagle's village was heardthe dull "thud, thud, thud," of Nez Perce women pounding the camas andthe kouse, "with noise like a nail-factory," said Lewis. All nightlong their outdoor ovens were baking the bread of kouse, and thekettles of camas mush, flavoured with yamp, simmered and sweetenedover the dull red Indian fires. The hungry men were not disposed tocriticise the cuisine of the savage, not even when they were offeredthe dainty flesh of dried rattlesnake!
Labiche killed a bear. In amazement the redmen gathered round.
"These bears are tremendous animals to the Indians,--kill all youcan," said Captain Lewis. Elated, every hunter went bear-hunting.
"Wonderful men that live on bears!" exclaimed the Indians.
Again the council was renewed, and they talked of wars. Bloody Chief,fond of war, showed wounds received in battle with the Snakes.
"It is not good," said Clark. "It is better to be at peace. Here is awhite flag. When you hold it up it means peace. We have given suchflags to your enemies, the Shoshones. They will not fight you now."
Fifty years later, that chief, tottering to his grave, said, "I heldthat flag. I held it up high. We met and talked, but never foughtagain."
"We have confided in the white men. We shall follow their advice,"Black Eagle went proclaiming through the village.
All the kettles of soup were boiling. From kettle to kettle BlackEagle sprinkled in the flour of kouse. "We have confided in the whitemen. Those who are to ratify this council, come and eat. All othersstay away."
The mush was done, the feast was served; a new dawn had arisen on theNez Perces.
Finding it impossible to cross the mountains, a camp was establishedat Kamiah Creek, on a part of the present Nez Perce reservation inIdaho county, Idaho, where for a month they studied this amiable andgentle people. Games were played and races run, Coalter outspeedingall. Frazer, who had been a fencing master in Rutland, back inVermont, taught tricks, and the music of the fiddles delighted them.
Stout, portly, good-looking men were the Nez Perces, and betterdressed than most savages, in their whitened tunics and leggings ofdeerskin and buffalo, moccasins and robes and breastplates of otter,and bandeaus of fox-skins like a turban on the brow. The women weresmall, of good features and generally handsome, in neatly woventight-fitting grass caps and long buckskin skirts whitened with clay.
Upon the Missouri the eagle was domesticated. Here, too, the Nez Percehad his wicker coop of young eaglets to raise for their tail feathers.Any Rocky Mountain Indian would give a good horse for theblack-and-white tail feather of a golden eagle. They fluttered fromthe calumet and hung in cascades from head to foot on the sacred warbonnet.
A May snowstorm whitened the camas meadows and melted again. Thickblack loam invited the plough, but thirty Springs should pass beforeSpalding established his mission and gave ploughs to the redmen.Twisted Hair saw the advent of civilisation. Red Wolf planted anorchard. Black Eagle went to see Clark at St. Louis and died there.
Captain Lewis held councils, instructing, educating, enlightening theKamiahs, so that to this day they are among the most advanced ofIndian tribes.
Captain Clark, with simple remedies and some knowledge of medicine,became a mighty "tomanowos" among the ailing. With basilicons of pitchand oil, wax and resins, a sovereign remedy for skin eruptions, withhorse-mint teas and doses of sulphur and cream-of-tartar, witheye-water, laudanum, and liniment, he treated all sorts of ills. Fiftypatients a day crowded to the tent of the Red Head. Women sufferingfrom rheumatism, the result of toil and exposure in the damp camasfields, came dejected and hysterical. They went back shouting, "TheRed Head chief has made me well."
The wife of a chief had an abscess. Clark lanced it, and she slept forthe first time in days. The grateful chief brought him a horse thatwas immediately slaughtered for supper. A father gave a horse inexchange for remedies for his little crippled daughter.
With exposure to winds, alkali sand, and the smoke of chimneylessfires, few Indians survived to old age without blindness.
"Eye-water! Eye-water!" They reached for it as for a gift from thegods. Clark understood such eyes, for the smoke of the pioneer cabinhad made affections of the eye a curse of the frontier.
But affairs were now at their lowest. Even the medicines wereexhausted, and the last awl, needle, and skein of thread had gone. Offtheir shabby old United States uniforms the soldiers cut the lastbuttons to trade for bread. But instead of trinkets the sensible NezPerces desired knives, buttons, awls for making moccasins, blankets,kettles. Shields the gunsmith ingeniously hammered links ofDrouillard's trap into awls to exchange for bread.
The tireless hunters scoured the country. Farther and farther hadscattered the game. Even the bears had departed. Thirty-three peopleate a deer and an elk, or four deer a day. There was no commissariatfor this little army but its own rifles. And yet, supplies must belaid in for crossing the mountains.
Every day Captain Lewis looked at the rising river and the meltingsnows of the Idaho Alps.
"That icy barrier, which separates me from my friends and my country,from all which makes life estimable--patience--patience--"
"The snow is yet deep on the mountains. You will not be able to passthem until the next full moon, or about the first of June," said theIndians.
"Unwelcome intelligence to men confined to a diet of horse meat androots!" exclaimed Ca
ptain Lewis.
Finally even horse-flesh failed. Suspecting the situation, Chief RedWolf came and said, "The horses on these hills are ours. Take what youneed."
He wore a tippet of human scalps, but, says Lewis, "we have, indeed,on more than one occasion, had to admire the generosity of thisIndian, whose conduct presents a model of what is due to strangers indistress."
Gradually the snows melted, and the high water subsided.
"The doves are cooing. The salmon will come," said the Indians. Blueflowers of the blooming camas covered the prairies like a lake ofsilver. With sixty-five horses and all the dried horse meat they couldcarry, on June 16, 1806, Lewis and Clark started back over the BitterRoot Range on the Lolo trail by which they had entered.