A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry

by Don Berry

  And there was business to be settled, too, and serious business it was this year. Remember that Bridger had not been able to lose the Company brigade under Vanderburgh this spring. And while Vanderburgh was presently looking on and biting his nails until Fontenelle arrived with his supplies, it meant nothing in the long run; it was a temporary embarrassment.

  ‘The conference between the partners of RMF resulted in an incredible proposal: an outright admission that their hold on the mountain trade was broken. Sometime during the week of rendezvous, they proposed to divide the mountains with American Fur, each taking its own section to work, avoiding the bitter clashes and the losses that heavy competition would A

  mean to both firms.

  No, thank you, said Mr. Henry Vanderburgh. His present course suited him just fine, and he thought he’d just sort of tag along and get some experience in RMF’s trail. Fact was, he didn’t know enough yet to be sure he—and Mr. Astor—got a fair shake on the division. And it would seem he didn’t trust Messrs. Fitzpatrick, Sublette, Bridger, Fraeb, and Gervais very far.

  Back went the RMF partners to their lodge, in a nasty mood.

  The newcomer to the mountains, Nathaniel Wyeth, was having his troubles, too. Wyeth’s men were complete novices—"men of theory," one source calls them—and he had difficulty with them all the way from Boston. Wyeth was himself a resourceful, acute man, despite the fact that he had no more experience than any of his party. He learned fast, this one, and in a year or two would be giving the mountain men some stiff competition at their own game. But now he was in a bad position, and the malcontents in his group took advantage of it.

  The main problem was discipline. Some of the men—in particular Wyeth’s own nephew, the nineteen-year-old John B. Wyeth—seemed to feel that everything ought to be completely democratic. That before any decisions were made the hired hands ought to be consulted. In their view Wyeth was behaving more like a tyrant than a respectably elected leader. (What this seems to boil down to is that they didn’t like the necessary discipline of the trail; in spite of the fact that every other party also operated, of necessity, under conditions of military harshness.)

  Accordingly, John Wyeth and some others of like mind broached their leader on the subject of his future plans:

  We wished to have what we had been used to at home—a town meeting—or a parish meeting, where every freeman has a right to speak his sentiments, and to vote thereon. But Captain Wyeth was by no means inclined to this democratical procedure. The most he seemed inclined to was a caucus with a select few, of which number neither his own brother . . . nor myself was to be included. After considerable altercation he concluded to call a meeting of the whole, on business interesting and applicable to all. We accordingly met, Captain Wyeth in the chair, or on the stump, I forget which. Instead of every man speaking his own mind, the Captain commenced the business by ordering the roll to be called; and as the names were called the clerk asked the person if he would go on. The first name was Nathaniel J. Wyeth, whom we had dubbed Captain, who answered "I shall go on." The next was William Nud, who, before he answered, wished to know what the Captain’s plan and intentions were, whether to try to commence a small colony or trap and trade for beaver. To which Captain Wyeth replied that that was none of our business. Then Mr. Nud said: "I shall not go on."

  The end result of this ludicrous town meeting in Pierre’s Hole was that seven of Wyeth’s men decided not to go on. (This made a total of thirteen he had lost, out of an original twenty-four.)

  Wyeth and the remaining loyal eleven relinquished one of their tents to the defectors. His situation was now critical—a party of twelve, and particularly twelve of their limited experience, was just meat for the Blackfeet, any way you wanted to look at it.

  Wyeth approached the friendly Milton Sublette for help; he wanted to accompany Mi1ton’s Fall '32 brigade as far as he could toward Oregon, at least out of the Blackfoot country.

  This was all right with Milton, and the two parties were joined. Milton—possibly anxious to get back to the Mountain Lamb—got his brigade in order before any of the rest of the rendezvous was prepared. He started out with Wyeth’s men of theory in tow on July 17. It was probably fairly late in the day, because they moved only six or eight miles before camping for the night. The next morning they woke early, packed up, and walked into the battle of Pierre’s Hole.

  III

  Rendezvous 1832 contributed more than its share to the mountain mythos. What with the escape of Fitzpatrick, the share-the-spoils proposition of RMF, and a few other transactions, it was probably the most important rendezvous ever held. It seems only fitting that it should have been climaxed by the most famous battle of the Rockies.

  Milton Sublette and Wyeth started out of the valley toward the south. As they were getting ready to set out on the morning of July 18 they saw a dust cloud approaching; a large party. Since Fontenelle’s supply train was expected hourly, this occasioned no great concern, but the normal precautions were taken. Before long Wyeth’s spyglass had revealed that the approaching caravan was not white, after all, but a village of Indians; our old friends; in fact, the migrating Gros Ventres.

  When the Indians had come into plain view they stopped, and the parties mutually surveyed each other. There were only about forty-two men in the combined Wyeth-Milton Sublette brigade; and an estimated two hundred Indians. (Inasmuch as this was a migrating village, including women, children, dogs and goods, the fighting force was nothing like this large.)

  For their part, the Gros Ventres seemed dubious. Their bucks must have outnumbered the white party or they would have turned around immediately. But it was not an overwhelming superiority or they would have attacked with equal speed. Uncertain, they equivocated.

  A flag was raised in the front of the Indian band (some sources say a white flag; some say the Union Jack) and one of the principal chiefs stepped forward. In the white party was the half-breed Antoine Godin, whose father Thierry had been killed by the Blackfeet a couple of years before. Taking with him a Flathead—whose tribe was constantly decimated by the Blackfeet—Godin rode out to meet the Gros Ventre chief.

  The chief came forward with a pipe in his hands, and Godin and his Flathead companion met him about halfway between the opposing camps. As the Indian raised the peace pipe, Godin grabbed his hand. The Flathead raised his cocked rifle and shot the Gros Ventre at point-blank. range.

  Godin snatched off the chief’s red blanket as he fell, and the two wheeled their horses and made back to the white camp, Godin waving the red blanket jubilantly, finally avenged in his own mind for his father’s murder.

  The Gros Ventres raised a howl, fired a few rounds, and scattered into a willow grove; part of a beaver swamp, where they began to build a fortification of deadfalls and limbs.

  In the meantime, Milton had sent an express back to the main encampment where the other trapping parties were still in rendezvous. While the Gros Ventres worked on their fortification the greater portion of the combined companies, together with a large force of their Nez Perce and Flathead allies, was pounding along the plain like the cavalry in the last reel.

  The astonished Gross Ventres—who had no idea there was a rendezvous around—suddenly found the little valley swarming with armed horsemen. They dug furiously at their fort, making trenches inside where they could be protected from the fire of the trappers. .

  When all the whites had arrived, Bill Sublette (and/ or Tom Fitzpatrick) took over the generalship of the campaign. Sublette and Bob Campbell dictated oral wills to each other as they rode to the iight, and there were doubtless a goodly number of hastily got up wills of the same sort.

  It was obvious to Sublette that the Gros Ventres were in a good position. The point of willows in which they were throwing up their breastworks provided ample protection from the white guns, if for no other reason than the lack of visibility.

  He proposed that an attack be made on foot, directly through the grove up to the fort, where they could
see something to shoot at. This notion met, so to speak, with a mixed response. The Nez Perces and Flatheads, for the most part, considered any direct attack through the woods little short of suicide, and many of the whites agreed. They wanted no part of any such thing.

  Sublette volunteered to lead the attack himself. He got support from Bob Campbell and a few others; principally a free trapper named Sinclair and—of all people—the greenhorn Nathaniel Wyeth. Finally they recruited about thirty whites and the same number of Indians. Sublette’s own recruits did not engage in the battle, nor did Wyeth’s men; by one account Sublette flatly. forbade the greenhorns to take a hand.

  Wyeth himself, however, led one of the brigades into a circling motion, approaching the Gros Ventre fortification from the opposite side. It is incredible that this quondam ice merchant, fresh from Boston,should take such a part in this fight; but lead he did, and acquitted himself well enough.

  Sublette and Bob Campbell and Sinclair led the frontal attack. As they approached the log wall, Sinclair parted some bushes to peek through and was shot through the body. A second later Bill Sublette himself was shot through the shoulder, and another man hit in the head. The Indians’ fire from the fort was deadly accurate, and their position strong. Wyeth's party had meantime arrived behind the fort, only to find themselves caught in both Indian fire and the overshots from Sublette’s brigade. One of Wyeth’s Indians was killed in this way, and a Gros Ventre ball accounted for another man.

  The whites retreated, moving back to their camp to reconsider the situation. They were astonished by the work the Gros Ventres had been able to do on their fortification, and gave up all idea of taking it by storm.

  The only thing remaining was to burn them out. The Nez Perce and Flathead allies objected strongly to this notion. While burning the fort would get rid of the Gros Ventres, it would also wipe out any plunder there might be, an unforgivable waste.

  Nevertheless, the plan was carried over their objections, and the squaws were set to gathering wood. While this was going on, the stubborn Gros Ventres were hurling taunts out of the fort. A conversation was carried on between the inhabitants of the fort and an interpreter; the gist was apparently that, while the whites might be able to burn out this small fortress, revenge would come soon. There were six or eight hundred warriors not far from here, who would descend on the whites and wipe them out.

  In the process of translation, as is customary, something was lost. In this case it was the meaning. When all the interpreters had finished hashing out the threats through two or three Indian languages and English, it was relayed as saying that six or eight hundred warriors were already in Pierre’s Hole, wiping up the trappers who had remained behind: the greenhorns, and those otherwise disinclined to fight.

  Promptly the white party got into an uproar and, leaving behind a small force to keep the Gros Ventres in their fort, stormed all the way back to the site of the rendezvous, to rescue that bunch. They didn’t need rescuing, except from each other perhaps, and that didn’t count.

  By now it was near night, and there wasn’t time to get back to the Gros Ventre position before dark. In the morning, when they did return to finish up the job, there was nobody at home in the willow grove.

  The survivors had slipped out during the night and were scattering through the woods in retreat. Disconsolate, the Nez Perces and Flatheads discovered that the retreating Gros Ventres had taken all their gear with them; no booty at all. They found only one squaw, some distance from the fort, and immediately butchered her.

  (One story is that she sat beside the body of a fallen warrior and made no resistance. Another, less romantic, that she had been shot through the leg.)

  ***

  The final casualty score on the white side was three whites killed (another died later) and four or five wounded, including Bill Sublette, who had had his wound dressed by Bob Campbell and was carried back to camp on a litter. Eight or ten of their Nez Perce and Flathead allies had been wounded or killed; The Gros Ventres later admitted to a loss of twenty-six men—though when the trappers finally overran the little fortification they did not find that many. (The figures are, of course, those from the battle proper; there were other casualties directly attributable to the Battle of Pierre’s Hole, but they did not occur until later.)

  So the battle of Pierre’s Hole was over. Everybody went back to the rendezvous site to discuss it, have a drink, and get organized for the Fall '32 hunt all over again.

  CHAPTER 18

  "A dishonest transaction from beginning to end"

  BILL SUBLETTE, his supply caravan now loaded with furs, had to remain in Pierre’s Hole until his wound healed enough for him to ride. Jacob Wyeth, Nathanie1’s doctor-brother, bound it up as best he could; the rest was up to the mountain constitution. The dissenters from Wyeth’s party intended to accompany Sublette and Campbell back to St. Louis, and so were forced to remain at rendezvous until Bill was able to travel. The Company brigade under Vanderburgh and Drips was stuck, too; Fontenelle had still not arrived with their supplies. They sent out a scouting party to see if he could be located. The presence of the expected six hundred Gros Ventre warriors somewhere east of the divide made everybody a little nervous. Bill Sublette, of course, was in the worst position. He had to go back that way.

  Milton’s party (which apparently included Gervais) was scheduled to hunt southwest; on a slant north of the Great Salt Lake and its desert, working the area around the Humboldt River and perhaps the Owyhee. This was starving country for every party that eyer went through it, and the beaver not enough to justify the hardship. It is hard to explain this hunt. It may be that Milton veered too far south from his intended grounds or perhaps the idea was to clean off the fringes of'the Snake country before HBC had a chance to do it. With Wyeth still in tow, they got off on the 24th of June, about a week after the battle, and headed down the valley of the Snake.

  The other principal brigade of RMF, under Tom Fitzpatrick and Bridger, was headed north from Pierre’s Hole; back to Three Forks, with all that implied—much beaver, many Blackfeet. (From Fort Union McKenzie was supplying powder, lead, and guns . .. Bug‘s Boys were better armed than they had ever been.)

  There is no record of Fraeb’s whereabouts on this fall '32 hunt. At a guess, he would be heading down into the valley of the Green again. With the Fitz-Bridger brigade working north along the west slope and Milton working south, also on the west side of the mountain, the only prosperous area not accounted for is the valley of the Green, southeast of Pierre’s Hole.

  About the time Milton’s party got off for the southwest, a violent argument broke out at the camp. Shortly before he rode on ahead of Sublette’s supply party, Tom Fitzpatrick had bought 120 pelts from the captain of the Gant & Blackwell trappers and taken men into RMF’s service from the now-defunct small firm. (One of these was Zenas Leonard.) The furs had been cached near the mouth of the Laramie. These, of course, belonged to Gant & Blackwell, bankruptcy for no, and their brigade captain had no right whatever to dispose of them to RMF. (This man, one Alfred Stephens, appears to have been a querulous sort, not above a judicious double-cross in time of need; several members of his own trapping party suffered from the captain’s duplicity.)

  Now, in Pierre’s Hole, Stephens decided he had been cheated by Fitzpatrick. The beaver was to he paid for in horses, of which Stephens was short, and he objected to the price set on the horses by Fitz. But the latter held all the cards. In the altercation that ensued (by Zenas Leonard’s account):

  No person interfered, for we all knew that it was a dishonest transaction from beginning to end. Fitzpatrick having everything in his own possession, was therefore contented and—as independent as any mean man who had it in his power to make his own terms. Stephens, on the contrary, was in a bad situation—having paid beforehand, and not being able to force measures, had to put up with what he could get.

  Furious, Stephens decided to leave Pierre’s Hole without waiting for the supply train of Bill Sublet
te. He managed to recruit six men, several of them discontented Wyeth men, and left the day after Milton, the 25th of July. His intention was apparently to get back to the mouth of the Laramie and raise the cache of furs there before Fitz could get it.

  One day out of Pierre’s Hole they stumbled into an advance party of the rumored Gros Ventre camp. Two of the men were killed immediately, including the ex-Wyeth man, George More, who died a very long way from Boston. Stephens' wound was not considered dangerous at first, being comparatively small. But gangrene makes all wounds the same size; he died a few days later.

  ***

  I have implied previously that RMF was born with Bill Sublette’s hand on its collective throat. Now, as he lay in Pierre’s Hole recuperating from his shoulder wound, the man known to Indians as Cut Face began to tighten his grip.

  RMF had not been able to get its furs down since the company was formed, and so had two years’ hunt on hand. In Pierre's Hole there were 11,246 pounds of fur, and another 2,473 pounds in caches on the Sweetwater and Platte. (Part of this, of course, was the Gant & Blackwell fur, which reverted to Tom Fitzpatrick when Stephens was killed. Or at least there wasn‘t anybody to object to the proceedings.) Altogether 140 to 150 packs, a respectable catch, and not even counting the castoreum and miscellaneous furs.

  With Milton Sublette, Gervais, and probably Fraeb already off on the Fall ’32 hunt, Fitzpatrick sat down and drew up an agreement with Bill.

  The Articles of Agreement1 were dated "under the Three Teton mountain this Twenty fifth day of July." It is rather a long document, mainly because it concerns itself with the debts RMF has accumulated in two years. It is also an interesting one, inasmuch as it effectively places control of RMF in the hands of Bill Sublette. Ostensibly it is no more than an agreement for Sublette to sell the RMF catch as best he can and instructions for the disposal of the money.