A Majority of Scountrels - Don Berry Read online

  Ogden departed Flathead post on December 20, 1824, with what that post’s brand-new factor Ross called "the most formidable party that ever set out for the Snakes" (though it consisted of fifty-eight men, only three more than Ross’s own party). Twelve of these were engagés, the rest freemen. Not noted in Ogden's own compilation were his seven tag-alongs, the American party under Smith. For some reason Ogden chooses to ignore the Americans entirely, until well, into the spring of 1825; his journal contains no reference to them until April 8, just before they were ready to separate.

  Smith and his party remained behind when Ogden’s brigade set out, and did not join him until December 29. Since Ogden's own journal (which was obligatory for a brigade partisan and intended for the eyes of his superiors) does not comment on their arrival, we rely for this information on the voluntary notations of Ogden's clerk, one William Kittson.3

  By the end of the year the brigade was just west of Hellgate, the narrow canyon near present Missoula through which Clark’s Fork flows. Said Ogden, reviewing:

  This- ends 1824 & I shall only remark amongst the many Changes that have taken place none is less pleasing to me than the one I have experienced from a State of independency to one the very reverse.

  Apparently the new-found responsibility of brigade partisan was. not completely congenial to the lover of "coarse practical jokes."

  The new year was seen in with considerable restraint for a trapping party. Ogden: "Bright & early all the Freemen paid me their respects in return they received my best Wishes for a good hunt & a long life. [The hunters brought deer] which enabled us to feast & be merry all quiet." Which Kittson amplifes: "They had no liquor to make them troublesome."

  The British brigade moved south, following almost the same route Ross’s returning party had taken the previous fall. Among other delays due to natural causes, the party had to stop twice for children to be born among the Indian women who were accompanying their husbands, legal or pro tem.

  By the middle of January they were in the Big Hole Prairie, and Ogden was giving thought to the fact that they were "now in the Black feet Country of Wars & Murders [and] we must regulate our progress by the encampments we may find suitable for defense."

  The first casualty had in fact already occurred, but it couldn’t be attributed to the Blackfeet. Kittson’s joumal, entry for January 13:

  During the night a dispute took place between a Nez Perces and his wife, he struck her a blow with the but end of his gun on the head, she fell, and he thinking that she was dead, shot himself though the breast, he died soon after and the woman came to life. Traded a horse on that account in order to sacrifice some things to his memory.

  On the 6th of February an Iroquois named Louis Kanitagan was accidentally shot and killed by his wife, causing Ogden to remark with foreboding that "there is Certainly a fatality attending the Snake Country & all Snake Expeditions."

  They crossed Lemhi Pass on the 11th of February, working down into the Lemhi valley. Normally this would be entering the final lap of their trip—"not more than Eight encampments" from the valley of the Snake. Here, however, Ogden decided to strengthen his horses in preparation for the "well known poverty of the [Snake] Country in grass."

  There were buifalo in plenty in the valley, which made it a paradise for the freemen. Nothing appealed to the freemen so much as a good buffalo run, and they would desert traps, company, wife, children, and hope of redemption in the hereafter to chase a herd down. "The freemen in their glory in pursuit of Buffalo," says Ogden, ". . . many killed this day not less than 30 but not more than 300 wt. of meat Came in to Camp, the temptation of running Buffalo is too great for them to resist."

  But what started as an intentional pause turned into something less to be desired—an enforced encampment. For the next six weeks the brigade moved by fits and starts across the Lemhi valley. The grass gave out and the horses, rather than gaining strength, rapidly weakened and began to die. Bitter winter weather kept them from crossing the passes out of the valley, and the scouting parties sent out to find their way could not plow through the heavy snows.

  The freemen continued to run buffalo on their weakening horses, and between runs importuned Ogden to turn back. Blackfoot sign was seen around them in the mountains, and several encounters with war parties—one of them numbering sixty braves—kept the trappers on their toes.

  By March 18 Smith and his six men had decided they could make better progress on their own, and Kittson’s journal notes their intention 'to leave us tomorrow and try to make their way to the snake river." The next day:

  The Americans traded some ammunition and Tobacco from us for Beaver at the same price as our freemen. About noon they left us well satisfied I hope with the care and Attention we paid them. For since we had them with us no one in our party ever took any advantadge of or ill treated them. One Jedidiah S. Smith is at the head of them, a sly cunning Yankey.

  The departure of the American party went unremarked in Ogden’s own journal, though he is suddenly moved: "I feel S0 anxious to proceed that I shall again Send a party to examine another Defile." Contemplating the possibility that they would be forced to return to the Flathead post without even having made a spring hunt, Ogden’s frequent pessimism shows in his journal entry:

  how Cruelly mortifying after spending the winter in this dreary Country to loose the main object of our voyage when almost within reach of it, the Severe Winter the poverty of the Country in grass & my ignorance of the Country are the principal reasons for this failure.

  Ogden then sent the clerk Kittson to see if he could find a way out of their imprisonment, but he was driven back to the camp by a party pf some thirty Indians. Though Ogden’s journal makes no mention of it, Kittson was also instructed to find, if he could, which way the Americans had gone. They had made a better choice of route than he, Kittson found, noting that their track was "to the Southward of our way."

  Finally, on the 25th, Ogden’s party got across the defile separating the waters of the Salmon River from those of the John Day River.

  Ogden camped beside the John Day and sent out the Iroquois John Gray to End their way.4 Gray returned to report that the snow made all trails impassable. Ogden very rightly concluded that "there is no dependence to be placed on the free men . . . the greater part do not appear over anxious to reach a Beaver Country or they would act differently."

  He sent out Kittson again, and the doughty clerk’s report was quite the reverse: the passes were negotiable. They raised camp again and on March 30 passed the site of a recent American camp (again unrecorded by Ogden). Another week went by in which Kittson occasionally remarks on passing the trail of the Smith party.

  At last, on April 7, Ogden caught up with the Americans where they were in camp. The next day his joumal acknowledges their existence for the first time on the trip; the occasion was worthy of note because it represented something of a victory for Ogden:

  The seven Americans who joined Mr. Ross last Summer & accompanied him to the Flat Heads & have been since with us requested to trade & ’tho they found the prices high say the Freemens Tariff but being in Want they were obliged to Comply & traded 100 Lar. & Sm. Beaver this is some recompence for the Beaver they traded with our party last Summer.

  Some recompense, indeed; HBC made a very neat profit, in fact, since the pelts were undoubtedly traded for ammunition at the customary 70 per cent advance on prime cost and Ogden would certainly have allowed well under a dollar apiece for them. This must have hurt; those skins were worth—to the Americans—around $3 apiece in the mountains and probably $5 in St. Louis. But Smith had been away from his own sources of supply ever since June, almost a year. His need was probably quite desperate.

  In this transaction with Smith Ogden came out comfortably ahead; Smith had gotten 105 pelts from Ross’s Iroquois and been forced to part with 100 of them. The exaggerated markup on trading goods would have ensured that a profit accrued to the company.5

  Owing to the fact that the Ogd
en journals weren't published until quite recently, historians have made rather a large thing of Smith’s earlier transaction with the Iroquois. It is, in fact, one of the classic anecdotes of the trade. But here we see that in reality HBC had well made up for this loss within a year. (Smith had also been forced to trade off some beaver at the Flathead post.) Rather than being victimized by the unprincipled American trappers (which has been the character given by students to this whole episode), HBC rather primly victimized them. It must be admitted that this was their general business practice with respect to their own freemen, so perhaps victimization is not the proper word. Still, the day was not far oif when even the profit minded George Simpson would be forced to admit their relations with the freemen were not of the best.

  The next day Ogden was reminded that he had other problems than the Americans. Antoine Benoit was caught out by a party of forty Bloods. His companions found him on the 10th "naked, Scalp taken a Ball in the body one in the head & three Stabs with a knife . . . he could not have Suffered 1ong."

  Ogden is now on the Blackfoot River, one of the direct tributaries of the Snake. After burying Benoit, he moved:

  . . . 10 miles due East . . . & encamped on a fine Spot for defence . . ..the Free men started with 100 Traps but they had not been absent an hour when two Came back full Speed Calling out Black Feet . . . a party of 30 well Armed Started in pursuit of the Villains with orders to spare None but in the evening they all retu rned it proving to be a false report, for it proved to be the American party who had left us in the Night . . .

  Smith and his men hadn’t been able to find a suitable spot to ford the river and so had changed their course, and precipitated a minor panic in the British camp. Ruefully Ogden notes "in Consequence of this false alarm we have but few traps in the Water."

  For the next week the British and American parties played a game of mountain leapfrog, passing each other and being passed. Finally they separated for good on April 18; the Americans, according to Kittson, going back "to take the other route."

  Late April brought Ogden’s party to the Bear River, the very heart of the Snake country. The failures he feared had not materialized, and prospects were good for the spring hunt. Also, it looked a though he was rid of the Americans for good, since they were going the opposite direction, ascending the Bear as Ogden moved downstream. Though he makes little mention of it in his journal, Smith’s presence was disturbing the British partisan. Enough so that he had detached a party of fifteen freemen in the middle of April to ranges ahead, trying to prevent Smith and his men from skimming the cream ahead of him.

  Unhappy Mr. Ogden; on May 4th he was informed by seven Snakes that "a party of 25 Americans wintered near this & are gone in the same direction we had intended going if this be true which I have no reason to doubt it will be a fatal blow to our expectations?

  This was Weber’s party, who, having wintered in Cache Valley were now bestirring themselves about the spring hunt. As yet, Ogden had no idea of how many American trapping parties had reached the Snake country ahead of him. The worst of his anticipation was that the beaver would be scarce, and even this he considered a "fatal blow."

  One wonders what his journal entry would have been if he had been able to see a few weeks into the future. Peter Skene Ogden was on the verge of the most humiliating experience of his career, one which drew him sharp reprimands from his superiors, embarrassed the British Empire, and caused the monolithic HBC to backpedal furiously.

  He had three weeks of grace; then, on May 22, he was startled by the appearance of two of the deserters from a Snake Expedition of 1821. The next day, Monday, Kittson records the opening curtain:

  In the Afternoon Jack McLeod and Lazard the two Deserters came up to us with their camp consisting of besides them, 3 Canadians, a Russian, and an old Spaniard. This party under the Command of one Provost . . .

  CHAPTER 7

  "Do you know in whose Country you are?"

  IN THE fall of ’24 Etienne Provost had (probably) worked up the Strawberry River and across the Wasatch Range into the Great Basin. The latter part of his fall hunt was made on the Provo River, and by wintering time he had reached the valley of Great Salt Lake. While trapping a river subsequently identified as the Jordan he met a party of Snakes under the famous chief Mauvais Gauche (variously known in the trade by the English as Bad Left Hand, or by the bilingual compromise Bad Gocha).

  After initial friendly overtures, the Shoshone chief induced Provost’s men to lay aside their arms—claiming his medicine forbade him to smoke in the presence of metal objects. (The mountain men would have been respectful of any man’s medicine.) It was simple, treachery, and seven of Provost’s men were killed in the attack that followed.

  Provost’s movements following this defeat are not certain, but by the spring of 1825 he was back in the Salt Lake area, probably with a new outfit from his partner, Leclerc, and a new batch of trappers to replace those lost to Mauvais Gauche.

  On May 22 two of Provost’s trappers had encountered an HBC freeman in the canyon of the Weber River and accompanied him to Ogden’s camp. As it happened, the two were former employees of that esteemed organization themselves: Jack McLeod and the Iroquois Lazard Teycateyecowige. Having deserted HBC in 1822, McLeod, Lazard, and twelve others—most Iroquois—had made their way eastward, all the way to St. Louis, where they drifted off with one trapping party or another.

  McLeod and Lazard happened to be with Provost; arriving back in the mountains via Taos—and after three years—they had made full circle of a rather remarkable trip. Now they were happily reunited with their old family HBC, and what could be more natural than a little lying to liven up the occasion?

  Such as the fact, noted by Ogden, that they were "15 days march from the Spanish Vi1lage," which was more fuel for the partisan’s apprehension. (The "Spainish Vi1lage" meant Taos, which, though in Spanish territory, was already the place of outfitting and departure for American parties trapping the Southern Rockies.)

  Flathead post was fivefull months of hard traveling behind, and if the Americans could reach this country in two weeks . . . ,

  One of the two deserters promised to stay with HBC, and the other promised to pay his debt, which was at least an amiable gesture even if it wasn’t strictly sincere. McLeod and Lazard departed on this friendly note, and hightailed it back to Provost’s camp with the news.

  The next morning Provost’s entire party appeared at the British encampment. This was trouble enough for Ogden, but it was soon overshadowed by the arrival of the principal antagonists in the coming drama: "a1so in the afternoon arrived in Company with 14 of our absent men a party of 25 Americans with Colours ilying the latter party headed'by one ‘

  Gardner."

  II

  Johnson Gardner appears spasmodically in the literature of the trade as a free trapper. (Strictly speaking, the caste system among American trappers—including "free trapper" at the top—had not yet developed; the term is not current, and is used here as a convenient description.) This year of 1825 he had some definite connection with Ashley, and had probably wintered with the Weber party. His appearance in Ogden’s camp "with Colours flying" marks the first direct conflict of American and British trappers west of the divide. (Ogden’s expression was quite literal; the party was conspicuously displaying a large American flag, though God knows where it had come from. Such was not standard equipment in the trade, though it did become more frequent later.)

  After Jedediah Smith had separated from Ogden’s party he somehow heard of the wintering party of Americans in Cache Valley. While the British brigade was trapping down the tributaries of the Bear, Smith found the Weber party and doubtless reported of his stay at the Flathead post.

  In a fine burst of enthusiastic patriotism quite remarkable for men whose trade was based on a violation of federal law, Gardner and his party proceeded to Ogden’s camp, about eight miles from their own. He raised his own camp a hundred yards from the British and set Old Glory to flu
ttering bravely in the face, metaphorically speaking, of HBC. Gardner then entered the British camp and delivered a short speech touching on the various aspects of monarchy and democracy, and pointing out some of the advantages of the latter. Further, he informed his interested listeners that they were now in the United States territories. As a consequence of this fact, every man among them was quite free, whether indebted or engaged.

  ". . . & to add to this,’T says Ogden, "they would pay Cash for their Beaver 3 1/2 dollars p. lb., & their goods cheap in proportion." Which may have been more to the point than the questions of freedom and geography.

  Kittson adds Gardner’s statement that

  whomsoever wished to go with him they were welcome. No man would dare oppose the measures they would take, he and his party were ready to stand by, any that wished to Desert Mr Ogden, Free or Engaged men were the same in this land of Liberty, and night coming on no more was said. Strick watch set for the night. Fair weather.

  The next day Ogden’s journal records:

  Tuesday 24th.—This morning Gardner came to my Tent & after a few words of no import, he questioned me as follows Do you know in whose Country you are? to which I made answer that I did not as it was not determined between Great Britain & America to whom it belonged, to which he made answer that it was that it had been ceded to the latter & as I had no license to trap or trade to return from whence I came to this I made. answer when we receive orders from the British Government we Shall obey, then he replied remain at your peril.

  On this threatening note Gardner left Ogden’s tent. However, instead of returning to his own camp, he walked over to the tent of the Iroquois John Gray. Seeing this, Ogden hastily

  followed.

  The argument that followed took place mostly between Ogden and the Iroquois. Gardner contented himself with observing that "you have had these men already too long in your Service & have most Shamefully imposed on them selling them goods at high prices and giving them nothing for their Skins on which he retired."