by a mysterious evil,
before whose insidious assaults his manhood is wasted, and his strength
drained away, when he can see no enemy to resist and defy, the boldest
warrior falls prostrate at once. He believes that a bad spirit has
taken possession of him, or that he is the victim of some charm. When
suffering from a protracted disorder, an Indian will often abandon
himself to his supposed destiny, pine away and die, the victim of his
own imagination. The same effect will often follow from a series of
calamities, or a long run of ill success, and the sufferer has been
known to ride into the midst of an enemy's camp, or attack a grizzly
bear single-handed, to get rid of a life which he supposed to lie under
the doom of misfortune.

Thus after all his fasting, dreaming, and calling upon the Great Spirit,
the White Shield's war party was pitifully broken up.

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAPPERS

In speaking of the Indians, I have almost forgotten two bold adventurers
of another race, the trappers Rouleau and Saraphin. These men were bent
on a most hazardous enterprise. A day's journey to the westward was the
country over which the Arapahoes are accustomed to range, and for which
the two trappers were on the point of setting out. These Arapahoes, of
whom Shaw and I afterward fell in with a large village, are ferocious
barbarians, of a most brutal and wolfish aspect, and of late they had
declared themselves enemies to the whites, and threatened death to the
first who should venture within their territory. The occasion of the
declaration was as follows:

In the previous spring, 1845, Colonel Kearny left Fort Leavenworth with
several companies of dragoons, and marching with extraordinary celerity
reached Fort Laramie, whence he passed along the foot of the mountains
to Bent's Fort and then, turning eastward again, returned to the point
from whence he set out. While at Fort Larantie, he sent a part of his
command as far westward as Sweetwater, while he himself remained at the
fort, and dispatched messages to the surrounding Indians to meet him
there in council. Then for the first time the tribes of that vicinity
saw the white warriors, and, as might have been expected, they were
lost in astonishment at their regular order, their gay attire, the
completeness of their martial equipment, and the great size and power of
their horses. Among the rest, the Arapahoes came in considerable numbers
to the fort. They had lately committe