With these precautions they all passed unmolested. The only
accident that happened was the upsetting of one of the canoes, by
which some of the goods sunk, and others floated down the stream. The
alertness and rapacity of the hordes which infest these rapids, were
immediately apparent. They pounced upon the floating merchandise with
the keenness of regular wreckers. A bale of goods which landed upon one
of the islands was immediately ripped open, one half of its contents
divided among the captors, and the other half secreted in a lonely hut
in a deep ravine. Mr. Robert Stuart, however, set out in a canoe with
five men and an interpreter, ferreted out the wreckers in their retreat,
and succeeded in wrestling from them their booty.
Similar precautions to those already mentioned, and to a still greater
extent, were observed in passing the Long Narrows, and the falls, where
they would be exposed to the depredations of the chivalry of Wish-ram,
and its freebooting neighborhood. In fact, they had scarcely set their
first watch one night, when an alarm of "Indians!" was given. "To arms"
was the cry, and every man was at his post in an instant. The alarm
was explained; a war party of Shoshonies had surprised a canoe of the
natives just below the encampment, had murdered four men and two women,
and it was apprehended they would attack the camp.
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