第39章 Irving’s Bonneville - Chapter 13(1)

Story of Kosato, the Renegade Blackfoot.

IF the meekness and long-suffering of the Pierced-noses grieved the spiritof Captain Bonneville,

there was another individual in the camp to whom they were still more annoying. This was aBlackfoot renegado, named Kosato, a fiery hot-blooded youth who, with a beautiful girl of thesame

tribe, had taken refuge among the Nez Perces. Though adopted into the tribe, he still retainedthe

warlike spirit of his race, and loathed the peaceful, inoffensive habits of those around him. Thehunting of the deer, the elk, and the buffalo, which was the height of their ambition, was too tameto satisfy his wild and restless nature. His heart burned for the foray, the ambush, the skirmish,the

scamper, and all the haps and hazards of roving and predatory warfare.

The recent hoverings of the Blackfeet about the camp, their nightly prowls and daring andsuccessful

marauds, had kept him in a fever and a flutter, like a hawk in a cage who hears his latecompanions

swooping and screaming in wild liberty above him. The attempt of Captain Bonneville to rousethe

war spirit of the Nez Perces, and prompt them to retaliation, was ardently seconded by Kosato.

For

several days he was incessantly devising schemes of vengeance, and endeavoring to set on footan

expedition that should carry dismay and desolation into the Blackfeet town. All his art wasexerted

to touch upon those springs of human action with which he was most familiar. He drew thelistening

savages round him by his nervous eloquence; taunted them with recitals of past wrongs andinsults;

drew glowing pictures of triumphs and trophies within their reach; recounted tales of daring andromantic enterprise, of secret marchings, covert lurkings, midnight surprisals, sackings, burnings,plunderings, scalpings; together with the triumphant return, and the feasting and rejoicing of thevictors. These wild tales were intermingled with the beating of the drum, the yell, the war-whoopand the war-dance, so inspiring to Indian valor. All, however, were lost upon the peaceful spiritsof

his hearers; not a Nez Perce was to be roused to vengeance, or stimulated to glorious war. In thebitterness of his heart, the Blackfoot renegade repined at the mishap which had severed him froma race of congenial spirits, and driven him to take refuge among beings so destitute of martialfire.

The character and conduct of this man attracted the attention of Captain Bonneville, and hewas

anxious to hear the reason why he had deserted his tribe, and why he looked back upon themwith

such deadly hostility. Kosato told him his own story briefly: it gives a picture of the deep, strongpassions that work in the bosoms of these miscalled stoics.

"You see my wife," said he, "she is good; she is beautiful --I love her. Yet she has been thecause

of all my troubles. She was the wife of my chief. I loved her more than he did; and she knew it.

We

talked together; we laughed together; we were always seeking each other's society; but we wereas