The prisoners, with their horses and luggage, were conducted to the spot where their captors had halted, and a council was formed immediately.  The Prince, addressing the chief, reproached him bitterly with his treachery; little did he know of the Crows, who are certainly the greatest rascals among the mountains.  The traders and all the Indian tribes represent them as “thieves never known to keep a promise or to do an honourable act.”

None but a stranger will ever trust them.  They are as cowardly as cruel.  Murder and robbery are the whole occupation of their existence, and woe to the traders or trappers whom they may meet with during their excursions, if they are not at least one-tenth of their own number.  A proof of their cowardice is that once Roche, myself, and a young Parisian named Gabriel, having by chance fallen upon a camp of thirteen Crows and three Arrapahoes, they left us their tents, furs, and dried meats; the Arrapahoes alone showing some fight, in which one of them was killed; but to return to our subject.  The chief heard the Prince Seravalle with a contemptuous air, clearly showing that he knew who the Prince was, and that he entertained no good-will towards him.  His duplicity, however, and greediness, getting the better of his hatred, he asked the prisoners what they would give to obtain their freedom.  Upon their answer that they would give two rifles, two horses, with one hundred dollars, he said that all which the prisoners possessed when taken, being already his own, he expected much more than that.  He demanded that one of the Canadians should go to Fort Hall, with five Crows, with an order from the Prince to the amount of sixty blankets, twenty rifles, and ten kegs of powder.  In the meantime the prisoners were to be carried into the country of the Crows, where the goods were to follow them as soon as obtained; upon the reception of which, the white men should be set at liberty.  Understanding now the intention of their enemies, and being certain that, once in the strongholds of the Crows, they would never be allowed to return, the Prince rejected the offer; wishing, however, to gain time, he made several others, which, of course, were not agreed upon.  When the chief saw that he was not likely to obtain anything more than that which he had already become master of, he threw away his mask of hypocrisy, and resuming at once his real character, began to abuse his victims.

“The Pale-faces,” he said, “were base dogs, and too great cowards to fight against the Crows.  They were less than women, concealing themselves in the lodges of the Shoshones, and lending them their rifles, so that having now plenty of arms and ammunition, that tribe had become strong, and feared by all.  But now they would kill the Pale-faces, and they would see what colour was the blood of cowards.  When dead, they could not give any more rifles, or powder, to the Shoshones, who would then bury themselves like prairie dogs in their burrows, and never again dare to cross the path of a Crow.”