Captain Bonneville was also especially careful to secure the horses, and set a vigilant guard upon them; for there lies the great object and principal danger of a night attack.  The grand move of the lurking savage is to cause a panic among the horses.  In such cases one horse frightens another, until all are alarmed, and struggle to break loose.  In camps where there are great numbers of Indians, with their horses, a night alarm of the kind is tremendous.  The running of the horses that have broken loose; the snorting, stamping, and rearing of those which remain fast; the howling of dogs; the yelling of Indians; the scampering of white men, and red men, with their guns; the overturning of lodges, and trampling of fires by the horses; the flashes of the fires, lighting up forms of men and steeds dashing through the gloom, altogether make up one of the wildest scenes of confusion imaginable.  In this way, sometimes, all the horses of a camp amounting to several hundred will be frightened off in a single night.

The night passed off without any disturbance; but there was no likelihood that a war party of Blackfeet, once on the track of a camp where there was a chance for spoils, would fail to hover round it.  The captain, therefore, continued to maintain the most vigilant precautions; throwing out scouts in the advance, and on every rising ground.

In the course of the day he arrived at the plain of white clay, already mentioned, surrounded by the mineral springs, called Beer Springs, by the trappers.  Here the men all halted to have a regale.  In a few moments every spring had its jovial knot of hard drinkers, with tin cup in hand, indulging in a mock carouse; quaffing, pledging, toasting, bandying jokes, singing drinking songs, and uttering peals of laughter, until it seemed as if their imaginations had given potency to the beverage, and cheated them into a fit of intoxication.  Indeed, in the excitement of the moment, they were loud and extravagant in their commendations of “the mountain tap”; elevating it above every beverage produced from hops or malt.  It was a singular and fantastic scene; suited to a region where everything is strange and peculiar:—­These groups of trappers, and hunters, and Indians, with their wild costumes, and wilder countenances; their boisterous gayety, and reckless air; quaffing, and making merry round these sparkling fountains; while beside them lay their weep ons, ready to be snatched up for instant service.  Painters are fond of representing banditti at their rude and picturesque carousels; but here were groups, still more rude and picturesque; and it needed but a sudden onset of Blackfeet, and a quick transition from a fantastic revel to a furious melee, to have rendered this picture of a trapper’s life complete.