After the departure of Captain Bonneville in March, Kosato, the renegade Blackfoot, had recovered from the wound received in battle; and with his strength revived all his deadly hostility to his native tribe.  He now resumed his efforts to stir up the Nez Perces to reprisals upon their old enemies; reminding them incessantly of all the outrages and robberies they had recently experienced, and assuring them that such would continue to be their lot until they proved themselves men by some signal retaliation.

The impassioned eloquence of the desperado at length produced an effect; and a band of braves enlisted under his guidance, to penetrate into the Blackfoot country, harass their Villages, carry off their horses, and commit all kinds of depredations.

Kosato pushed forward on his foray as far as the Horse Prairie, where he came upon a strong party of Blackfeet.  Without waiting to estimate their force, he attacked them with characteristic fury, and was bravely seconded by his followers.  The contest, for a time, was hot and bloody; at length, as is customary with these two tribes, they paused, and held a long parley, or rather a war of words.

“What need,” said the Blackfoot chief, tauntingly, “have the Nez Perces to leave their homes, and sally forth on war parties, when they have danger enough at their own doors?  If you want fighting, return to your villages; you will have plenty of it there.  The Blackfeet warriors have hitherto made war upon you as children.  They are now coming as men.  A great force is at hand; they are on their way to your towns, and are determined to rub out the very name of the Nez Perces from the mountains.  Return, I say, to your towns, and fight there, if you wish to live any longer as a people.”

Kosato took him at his word; for he knew the character of his native tribe.  Hastening back with his band to the Nez Perces village, he told all that he had seen and heard, and urged the most prompt and strenuous measures for defence.  The Nez Perces, however, heard him with their accustomed phlegm; the threat of the Blackfeet had been often made, and as often had proved a mere bravado; such they pronounced it to be at present, and, of course, took no precautions.

They were soon convinced that it was no empty menace.  In a few days a band of three hundred Blackfeet warriors appeared upon the hills.  All now was consternation in the village.  The force of the Nez Perces was too small to cope with the enemy in open fight; many of the young men having gone to their relatives on the Columbia to procure horses.  The sages met in hurried council.  What was to be done to ward off a blow which threatened annihilation?  In this moment of imminent peril, a Pierced-nose chief, named Blue John by the whites, offered to approach secretly with a small, but chosen band, through a defile which led to the encampment of the enemy, and, by a sudden onset, to drive off the horses.  Should this blow be successful, the spirit and strength of the invaders would be broken, and the Nez Perces, having horses, would be more than a match for them.  Should it fail, the village would not be worse off than at present, when destruction appeared inevitable.