The unfortunate Nez Perces now began once more to breathe.  A few of their warriors, taking pack-horses, repaired to the defile to bring away the bodies of their slaughtered brethren.  They found them mere headless trunks; and the wounds with which they were covered showed how bravely they had fought.  Their hearts, too, had been torn out and carried off; a proof of their signal valor; for in devouring the heart of a foe renowned for bravery, or who has distinguished himself in battle, the Indian victor thinks he appropriates to himself the courage of the deceased.

Gathering the mangled bodies of the slain, and strapping them across their pack-horses, the warriors returned, in dismal procession, to the village.  The tribe came forth to meet them; the women with piercing cries and wailings; the men with downcast countenances, in which gloom and sorrow seemed fixed as if in marble.  The mutilated and almost undistinguishable bodies were placed in rows upon the ground, in the midst of the assemblage; and the scene of heart-rending anguish and lamentation that ensued would have confounded those who insist on Indian stoicism.

Such was the disastrous event that had overwhelmed the Nez Perces tribe during the absence of Captain Bonneville; and he was informed that Kosato, the renegade, who, being stationed in the village, had been prevented from going on the forlorn hope, was again striving to rouse the vindictive feelings of his adopted brethren, and to prompt them to revenge the slaughter of their devoted braves.

During his sojourn on the Snake River plain, Captain Bonneville made one of his first essays at the strategy of the fur trade.  There was at this time an assemblage of Nez Perces, Flatheads, and Cottonois Indians encamped together upon the plain; well provided with beaver, which they had collected during the spring.  These they were waiting to traffic with a resident trader of the Hudson’s Bay Company, who was stationed among them, and with whom they were accustomed to deal.  As it happened, the trader was almost entirely destitute of Indian goods; his spring supply not having yet reached him.  Captain Bonneville had secret intelligence that the supplies were on their way, and would soon arrive; he hoped, how-ever, by a prompt move, to anticipate their arrival, and secure the market to himself.  Throwing himself, therefore, among the Indians, he opened his packs of merchandise and displayed the most tempting wares:  bright cloths, and scarlet blankets, and glittering ornaments, and everything gay and glorious in the eyes of warrior or squaw; all, however, was in vain.  The Hudson’s Bay trader was a perfect master of his business, thoroughly acquainted with the Indians he had to deal with, and held such control over them that none dared to act openly in opposition to his wishes; nay, more—­he came nigh turning the tables upon the captain, and shaking the allegiance of some of his free trappers, by distributing liquors among them.  The latter, therefore, was glad to give up a competition, where the war was likely to be carried into his own camp.