The most lamentable tale of disasters, however, that Captain Bonneville had to hear, was from a partisan, whom he had detached in the preceding year, with twenty men, to hunt through the outskirts of the Crow country, and on the tributary streams of the Yellowstone; whence he was to proceed and join him in his winter quarters on Salmon River.  This partisan appeared at the rendezvous without his party, and a sorrowful tale of disasters had he to relate.  In hunting the Crow country, he fell in with a village of that tribe; notorious rogues, jockeys, and horse stealers, and errant scamperers of the mountains.  These decoyed most of his men to desert, and carry off horses, traps, and accoutrements.  When he attempted to retake the deserters, the Crow warriors ruffled up to him and declared the deserters were their good friends, had determined to remain among them, and should not be molested.  The poor partisan, therefore, was fain to leave his vagabonds among these birds of their own feather, and being too weak in numbers to attempt the dangerous pass across the mountains to meet Captain Bonneville on Salmon River, he made, with the few that remained faithful to him, for the neighborhood of Tullock’s Fort, on the Yellowstone, under the protection of which he went into winter quarters.

He soon found out that the neighborhood of the fort was nearly as bad as the neighborhood of the Crows.  His men were continually stealing away thither, with whatever beaver skins they could secrete or lay their hands on.  These they would exchange with the hangers-on of the fort for whiskey, and then revel in drunkeness and debauchery.

The unlucky partisan made another move.  Associating with his party a few free trappers, whom he met with in this neighborhood, he started off early in the spring to trap on the head waters of Powder River.  In the course of the journey, his horses were so much jaded in traversing a steep mountain, that he was induced to turn them loose to graze during the night.  The place was lonely; the path was rugged; there was not the sign of an Indian in the neighborhood; not a blade of grass that had been turned by a footstep.  But who can calculate on security in the midst of the Indian country, where the foe lurks in silence and secrecy, and seems to come and go on the wings of the wind?  The horses had scarce been turned loose, when a couple of Arickara (or Rickaree) warriors entered the camp.  They affected a frank and friendly demeanor; but their appearance and movements awakened the suspicions of some of the veteran trappers, well versed in Indian wiles.  Convinced that they were spies sent on some sinister errand, they took them in custody, and set to work to drive in the horses.  It was too late—­the horses were already gone.  In fact, a war party of Arickaras had been hovering on their trail for several days, watching with the patience and perseverance of Indians, for some moment of negligence and fancied security, to make a successful swoop.  The two spies had evidently been sent into the camp to create a diversion, while their confederates carried off the spoil.