250 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



to one another and crossed at certain distances with twigs, the 

 whole suspended from the top to the foot of immense precipices, 

 and fastened at both extremities to stones and trees." 



He speaks of the worst places being where these frail swaying 

 ladders led up to the overhanging ledge of a shelving precipice. 



Such were the very real adventures of the trapper's life, a life 

 whose fascinations lured John Colter from civilization to the wilds 

 again and again till he came back once too often and found himself 

 stripped, helpless, captive, in the hands of the Blackfeet. 



It would be poor sport torturing a prisoner who showed no 

 more fear than this impassive white man coolly listening and wait- 

 ing for them to compass his death. So the chief dismissed the 

 suggestion to shoot at their captive as a target. Suddenly the 

 Blackfoot leader turned to Colter. "Could the white man run 

 fast ?" he asked. In a flash Colter guessed what was to be his fate. 

 He, the hunter, was to be hunted. No, he cunningly signalled, 

 he was only a poor runner. 



Bidding his warriors stand still, the chief roughly led Colter 

 out three hundred yards. Then he set his captive free, and the 

 exultant shriek of the running warriors told what manner of sport 

 this was to be. It was a race for life. 



The white man shot out with all the power of muscles hard 

 as iron-wood and tense as a bent bow. Fear winged the man 

 running for his life to outrace the winged arrows coming from the 

 shouting warriors three hundred yards behind. Before him stretched 

 a plain six miles wide, the distance he had so thoughtlessly paddled 

 between the rampart walls of the canon but a few hours ago. At 

 the Jefferson was a thick forest growth where a fugitive might 

 escape. Somewhere along the Jefferson was his own hidden cabin. 



Across this plain sped Colter, pursued by a band of six hundred 

 shrieking demons. Not one breath did he waste looking back 

 over his shoulder till he was more than half-way across the plain, 

 and could tell from the fading uproar that he was outdistancing 



