94 NARRATIVE OF A JOURNEiT 



came in, bringing the best parts of three more. This will give 

 us abundance of work for to-morrow, when the hunters will go 

 out again. 



Richardson and Sansbury mention having seen several Black- 

 feet Indians to-day, who, on observing them, ran rapidly away, 

 and, as usual, concealed themselves in the bushes. We are 

 now certain that our worst enemies are around us, and that they 

 are only waiting for a favorable time and opportunity to make 

 an attack. They are not here for nothing, and have probably 

 been dogging us, and reconnoitering our outposts, so that the 

 greatest caution and watchfulness will be required to prevent a 

 surprise. We are but a small company, and there may be at 

 this very moment hundreds within hearing of our voices. 



The Blackfoot is a sworn and determined foe to all white 

 men, and he has often been heard to declare that he would 

 rather hang the scalp of a " pale face" to his girdle, than kill a 

 buffalo to prevent his starving. 



The hostility of this dreaded tribe is, and has for years been, 

 proverbial. They are, perhaps, the only Indians who do not 

 fear the power, and who refuse to acknowledge the superiority of 

 the white man; and though so often beaten in conflicts with 

 them, even by their own mode of warfare, and generally with 

 numbers vastly inferior, their indomitable courage and per- 

 severance still urges them on to renewed attempts ; and if a 

 single scalp is taken, it is considered equal to a great victory, 

 and is hailed as a presage of future and more extensive triumphs- 

 It must be acknowledged, however, that this determined hos- 

 tility docs not originate solely in savage malignity, or an abstract 

 thirst for the blood of white men ; it is fomented and kept alive 

 from year to year by incessant provocatives on the part of 

 white hunters, trappers, and traders, who are at best but in- 

 truders on the rightful domains of the red man of the wilderness. 



