INDIAN TRIBES OF THE MISSOURI VALLEY. 341 
No trader has ever acquired it sufficiently to carry on even an ordinary conversation, much 
less to make a speech, though some of the old residents can pronounce the names of 
different articles of trade with tolerable accuracy. All dealings or intercourse with them 
by whites or Blackfeet are conducted through the language of the latter nation, which 
abounds with interpreters. 
In the year 1818, the Atsinas, having surprised and robbed one of the forts of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, on a tributary of the Saskatchewan, fled to the sources of the 
Missouri, where they passed the winter; but, finding no traders there to furnish them with 
supplies or purchase their peltries, they continued their route across the mountains, and 
joined once more their old relations the Arapohos. Here they resided and hunted in 
common with the latter tribe for the space of five years, during which time the small-pox 
passed among them, having been communicated through other tribes with whom they 
were at peace or carried on a traffic. ‘This disease, at that time, destroyed about half 
their number, but secured the remainder from the next attack, which occurred in 1838. 
At this latter period the small-pox only acted upon the young, and destroyed numbers of 
them, but the chiefs and elderly men escaped, so that the tribe was not reduced to the 
disorderly and helpless condition of the Blackfeet and other surrounding nations. 
_ In the summer of 1823, the Atsinas became dissatisfied with the country of the Ara- 
pohos, and longed for their old district, or at least, for some place where the buffalo were 
to be found in greater abundance than among the valleys of the mountains. The Crow 
nation had been on terms of peace with the Arapohos for several years, but not being ac- 
quainted with the Atsinas, regarded them as enemies, from their previous union with the 
Blackfeet. ‘This fact the Atsinas well knew, and to avoid meeting with the Crows on 
their journey to the Missouri, they made a circuit of many miles west of the Crow dis- 
trict, passing near the Columbia. During this trip across the mountains, they came in 
contact with a few white men trapping for beaver, some of whom they killed and robbed 
of their property, while others escaped, and carried the intelligence of the murder of their 
comrades to the main body of trappers. This was a company of sixty to eighty men, all 
well armed, and versed in the different modes of Indian warfare. They were brave men, 
headed by renowned leaders, Sublette and Fontinelle. Most of these trappers were as- 
sembled at their rendezvous, on a tributary of Big Snake River, not far from the place 
where the murders were committed. 
_ Always ready to avenge the death of any of their party, and to drive hostile Indians 
from the mountains, they at once started to attack the advancing camp of the Atsinas. 
The latter discovered their approach in time to erect several small forts and other breast- 
works, with such materials, hastily thrown together, as the country afforded. The trap- 
pers arrived, and one of the most severe engagements took place ever known in the Rocky 
