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and encamp at the rise of the Portneuf and Blackfoot streams, in the buffalo range. Their horses, although of the Nez Percé breed, are inferior to the parent stock from being ridden at too early an age, being often bought when but two years old and immediately put to hard work. They have fewer horses, also, than most of these migratory tribes.

At the time that Captain Bonneville came into the neighborhood of these Indians, they were all in mourning for their chief, surnamed The Horse. This chief was said to possess a charmed life, or rather, to be invulnerable to lead; no bullet having ever hit him, though he had been in repeated battles, and often shot at by the surest marksmen. He had shown great magnanimity in his intercourse with the white men. One of the great men of his family had been slain in an attack upon a band of trappers passing through the territories of his tribe. Vengennce had been sworn by the Bannecks, but The Horse interfered, declaring himself the friend of white men and, having great influence and authority among his people, he compelled them to forego all vindictive plans and to conduct themselves amicably whenever they came in contact with the traders.

This chief had bravely fallen in resisting an attack made by the Blackfeet upon his tribe, while encamped at the head of Godin River. His fall in nowise lessened the faith of his people in his charmed life; for they declared that it was not a bullet which laid him low, but a bit of horn which had been shot into him by some Blackfoot marksman aware, no doubt, of the inefficacy of lead. Since his death there was no one with sufficient influence over the tribe to restrain the wild and predatory propensities of the young men. The consequence was they had become troublesome and dangerous neighbors, openly friendly for the sake of traffic, but disposed to commit secret depredations and to molest any small party that might fall within their reach.