During the battle with Carson’s trappers, the Blackfeet had sent their women and children on in advance; and, when the engagement had ended, and the discomfited warriors, so much reduced in number, returned without one scalp, the big skin lodge, which had been erected for the prospective war-dance, was occupied by the wounded savages, and the hatred for the whites among the tribe was intensified to the last degree of bitterness.

After the season’s ending, which had been very successful, Carson engaged himself as hunter, at the fort of the American Fur Company on the South Platte; and as game of all kinds—­deer, elk, and antelope—­ was abundant, the duty was a delightful one.

The following spring, Carson, in conjunction with Bridger, Baker, and other famous plainsmen, trapped on all the affluents of the Platte, and camped for the following winter in the Blackfeet country, without seeing any of his enemies until spring had again made its rounds.  He and his men then discovered that they were near one of the Blackfeet’s greatest strongholds.

Upon this forty men, with Carson as the leader, were chosen to give them battle.  They found the Indians, to the number of several hundred, and charged upon them.  They met with a brave resistance, and the battle continued until darkness put an end to the fight, when both whites and savages retired.  At the first sign of dawn Carson and his party prepared for a renewal of the conflict, but not an Indian was to be seen.  They had fled, taking away with them their dead and wounded.

Carson and his followers returned to their camp and held a council of war, at which it was decided that as the band they had whipped would report the affair to the chiefs of the several villages, the terrible loss they had sustained would inspire all the warriors to make a united effort to wipe out the trappers.  The savages knew where their camp was established, so it would be wise to prepare for another grand battle on the same ground, by looking to their defences.  To that end sentinels were posted on a lofty hill near by, breastworks were thrown up under Carson’s supervision, and the utmost precaution taken to guard against a surprise.

One morning the sentinel on the top of the mountain announced by signals that the Indians were on the move; but the little fortification was already completed, and the anxious trappers coolly awaited the approach of the savages.

Slowly the redskins in full war-paint gathered around the sequestered camp, and more than a thousand warriors had congregated within half a mile of the trappers’ breastwork in three days.

Dressed in their fancy bonnets, and hideously bedaubed with yellow and vermilion streaks across their foreheads and on each cheek, armed with bows, tomahawks, and long lances, they presented a formidable-looking front to the small number of whites.  The trappers kept cool, however; every man clutched his rifle, determined to sell his life only at fearful cost to the confident savages.