annals of the Black-Feet nation. It has been a year of disasters. In two skirmishes with the Flat-heads and Kalispels, they lost twenty-one warriors. The Crees have carried off a great number of their horses, and twenty-seven scalps. The Crows have struck them a mortal blow—fifty families, the entire band of the petite Robe, were lately massacred, and one hundred and sixty women and children have been led into captivity.[132]
What a dreadful state for these unfortunate beings. In the first excitement, numbers of the captives were sacrificed by the Crow squaws to the manes of their husbands, brothers, fathers, or children. The survivors were condemned to slavery. The smallpox shortly after made its appearance in the conquerors' camp, and spread {178} rapidly from lodge to lodge. The Black-Feet had suffered from this scourge a few years previous, and thousands had fallen victims to it.
The Crows, therefore, interrogated their captives to know by what means they had escaped death. A dark spirit of vengeance seized the latter; they counselled cold baths as the only efficacious remedy, to stop the progress of the disease. The sick immediately plunged into the water, and mothers went to the river to bathe their little children. Some plunged into their graves; others gave up their last sigh while endeavoring to reach the shore—and disconsolate mothers returned to their cabins with dead or expiring infants in their arms. Cries of despair succeeded to the shouts of victory—desolation and mourning replaced the fanatic, barbarous joy of
