At last
they agreed to separate, the two intending to attempt the difficult
passage back to St. Louis, while the brave captain remained, and
finally reached the great Arkansas Valley in safety.
CHAPTER III.
JIM BECKWOURTH.
In 1812 General William H. Ashley, the head of the Rocky Mountain
Fur Company, travelled up the Platte Valley, which a few years
previously had been traversed by Captain Ezekiel Williams, whose
routes were nearly the same. This party had a particularly hard time.
Before they reached the buffalo country the Indians had driven every
herd away.
In the company there were two Spaniards, who were one morning left
behind at camp to catch some horses that had strayed. The two men
stopped at the house of a respectable white woman, and finding her
without protection, they assaulted her. They were pursued to the
camp by a number of the settlers, who made the outrage known to the
trappers. They all regarded the crime with the utmost abhorrence,
and felt mortified that any of their party should be guilty of conduct
so revolting. The culprits were arrested, and they at once admitted
their guilt. A council was called in the presence of the settlers,
and the men were offered their choice of two punishments: either to be
hanged to the nearest tree, or to receive one hundred lashes each on
the bare back. They chose the latter, which was immediately inflicted
upon them by four of the trappers.
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