229



DESPERATE FIGHT WITH BLACKFEET.



imity to an enemy, a party of a hundred and fifty of their
warriors were discovered encamped in a defile or narrow
bottom enclosed by high bluffs, through which the trap-,
pers would'have to pass. Seeing that in order to pass this
war party, and the village, which was about half a mile in
advance, there would have to be some fighting done, the
trappers resolved to begin the battle at once by attacking
their enemy, who was as yet ignorant of their neighbor-
hood. In pursuance of this determination, Meek, Newell,
Mansfield, and Le Blas, commenced hostilities. Leaving
their horses in camp, they crawled along on the edge of
the overhanging bluff until opposite to the encampment;
of Blackfeet, firing on them from the shelter of some
bushes which grew among the rocks. But the Blackfeet,
though ignorant of the number of their enemy, were not
to be dislodged so easily, and after an hour or two of ran-
dom shooting, contrived to scale the bluff at a point higher
up, and to get upon a ridge of ground still higher than
that occupied by the four trappers. This movement dis-
lodged the latter, and they hastily retreated through the
bushes and returned to camp.
  The next day, the main camp having come up, the fight
was renewed. While the greater body of the company,
with the pack-horses, were passing along the high bluff
overhanging them, the party of the day before, and forty
or fifty others, undertook to drive the Indians out of the
bottom, and by keeping them engaged allow the train to
pass in safety. The trappers rode to the fight on this oc-
casion, and charged the Blackfeet furiously, they having
joined the village a little farther on. A general skirmish
now took place. Meek, who was mounted on a fine horse,
was in the thickest of the fight. He had at one time a
side to side race with an Indian who strung his bow so