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Colter’s
Run:
Colter’s race
with the Blackfoot Indians is perhaps one of the most famous mountain man
stories, because it is a story of courage against impossible odds,
perseverance and an iron will to survive.
Here are two versions of the story, as related by Colter directly
to the writers. The first
version was told to Thomas James sometime during the winter of
1809-10, or early in the spring of 1810 while both men were members of a
party trapping in headwater area of the
Missouri River. The second
version was related to John Bradbury less than a year after Colter’s
return from the mountains in the spring of 1812.
Bradbury probably met Colter in either
St. Louis
or
St. Charles. Bradbury, a botanist, at
this time had attached himself to Wilson Price Hunt’s party of Astorians
bound eventually for the Columbia River and Pacific Ocean, although
Bradbury wouldn’t accompany them that far.
Although there
are differences between the versions, the story as related in each version
is remarkably similar, suggesting that Colter felt no need to enhance his
adventure for better telling, as opposed to other mountain men such as Jim
Beckwourth who was known as the “Immaculate Liar.”
Colter’s Run (Thomas James version)
WHEN COLTER
was returning in 1807 with Lewis & Clark, from
Oregon
, he met a company of hunters ascending the
Missouri, by whom he was persuaded to return to the trapping region, to hunt and
trap with them. Here he was found by Liza [Manuel
Lisa] in the following year, whom he assisted in building the
Fort at the Big Horn. In one of his many excursions from this post
to the Forks of the
Missouri , for beaver, he made the wonderful escape adverted to in the last chapter
and which I give precisely as he related it to me. His veracity was
never questioned among us and his character was that of a true American
backwoodsman. He was about thirty-five years of age, five feet ten
inches in height and wore an open, ingenious, and pleasing countenance of
the Daniel Boone stamp. Nature had formed him, like Boone, for hardy
endurance of fatigue, privations and perils. He had gone with a
companion named Potts to the
Jefferson river
, which is the most western of the three Forks, and runs near the base of
the mountains. They were both proceeding up the river in search of
beaver, each in his own canoe, when a war party of about eight hundred
Black-Feet Indians suddenly appeared on the east bank of the river.
The Chiefs ordered them to come ashore, and apprehending robbery only, and
knowing the utter hopelessness of flight and having dropped his traps over
the side of the canoe from the Indians, into the water, which was here
quite shallow, he hastened to obey their mandate. On reaching the
shore, he was seized, disarmed and stripped entirely naked. Potts
was still in his canoe in the middle of the stream, where he remained
stationary, watching the result. Colter requested him to come
ashore, which he refused to do, saying he might as well lose his life at
once, as be stripped and robbed in the manner Colter had been. An
Indian immediately fired and shot him about the hip; he dropped down in
the canoe, but instantly rose with his rifle in his hands. "Are you
hurt," said Colter. "Yes, said he, too much hurt to
escape; if you can get away do so. I will kill at least one of
them." He leveled his rifle and shot an Indian dead. In
an instant, at least a hundred bullets pierced his body and as many
savages rushed into the stream and pulled the canoe, containing his
riddled corpse, ashore. They dragged the body up onto the bank, and
with their hatchets and knives cut and hacked it all to pieces, and limb
from limb. The entrails, heart, lungs, &c., they threw into
Colter's face. The relations of the killed Indian were furious with
rage and struggled, with tomahawk in hand, to reach Colter, while others
held them back. He was every moment expecting the death blow or the
fatal shot that should lay him beside his companion. A council was
hastily held over him and his fate quickly determined upon. He
expected to die by tomahawk, slow, lingering and horrible. But they
had magnanimously determined to give him a chance, though a slight one,
for his life. After the council, a Chief pointed to the prairie and
motioned him away with his hand, saying in the Crow language, "go--go
away." He supposed they intended to shoot him as soon as he was
out of the crowd and presented a fair mark to their guns. He started
in a walk, and an old Indian with impatient signs and exclamations, told
him to go faster, and as he still kept a walk, the same Indian manifested
his wishes by still more violent gestures and adjurations. When he
had gone a distance of eighty or a hundred yards from the army of his
enemies, he saw the younger Indians throwing off their blankets, leggings,
and other incumbrances, as if for a race. Now he knew their
object. He was to run a race, of which the prize was to be his own
life and scalp. Off he started with the speed of the wind. T he
war-whoop and yell immediately arose behind him; and looking back, he saw
a large company of young warriors, with spears, in rapid pursuit. He
ran with all the strength that nature, excited to the utmost, could give;
fear and hope lent a supernatural vigor to his limbs and the rapidity of
his flight astonished himself. The Madison Fork lay directly before
him, five miles from his starting place. He had run half the
distance when his strength began to fail and the blood to gush from his
nostrils. At every leap the red stream spurted before him, and his
limbs were growing rapidly weaker and weaker. He stopped and looked
back; he had far outstripped all his pursuers and could get off if
strength would only hold out. One solitary Indian, far ahead of the
others, was rapidly approaching, with a spear in his right hand, and a
blanket streaming behind from his left hand and shoulder. Despairing
of escape, Colter awaited his pursuer and called to him in the Crow
language, to save his life. The savage did not seem to hear him, but
letting go his blanket, and seizing his spear with both hands, he rushed
at Colter, naked and defenseless as he stood before him and made a
desperate lunge to transfix him. Colter seized the spear, near the
head, with his right hand, and exerting his whole strength, aided by the
weight of the falling Indian, who had lost his balance in the fury of the
onset, he broke off the iron head or blade which remained in his hand,
while the savage fell to the ground and lay prostrate and disarmed before
him. Now was his turn to beg for his life, which he did in the Crow
language, and held up his hands imploringly, but Colter was not in a mood
to remember the golden rule, and pinned his adversary through the body to
the earth one stab with the spear head. He quickly drew the weapon
from the body of the now dying Indian, and seizing his blanket as lawful
spoil, he again set out with renewed strength, feeling, he said to me, as
if he had not run a mile. A shout and yell arose from the pursuing
army in his rear as from a legion of devils, and he saw the prairie behind
him covered with Indians in full and rapid chase. Before him, if any
where was life and safety; behind him certain death; and running as never
man before sped the foot, except, perhaps, at the Olympic Games, he
reached his goal, the Madison river and the end of his five mile
heat. Dashing through the willows on the bank he plunged into the
stream and saw close beside him a beaver house, standing like a coal-pit
about ten feet above the surface of the water, which was here of about the
same depth. This presented to him a refuge from his ferocious
enemies of which he immediately availed himself. Diving under the
water he arose into the beaver house, where he found a dry and comfortable
resting place on the upper floor or story of this singular
structure. The Indians soon came up, and in their search for him
they stood upon the roof of his house of refuge, which he expected every
moment to hear them breaking open. He also feared that they would
set it on fire. After a diligent search on that side of the river,
they crossed over, and in about two hours returned again to his temporary
habitation in which he was enjoying bodily rest, though with much anxious
foreboding. The beaver houses are divided into two stories and will
generally accommodate several men in a dry and comfortable lodging.
In this asylum Colter kept fast till night. The cries of his
terrible enemies had gradually died away, and all was still around him,
when he ventured out of his hiding place, by the same opening under the
water by which he entered and which admits the beavers to their
building. He swam the river and hastened towards the mountain gap or
ravine, about thirty miles above on the river, through which our company
passed in the snow with so much difficulty. Fearing that the Indians
might have guarded this pass, which was the only outlet from the valley,
and to avoid the danger of a surprise, Colter ascended the almost
perpendicular mountain before him, the tops and sides of which a great way
down, were covered with perpetual snow. He clambered up this fearful
ascent about four miles below the gap, holding on by the rocks, shrubs and
branches of trees, and by morning had reached the top. He lay there
concealed all that day, and at night proceeded on in the descent of the
mountain, which he accomplished by dawn. He now hastened on in the
open plain towards Manuel's Fort on the Big Horn, about three hundred
miles a head in the north-east. He travelled day and night, stopping
only for necessary repose, and eating roots and the bark of trees for
eleven days. He reached the Fort, nearly exhausted by hunger,
fatigue and excitement. His only clothing was the Indian's blanket,
whom he had killed in the race, and his only weapon, the same Indian's
spear which he brought to the Fort as a trophy. His beard was long,
his face and whole body were thin and emaciated by hunger, and his limbs
and feet swollen and sore. The company at the Fort did not recognize
him in this dismal plight until he had made himself known. Colter
now with me passed over the scene of his capture and wonderful escape, and
described his emotions during the whole adventure with great
minuteness. Not the least of his exploits was the scaling of the
mountain, which seemed to me impossible even by the mountain goat.
As I looked at its rugged and perpendicular sides I wondered how he ever
reached the top--a feat probably never performed before by mortal
man. The whole affair is a fine example of the quick and ready
thoughtfulness and presence of mind in a desperate situation, and the
power of endurance, which characterise the western pioneer. As we
passed over the ground where Colter ran his race, and listened to his
story an undefinable fear crept over all. We felt awe-struck by the
nameless and numerous dangers that evidently beset us on every side.
Colter told us
the particulars of a second adventure which I will give to the reader. In
the winter when he had recovered from the fatigues of his long race and
journey, he wished to recover the traps which he had dropped into the
Jefferson Fork on the first appearance of the Indians who captured
him. He supposed the Indians were all quiet in winter quarters, and
retraced his steps to the Gallatin Fork. He had just passed the
mountain gap, and encamped on the bank of the river for the night and
kindled a fire to cook his supper of buffalo meat when he heard the
crackling of leaves and branches behind him in the direction of the
river. He could see nothing, it being quite dark, but quickly he
heard the cocking of guns and instantly leaped over the fire.
Several shots followed and bullets whistled around him, knocking the coals
off his fire over the ground. Again he fled for life, and the second
time, ascended the perpendicular mountain which he had gone up in his
former flight fearing now as then, that the pass might be guarded by
Indians. He reached the top before morning and resting for the day
descended the next night, and then made his way with all possible speed,
to the Fort. He said that at the time, he promised God Almighty that
he would never return to this region again if he were only permitted to
escape once more with his life. He did escape once more, and was now
again in the same country, courting the same dangers, which he had so
often braved, and that seemed to have for him a kind of fascination.
Such men, and there are thousands of such, can only live in a state of
excitement and constant action. Perils and danger are their natural
element and their familiarity with them and indifference to their fate,
are well illustrated in these adventures of Colter.
A few days
afterward, when Cheek was killed and Colter had another narrow escape, he
came into the Fort, and said he had promised his Maker to leave the
country, and "now" said he, throwing down his hat on the ground,
"If God will only forgive me this time and let me off I will leave
the country day after tomorrow--and be d--d if I ever come into it
again." He left accordingly, in company with young Bryant of
Philadelphia, whose father was a merchant of that city, and one other
whose name I forget. They were attacked by the Blackfeet just beyond
the mountains, but escaped by hiding in a thicket, where the Indians were
afraid to follow them, and at night they proceeded towards the Big Horn,
lying concealed in the daytime. They reached St. Louis
safely and a few years after I heard of Colter's death by jaundice.
Colter’s
Race (John
Bradbury’s version)
This man came to
St. Louis
in May, 1810, in a small canoe, from the head waters of the
Missouri, a distance of three thousand miles, which he traversed in thirty
days. I saw him on his arrival, and received from him an account of
his adventures after he had separated from Lewis and Clarke's party: one
of these, from its singularity, I shall relate. On the arrival of
the party on the head waters of the Missouri, Colter, observing an
appearance of abundance of beaver being there, he got permission to remain
and hunt for some time, which he did in company with a man of the name of
Dixon, who had traversed the immense tract of country from St. Louis to
the head waters of the
Missouri
alone. Soon after he separated from
Dixon, and trapped in company with a hunter named Potts; and aware of the
hostility of the Blackfeet Indians, one of whom had been killed by Lewis,
they set their traps at night, and took them up early in the morning,
remaining concealed during the day. They were examining their traps
early one morning, in a creek about six miles from that branch of the
Missouri called Jefferson's Fork, and were ascending in a canoe, when they
suddenly heard a great noise, resembling the trampling of animals; but
they could not ascertain the fact, as the high perpendicular banks on each
side of the river impeded their view. Colter immediately pronounced
it to be occasioned by Indians, and advised an instant retreat; but was
accused of cowardice by Potts, who insisted that the noise was caused by
buffaloes, and they proceeded on. In a few minutes afterwards their
doubts were removed, by a party of Indians making their appearance on both
sides of the creek, to the amount of five or six hundred, who beckoned
them to come ashore. As retreat was now impossible, Colter turned
the head of the canoe to the shore; and at the moment of its touching, an
Indian seized the rifle belonging to Potts; but Colter, who is a
remarkably strong man, immediately retook it, and handed it to Potts, who
remained in the canoe, and on receiving it pushed off into the
river. He had scarcely quitted the shore when an arrow was shot at
him, and he cried out, "Colter, I am wounded." Colter
remonstrated with him on the folly of attempting to escape, and urged him
to come ashore. Instead of complying, he instantly levelled his
rifle at an Indian, and shot him dead on the spot. This conduct,
situated as he was, may appear to have been an act of madness; but it was
doubtless the effect of sudden, but sound reasoning; for if taken alive,
he must have expected to be tortured to death, according to their
custom. He was instantly pierced with arrows so numerous, that, to
use the language of Colter, "he was made a riddle of."
They now seized Colter, stripped him entirely naked, and began to consult
on the manner in which he should be put to death. They were first
inclined to set him up as a mark to shoot at; but the chief interfered,
and seizing him by the shoulder, asked him if he could run fast?
Colter, who had been some time amongst the Kee-kat-sa, or Crow Indians,
had in a considerable degree acquired the Blackfoot language, and was also
well acquainted with Indian customs. He knew that he had now to run
for his life, with the dreadful odds of five or six hundred against him,
and those armed Indians; therefore cunningly replied that he was a very
bad runner, although he was considered by the hunters as remarkably
swift. The chief now commanded the party to remain stationary, and
led Colter out on the prairie three or four hundred yards, and released
him, bidding him to save himself if he could. At that instant the
horrid war whoop sounded in the ears of poor Colter, who, urged with the
hope of preserving life, ran with a speed at which he was himself
surprised. He proceeded towards the Jefferson Fork, having to
traverse a plain six miles in breadth, abounding with the prickly pear, on
which he was every instant treading with his naked feet. He ran
nearly half way across the plain before he ventured to look over his
shoulder, when he perceived that the Indians were very much scattered, and
that he had gained ground to a considerable distance from the main body;
but one Indian, who carried a spear, was much before all the rest, and not
more than a hundred yards from him. A faint gleam of hope now
cheered the heart of Colter: he derived confidence from the belief that
escape was within the bounds of possibility; but that confidence was
nearly being fatal to him, for he exerted himself to such a degree, that
the blood gushed from his nostrils, and soon almost covered the fore part
of his body. He had now arrived within a mile of the river, when he
distinctly heard the appalling sound of footsteps behind him, and every
instant expected to feel the spear of his pursuer. Again he turned
his head, and saw the savage not twenty yards from him. Determined
if possible to avoid the expected blow, he suddenly stopped, turned round,
and spread out his arms. The Indian, surprised by the suddenness of
the action, and perhaps at the bloody appearance of Colter, also attempted
to stop; but exhausted with running, he fell whilst endeavoring to throw
his spear, which stuck in the ground, and broke in his hand. Colter
instantly snatched up the pointed part, with which he pinned him to the
earth, and then continued his flight. The foremost of the Indians,
on arriving at the place, stopped till others came up to join them, when
they set up a hideous yell. Every moment of this time was improved
by Colter, who, although fainting and exhausted, succeeded in gaining the
skirting of the cotton wood trees, on the borders of the fork, through
which he ran, and plunged into the river. Fortunately for him, a
little below this place there was an island, against the upper point of
which a raft of drift timber had lodged. He dived under the raft,
and after several efforts, got his head above water amongst the trunks of
trees, covered over with smaller wood to the depth of several feet.
Scarcely had he secured himself, when the Indians arrived on the river,
screeching and yelling, as Colter expressed it, "like so many
devils." They were frequently on the raft during the day, and
were seen through the chinks by Colter, who was congratulating himself on
his escape, until the idea arose that they might set the raft on
fire. In horrible suspense he remained until night, when hearing no
more of the Indians, he dived from under the raft, and swam silently down
the river to a considerable distance, when he landed, and travelled all
night. Although happy in having escaped from the Indians, his
situation was still dreadful: he was completely naked, under a burning
sun; the soles of his feet were entirely filled with the thorns of the
prickly pear; he was hungry, and had no means of killing game, although he
saw abundance around him, and was at least seven days journey from Lisa's
Fort, on the Bighorn branch of the Roche Jaune River. These were
circumstances under which almost any man but an American hunter would have
despaired. He arrived at the fort in seven days, having subsisted on
a root much esteemed by the Indians of the
Missouri, now known by naturalists as psoralea esculenta.
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