At camp the captains first smoked and talked with Twisted-hair. He said it was true that the horses were scattered, but Cut-nose and another chief, the Broken-arm, were to blame. They had been jealous of him because he had the white men’s horses; and being an old man, he had given up the horses. Some were near, and some were at the village of the Broken-arm, a half-day’s march east. As for the saddles, the cache had fallen in and they might have been stolen, but he had hidden them again.
Then the Cut-nose talked. He said that the Twisted-hair was a bad old man, of two faces; that he had not taken care of the horses but had let his young men ride them, to hunt, until the Broken-arm, who was a higher chief, and he, Cut-nose, had forbidden.
“It is not well that the chiefs quarrel,” reproved Captain Lewis. “Only children quarrel. We will take what horses there are here and we will go on to the village of the Broken-arm, for the other horses.”
This seemed to satisfy everybody. Twisted-hair’s young men brought in twenty-one of the forty-three horses and half the saddles, besides some of the powder and lead that had been buried, also. That night Cut-nose and Twisted-hair slept together.
The Broken-arm and his Nez Percés lived in one large straw-and-mud house 150 feet long. Over it was flying the United States flag that had been given to the nation on the way down last fall. Broken-arm ordered a hide tent erected for the white chiefs; his women hastened there with roots and fish; and when the captains offered to trade a lean horse for a fat one which might be killed, Broken-arm declined.
“When our guests come hungry, we do not sell them food,” he declared. “We have many young horses. All those you see on these plains belong to me and my people. Take what you need for food.”
“Niver before did we have the Injuns offer us somethin’ for nothin’,” gasped Patrick Gass. “At laste, niver before were we told to go help ourselves!”
“The Walla Wallas were as obliging. Don’t forget the Walla Wallas, and Yellept,” reminded George Shannon.
Two weeks were spent near the big house of the Broken-arm, for whom another name was Black Eagle. Captain Clark was appointed official doctor; he had fifty patients at a time. Captain Lewis held a council, and told the warriors about the United States. They promised to make peace with the Sho-sho-nes. Labiche killed a bear.