Bonneville sent out four men, to range the country through which he
would have to pass, and endeavor to get some information concerning
him; for his route lay across the great Snake River plain, which spreads
itself out like an Arabian desert, and on which a cavalcade could be
descried at a great distance. The scouts soon returned, having proceeded
no further than the edge of the plain, pretending that their horses were
lame; but it was evident they had feared to venture, with so small a
force, into these exposed and dangerous regions.

A disease, which Captain Bonneville supposed to be pneumonia, now
appeared among the Indians, carrying off numbers of them after an
illness of three or four days. The worthy captain acted as physician,
prescribing profuse sweatings and copious bleedings, and uniformly with
success, if the patient were subsequently treated with proper care. In
extraordinary cases, the poor savages called in the aid of their own
doctors or conjurors, who officiated with great noise and mummery, but
with little benefit. Those who died during this epidemic were buried in
graves, after the manner of the whites, but without any regard to the
direction of the head. It is a fact worthy of notice that, while this
malady made such ravages among the natives, not a single white man had
the slightest symptom of it.

A familiar intercourse of some standing with the Pierced-nose and
Flathead Indians had now convinced Captain Bonneville of their amicable
and inoffensive character; he began to take a strong interest in them,
and conceived the idea of becoming a pacificator, and healing the deadly
feud between them and the Blackfeet, in which they were so deplorably
the sufferers. He proposed the matter to some of the leaders, and
urged that they should meet the Blackfeet chiefs in a grand pacific
conference, offering to send two of his men to the enemy's camp with