This, doubtless, helped to revive his popularity. In that expedition, Smith and Fitzpatrickwere robbed of their horses in Green River valley; the place where the robbery tookplace still bears the name of Horse Creek. We are not informed whether the horseswere stolen through the instigation and management of Rose; it is not improbable, forsuch was the perfidy he had intended to practice on a former occasion toward Mr. Huntand his party.
The last anecdote we have of Rose is from an Indian trader. When General Atkinsonmade his military expedition up the Missouri, in 1825, to protect the fur trade, he held aconference with the Crow nation, at which Rose figured as Indian dignitary and Crowinterpreter. The military were stationed at some little distance from the scene of the "bigtalk"; while the general and the chiefs were smoking pipes and making speeches, theofficers, supposing all was friendly, left the troops, and drew near the scene ofceremonial. Some of the more knowing Crows, perceiving this, stole quietly to thecamp, and, unobserved, contrived to stop the touch-holes of the field-pieces with dirt.
Shortly after, a misunderstanding occurred in the conference: some of the Indians,knowing the cannon to be useless, became insolent. A tumult arose. In the confusion,Colonel O'Fallan snapped a pistol in the face of a brave, and knocked him down withthe butt end. The Crows were all in a fury. A chance-medley fight was on the point oftaking place, when Rose, his natural sympathies as a white man suddenly recurring,broke the stock of his fusee over the head of a Crow warrior, and laid so vigorouslyabout him with the barrel, that he soon put the whole throng to flight. Luckily, as nolives had been lost, this sturdy rib roasting calmed the fury of the Crows, and the tumultended without serious consequences.
What was the ultimate fate of this vagabond hero is not distinctly known. Some reporthim to have fallen a victim to disease, brought on by his licentious life; others assertthat he was murdered in a feud among the Crows. After all, his residence among thesesavages, and the influence he acquired over them, had, for a time, some beneficialeffects. He is said, not merely to have rendered them more formidable to the Blackfeet,but to have opened their eyes to the policy of cultivating the friendship of the whitemen.
After Rose's death, his policy continued to be cultivated, with indifferent success, byArapooish, the chief already mentioned, who had been his great friend, and whosecharacter he had contributed to develope. This sagacious chief endeavored, on everyoccasion, to restrain the predatory propensities of his tribe when directed against thewhite men. "If we keep friends with them," said he, "we have nothing to fear from theBlackfeet, and can rule the mountains." Arapooish pretended to be a great "medicineman", a character among the Indians which is a compound of priest, doctor, prophet,and conjurer. He carried about with him a tame eagle, as his "medicine" or familiar.
With the white men, he acknowledged that this was all charlatanism, but said it wasnecessary, to give him weight and influence among his people.
