The White Indian Boy

Myers, Boise, Idaho

Shoshone Falls of the Snake River, Idaho; one of the wonder scenes in the land of Washakie’s tribe.

Pioneer Life Series

The

White Indian Boy

The Story of Uncle Nick

Among the Shoshones

by

E. N. Wilson

Revised and Edited by

Howard R. Driggs

Professor of English, School of Education

University of Utah

Illustrated with drawings by

F. N. Wilson

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York

World Book Company

1922

WORLD BOOK COMPANY

THE HOUSE OF APPLIED KNOWLEDGE

Established, 1905, by Caspar W. Hodgson

Yonkers-on-Hudson, New York

2126 Prairie Avenue, Chicago

The number of men and women who played a part in the conquest and settlement of the Great West grows smaller year by year, and the passing of these plainsmen and mountaineers marks the close of an era in our national life. To put into permanent form, as has been done in this book, a pioneer’s recollections of his early days, with their trials and adventures, is to make a certain contribution to history. Such a record shows us the courage, perseverance, and hardihood with which the foundations of the nation were laid, and to read it is to watch a state in the making. As a story of the days when Indian tribes still roamed the plains, this book will have for boys and girls all the interest of a tale of adventure. It is hoped that it will also give them a realization of the hardships and dangers so manfully faced by the settlers of the West and will implant in them a desire to prove themselves worthy successors to those builders of the nation. Other volumes of the Pioneer Life Series will follow

The White Indian Boy

PLS:WDWIB-3

Copyright, 1919, by World Book Company

Copyright in Great Britain

All rights reserved

PRINTED IN U. S. A.

AN INTRODUCTION TO UNCLE NICK

If you ever go to the Yellowstone Park by way of Jackson’s Hole, you will most likely pass through Wilson, Wyoming. It is a picturesque little village situated at the foot of the Teton Mountains. A clear stream, rightly named Fish Creek, winds its way through the place. On the very edge of this sparkling mountain stream stands a log cabin. The cabin is so near the creek, indeed, that one might stand in the dooryard and catch fish. And this is what “Uncle Nick” Wilson, who lived in the cabin, has done many a time. That is a “true fish story,” I am sure, because I caught two lively trout myself last summer in this same creek only a few rods from the cabin.

Who was Uncle Nick Wilson? you ask. He was an old pioneer after whom this frontier town was named. He was the man, too, who wrote this story book. You would have liked Uncle Nick, I know. He was a rather short, round-faced man with a merry twinkle in his eyes. He took things easily; he spoke in a quiet voice; he was never too busy to help his neighbors; he liked a good joke; he was always ready to chat awhile; and he never failed to have a good story to tell, especially to the children.

Uncle Nick had one peculiarity. He did not like to take off his hat, even when he went into a house. I often wondered why, but I did not like to ask him. One day, however, some one told me the reason. It was because he had once been shot in the head with an arrow by an Indian. The scar was still there.

From outward appearances one would hardly have guessed that Uncle Nick’s life had been so full of exciting experiences. But when he was sitting about the campfire at night or at the fireside with a group of boys and girls, he would often get to telling his tales of the Indians and the Pony Express; and his hearers would never let him stop. My own two boys never got sleepy when Uncle Nick was in the house; they would keep calling for his stories again and again.

This was one reason why he wrote this story book. He wanted boys and girls to have the pleasure of reading his stories as often as they pleased. How he was induced to write it is an interesting story in itself.

Some years ago two professors of a certain Western university were making a trip with their families to the Yellowstone Park by way of Jackson’s Hole trail. As they were passing through Wilson, one of the women in the party met with a serious accident. Her little boy had got among the horses, and the mother, in trying to save the child from harm, was knocked down and trampled.

Help must be had at once; but how to get it was a problem. The nearest doctor was over sixty miles away. While the unfortunate travelers were worrying about what to do, Uncle Nick’s wife came to the rescue. She quietly assumed command of affairs, directed the making of a litter, and insisted that the wounded lady be carried to her cabin home a short distance away. Then she turned nurse, dressed the wounds, and attended the sufferer until she was well enough to resume the journey.

The party meantime camped near by, and whiled away about three weeks in fishing and hunting and enjoying Uncle Nick’s stories of the Wild West. Every night they would sit about the cabin fire listening to the old frontiersman tell his “Injun stories” and his other thrilling adventures of the early days. They felt that these stories should be written for everybody to enjoy. They were so enthusiastic in their desire to have it done that Uncle Nick finally consented to try to write them.

It was a hard task for him. He had never attended school a day in his life; but his wife had taught him his alphabet, and he had learned to read and spell in some kind of way. He got an old typewriter and set to work. Day by day for several months he clicked away, until most of his stories were told. And here they are—true stories, of real Indians, as our pioneer parents knew them about seventy years ago.

The book gives the nearest and clearest of views of Indian home-life; it is filled, too, with stirring incidents of Indian warfare, of the Pony Express and Overland Stage, and other exciting frontier experiences.

Uncle Nick may have had no schooling except as he got it in the wilds, but he certainly learned how to tell a story well. The charm of his style lies in its Robinson Crusoe simplicity and its touches of Western humor.

Best of all, the stories Uncle Nick tells are true. For many months he was a visitor at our home. To listen to this kindly, honest old man was to believe his words. But the truth of what he tells is proved by the words of many other persons who knew him well, and others who have had similar experiences. For several years I have been proving these stories by talking with other pioneers, mountaineers, pony riders, students of Indian life, and even Indians themselves. Their words have unfailingly borne out the statements of the writer of this book. No pretense is made that this volume is without error. It certainly is accurate, however, in practically every detail, and true to the customs and the spirit of the Indian and pioneer life it portrays.

Professor Franklin T. Baker of Columbia University, who read the book in manuscript, has pronounced the book “a rare find, and a distinctive contribution to the literature that reflects our Western life.”

The rugged, kindly man who lived through the scenes herein pictured has passed away. He died at Wilson, the town he founded, in December, 1915, during the seventy-third year of his age. But he has left for us this tablet to his memory, a simple story of a simple man who lived bravely and cheerily in the storm and stress of earlier days, taking his part even from boyhood with the full measure of a man.

Howard R. Driggs

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

You have no doubt read or heard stories of the great wild West. Perhaps you have even listened to some gray-haired man or woman tell tales of the Indians and the trappers, who roamed over the hills and plains. They may have told you, too, of the daring Pony Express riders who used to go dashing along the wild trails over the prairies and mountains and desert, carrying the mails, and of the Overland men who drove their stages loaded with letters and passengers along the same dangerous roads.

I know something about those stirring early times. More than sixty years of my life have been spent on the Western frontiers, with the pioneers, among the Indians, as a pony rider, a stage driver, a mountaineer, and a ranchman.

I have taken my experiences as they came to me, much as a matter of course, not thinking of them as especially unusual or exciting. Many other men have had similar experiences. They were all bound up in the life we had to live in making the conquest of the West. Others seem, however, to find the stories of my life interesting. My grandchildren and other children, and even grown people, ask me again and again to tell these tales of the earlier days; so I have begun to feel that they may be worth telling and keeping.

That is why I finally decided to write them. It has taken almost more courage to do this than it did actually to live through some of the exciting experiences. I have not had the privilege of attending schools, so it is very hard for me to tell my story with the pen; but perhaps I may be able to give my readers, young and old, some pleasure and help them to get a clearer, truer picture of the real wild West as it was when the pioneers first blazed their way into the land.

“Uncle Nick” Wilson

CONTENTS

Caspar W. Hodgson

The Teton Peaks from Jackson’s Hole, Wyoming. Jackson’s Hole, the last home of Nick Wilson, is situated in a hunting ground which is famous even yet. It was named after Jackson, an old trapper.

The Western trail in the early days.

CHAPTER ONE PIONEER DAYS

I was born in Illinois in 1842. I crossed the plains by ox team and came to Utah in 1850. My parents settled in Grantsville, a pioneer village just south of the Great Salt Lake. To protect themselves from the Indians, the settlers grouped their houses close together and built a high wall all around them. Some of the men would stand guard while others worked in the fields. The cattle had to be herded very closely during the day, and corralled at night with a strong guard to keep them from being stolen. But even with all our watchfulness we lost a good many of them. The Indians would steal in and drive our horses and cows away and kill them. Some times they killed the people, too.

We built a log schoolhouse in the center of our fort, and near it we erected a very high pole, up which we could run a white flag as a signal if the Indians attempted to run off our cattle, or attack the town or the men in the fields. In this log schoolhouse two old men would stay, taking turns at watching and giving signals when necessary, by raising the flag in the daytime, or by beating a drum at night. For we had in the schoolhouse a big bass drum to rouse the people, and if the Indians made a raid, one of the guards would thump on the old thing.

When the people heard the drum, all the women and children were supposed to rush for the schoolhouse and the men would hurry for the cow corral or take their places along the wall. Often in the dead hours of the night when we were quietly sleeping, we would be startled by the booming old drum. Then you would hear the youngsters coming and squalling from every direction. You bet I was there too. Yes, sir, many is the time I have run for that old schoolhouse clinging to my mother’s apron and bawling “like sixty”; for we all expected to be filled with arrows before we could get there. We could not go outside of the wall without endangering our lives, and when we would lie down at night we never knew what would happen before morning.

The savages that gave us the most trouble were called Gosiutes. They lived in the deserts of Utah and Nevada. Many of them had been banished into the desert from other tribes because of crimes they had committed. The Gosiutes were a mixed breed of good and bad Indians.

They were always poorly clad. In the summer they went almost naked; but in winter they dressed themselves in robes made by twisting and tying rabbit skins together. These robes were generally all they had to wear during the day and all they had to sleep in at night.

They often went hungry, too. The desert had but little food to give them. They found some edible roots, the sego, and tintic, which is a kind of Indian potato, like the artichoke; they gathered sunflower and balzamoriza[1] seeds, and a few berries. The pitch pine tree gave them pine nuts; and for meat they killed rabbits, prairie dogs, mice, lizards, and even snakes. Once in a great while they got a deer or an antelope. The poor savages had a cold and hungry time of it; we could hardly blame them for stealing our cattle and horses to eat.

[1] Sometimes called “spring sunflower.” It has a blossom much like the sunflower, and velvety leaves. It is common in parts of the West.

Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution

Gosiute wickiups in the desert.

Yes, they ate horses, too. That was the reason they had no ponies, as did the Bannocks and Shoshones and other tribes. The Gosiutes wandered afoot over the deserts, but this made them great runners. It is said that Yarabe, one of these Indians, once won a wager by beating the Overland Stage in a race of twenty-five miles over the desert. Swift runners like this would slip in and chase away our animals, driving them off and killing them. Our men finally captured old Umbaginny and some other bad Indians that were making the mischief, and made an example of them.

After this they did not trouble us so much, but the settlements were in constant fear and excitement. One incident connected with my father shows this. Our herd boys were returning from Stansbury Island, in the Great Salt Lake, where many cattle were kept. On their way home they met a band of friendly Indians. The boys, in fun, proposed that the Indians chase them into town, firing a few shots to make it seem like a real attack. The Indians agreed, and the chase began. My father saw them coming and grabbed his gun. Before the white jokers could stop him and explain, he had shot down the head Indian’s horse. It took fifty sacks of flour to pay for their fun. The Indians demanded a hundred sacks, but they finally agreed to take half that amount and call things square.

Some of the Indians grew in time to be warm friends with us, and when they did become so, they would help protect us from the wild Indians. At one time Harrison Sevier, a pioneer of Grantsville, was out in the canyon getting wood. “Captain Jack,” a chief of the Gosiutes, was with him. Some wild Indians attacked Sevier and would have killed him, but “Captain Jack” sprang to his defense and beat back the murderous Indians. The chief had most of his clothes torn off and was badly bruised in the fight, but he saved his white friend. Not all the Gosiutes were savages. Old Tabby, another of this tribe, was a friend of my father. How he proved his friendship for us I shall tell later.

A rather amusing thing happened one day to Tabby. He had just got a horse through some kind of trade. Like the other Gosiutes, he was not a very skillful rider. But he would ride his pony. One day this big Indian came galloping along the street towards the blacksmith shop. Riley Judd, the blacksmith, who was always up to pranks, saw Tabby coming, and just as he galloped up, Riley dropped the horse’s hoof he was shoeing, threw up his arms and said,

“Why, how dye do, Tabby!”

Tabby’s pony jumped sidewise, and his rider tumbled off. He picked himself up and turned to the laughing men, saying—

“Ka wino (no good), Riley Judd, too much how dye do.”

Besides our troubles with the Indians, we had to fight the crickets and the grasshoppers. These insects swarmed down from the mountains and devoured every green thing they could find. We had hard work to save our crop. It looked as if starvation was coming. The men got great log rollers and rolled back and forth. Herds of cattle were also driven over the marching crickets to crush them; rushes were piled in their path, and when they crawled into this at night, it would be set on fire. But all seemed in vain. Nothing we could do stopped the scourge.

Then the gulls came by the thousands out of the Great Salt Lake. They dropped among the crickets and gorged and regorged themselves until the foe was checked. No man could pay me money enough to kill one of these birds.

After the cricket war the grasshoppers came to plague us. Great clouds of them would settle down on our fields. Father saved five acres of his grain by giving up the rest to them. We kept the hoppers from settling on this patch by running over and over the field with ropes. We used our bed cords to make a rope long enough.

Dr. Charles G. Plummer

Great Salt Lake, Utah, looking south from Bird Island, which is a rookery of hundreds of thousands of gulls, pelicans, and herons. In the distance are Carrington Island (right) and Stansbury Island (left).

But it was a starving winter anyway, in spite of all we could do. We were a thousand miles from civilization, surrounded by hostile Indians. We had very little to eat and next to nothing to wear. It was a time of hunger and hardships; but most of the people managed to live through it, and things grew brighter with the spring.

“He went bucking through the sagebrush.”

CHAPTER TWO MY LITTLE INDIAN BROTHER

A few tame Indians hung around the settlements begging their living. The people had a saying, “It is cheaper to feed them than to fight them,” so they gave them what they could; but the leaders thought it would be better to put them to work to earn their living; so some of the whites hired the Indians. My father made a bargain with old Tosenamp (White-foot) to help him. The Indian had a squaw and one papoose, a boy about my age. They called him Pantsuk.

At that time my father owned a small herd of sheep, and he wanted to move out on his farm, two miles from the settlement, so he could take better care of them. Old Tosenamp thought it would be safe to do so, as most of the Indians there were becoming friendly, and the wild Indians were so far away that it was thought they would not bother us; so we moved out on the farm.

Father put the Indian boy and me to herding the sheep. I had no other boy to play with. Pantsuk and I became greatly attached to each other. I soon learned to talk his language, and Pantsuk and I had great times together for about two years. We trapped chipmunks and birds, shot rabbits with our bows and arrows, and had other kinds of papoose sport.

Once we thought we would have some fun riding the sheep. I caught “Old Carney,” our big ram, and Pantsuk got on him; but as his chubby legs were hardly long enough to hold him on the big woolly back, I tied his feet together with a rope under the ram. Old Carney didn’t like this. He broke away and went bucking through the sagebrush. Pantsuk tumbled off under him, and the old sheep dragged him for several rods before he got free. Pantsuk was a white papoose for sure, when he scrambled to his feet; but I guess I was more scared than he was. We didn’t want any more sheep-back rides.

Some months after this the poor little fellow took sick. We did all we could for him, but he kept getting worse until he died. It was hard for me to part with my dear little Indian friend. I loved him as much as if he had been my own brother.

After Pantsuk died, I had to herd the sheep by myself. The summer wore along very lonely for me, until about the first of August, when a band of Shoshone Indians came and camped near where I was watching my sheep. Some of them could talk the Gosiute language, which I had learned from my little Indian brother. The Indians seemed to take quite a fancy to me, and they would be with me every chance they could get. They said they liked to hear me talk their language, for they had never heard a white boy talk it as well as I could.

One day an Indian rode up to the place where I was herding. He had with him a little pinto pony. I thought it was the prettiest animal I ever saw. The Indian could talk Gosiute very well. He asked me if I did not want to ride the pony. I told him that I had never ridden a horse. He said that the pony was very gentle, and helped me to mount it. Then he led it around for a while. The next day he came again with the pony and let me ride it. Several other Indians were with him this time. They took turns leading the pony about while I rode it. It was great sport for me. I soon got so I could ride it without their leading it. They kept coming and giving me this fun for several days.

One day, after I had ridden till I was tired, I brought the pony back to the Indian who had first come, and he asked me if I did not want to keep it.

“I would rather have that pony,” I replied, “than anything else I ever saw.”

“You may have it,” he said, “if you will go away with us.”

I told him I was afraid to go. He said he would take good care of me and would give me bows and arrows and all the buckskin clothes I needed. I asked him what they had to eat. He said they had all kinds of meat, and berries, and fish, sage chickens, ducks, geese, and rabbits. This sounded good to me. It surely beat living on “lumpy dick”[2] and greens, our usual pioneer fare.

[2] Made by cooking moistened flour in milk.

“Our papooses do not have to work,” he went on, “they have heap fun all the time, catching fish and hunting and riding ponies.”

That looked better to me than herding a bunch of sheep alone in the sagebrush. I told him I would think it over. That night I talked with old Tosenamp. The Indians had tried to get him to help them induce me to go with them. He refused; but he did tell me that they would not hurt me and would treat me all right. The next day I told them I would go.

My parents knew nothing about it. They would never have consented to my going. And it did look like a foolish, risky thing to do; but I was lonely and tired and hungry for excitement, and I yielded to the temptation. In five days the Indians were to start north to join the rest of their tribe. This Indian was to hide for two days after the rest had gone and then meet me at a bunch of willows about a mile above my father’s house after dark with the little pinto pony. The plan was carried out, as you will see. I went with them, and for two years I did not see a white man. This was in August, 1854. I was just about twelve years old at the time.

Shoshone squaws on “pinto” and “buckskin” ponies.

“I jumped on my horse and away we went.”

CHAPTER THREE OFF WITH THE INDIANS

The night came at last when we were to leave. Just after dark I slipped away from the house and started for the bunch of willows where I was to meet the Indian. When I got there, I found two Indians waiting for me instead of one. The sight of two of them almost made me weaken and turn back; but I saw with them my little pinto pony and it gave me new courage. They had an old Indian saddle on the pony with very rough rawhide thongs for stirrup straps. At a signal from them, I jumped on my horse and away we went. Our trail led towards the north along the western shore of the Great Salt Lake.

The Indians wanted to ride fast. It was all right at first; but after a while I got very tired. My legs began to hurt me, and I wanted to stop, but they urged me along till the peep of day, when we stopped by some very salt springs. I was so stiff and sore that I could not get off my horse, so one of them lifted me off and stood me on the ground, but I could hardly stand up. The rawhide straps had rubbed the skin off my legs till they were raw. The Indians told me that if I would take off my trousers and jump into the salt springs it would make my legs better; but I found that I could not get them off alone; they were stuck to my legs. The Indians helped me, and after some very severe pain we succeeded in getting them off. A good deal of skin came with them.

Map of the Western country which was the scene of Uncle Nick’s adventures.

“Come now,” they urged me, “jump into this water and you will be well in a little while.”

Well, I jumped into the spring up to my waist. Oh blazes! I jumped out again. Oh, my! how it did sting and smart! I jumped and kicked. I was so wild with pain that I lay on the ground and rolled round and round on the grass. After half an hour of this, I wore myself out, and oh, how I cried! The Indians put down a buffalo robe, and rolled me on to it and spread a blanket over me. I lay there and cried myself to sleep.

When I awoke, they were sitting by a small fire. They had killed a duck and were broiling it for breakfast.

“Come,” they said, “and eat some duck.”

I started to get up, but oh! how sore I was! I began to cry again. They kept coaxing me to come and have something to eat until finally I got up and went to them, but I had to walk on a wide track. I ate some duck and dried meat and felt better. While I was eating they got the horses ready.

“Come,” they said, “get on your pony.”

“No,” I objected, “I can’t ride; I’d rather walk.”

They said that they were going a long way, and that I could not walk so far. Then they arranged the saddle so it would not hurt me so much, by putting a buffalo robe over it. They lifted me into it. It was not so bad as I thought it would be. The soft hair of the robe made the saddle more comfortable. One of them tied my trousers to my saddle. That day I lost them and for more than two years I did not have another pair. During that time I wore Indian leggings and a blanket.

We traveled all day over a country that was more like the bottom of an old lake than anything else. We camped that night by another spring. The Indians lifted me from my horse, put me down on a robe and started a fire. Then they caught some fish and broiled them again on the coals. It was a fine supper we had that night.

The next morning I felt pretty well used up; but when I had eaten some fish and a big piece of dried elk meat for breakfast, I felt more like traveling. Then we started again.

Near mid-afternoon, we saw, about six miles ahead of us, the Indians we had been trying to overtake. They had joined with another large band, so there were a great many in the camp. By the time we caught up with them, they had stopped and were unpacking, and some of them had their wigwams set up. We rode through the camp until we came to a big tepee where a large, good-looking Indian was standing. This man, they said, was Washakie, their chief; I was to live with him, and he would be my brother.

An old squaw came up to my horse and stood looking at me. The Indians said that she was the chief’s mother and that she would be my mother, too. They told her that my legs were badly skinned and were very sore. Then Washakie helped me off my horse.

Bureau of American Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution

Washakie (with hat in hand) and part of his Shoshone tribe at South Pass, Wyoming, in 1861.

The old squaw put her hand on my head and began to say something pitiful to me, and I began to cry. She cried, too, and taking me by the arm, led me into the tepee, and pointed to a nice bed the chief’s wife had made for me. I lay down on the bed and sobbed myself to sleep. When I awoke, this new mother of mine brought me some soup and some fresh deer meat to eat. I tell you it tasted good.

The next morning my new mother thought she would give me a good breakfast. They had brought some flour from the settlements, and she tried to make me some bread, such as I had at home. They had no soda, nothing but flour and water, so the bread turned out to be pretty soggy. I think she didn’t like it very well when she found I didn’t eat it, but I simply couldn’t choke it down. I did make a good meal, however, of the fried sage chicken and the fresh service berries that she brought with the bread.

That day my mother and Hanabi, the chief’s wife, started to make me something to wear; for after I lost my trousers, I had nothing but an old thin shirt, out at the elbows, and a straw hat that had lost part of its brim. The two women worked for several hours and finally got the thing finished and gave it to me to put on. I do not know what to call it, for I had never seen anything like it before, but it may have been what the girls now call a “mother-hubbard.” It was all right anyhow, when I got it on and my belt around to keep the thing close to me; but I had to pull the back up a little to keep it from choking me to death when I stooped over.

We stayed at this camp for five days to give me time to get well. My good old mother rubbed my legs with skunk oil and they healed rapidly. It had got noised around that my legs were very bad, and one day when I was out in front of the tepee, a lot of papooses wanted to see them. One stooped to raise my mother-hubbard to take a look, and the rest began to laugh, but they didn’t laugh long, for I gave him a kick that sent him keeling. Then his mother came out after me, and I thought she was going to eat me up. She scolded and jawed, but I couldn’t tell what she was saying, so it did not make much difference to me. My old mother, hearing the noise, came up and led me into the tepee and gave me some dried service berries. I thought that if that was the way they were going to treat me, I would kick another one the first chance I got.

It was not long before I got the chance, for the next day a papoose about my size tried the same trick and I fetched him a kick that made him let out a yell that could have been heard a mile. It brought about half the tribe out to see how many I had killed. That papoose’s mother turned loose on me, too, with her tongue and everlastingly berated me. The chief happened to see the trouble, and I think that is what saved me from being cremated. Anyhow, the papooses left my mother-hubbard alone after that.

My mother began then to teach me the Shoshone language. My knowing how to talk the Gosiute tongue made it easier for me, for these two Indian dialects are very much alike.

One night the hunters came in loaded with game, and the next day we began to move. The horses were brought in, and among them was my pinto pony. When I saw him, it seemed like meeting some one from home. I ran up and hugged him. My good old mother had fixed up a pretty good saddle, all cushioned in fine style to keep it from hurting me.

We traveled about fifteen miles that day and camped on a small stream they called Koheets (Curlew). Mother told me to wade out into the water and bathe my legs.

“Not much,” I said, “I have had all the baths I want.”

She said that the water would make my legs tough, and when she saw I wouldn’t go into the stream she brought some cold water and told me to wash them. I wanted to know whether it was salt water. She said it wasn’t, so I bathed my legs, and when I found that the water did not hurt them I waded into the creek. Washakie said it was “tibi tsi djant”—heap good.

Dr. T. M. Bridges

Shoshone wickiup. Lodges of this kind were used in the summer season.

“I begged him to let me go.”

CHAPTER FOUR THE GREAT ENCAMPMENT

It was the custom of the Shoshone chieftains in those early days to gather all of their tribe every three years. As this was the year for the great tribal meeting, we started for the big camp ground. After traveling for three days, we reached a large river, which the Indians called Piupa (Snake River). Here we were joined by another large band of the same tribe.

In order to cross the river, the squaws built boats of bulrushes tied in bundles; these bundles were lashed together until they made a boat big enough to hold up from six to eight hundred pounds. The Indians made the horses swim over, and some of the papoose boys rode their ponies across. I wanted to swim my horse, but my mother would not let me. It took about a week to get across the river; but during that time I had some of the best fun of my life.

My mother gave me a fishhook and a line made out of hair from a horse’s tail. With this tackle I caught my first fish, and some of them were very large ones, too. The other boys became more friendly, and we had jolly times together; but mother kept pretty close watch over me, for fear I would kick them, and get into more trouble. After I began to play with the papooses, I picked up the Shoshone language much faster.

Nothing else of importance happened until we reached Big Hole Basin. There I saw the first buffalo I had seen since crossing the plains. Seven head of them appeared one morning on a hill about a mile away. Ten Indians started after them. One, having a wide, blade-like spear-head attached to a long shaft, would ride up to a buffalo and cut the hamstrings of both legs, then the others would rush up and kill the wounded animal.

Meat drying before the tepee of a Crow Indian.

About fifteen squaws followed the hunters to skin the buffaloes and get the meat. Mother and I went with them. The squaws would rip the animals down the back from head to tail, then rip them down the belly and take off the top half of the hide and cut away all the meat on that side from the bones. They would tie ropes to the feet of the carcass and turn it over with their ponies, to strip off the skin and flesh from the other side in the same way.

The meat was then carried to camp to be sliced in thin strips and hung up to dry. When it was about half dry, the squaws would take a piece at a time and pound it between two stones till it was very tender. It was then hung up again to dry thoroughly. The dried meat was put into a sack and kept for use in the winter and during the general gatherings of the tribe. The older it got the better it was. This is the way the Indians cured all of their buffalo meat. Washakie had about five hundred pounds of such meat for his own family when we reached Deer Lodge Valley, now in Montana, the place of our great encampment.

J. E. Stimson

Snake River (Piupa), in the land of the Shoshones.

It was about the last of August before all of the tribe had assembled. What a sight it was to see so many Indians together! The tepees were strung up and down the stream as far as I could see, and the whole country round about was covered with horses and dogs. As nearly as I could find out, about six thousand Indians had gathered. When I asked the chief how many there were, he said that he could not count them. And to think that I was the only white person within hundreds of miles, perhaps! It gave me rather a queer feeling.

Mother kept very close watch over me for fear that I should get hurt or lost among so many Indians. Whenever I went around to see what was going on, she was nearly always by my side. She warned me especially against Pocatello’s Indians, telling me that they were very bad, that they would steal me and take me away off and sell me to Indians that would eat me up. She scared me so badly that I stuck pretty close to her most of the time.

The Indians spent much of their time horse-racing and gambling. They would bet very heavily; I saw an Indian win fifty head of ponies on one race. Two Indians were killed while racing their horses, and a squaw and her papoose were run over; the papoose was also killed.

Dr. T. M. Bridges

Shoshone Indians dancing.

Some of Pocatello’s Indians had several scalps they had taken from some poor emigrants they had killed. I saw six of these scalps. One was of a woman with red hair, one a girl’s scalp with dark hair, and four were men’s scalps, one with gray hair, the rest with dark hair. I cannot describe the feelings I had when I saw the red devils dancing around those scalps. It made me wish that I were home again herding sheep and living on “lumpy dick” and greens.

Washakie’s Indians had a few Crow scalps, for at this time the Shoshones and Crows were at war with each other. I am pretty sure that they had no white scalps; or if they had, they did not let me see them.

The Indians had great times dancing around the scalps. They would stick a small pole in the ground and string scalps on it. Then they would dance around it, singing and yelling at the top of their voices, making the most horrible noises I ever heard. The leaders of the different bands would take the inside, the warriors would circle about them and the squaws and papooses would dance around the outside. The noise they made would shame a band of coyotes. As many as five hundred Indians would be dancing in this way at one time, and they would keep at it for hours. I got sick and tired of their hideous noises; but they thought they were having a high time. This singing and dancing was kept going at intervals for a week or more.

The time was drawing near when we were to separate, and I was glad of it. Some of Pocatello’s Indians left a few days ahead of the rest of his band. A day or two before our band was to start my pinto pony ran off with some other horses. I slipped away from my mother and went after him. Before I had gone far I met some Indians hunting horses, but they said they had not seen mine. I kept on going until another Indian came up to me. He said he had seen some horses go over a ridge about a mile away.

“If you will get on my horse behind me,” he said, “I will take you over and see if your horse is there.” Thinking no harm, I got on his horse and off we started; but when we got to the top of the hill no horses were to be seen. After we got over the hill he began to ride fast. I got scared, for I thought of the man-eating savages my mother had told me about. I asked him to stop and let me get off, but he only whipped his horse harder and went faster.

Watching my chance, I jumped off and almost broke my neck; but I got up and put back towards camp as hard as I could run. The Indian turned, dashed up, and threw his lasso over me. After dragging me several rods he stopped, and hit me with his quirt, telling me to get back on his horse or he would put an arrow through me. I cried and begged him to let me go; but he made me get on again, and then he struck off as fast as he could go. I noticed, however, that he kept looking back every little while.

Pretty soon he stopped and told me to get off. As I jumped he gave me a lick over the head with his quirt that made me see stars for a few minutes. Then he started off on the run again; but after going about fifty yards he stopped, pulled his bow and arrow out of his quiver and started towards me as if he intended to put an arrow through me. He came but a few steps, then suddenly whirled his horse and off he went over the prairie.

I soon saw what caused his hurry. A short distance away were some Indians coming towards me as fast as they could travel. When they reached me, they stopped, and one of them told me to get on behind him and he would take me to my mother. I climbed up double quick. Before we got to the tepees I met mother coming out to find me. She was crying. She took me off the horse and threw her arms around me. One of Pocatello’s Indians, she said, was trying to steal me and she never expected to find her white papoose again.

Some Indians happened to see me get on my horse behind the Indian and told my mother, and Washakie had sent those Indians after me, before we got very far away. Mother stayed close to me after that; but I had had such a scare that I didn’t go very far from the tepee without her. The chief told me never to go alone after my horse if he got away again, but to let him know and he would have the pony brought back. “If Pocatello’s Indians,” he said, “could get you, they would swap you for a whole herd of ponies, and then it would be ‘good-by Yagaki.’” “Yagaki,” by the way, was my Indian name. It meant “the crier.” They gave it to me because I mimicked the squaws and papooses one day when they were bawling about something.

“I jumped from my horse and raised her up.”

CHAPTER FIVE BREAKING CAMP

The camp finally began to break up in earnest. Small bands went off in different directions to their various hunting grounds that had been decided on by the council. We were among the last to leave. There were about sixty tepees and two hundred and fifty Indians in our band. We had about four hundred horses, and more than five hundred dogs, it seemed to me.

Chief Washakie at that time was about twenty-seven years old. He was a very large Indian and good looking. His wife, Hanabi, did not appear to be more than twenty years old. She had only one child, a little boy papoose about six months old.

Pocatello was not so large as Washakie. He was a Shoshone, but his wife was a Bannock. She had three papooses when I first saw her. Pocatello was a wicked looking Indian. His tribe did more damage to the emigrants than any other tribe in the West. He wanted to be the big chief of the Shoshones; he thought he ought to be the leader because he was older than Washakie, but the tribe would not have it that way. He did draw away about five hundred of the tribe, however, and tried to change the tribe name to “Osasibi”; but Washakie’s Indians called them “Saididig,” which means dog-stealers.

When this band of Indian outlaws joined us in the Big Hole Basin, they had new quilts, white women’s clothes, new guns, watches, saddles, and hats. Mother told me that they had just attacked a large train of emigrants, and had killed the people, burned their wagons and robbed them of everything. They had some very large horses and mules with them. Mother wanted to buy a saddle and a hat for me, but I told her that I would not wear a hat whose owner had been killed and scalped by old Pocatello.

Washakie and Pocatello were never very friendly. Pocatello wanted to keep up a constant warfare against the whites; but Washakie knew that meant only trouble and that the Indians would finally get the worst of it; so he would have nothing to do with Pocatello’s murderous business. Because Washakie thought it would be much better to live in peace with the whites, Pocatello called him a squaw and said he was afraid to fight.

I was very glad to go; for I was tired of being stared at by so many Indians. There were hundreds of young Indians in the camp and many old ones, too, that had never seen a white person before. They would gather around me as if I were some wild animal. If I moved more suddenly towards them, they would jump back and scream like wildcats. My mother told them that I would not bite, but if they bothered me too much I might kick some of their ribs loose, for I could kick worse than a wild horse.

Two or three days after we had left the big camp, the pack on one of our horses turned under his belly and he began to run and kick like mad. This started the rest of the pack horses and they came running past us. Mother tried to stop them, but one of the runaways bumped against her horse and knocked it down. It rolled over with her. I thought she was killed. I jumped from my horse and raised her up. She was not dead, but she was badly bruised and one of her arms was broken. I think I never cried harder in my life than I did then, for I thought my poor mother was going to die. She told me not to cry, that she would be all right soon.

L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.

Buffaloes on the plains.

Washakie’s wife was there and she told me to dash ahead and tell the chief to hurry back. When he came, he ordered the band to stop and pitch camp. We had to stay there a week to let mother get well enough to travel again. There were a great many antelope in the valley and plenty of fish in the stream by the camp. When mother would go to sleep, I would go fishing. When she awoke Hanabi would call, “Yagaki come,” and I would get back in double-quick time.

One day while we were camped here waiting for mother to get better, I went out with Washakie and the other Indians to chase antelope. About fifty of us circled around a bunch and took turns chasing them. The poor little animals were gradually worn out by this running and finally they would drop down one after another, hiding their heads under the bushes, while the Indians shot them to death with their bows and arrows. I killed two myself. When I got home and told mother about it, she bragged about me so much that I thought I was a “heap big Injun.”

Mother’s arm soon got well enough for her to travel, for the medicine man had fixed it up very well, so we took up our journey again. There were a great many buffaloes and antelope too, where we next pitched camp. We stayed there for about three weeks. During the times that she could not watch me, mother had Washakie take me out on his hunting trips. That just suited me. It was lots of fun to watch the Indian with the big spear dash up and cut the hamstrings of the great animals. When they had been crippled in this way, we would rush up and shoot arrows into their necks until they dropped dead. The first day we killed six, two large bulls and four cows.

L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.

Why the buffalo disappeared; part of the white man’s trail.

I told Washakie that my bow was too small to kill buffaloes with. He laughed and said I should have a bigger one. When we got back to camp, he told some Indians what I had said and one very old Indian, whose name was Morogonai, gave me a very fine bow and another Indian gave me eight good arrows. I felt very proud then; I told mother that the next time I went out I would kill a whole herd of buffaloes. She said she knew I would, but she did not know what they could do with all the meat.

Washakie said that I was just like the rest of the white men. They would kill buffaloes as long as there were any in sight and leave their carcasses over the prairies for the wolves. He said that was not the way of the Indians. They killed only what they needed and saved all the meat and hides.

“The Great Spirit,” he said, “would not like it if we slaughtered the game as the whites do. It would bring bad luck, and the Indians would go hungry if they killed the deer and buffaloes when they were not needed for food and clothing.”

Two or three days after this we went out again and killed two more buffaloes. When we got back mother asked how many I had killed. I told her that I shot twice at them and I believed I had hit one. She said that I would be the best hunter in the tribe afterwhile, and some day, she said, I would be a big chief.

“The boy papooses made fun of me.”

CHAPTER SIX VILLAGE LIFE

Cold weather was coming. Some snow had already fallen in the mountains. Hanabi and her friends went to work to make me some better clothes. Very soon they had a fine suit ready.

The trousers part was made somewhat like the chaps worn by cowboys, being open in front, with no seat; but on the sides they had wedge-shaped strips that ran up and fastened to the belt. These leggings fitted pretty tight, but there was a seam about as wide as my hand that could be let out if necessary. They gave me a pair of new moccasins that came up to my knees. They also made me another overshirt, or “mother-hubbard,” out of fine smoked buckskin; it fitted me better than did my first one. The sleeves came down a little below my elbows and had a long fringe from the shoulders down; it was also fringed around the neck and the bottom; and to touch it up more, they had stitched beads in heart and diamond shapes over the breast. The clothes were all very fine; but when I got them on, I looked a good deal like a squaw papoose. I didn’t care much, though, for the clothes fitted me pretty well and they were warm and comfortable. Mother also made me a hat out of muskrat skin. It ran to a peak and had two rabbit tails sewed to the top for tassels. With my new clothes on, I was better dressed than any other kid in camp.

Lee Moorhouse

Indian camp by a river.

We now started for the elk country. When we got there, the Indians killed about one hundred elk and a few bear; but by that time it was getting so cold that we set out for our winter quarters. After traveling a few days we reached a large river, called by the Indians Piatapa, by the whites the Jefferson River; it is now in Montana. Here we pitched camp to stay during the “snowy moons.”

Most of the buffaloes by this time had left for their winter range; but once in a while we saw a few as they passed our camp. The Indians did not bother them, however, because we had plenty of dried meat, and for fresh meat there were many white-tail deer that we could snare by hanging loops of rawhide over their trails through the willows. There were also a great many grouse and sage hens about in the brush. I have killed as many as six or seven of these a day with my bow and arrows.

Winter passed away very slowly. Nothing exciting happened until along towards spring; then one day we had a terrible fracas. Washakie had gone up the river a few miles to visit another large Indian village for a day or two. While he was away, pretty nearly all the camp got into a fight.

We had a fishing hole close to camp where the squaws and papooses would fish. Mother and I had been down there with the others fishing through this hole in the ice, and when we had caught a good string of fish mother took what we had to the tepee. She told me not to stay long.

As soon as she had gone, a girl, a little larger than I, wanted to take my tackle and fish in my hole. I let her have it, and she caught several fish. Then I heard mother call me and I asked the girl to give me back my pole so I could go home, but she would not do it. I tried to take it from her, but she jerked it away and hit me over the head with it, knocking me to my knees. I jumped up and gave her a whack that knocked her down; when she got up she let out some of the awfulest yelps I ever heard. Then she put for home as fast as she could go, yelling and screaming. I knew something else would happen pretty quick; so I gathered up what fish the other papooses hadn’t run away with and hiked for home too. Just as I got inside the tepee, the girl’s mother came rushing up with a big knife in her hand. “Give me that little white devil!” she screamed. “I’ll cut his heart out!” She started for me, but mother stopped her, and shoved her back out of the tepee.

They made such a racket that the whole camp gathered around to see the fun. The squaw hit mother over the head with the knife; and when I saw the blood fly, I grabbed a stick and struck the squaw over the head, knocking her down. Another squaw grabbed mother and I sent her spinning. Then others mixed in and took sides and soon the whole bunch was yelling and fighting fit to kill. One boy grabbed my stick, but I gave him a kick that settled him. Then Hanabi took the stick from me: but I ran into the tepee and grabbed my bow and arrows. I was so mad I would have made a few “good squaws” in quick time; but a big Indian jerked my bow from me and broke the string. I guess it was best that he did. More Indians rushed up and stopped the fight; but not before a lot of them went off howling with sore heads. That night Washakie came home and held a big council. I don’t know what they said, but the next day two or three families left our camp and went to join another band.

Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution

The seed gatherers of Western desert tribes.

Everything now passed along very well for a time. I helped mother carry wood and water. The boy papooses made fun of me, calling me a squaw for doing it, because carrying wood and water was squaw’s work. I told mother that I would break some of their necks if they didn’t stop it. “Oh, let them alone,” she said, “they are bad boys.”

But one day we were getting wood, and having cut more than we could carry in one trip, I went back for it when a boy ran up to me and said, “You’re a squaw,” and spit at me. I threw down my wood and struck out after him. He ran yelping at every jump, expecting me, I guess, to kick his head off. But Washakie happened to see us and called to me to stop. It was lucky for that papoose that he did. I went back and got my wood and took it to the tepee.

Washakie wanted to know what it was all about. I told him what the boy had done. He said he did not want to start another camp fight, but he did want me to take my own part. He said that he had been watching how things were going, and he was glad to say that, so far as he knew, I had never started a fuss. He did not think that I was quarrelsome if I was let alone. He was glad, he said, to see me stand up for myself; for if I was cowardly the papooses would give me no peace.

One day I heard an Indian talking to Washakie and telling him it was not right for him to let me do squaw’s work; it would set a bad example for the other boys. Washakie replied that he thought it was a good example, and if some of the older ones would take it, it would be better for their squaws.

“We burden our women to death,” he said, “with hard labor. I did not think so much about it until Yagaki came. I see now how much he helps mother and how much hard work she has to do. Yagaki appears to be happier helping mother than he is when playing with the other boys. I believe that she would have gone crazy if it had not been for him, her troubles over the loss of father and my brothers were so great. I do believe that the Great Spirit sent the little white boy to her.”

I think myself that if anything had happened to me, it would have killed mother. She was very proud to have me with her. She would say to Washakie, “Yagaki is a smart boy. He asks me questions that I can hardly answer. One day he asked me why the Indians did not haul and cut the wood for their women. His father does that for his mother. He thinks that the Indians ought to pack the meat, too, and take care of their own horses, or send the boys to do it. If the women tanned the hides and made the moccasins and clothes for the family and did the cooking, it was their share of the work.”

I heard all this talk going on one night when they thought I was asleep. Washakie agreed with most of what his mother said, but of course they couldn’t change the Indians’ way of doing things.

“She used to tell me her troubles.”

CHAPTER SEVEN MY INDIAN MOTHER

My Indian mother was as good and kind to me as any one could be, but she did not seem to realize that there was another loving mother miles and miles away whose heart was sorrowing because of my absence. To her mind must have come many times these words of the old song: “Oh, where is my wandering boy tonight?”

My Indian mother would often ask me a good many questions about my white mother. She asked me if I did not want to go home. I told her that I should like to see my folks very much, but if I went home they would keep me there, and I did not want to herd sheep. I told her that I would rather play with white boys than with Indian boys, but that I liked my bow and arrows, and father would not let me have these at home because I would be shooting at the cats and chickens all the time. “I like my pony too, and I could not take him home,” I said, “and I love you too. If I went away you could not go with me; so taking it all around I should rather stay with you.”

This always seemed to please her; for her face would light up and sometimes a tear would steal down her brown cheeks, and then she would grab me and hug me until you could hear my ribs crack.

Often she would tell me about her troubles. Her husband had been shot a few years before in the knee with a poisoned arrow by the Crow Indians. He lived a little over a year after the battle, but he suffered greatly before he died. Soon after his death her two boys named Piubi and Yaibi went out hunting mountain sheep. While they were climbing a steep hill, a snowslide crashed down and buried them in the deep gorge at the bottom of the canyon. Here they lay until late in the following spring. The Indians tried to find their bodies by pushing long sticks into the snow, but they could not locate them.

But their mother would not give up the search. She told me how she would go out every day and dig in the snow with a stick in the hope of finding her boys, until she got so sick that Washakie and some other Indians brought her home, where she lay for two months very near death from sorrow and exposure.

As soon as she could walk she went up to the snowslide again. The warmer weather by this time had melted some of the snow, and she found the body of one of her boys partly uncovered. The wolves had eaten off one of his feet. She quickly dug the body out of the snow, and near by she found the other boy. She was too weak to carry them back to the tepee, and she couldn’t leave them there to be eaten by the wolves, so she stayed all night watching over them.

The next morning Washakie found her lying on the snow beside the bodies of her children. He took them up tenderly and carried them back to the village. The poor old mother was very sick after that. During this sickness and delirium of grief, she dreamed that her youngest boy came back to her, and he was white. This dream put into her mind the strange notion that she wanted a white papoose.

She was just getting well when the band of Indians she was with came into the settlement where I lived and found me. When they found that I could talk the Indian tongue, they decided that I was just the boy for the chief’s mother. They asked Washakie about it. He would not let them steal me, but he said that if they could lure me away from home, it was all right with him. So they set to work, as I have told, and succeeded in tempting me to go away with them.

My old mother also told me many things that happened when she was a little girl. She said that her father was a Shoshone, and her mother a Bannock. She said she was sixty-two “snows” (years) old when I came. She had had four children, three boys and a girl. When the girl was seven years old, she was dragged to death by a horse. Her two sons were killed by the snowslide, so Washakie and I were the only ones she had left.

J. E. Stimson

Death’s Canyon, Teton Range, Jackson’s Hole, Wyoming; snow slide in ravine at left.

Her life, she said, had been filled with sorrow, but she was having better times now than she had ever had before. If I would stay with her, she would be happy once more. She said she had fifteen head of horses of her own. When she died she wanted Washakie and me to divide them between us. She also wanted me, when she died, to bury her as the white folks bury their dead, as she thought that way was the best.

She certainly was good to me, watching me night and day and doing everything she could for my comfort, and I tried to be good and kind to her in return, but sometimes, boylike, I forgot. One night I was playing with the Indian boys. Our game was killing white men. With our bows and arrows, we would slip up to the bunches of brush and shoot at them. If we clipped off a twig with the arrow, that was a scalp. We would stick it in our belts and strut about like big Injuns.

While our fun was on, I heard mother call, “Yagaki, come in and go to bed.” I paid no attention so she came out and said, “Why didn’t you come when I called you?” “I didn’t want to go to bed,” I answered sulkily. With that she grabbed me by the collar and jerked me toward the tepee. I begged and promised, but she kept me going till she got me inside; then she flung me down on a pile of blankets.

“Washakie,” she said, “you must do something with this boy. He won’t mind me.” With that she left the tent and I heard her crying outside.

The chief looked at me a minute, then he said quietly: “What is the trouble between you and mother?”

“Well, she won’t let me play,” I said; “she makes me come in every night before dark. The other boys stay out; I don’t see why I can’t.”

“Mother knows why,” he said. “You should be good to her and mind her; she is good to you—better than she ever was to me.”

Mother had come in again. “Yagaki,” she said, “you must not stay out after dark. Those papooses might kill you. They have been trained to think it is an honor to kill a white man. If they could do it without being seen, they would just as soon put an arrow through you as not. I know what is best for you, Yagaki. You must come when I call.”

I always obeyed her after that, and we got along very well. She was a dear old mother to me.

“I went flying toward the creek.”

CHAPTER EIGHT THE CROWS

As winter began to break up we got ready to move to the spring hunting grounds, but when we rounded up our horses we found that about fifty head of the best ones were missing. The Crow Indians had stolen them. Our Indians found their trail and followed them, but the Crows had so much the start that our braves could not overtake them. We never recovered our animals. Among the lost horses were six that belonged to mother and eleven of Washakie’s horses. My little pinto was not missing, for I had kept him close to camp with the horses we had used during the winter.

Our Indians were angry. They declared that they would get even with the Crows before another winter had passed. And I suppose they did it, for the two tribes were constantly stealing from each other. The Crows would steal every horse they could from the Shoshones; and our Indians would do the same with them. It was as fair for one tribe as it was for the other. They would fight, too, every time they met. Each tribe was always on the watch to get the advantage over the other; so we were in a constant state of excitement, and war dances were going on all the time.

When we left our winter camp, we started south. After two days’ travel, we joined another large Indian camp, and kept with them during our wanderings the rest of the summer.

For three or four more days we all traveled south again. The game was plentiful here, elk, deer, antelope, and buffalo, so we camped for several days and stocked up with fresh meat. Then we took up the trail again, this time going east till we came to a beautiful lake that was fairly alive with fish. Oh, how I did catch them!

American Museum of Natural History

Elk in their mountain home.

It was a great game country, too. We could see buffaloes at any time and in any direction that we looked. There were herds of antelope over the flats. I had great fun running them. Washakie said that I was riding my horse too much, that he was getting thin. He told me to turn the pony out, and he would give me another horse. I was very glad to let my little pinto have a rest and get fat again.

The horse that Washakie gave me was a pretty roan, three years old, and partly broken. When the chief saw how well I managed my new horse, he said that I might break some other young horses for him to pay for the roan. That just suited me, for I liked the excitement of training wild horses. The Indian ponies were small, especially the colts that he wanted broken. I wanted to get right at it, but he said that I must wait till they got fat, so that they could buck harder.

At this time we were not far from the Crow country. There was a dispute between the tribes about the boundary line that divided our hunting grounds from theirs. One day some of our hunters came rushing to camp badly scared. They said that the Crows were right on us. I never saw such excitement in my life. Everybody in camp was running about and talking excitedly. The bucks were getting ready to fight; the horses were rounded up and driven into camp. It was a great mixup—horses, squaws, dogs, papooses, tepees, and bucks all jumbled together.

The War Chief ordered the young warriors to go out and meet the Crows. The old men were left to guard camp. I started to get my horse.

“If I am going to fight,” I said, “I want my pinto pony.”

Mother stopped me, “Here, you little dunce,” she said, “you are not going to fight. You couldn’t fight anything. I don’t believe there is going to be a fight anyway. I have had too many such Crow scares.”

I wondered whether the Crows had wings like the crows in our country. She said that they were Indians like the Shoshones.

A Crow encampment (Crow Agency, Montana).

By this time the squaws had everything packed and ready to fling on to the horses that were standing about with their saddles on. The old bucks were gathered in small groups here and there talking all at the same time. But the excitement soon passed over; for the warriors came back after a little while to tell us that it was not Crows at all but a herd of buffaloes that had caused the scare. I was rather disappointed, for I wanted to see some fun. I began to think that they were cowards—the whole bunch of them. But they were not. The next day a band of about fifty young warriors left for some place. I could not find out where they were going, but they seemed to mean business.

For a while after this scare everything passed off peacefully. We fished and chased antelope, and one day I went with Washakie up into the mountains to kill elk. We had not gone far till we saw a large herd of these animals lying down. Leaving our horses, we crept up close to them. Washakie had a good gun, and at his first shot he hit a big cow elk. She ran about a minute before she fell. The chief told me to slip up and shoot her in the neck with my arrows till she was dead, then to cut her throat so that she would bleed freely; and to stay there till he came back. Well, I crept up as close as I dared, and shot every arrow I had at her. Then I climbed a tree. I guess she was dead before I shot her, but I was not sure, for I was afraid to go up near enough to see. Washakie followed the herd that ran down the canyon.

I stayed up the tree for some time, then came down quietly and went up to the elk and threw sticks at her, but she did not move, so I plucked up courage and cut her throat. She had been dead so long that she did not bleed a bit.

A Crow Indian tepee.

I waited and waited for Washakie to come back. After a while I began to get scared. I thought that the bears would smell the elk and finding me there would eat me up, so I put off to where we had left our horses; but I could not find them. Then I started back to the elk, but I could not find it. I was so bewildered that I did not know what to do. The timber was thick, and I was getting more scared all the time. I tried again to find our horses and failed. By this time the sun had gone down, and it was very gloomy among the trees. I climbed another tree and waited for a long time. I was afraid to call for fear of bringing a bear on to me.

Afterwards, I learned that I had not left the elk long before Washakie came and took the entrails out of it, and as he did not see my horse, he thought that I had gone to camp. Before following the elk, he had tied my horse to a tree, but it had broken loose and run away. When Washakie reached camp, some Indians told him that they had seen my horse loose with the saddle on. He did not know what to do. Mother was frantic. She started right out to hunt me, and a big band of Indians followed her.

A little while after dark I heard the strange noise they were making. I thought the Crows were after me; so I kept quiet, but pretty soon I heard some one calling—“Yagaki! Yagaki!” Then I knew that it was one of our Indians, so I answered him. In a little while there was a crackling of brush right under my tree.

“Where were you?” he shouted.

“Here I am,” I said.

“What were you doing up there?” he asked.

“Looking for my horse.”

“Well, you won’t find him up there,” he said. “Come down here.”

I minded him in a hurry.

“Now, get on behind me,” he said; “the whole tribe is looking for you, and your poor mother is nearly crazy about you. It would be better for her if some one would kill you, and I have a notion to do it. It would save her lots of trouble.”

When he got out of the timber, he began to halloo just as loud as he could to let the rest know that I was found. Then I could hear the Indians yelling all through the woods. We reached camp before mother came in, and I wanted to go back to look for her, but Hanabi would not let me. She said that I might get lost again; that I had given mother trouble enough for one night.

It was not long before mother came. She grabbed me in her arms and said, “Yagaki, Yagaki, where have you been? I was afraid a bear had eaten you.” She talked and cried for almost an hour. She blamed Washakie for leaving me alone and said that I should never go off with him again; she would keep me close to her.

The next morning I went with mother and another squaw to get the elk. Washakie asked me if I thought I could find it. I told him that I knew I could, so we started and I led them right to it. As we were skinning the elk, mother said that I had spoiled the skin by shooting it so full of holes. But the meat was fat and tender.

About ten days after this our band of young warriors came back. They had captured thirty-two head of horses, but one of our Indians had been killed in the skirmish they had with the Crows. One of the band told me all about their raid. He said that they went over to the headwaters of the Missouri River—Sogwobipa, the Indians called it. There they found a small band of Crow Indians, but the Crows had seen them first, and were ready for them. Just after dark our Indians tried to run off a band of Crow horses they had seen, but they were met with a shower of arrows and a few bullets which killed one of their party and wounded five or six of their horses. One horse was so badly crippled that he could not travel, so the rider jumped on to the horse belonging to the dead Indian and they all broke back as fast as their horses could carry them. They were chased by the Crows all night, but they finally made their escape.

Albert Schlechten, Bozeman, Mont.

Headwaters of Missouri River, Montana. The Gallatin, Jefferson, and Madison rivers join here to make the Missouri River. The country around these rivers was a great hunting ground in the early days for Shoshones, Crows, Nez Percé, Selish, and other Indian tribes.

A few days after this as they were going through a range of mountains, they came suddenly upon a small band of Crows, killed two of them and took all their horses. They thought the whole tribe of Crows was following them, so they made a bee line for home. I thought it was pretty rough for about fifty to jump on a few like that, kill some and rob the rest of their horses. I think that Washakie did not like it either. When I told him that it was not fair, he said it was too bad, but that the Crows would have treated us just the same.

The Indians were uneasy. They felt sure that the Crows would follow and attack us any minute, so we kept a strong guard out all the time. Washakie thought it best to get a little farther from the border line and in a more open country where they could watch the horses better. The Indians did not appear to value their own lives so much as they did their horses.

I asked Washakie why it would not be better for the chiefs to get together, talk the matter over, and stop this stealing and fighting. He laughed and said that when I got older I might fix things to suit myself, but as things were going there, he had to be a little careful. Some of his men would rather be fighting than at peace; and Pocatello was poisoning the minds of as many of the tribe as he could with the spirit of war, to draw them away with him. For his part, Washakie said, he would rather live at peace.

The camp packed up and made a start from the open country. We made a long string of Indians, horses, and dogs trailing through the hills. For about a week we kept traveling southward along the river that came out of the beautiful lake until we reached another large stream. When these two streams came together, they made a very large river. It was the Piupa, or Snake River, which we had crossed before. We pitched our tepees by a stream that flowed into the north fork of this big river. It was not very wide, but it was deep and full of fish. We papooses had heaps of fun catching them.

After we had been in camp here a few days, Washakie told me that I might begin breaking the colts. That was more fun for me. We caught one, tied it to a tree and let it stand there until it stopped pulling back, then we led it to water. We staked it out near camp and let it stay there to feed all night. The next morning I found that I could lead it alone to water, so I thought I would try to ride it.

I was putting my saddle on it when mother said, “You had better ride it bareback.” I told her that I could not stay on without my saddle, so she told me to do as I liked. The colt, however, objected so strongly to being saddled that he came near getting away from me.

Howard R. Driggs

Crow Indian ponies feeding among the sage. From a photograph taken near Custer battle field, Montana.

“Put a blanket over its head, so it cannot see,” said mother.

I tied the broncho to a brush, threw a blanket over its head, and mother helped me to tie it on. By this time about fifty kids had gathered around to see the fun. When the saddle was cinched, mother said, “Now get on and I will pull the blanket off its head.”

I mounted carefully and then said, “Let him go.” Off came the blanket and away went the horse. He whirled and sprang into the air, coming down with his head between his forelegs. I went flying toward the creek, and I didn’t stop till I got to the bottom of it. When I crawled out and wiped the water out of my eyes, I could see that colt going across the prairie with my saddle under his belly and kicking at every jump.

“Let him go,” said my mother, as I started after him.

I said I would ride that horse if I never killed another Indian.