JACK, THE YOUNG EXPLORER

“THE TENT WAS SHIVERING AND SHAKING AND FROM IT EMERGED GROANS AND GROWLS.”—[Page 130]

JACK
THE YOUNG EXPLORER

A Boy’s Experiences in the
Unknown Northwest
BY
GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL
Author of “Jack in the Rockies,” “Jack the Young Ranchman,”
“Jack Among the Indians,” “Pawnee Hero Stories,”
“Jack the Young Trapper,” etc.

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1908, by
Frederick A. Stokes Company
September, 1908
Eighth Printing
Printed in the United States of America

FOREWORD

FOR untold ages the mountain goats had clambered undisturbed along the face of the steep precipices that overhang the St Mary’s River and Swift Current. Over the slide rock fallen from their cliffs the wild sheep had beaten out paths and trails zigzagging from the valley below to the heights above. On the lower wooded slopes the elk browsed in spring and fall, climbing high above the timber at the season when the flies were bad, and again when snows fell at the approach of winter, working their way down toward the lower lands and the foothills of the prairie. In the thick swamps and morasses of the river bottom the moose dwelt, sometimes clambering up toward the heights, but more often escaping the summer flies by burying their huge bodies beneath the waters of the lakes, or perhaps by wallowing in some great bog, from which they emerged covered with black mud which, drying, formed a coating that protected them. Everywhere through the valleys, on the hillsides, far up on the bald knolls, and even higher still, where the sheep and goats delighted to climb, the buffalo of the mountains—called by old mountaineers bison, to distinguish them from the yellower, sunburned animals of the plains—wandered singly or in little groups.

These rough and rocky fastnesses protected them well.

The Indians of the plains never tried to pass beneath these gloomy walls. Occasionally a white man or half-breed, more frequently a little band of Kootenay or Stoney Indians, true mountaineers, followed up these rivers for a short distance, hunting the game and trapping the beaver; but in those days game was so plentiful that these occasional excursions made no impression on it. The Indians had few guns and hunted noiselessly, chiefly with bows and arrows. For the most part, it was easier to kill the buffalo of the plains by the swift chase than to go into the rough mountains and hunt the game that lived higher up.

It was into this region, as yet unknown to white people, that Jack and his friends now entered, in order to explore it and learn for themselves what it held.

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

JACK, THE YOUNG EXPLORER

CHAPTER I
A MEETING OF FRIENDS

AS the train drew slowly into the Helena station Jack’s eyes searched the platform, looking for Hugh, and in a moment he recognized the tall form, standing well back from the crowd and looking at the platform of each car as it passed.

“Hurrah, Hugh!” called Jack, as he waved his hand frantically; but he had to jump down to the platform and elbow his way through the crowd before Hugh’s eye caught his.

“Well, son,” said Hugh, as he grasped his hand in a firm clasp, “I sure am glad to see you. I only got here last night myself, but it’s been a long day waiting around here alone, and I was afraid that maybe you wouldn’t come on this train.”

“Well,” replied Jack, “I’m mighty glad to get here. I was a little afraid that maybe something might have happened to keep you, and that I should have to do the waiting. It’s all right now though, and I hope we can get off to-morrow. I don’t want to stop in towns any more than you do, and I guess we shall both be glad to get into camp.”

“Sure, we will,” said Hugh. “Now, what have you in the way of baggage? Of course you’ve got your bed, and I see your gun and bag in your hand. I’ve got a room at the Merchants’ Hotel, and I reckon we might as well go up there, and then after you’ve eaten we can see the sights.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve got a small trunk and my bed, and we can pack those up to the hotel, and then I’ll put the stuff I need in my bed and my war bag and we’ll be all ready for the stage whenever it goes.”

“All right,” said Hugh, “I reckon we better take one of these hacks here, and the man can put your things on top, while we ride inside. It isn’t much of a walk up to the hotel, only about a mile, but maybe we’d better get there as quick as we can and have our dinner and attend to our business, and then we won’t have anything on our minds.”

Before long they were rolling rapidly over the smooth road toward the town, which stands at some distance from the railroad. As they passed along, Jack saw, to the right, enormous piles of cobblestones extending for half a mile or more toward the town. For some time he looked at them with curiosity, and then asked Hugh what they were.

“Why, don’t you know?” Hugh replied. “That’s the old placer ground that they used to work over when this camp was first settled. Last Chance Gulch they called it. That gravel and rock that you see there came out of the sluice boxes. Every little while, I’m told, a man comes down here now and works over some of that gravel, and they say that to-day there’s fair wages to be made mining right here in the town. I’ve heard that there are some Chinamen that work these gravels right along. There’s a heap of gold been taken out of that gulch, but, of course, just how much nobody knows. Every now and then, in digging the foundations of a house in town, some man will turn up a little nugget of gold, and then all the workmen quit digging and begin to pan out the foundations.”

“That seems queer, Hugh, doesn’t it? I suppose the same thing happens in lots of places along the Rocky Mountains, because a great many of the big towns now stand where old mining camps used to be.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s surely true. There’s lots of gold left in the sides of these hills yet, even after the miners have been over the dirt.”

“What kind of a trip did you have coming up, Hugh?” asked Jack. “Did anything happen on the road?”

“No,” replied Hugh; “nothing of any account. Joe drove me in to the railroad with my stuff. He had to come in for a load of groceries and a keg of nails, and I took the train west to Ogden, and that little narrow gauge road up to Garrisons, and then came east on the main line. I was kind of scared that maybe I’d get lost, making so many changes; but everybody I met was mighty pleasant spoken, and I didn’t have a mite of trouble. Of course you know what I saw on the road, for you and I went back that same way two years ago, when we came back from the coast.”

By this time they were climbing the hills of the town, and a moment later the hack stopped in front of the Merchants’ Hotel. Jack got a room, in which his things were put, and the two friends went down to dinner.

After this was over, it took Jack but half an hour to get from his trunk and pack in his bag the few things that he needed for his trip, and then he and Hugh sallied out and took a long walk out of town, into the high hills which overlook Helena and the great flat through which the river flows.

On the way back they passed the stage office and arranged for two seats on the box of the stage that left the next morning.

“It ain’t much use for you to engage these seats,” said the man in the office; “I don’t believe there’s ary person going out to-morrow morning except you two, still I’ll put your names down for the two seats on the box if you like. It can’t do no harm, anyhow. You have your stuff down here to-morrow morning any time after seven o’clock and we’ll take care of it and see that it goes on the stage.”

Their long walk had given Hugh and Jack a good appetite and they heartily enjoyed their supper. After they had eaten they started out again and walked through the brilliantly lighted streets, looking in at the windows of shops and saloons, each of which seemed to be full of customers. The air was mild and balmy and the beautiful night had brought many people into the street.

As they passed an open door, from which shone a bright light, Jack looked in and saw people sitting at tables playing cards, while toward the back of the room was a long narrow table surrounded by men who seemed greatly interested in what was going on.

“What are they doing in there, Hugh?” said Jack.

“Why, I reckon that’s a gambling house,” was the reply. “You know there’s no law against gambling in most of these Montana towns, the way I hear there is in towns back East. Everybody is free to go in and play if he wants to.”

“I’ve never been in a gambling house, Hugh. Can’t we go in and look on? I’d like to see what they are doing.”

“Why, yes,” said Hugh; “there’s no harm in going in and looking on. That isn’t the sort of thing that I would do for fun, but there’s no harm in it and you may see something that will teach you a good lesson. I never was much on gambling myself. I never had much money to lose, and I never wanted to win anybody else’s. It never seemed to me quite square to take money without you worked for it. I never could see the sense of betting, either; but, come on; let’s go in.”

Hugh led the way into the room, and Jack followed. The people playing at the various tables and those overlooking the game paid no attention to them. All were intent on their own affairs. Hugh walked around to one end of the long table and gradually edged his way into the crowd, gently pushing men this way and that in so good-natured a fashion that no one objected to it. Jack kept close behind him, and presently, when Hugh had reached a point where he had a good view of the table, he squeezed back a little and let Jack pass in and stand in front of him.

Behind the table sat a man smoking a long cigar, while in front of him was a little silver box about the size of a playing card, from which at short intervals the man drew two cards, one after another, which he placed on two little piles by the box. In the middle of the table was a long frame on which were painted representations of cards, and on these cards, in various positions, were placed circular disks, white, red, and blue. The players placed these disks on the cards, and then when two cards came out of the box, sometimes the dealer took over to his side of the table the chips that were on a particular card, or else put on that card as many more chips as were already on it. Then the player usually removed these chips and put some or all of them on another card. Most of the people about the table appeared to be acquainted with each other, and those who spoke to the dealer seemed to know him, calling him by his first name. For some minutes Jack watched the game intently and began to have a glimmering idea of how it was played. Once or twice he whispered a question to Hugh, but Hugh shook his head for silence, and one or two of the people near by looked frowningly at the speaker. “Evidently,” Jack thought, “this is not a place for conversation.”

As they stood there, the crowd in the room increased; more and more people gathered around the faro table; the smoke in the air grew thicker, and there was the sound of more or less hum and bustle. Presently Jack felt a hand on his shoulder, and looking back at Hugh saw him move his head toward the door, and the two pushed their way through the crowd and out again into the street.

“Might as well get away from there,” said Hugh; “they are playing pretty heavy. Two or three men came in that were full of liquor, and it looks to me as if there might be trouble in there to-night. There’s no special reason why we should be there if there’s going to be any shooting.”

“No,” said Jack, “I should say not. It’s about the last place in which I’d want to be shot, a gambling house.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “you’re dead right about that. I don’t know as I’d mind about being killed if I had to be killed, but I’d like to have it done in the right sort of a place.”

“Is there much of that thing going on in town, Hugh?” asked Jack.

“Right smart,” said Hugh. “I reckon from what I saw last night and from what I hear that there must be twenty-five or thirty places like that, and maybe a good many more that are not as decent as that one.”

“Well,” said Jack, “do men lose much money there?”

“I reckon they do,” answered Hugh. “A whole lot more than they can afford, even if the game is straight. There’s quite a percentage in favor of the dealer and a good many of the games are not straight.”

“How do you mean, Hugh?” said Jack. “Do the gamblers cheat?”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I reckon they do. Some of those fellows are awful slick at dealing and shuffling. They can shuffle the cards just about the way they want them, so that they know just what card is coming out next, and if they see the bets are going against them they can slip two cards out of the box instead of one and make themselves win instead of lose.”

“But,” said Jack, “I should think they would get caught at it.”

“No,” said Hugh, “scarcely ever; and if a man does see anything crooked, it’s only his word against the dealer’s, and the dealer is apt to have two or three friends around the table who will talk for him. If the worst comes to worst, why, of course, the dealer has got to draw quick, and usually he is a man who can do that.”

“Do you mean shoot, Hugh?” said Jack.

“Well, yes,” said Hugh; “sometimes it comes to that, though generally the dealer can bluff it out, especially if he’s got two or three men to wrangle and shout for him.”

“Well,” said Jack, “that seems pretty rough.”

“It is rough,” said Hugh; “but that’s the way it is in a good many of these towns.”

Soon after seven o’clock next morning Jack and Hugh were at the stage office with their beds, their bags, and their rifles. For a time they sat on their rolls of bedding talking, but at length a man came out from a stable near by and spoke to Hugh, and the beds were carried into the stable and lashed on to the rack behind the stage and the bags thrown into the boot under the driver’s seat. A little later the four horses were brought out and hitched to the vehicle, and presently the driver, carrying his long whip, came from the office. The stage was led out into the street before the stable, the driver mounted, and Jack and Hugh followed him, all three sitting on the front seat. Then a clerk came from the office and spoke to the driver, telling him that there were no other passengers that morning, and with a parting nod the team started off and trotted swiftly out of town.

“Hugh,” said Jack, “is this the sort of stage that they use everywhere in the mountains?”

“No,” replied Hugh, “I reckon not. This is the old-fashioned stage, such as they used to drive in crossing the plains away back before the railroad was built, but stage-driving is pretty near over now and the old stages are laid on the shelf. Usually for these short little mountain trips most any kind of a jerky or even a lumber wagon is used. This stage here is one of the real old kind.”

It was a high, large vehicle hung on C springs, with abundant room inside and two or three seats without. Back of the seats the roof of the coach was strengthened with slats of wood running lengthwise, and all about this roof was a high iron railing, so that a good lot of baggage might be piled there and lashed firmly to the top.

“I have seen coaches like this more than once,” said Jack. “Up in Massachusetts, where my grandfather lives, they have just such a coach as this to send around the village to gather passengers for the train in the morning, and it takes away the passengers that come by the train and leaves them at their homes. Once, too, when I went to the Catskill Mountains, they had a stage like this to take us from the landing at the river up to the hotel, a long drive.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “these coaches are easy to ride in, but by the time a man’s been on the stage about twenty-four hours he is generally in the frame of mind where he is willing to fight with his best friend. You see, the trouble is, he can’t get any sleep, and without sleep a man’s temper shortens up pretty fast.”

“Well,” said Jack, “we have got to go more than twenty-four hours without sleep, haven’t we? We travel right along, don’t we?” he asked, turning to the driver, who nodded in reply and added that it would take in the neighborhood of twenty-four hours to get to Benton. “Of course,” he remarked, “we could go faster if there was any reason for it. We change teams about every fifteen miles, but there is no reason why we should hurry the horses. It doesn’t make any difference to you, I reckon, whether yet get in at four o’clock in the morning or six, does it?”

“Not a bit,” said Jack. “I like this riding on a stage, but I don’t know just how long I’ll continue to like it.”

They had now turned from the flat prairie, over which the smooth road ran straight, and were entering a wide valley of the mountains, which gradually closed in on them until there seemed hardly room for more than the river that flowed through it and the road.

“That’s Wolf Creek,” said the driver, motioning toward the stream with his whip. “And this here canyon that we are going through is called Prickly Pear Canyon.”

On either side of the stream the hills rose sharply, sometimes in steep grassy slopes, shaggy with clumps of small pines and spruces, at others, in a sheer rocky precipice, or yet again in steep slopes covered with small shrubbery through which great knobs of rock showed here and there.

“Any game on these hills?” asked Hugh of the driver.

“Plenty of deer,” was the reply, “and some elk; lots of bear, too. Not many people travel over these hills, except prospectors, and they don’t do any hunting to amount to anything.”

As he finished speaking, Jack, who had been scanning the hillside ahead of the team, suddenly grasped Hugh’s arm and said, “There’s a deer now, Hugh.”

“Sure enough,” said Hugh, and all hands looking, a black-tail was seen feeding alone on the hillside, not eating the grass, but walking from one clump of weeds or brush to another and biting a mouthful of food from each. As they drew nearer, the animal heard the trotting of the horses or the rattle of the coach and stood for a few moments looking innocently at the team as it approached. The deer was a young buck, his horns, of course, in the velvet, for it was but the last of June. He studied the team with his huge ears turned forward to catch the sound which it made, and every now and then lifted his head higher, and seemed to feel the air with his nose.

At last, when the coach was fairly close to him, the driver said, “Do either of you want to take a shot at him?”

“Not I,” said Hugh.

“Nor I,” said Jack.

“Well,” said the driver, “I’m glad you don’t, for it would take us some time to butcher him, and I don’t like to loaf much just after starting out. The end of the day is the better time to drive slowly.”

Presently the buck seemed to have satisfied himself that there was possible danger in this great object approaching him, and turning, he bounded lightly along the hillside, gradually working up until at last he passed out of sight.

“Wasn’t it fine, Hugh,” said Jack, “to see him use his nose. That is what a deer depends on, isn’t it? He doesn’t trust his eyes very much, nor his ears, but his nose never lies to him.”

“Well,” replied Hugh, “that’s so. And it isn’t so only about deer, but about all sorts of game animals. I’ve had deer walk right straight up to me. So long as I kept still they didn’t pay any attention to me, and likely thought I was a stump or a rock, but just as soon as they passed along near enough to catch the wind of me they never stopped to look or listen, but got up and dusted the best they knew how; and yet you can come on a bunch of deer and they’ll hear you and jump to their feet and look at you, and maybe you can fire three or four shots at them and kill two or three before they’ll run away.”

“Yes,” said the driver, “that’s sure enough true; but you mustn’t say that it’s only deer or game that acts that way. Take a dog now——”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s right enough, too.”

“Why,” said the driver, “I have seen dogs—owned ’em, too—that didn’t seem to get any satisfaction at all out of their eyes; they couldn’t trust them. I have seen the time when I’d be walking along with my dog, and maybe I’d get a little ahead or a little behind him and I’d stop to talk with three or four fellows, and the dog would start to look for me; and even if he saw me right plain, he wouldn’t be sure it was me until he had come up behind me and stuck the end of his nose against my leg so that he could smell me. I remember once standing with three or four men in front of the Bella saloon in Benton when my dog did a trick like that. One of the men I was talking to didn’t like dogs; in fact, he was awful scared of them. The dog came up to us and smelt of each man, and when he shoved his nose hard against the leg of the man who was afraid of dogs, the man felt the dog’s nose and looked down and saw the dog, and he thought he’d been bit. He jumped about four feet into the air and reached for his gun to try to kill the dog that had bit him, but the others of us got hold of him and held him until we’d explained matters.

“Curious how scared some people are over a little thing, and yet maybe all the time they’ve got good sand and wouldn’t run away in the worst kind of a scrap.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s one of the queer things about human nature; you never can tell what it is that is going to scare a man. I’ve seen men that would run a mile to get away from some little bug like a spider or a hornet, and yet I know those men weren’t cowards, because I’ve seen them in tight places and they were always willing to take as many risks as anybody. Why, once I even saw a man that was afraid of a mouse.”

“No?” exclaimed the stage driver.

“Fact,” said Hugh. “He was afraid of a mouse, and when one ran over his face, just after he had gone to bed, he got up and sat by the fire all night for fear it would do it again.”

“Why, Hugh,” said Jack, “don’t you remember that the great Napoleon was afraid of a cat. It would make him sick if there was one in the room, even though he didn’t see it and didn’t know that it was there. And Napoleon was one of the greatest soldiers that ever lived, and, I suppose, a brave man.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I reckon he was.”

“I have known lots of people,” Jack went on, “who were afraid of snakes. It didn’t make any difference whether they were venomous snakes or not. Just as long as they were snakes, they scared these people.”

“That’s so,” said Hugh. “I’ve known one man that was afraid of snakes, and, what’s more, he could tell if there was one around, whether he saw it or not. He said he smelled them. That seems queer, too.”

“It does for a fact,” remarked the driver.

Before they had passed through the Prickly Pear Canyon they reached the stage station where the horses were to be changed. There all hands got down and walked about a little to stretch their legs; but in a very few minutes four fresh horses had been harnessed and they recommenced their journey.

“Do you ever have trouble with road agents on this line?” Hugh asked of the driver.

“No,” said he, “we’ve never been stopped but once. The fact is, we scarcely ever carry anything that makes it worth while for anyone to stop the stage. Early this spring, though, my partner was held up just as he was coming over the Bird Tail Divide. There had been some talk of sending out some dust from Benton by the stage, but it was given up and the gold went out another way. Of course none of us knew that it was going, but the news must have got out somehow, for that night, just as the stage reached the top of the Bird Tail Divide and the two leaders had got up onto the level, two men stepped out in the moonlight and told Buck—that’s my partner—to stop. He started to lay the whip on his horses, but they were all walking, and the men brought down their guns and called to him again that if he started they’d kill the leaders. So he pulled up and asked the men what they wanted, and they said they wanted the treasure chest and told him to throw it down. He said there wasn’t any treasure chest, and if they didn’t believe him they could come and search the coach. With that a third man that Buck hadn’t seen before popped up from the side of the road and climbed up and looked through the boot and searched Buck, and then went through the whole stage. They were a pretty mad lot when they let Buck go on.”

“Was it ever known who they were?”

“No,” said the driver. “I always had an idea that Buck knew who the little fellow was that searched the stage, but as they didn’t get anything and didn’t bother Buck any, I reckon he didn’t want to say much about it.”

All through the day they trotted briskly forward changing horses at regular intervals, so that the teams were always fresh and progress rapid. They had dinner and supper at the stage stations which they passed, and about ten o’clock at night reached Fort Shaw.

By this time both Hugh and Jack were tired and sleepy, but the driver seemed as fresh as ever.

While the horses were being changed, Hugh sat down on the front steps of the building and smoked his pipe, and Jack, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes, walked up and down on the boardwalk. As he was doing this he was joined by a little Irishman, who conversed pleasantly.

“Are you working now?” said the little man, as he puffed at his short pipe.

“No,” said Jack, “not now. I’m just going up to Benton.”

“Do yez want work?” asked the stranger. “I need a couple more hands on me ranch down below here and I’d like to hire yez. Thirty dollars and board is what I pay; good wages for the time and for the country.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I’d like the work and I’d like the money, but I’m just traveling through the country and I’ve got to meet a man in Benton, and couldn’t stop now to take even a good job.”

“Well,” said the man, “I’m sorry. If ever yez come through Shaw again, maybe ye’d be needin’ work, and ye’d better come to my place and see if I can’t give yez a job. Maloney is me name, on Sun River, five miles below the post.”

Jack was quite tickled at this offer, and when they started again, told Hugh about it.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “you are getting to be a man now, and ought to be able to do a man’s work, and I reckon you are.”

All through the night the stage rattled and swung over the prairie, and soon after the sun rose the next morning trotted swiftly across Benton bottom and drew up at the end of its journey.

CHAPTER II
HISTORIC LAND

“THERE are some friends of ours,” said Hugh, as the stage approached the hotel, and he raised his hand and made the Indian sign to attract attention.

“Yes,” said Jack, “I see them. There is Baptiste and there’s Joe, too. It’s splendid to see them both again.” Jack signaled earnestly and made the sign for shaking hands, to which his two friends responded.

As the stage drew up, Hugh said, “Now, son, you get down into the boot and haul out our bags and throw them to me,” and when Hugh had reached the ground Jack passed him the bags and then sprang down himself. There were hearty handshakes and many questions between the four delighted friends, and presently Baptiste said, “Casse-tête, let us go now to my cabane, and there we will eat and smoke. I have many things to ask you.”

“All right,” said Hugh. “Just wait a minute till I see about our beds.”

In the meantime Jack and Joe had engaged in a sort of war dance, followed by a wrestling match, to express their joy at meeting again, and then Jack thought of the beds on the coach and ran and unstrapped the leather apron which covered the baggage rack, and the two boys, loosening the lashings, threw the beds on the ground by the hotel door.

“Hello,” said Hugh, “those boys have got our beds off now. We can go on. Just set those beds inside the office, and tell the clerk we’ll stop for them with the wagon when we start. Then come on to Bat’s cabin.”

Before long Hugh and Jack were seated in the cabin, while Baptiste and Joe were busily engaged in the work of preparing breakfast. Soon all were seated at the table. The fare was simple, but heartily enjoyed, for all had healthy appetites and contented minds.

“How are you getting on, Bat?” said Hugh. “How do you live? Just about as you did a couple of years ago?”

“Yes,” said Baptiste; “I live well; I always have lived well since you and these boys came in from the north and made me that fine present of the gold that you think I lost many years ago. Every month the bank pays me my money, and then besides I work a little for the company at the furs, so they pay me something, and I have some money that I can spend. I have bought me two horses, and sometimes I go off on a hunt; sometimes I trap a little. It is not much, but it is pleasant; it brings back to my mind the old days. Also, my mind is better than it was. I do not forget things as I used to. It was a good thing for me when you three men came in from the north and found me here, and you would not have found me except for the charger that Jack picked up on the prairie.”

“Doesn’t it seem wonderful that the finding of that little piece of metal should have changed a man’s life as yours has been changed, Baptiste?” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Hugh; “we, none of us, can ever tell what influence the smallest thing we do will have on other people. Now, Joe,” he went on, “have you got a team here, and are you ready to take us out to the camp, as Mr. Sturgis wrote you?”

“Yes,” said Joe, “the team’s here and the wagon, and I reckon we can make the agency in three or four days and we can start just whenever you are ready. I’ve got a mess outfit and some coffee and sugar and bacon and flour, and if you need anything more we can get it here. I’m ready to start as soon as you are.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “the sooner we get off the better, I expect. What do you say, son?”

“Why,” replied Jack, “you can’t start too soon for me. I’m anxious to get to the camp, and then into the mountains. I always feel as if I didn’t have much time out here anyhow, and I want to make the most of what I have.”

“Well, then,” said Hugh, as they pushed back their chairs from the table, “let’s sit down and smoke a pipe and talk for a little while, and then you and Jack can go and get the team, and Bat and I will sit here and chew the rag about old times until you come for us. Get the beds and the bags when you come by the hotel, and then we can pull right out. I reckon Joe has grub enough and we won’t have to buy anything here without it is a piece of fresh meat. We might get beef enough for two or three meals, but the weather is kind o’ hot now, and likely there’ll be a chance to get meat at some of the ranches we pass if we need it.”

For a time Hugh and Baptiste sat together talking about the old trapping days, bringing up one after another the names of men whom they had known, and relating incidents of hunting, trapping, buffalo chasing, and Indian fighting. Jack thought it was good to listen to, but at length Hugh turned to the boys and said, “Well, go on now and get your wagon and we’ll pull out. It’s a long ways from here to the agency, and every hour we lose on this end we’ve got to make up on the other.”

The boys started off for the team, leaving the old men to sit in the sun and talk about the past. A little later the wagon drew up to the door, and Hugh, after glancing through its contents and tightening one of the ropes that lashed on the load, said, “Well, we may as well be going. Good-by, Bat; we’re likely to get back here about two months hence, and we’ll meet then. I reckon up in the camp we’ll see all the Monroes and old man Choquette, but those are all the old-timers we’re likely to meet. So long,” and he climbed into the wagon.

“Good-by, Baptiste,” said Jack, as he shook hands, and Joe, reaching down from the driver’s seat, pressed the old man’s hand without a word.

“Good-by, my friends, good-by,” said Baptiste. “It has been good to see you. Always your coming brings joy to my heart. I shall look for you to come again.”

Joe gathered up the reins, spoke to the horses, and in a moment they were rattling along the street headed for the road leading up the Teton River.

It was a beautiful day. The air was cool and pleasant, yet the sun shone warm. The prairie and the distant hills were still green, and beautiful flowers dotted the plain. From the top of almost every sage brush came the sweet, mellow whistle of the meadow lark. In the air all about birds were rising from the ground, singing as though their throats would burst, and then after reaching a certain height, slowly floating down again on outspread wings, the song ending just as they reached the ground.

After they had gone a short distance away from the town the country seemed as lonely as the wildest prairie. Far off, here and there, grazed a few cattle or horses. Ahead of them the white, level road wound about among the bushes of the sage. To Jack it was all very delightful. The change from the crowded city was absolute, and as he looked about him and enjoyed his surroundings his heart seemed to swell within his breast, and he felt as though he could hardly speak.

Presently Joe said to Hugh, “Have you plenty of room, White Bull? I got this extra wide seat before I started because I thought we’d all want to sit on one seat, but I don’t know whether it gives you room enough.”

“Oh, yes,” said Hugh, “there’s lots of room for all of us.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “we could pretty nearly put another man here.”

“Now, Joe,” said Hugh a little later, “I want to ask you something about the people. I heard that two years ago, and maybe last year also, they starved, and that many of them died. I heard, too, that even up here the buffalo have all gone.”

“Yes,” said Joe, “that is true. Two years ago and also last year the people starved, but it was two years ago that the most of them died, that is, one winter back from this winter that has just passed. Old Four Bears kept a kind of count on a stick, cutting a notch for every person that died, and they say that nearly six hundred of the people starved to death. There was no food. The buffalo had not been seen for two winters. The people had hunted and sometimes killed an elk or a deer or a few antelope, but at last these had all been killed, and there was left nothing but rabbits and such birds as we could shoot or snare. It was a hard time; everybody was hungry. Everybody got poor. Even people that had once been heavy and had much fat on their bodies grew lean and thin. When you looked at the old people, the women and the children, you could see their bones sticking out against the skin. The little children and the old people were the ones that died. The men and the women were very hungry and got weak, but they did not die. White Calf, who is now the chief, asked the agent to give us what food there was in the storehouse and let us have one good meal and then die, but the agent would not do it. He told us to go out and kill food for ourselves. You know Father Prando?” Hugh nodded.

“Well, he had seen for a long time what was coming and he had written to people back East, asking that food might be sent out to us, and telling them that unless it was sent we should all starve to death. Besides that, he wrote to the commanding officer at Fort Shaw, and during the winter an officer was sent up to the agency to see how the people were getting on. This officer came and went around through the camp, and asked the people to tell him the truth. He didn’t have to ask many questions; he had eyes and could see for himself. They tell me that in some of the lodges that officer sat and cried; that the tears ran down his face as they do down the face of a woman whose child has just died.

“After a while he went away, and we heard nothing more, but presently the news came that wagons loaded with food were coming from Fort Shaw, and then a little while after that came a government inspector who asked many questions and removed the agent and stopped here. This inspector was a good man, I think. He kept sending messages to Fort Shaw and trying to hurry the food along, and they say that he sent telegrams to Washington. Anyhow, about the end of the winter wagons began to come loaded with flour and bacon, and this was given out to the people, and then the suffering stopped, and the people stopped dying. After a little while, too, we got a new agent, a good man, who seems to be trying to help the people. He taught them how to plow the ground and to put seed into it. Maybe that is good. The seed grew, but it did not get ripe. We had plenty of oat straw, but no oats; but ever since the food began to come a year ago last winter we have been doing better.”

“Well, well, that’s a hard story,” said Hugh. “How did it come that there was not food enough in the warehouses to help the people along?”

“I heard two of the white men that have married into the tribe talking,” said Joe, “and they said that the agent had been writing to Washington that the Indians were doing well and were growing crops and becoming civilized. They said that he wrote those things so that the people at Washington would think that he was a great man and was helping the Indians along. Of course the people never grew any crops; they didn’t know how. They lived well enough as long as there were buffalo, but when the buffalo went away, then the people had nothing to depend on.”

“You say nearly six hundred died?” asked Hugh.

“That is what they told me,” replied Joe.

“Good Lord,” said Hugh, “that was about one-fourth of the people. I don’t suppose there was more than twenty-five hundred or three thousand Piegans at best.”

“I don’t know,” said Joe, “how many there were, but I know that many died. You can see their bodies in all the trees along the creeks.”

“But, Hugh,” said Jack, “how is it possible that such a thing should occur? Why didn’t the people back East know about this suffering and send food out to relieve it?”

“Well, son,” said Hugh, “you know it’s an awful long way from here back East, and then it’s hard always to get at the truth about any of these stories. An Indian reservation is a great place for getting up kicks and complaints, and I suppose that maybe those people in Washington are so used to hearing complaints that they don’t pay much attention to them.”

“But just think,” said Jack, “of six hundred people being starved to death. It’s almost impossible to believe it.”

“I reckon,” said Hugh, “that we’ll find a good many of our old friends dead when we get to the camp.”

“Yes,” said Joe, “a good many.”

All day long the horses trotted briskly up the level road along the Teton River. The sun was hot, but a cool breeze blew down from the mountains to the west and the whole country was fresh, green, and charming. About three o’clock they camped on the river at the edge of a grove of cottonwood trees, and unhitching the horses, Joe and Jack picketed them on the fresh green grass. Hugh, meanwhile, had brought some wood and built the campfire, and before long supper was ready.

As they sat about after eating, Hugh smoking his pipe, the boys lounging in the warm sunshine, and all watching the sun as it sank toward the west, and the shadows of the cottonwoods grow longer minute by minute, Hugh said to Jack, “We were talking this morning, son, about the hard times the Piegans have had this winter, and that brought to my mind another hard time that they had a good many years ago.”

“What was that, Hugh?” said Jack, sitting up to listen, while Joe, who had been lying on his back with his eyes shut, rolled over so that he faced the old man.

“Did you ever hear of the Baker massacre?” asked Hugh.

“No,” said Jack, “I never did.”

“I did,” said Joe. “My father was killed that time. I don’t remember anything about it. I was too little. Only I remember my mother, how she cried.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “lots of people cried that time.”

“Tell us about it,” said Jack.

“Well,” said Hugh, “it’s quite a long story and it made quite a fuss in its time, not so much among the white folks out here as among the Indians and, as I’ve heard, among white people back East. It certainly was a bad killing. You read in the books about the way Indians massacre white women and children when they’re on the warpath, but I reckon Indians never did anything worse than this killing at the Baker massacre. The way the white men killed and cut up the Cheyenne and Arapahoe women and children at Sand Creek down in Colorado, and the way they killed women and children up here on the Marias, no Indians could ever beat.”

Hugh paused, and looked around for a twig with which to push down the fire in his pipe.

“I’ve heard about the Sand Creek massacre, Hugh,” said Jack, “though I never heard the whole story. Some day I’m going to get you to tell me that; but what was the Baker massacre?”

“Well,” said Hugh, “along in ’66-’67, and from that time up to 1870, this country up here in Montana was run over by a whole lot of different Indian tribes. Of course it was Piegan country, and with the Piegans were the Blackfeet and Bloods, and a part of the time the Gros Ventres of the prairie. They were all on good terms with each other after the Gros Ventres made peace with the Piegans along about 1868. Besides these, there were the Crows, who were hostile to the Blackfeet, and every now and then the Kootenays would come over the mountains and have a scrap, and the Crees would come down from the north and steal Piegan horses, and Assinaboines and other Sioux would come up from the east and they’d tackle the Blackfeet. Pretty nearly any of these Indians, if they saw a chance to run off some stock or to kill a lone white man would do it, but the Piegans, being close at home and always within reach, got the credit of most of the deviltry that was done. As a matter of fact, I reckon it was the Sioux and Assinaboines that did most of it. Anyhow, the trappers and traders and freighters in the country, and there were quite a number of them, got to thinking that the Piegans made all the trouble. I reckon that the Bloods from the north, and sometimes a band of Blackfeet coming down to visit the Piegans, did considerable horse stealing, and maybe they killed a few white men.

“Along about that time, too, Malcolm Clark took it into his head to pound up a young Piegan and gave him a terrible beating, and this young Piegan, who was a brother of Clark’s wife, went off and got a party of his friends and went back and killed Clark. Meantime all the Piegans were camping in their country as usual and were passing back and forth, going into Benton and not looking for any trouble at all; but some of the toughs in Benton, whose names I won’t mention, because you may meet some of them, took an old Piegan, a beaver trapper and a good old man, and killed him and threw him into the river; and another man took out a young boy, considerably younger than you are, and just shot him down in the street. A lot of false reports were sent back East about what the Indians had been doing, and the result was that Colonel Baker was ordered to march against a certain village of Indians who were camping up here on the Marias, north of where we are now and about forty miles from Benton. The troops were guided by two men who are now living on the Piegan reservation, each of them married to an Indian woman. The orders given to Colonel Baker were to strike Mountain Chief’s band of Piegans, because from some information they had it was supposed that these people had been plundering and perhaps killing white people. As a matter of fact, the village found by the troops was that of Red Horn and Bear Chief. The camp consisted of less than forty lodges, and probably had in it a little more than two hundred people. The troops got up close to the village in the gray of the morning, without being seen, and their orders were to shoot to kill when they fired. There were but few people stirring when the first volley was fired. They were all killed, and then the people began to stream out of the lodges. At once they saw that they were being attacked by troops, and thought that it was a mistake. Bear Chief, unarmed, rushed toward the soldiers holding up a paper given him by some white man, but before he got to the soldiers he fell, with half a dozen bullets through him. The women and children were killed just as the men were, and of all the village only about forty-five got away, and some of these were off hunting and were not there when the attack was made. There were a hundred and seventy-six Indians killed, thirty-seven of them men, ninety women, and about fifty children.

“There was no pretense of a defense by the Indians. They didn’t fight at all. They were just shot down until the troops got tired of shooting. The Indians have told me that most of the thirty-seven men that were killed were old men and young boys. As if to make it a little rougher on the Indians, there was smallpox in the camp at the time.

“You’ll see old Almost-a-Dog up at the agency, and if you shake hands with him you’ll notice that his hand is crooked. He got that wound at the Baker massacre.”

“Why, Hugh, that’s one of the most terrible things I ever heard of,” said Jack. “A hundred and seventy-six killed, and out of that a hundred and forty women and little children!”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “it always seemed to me pretty bad. Of course, when men go to war or try to steal horses or do anything of that kind they take all the chances that there are. It’s all right to kill them if you can, but how anybody that’s got any sense can shoot down women and children the way that man Baker did gets away with me.

“Well,” he went on, “after a while the news of this massacre drifted East, and I heard that the newspapers took it up and told the truth about it, and I reckon the army officers most concerned in it got called a good many names. I’ve heard that Colonel Baker lost his chance of ever getting very high up in the army on account of this fight, and yet he only did just what he was ordered to do.”

“That certainly was terribly cruel,” said Jack, “and I don’t see how it could be excused.”

“Joe,” said Hugh, turning to the Indian, who had said nothing, but still lay on the grass with his head resting on his hand, “were you in that camp, or were you somewhere else?”

“No,” said Joe, “I was not in that camp. My mother was and a little sister and my father, but I was at Three Sun’s Village, stopping with my aunt. I must have been about three or four years old at that time.”

“Of the people left alive out of that village,” Hugh went on, “there were nearly forty who were women and little bits of children. They were turned loose on the prairie—some of them being sick with the smallpox, you will remember—on the twenty-third of January. Anybody who knows what winter weather is up here in Montana can tell what that means. It’s a wonder that any of them lived to get to a camp where they were looked after.”

Hugh’s story had taken some time in the telling, and by the time he had finished it was quite dark. Jack and Joe got up and went out to where the horses were and changed them to fresh grass, and on their way back brought the beds from the wagon and threw them down close to the fire. Hugh meanwhile had put fresh wood on it and the cheerful blaze lit up the white trunks of the cottonwoods and was reflected on the leaves above. It was a beautiful night, and the three spread their beds near the fire and were soon asleep.

CHAPTER III
THE BLACKFOOT AGENCY

THE next morning they were early on their way, and by noon reached the home of a Canadian Frenchman, formerly in the service of the American Fur Company, but now living on his little ranch on the Teton with his Indian wife and a numerous brood of half-breed children.

From here they kept on up-stream, until just before night they came to another ranch, on the Pend d’Oreille coulée, where lived a man whom Hugh and Joe both addressed as Froggy, also married to an Indian woman.

Just before dark Jack was greatly interested in seeing a procession of five pin-tailed ducks walking solemnly from a little slough to the house. When they reached it the woman drove them into a little coop built of short logs, and closing the door, fastened it with a pin.

“Where did you get your ducks, Froggy?” asked Joe.

“Oh,” answered Froggy, “I found a nest out on the prairie at the edge of the slough and watched it until the young ones hatched and then got them and brought them in and raised them. I did have nine, but the coyotes and foxes got away with all but these five. Now I’ve got ’em trained so that they come up every night, and I shut them up in the house where they’ll be safe.”

Shortly after they had started next morning Jack asked Hugh some questions about Froggy. It appeared that he had come into the country twelve or fifteen years before and had worked first as a laborer and afterward as a clerk for small individual traders.

“They say,” put in Joe, “that he has killed two or three men for their money.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I heard something about that, but nobody that ever talked to me about it really seemed to know anything.”

“No,” said Joe, “I reckon they never could prove anything against him. Twice men who were traveling through the country and were supposed to have money disappeared on this road and nobody ever knew what became of them. Each time Froggy said that they stopped at his house over night and then started on in the morning, but they never were seen again.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “we don’t know anything about that.”

“Hugh,” said Jack, “I’ve been a good deal in the Western country and I’m not a pilgrim any longer, but isn’t something going to happen to Froggy some of these days?”

“Why, yes, son,” said Hugh, “I reckon some day that somebody will up and kill Froggy, and then the country will be better off; but it isn’t your funeral nor yet mine, and we don’t want to mix up with things that don’t concern us at all.”

“No, Hugh, of course, you’re right, but it does seem as if the world and the territory would be better off if Froggy did not live here.”

“Maybe, maybe,” said Hugh, “but, as I say, it isn’t your business nor yet mine.”

That night they camped on Dupuyer Creek, and Hugh and Joe said that to-morrow they would be at the agency.

“Well,” said Jack, “I’ll be glad to get there. It’s queer, isn’t it, the number of times I’ve been up here and camped with these Piegans that I’ve never seen their agency, the place which is really their home?”

“Well,” said Hugh, “it really has not been their home very long, only since the buffalo gave out. Before that they only came in once in a while, but not long before they saw the last of the buffalo the Government sent out troops to bring them in and tell them that they must stay at the agency.

“That’s one reason, I reckon, that they starved, as Joe was telling us the other night. If it hadn’t been that the troops kept them there, I believe they’d all have gone up north into Canada and have tried to make the two other tribes, the Blackfeet and the Bloods, give them help. I don’t know what help they could have given them, because those people up there must be just as poor as these down here. They all depended on the buffalo and they had nothing else. None of them have any idea of farming, and of course none of them have any cattle.”

“But, Hugh,” said Jack, “what are they going to do now? The buffalo won’t come back; how are they going to live?”

“Why,” said Hugh, “the only way they can live is for the Government to support them, to send them out beef and flour and bacon. They’ve got to be fed until they learn to do something for themselves, either to raise crops or raise cattle, or get jobs as hands on the steamboats or as hands for the ranchmen; but, of course, there are not enough ranchmen in the country to hire even a small part of the able-bodied men among the Piegans.”

“Well,” said Jack, “they have a pretty melancholy outlook, haven’t they?”

“They have, it’s true,” Hugh answered. “At the same time,” he went on, “some of those men are pretty industrious and have a pretty good idea of work, if they only knew how, but as yet they don’t know anything. Joe says though—you heard him the other night—that they were trying to learn to farm, but this country up here is so cold that I don’t think they can ever do anything with crops. There are a few warm spots where crops might ripen, but they are very few.”

About noon the next day they drove down into the valley of a little stream running from the west, and Joe stopped his horses so that they might drink.

“Well, friend,” he said to Jack, “when we cross this creek we shall be on the reservation. The Indians have their camps and their cabins up and down this stream, and from here on, wherever there is a creek, there we will see the Indians camped. It is only about eight miles from here to the Agency.”

Most of the way was uphill, however, and it was well on in the afternoon before the road passed over the high bluff, and at a distance they saw the agency buildings. These looked gray and inconspicuous, set down in the midst of a wide flat, through which flowed a stream bordered by willows, with a few tall cottonwood trees. As they drew nearer, the buildings seemed to Jack to increase in size, and presently they stopped at the little one-story trading post, a hundred yards below the Agency, that now looked like rather an imposing edifice. From here Jack could see only the stockade, about sixteen feet in height and built of cottonwood logs, which concealed all the Agency buildings behind its walls.

At the store they were warmly welcomed by Joe Bruce and his assistant, Mr. McGonigle. Bruce was, and long had been, one of the characters of the upper Missouri country. He was then only about thirty-six years old, smooth-shaven, keen-eyed, thin and wiry. Hugh had often spoken to Jack about him and Jack looked at him with great interest. He was the son of James Bruce, who was an important figure in the fur trade of the Upper Missouri and long in charge of Fort Union at the junction of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers, and later of Fort McKenzie and Fort Brulé, not far from where Fort Benton was built later.

Bruce’s mother was a Mandan, and, as Jack learned a little later, lived with her son at the Piegan agency.

Mr. McGonigle was a Georgian, an old Confederate soldier who had come West “with the left wing of Price’s army,” as the saying used to be in Montana. Of the great number of Southerners that came into Montana in 1862 and ’63 it was said in joke that when Price’s army was defeated in Missouri in the early part of the war, the left wing got separated from the others and started westward, and never stopped until it reached the Rocky Mountains. Mr. McGonigle had spent some years as a prospector, but after having made and lost several small fortunes, at last became a trader’s clerk, which he had now been for many years.

After a brief chat with Joe Bruce, arrangements were made to spread their beds for a night or two in one of his empty buildings, and to live at his mess until they started on their way again. Joe, whose people were camped on another creek further to the northward, was to remain at the Agency for two or three days, and then the whole party would start for St. Mary’s Lakes.

While Hugh was talking with Bruce, Jack chatted for a while with Mr. McGonigle, but he was anxious to go up to the Agency and to get inside that gray barrier of logs behind which were hidden many interesting people and things.

Presently Hugh filled his pipe, and after lighting it, rose and said, “Well, son, let’s go on up to the Agency and see the agent, and look around and see if we can meet any of our friends.”

“All right, Hugh, come on,” said Jack, and they set out.

They soon reached the stockade and entered the wide plank gate, which was still in good condition and bore signs of being frequently used. On either side of the gate there were small log buildings, each with a small window, which looked as if they had been built there for purposes of defense; probably, however, they were built only in imitation of the store and warehouse buildings that formerly flanked the gates of all old fur-trading posts. Once within the stockade, they could see the quarters for the employees, a warehouse, a schoolhouse in which were gathered ten or fifteen children, and some other buildings; while in the center of the stockade stood the house occupied by the agent.

In this house they found Major Allen, who welcomed them cordially, and in response to inquiries by Hugh told them something of the terrible conditions that he had found when he had reached there a year or more before and had first met his starving people. He talked with much feeling about their sufferings and the heroic way in which they had borne them, and while he said nothing in definite terms about his predecessor, what his words suggested made Jack’s blood boil with indignation. Major Allen asked Hugh and the boys to stay at the Agency as long as they liked, and said that he would like to have them see the Indians at work.

When Hugh and Jack went up to the Agency the next morning they saw in the field just below the stockade a number of Indians standing about a team of horses, and as they drew nearer they could see that Major Allen was giving instructions in the art of plowing to some of the people. When they reached the group, they were busy for some time shaking hands with old friends, whom they had known under far different circumstances, but after the first salutations all turned to watch the work.

A half breed was driving the team hitched to a plow, and the agent was trying to teach the Indians to hold the plow so as to turn a straight furrow. It was new and not easy work for the red men. The handles of the plow jerked from side to side, the point either coming out of the ground or plunging so deeply into it that the man holding the handles was in danger of being thrown forward on his head. Then Major Allen would take the plow and holding it steadily would cut a smooth furrow of even depth.

Old White Calf, the chief, was anxious to learn plowing. He took hold of the handles and, although at first the plow wobbled from side to side and more than once one of the handles struck him viciously in the ribs, he cut a fair furrow for six or eight feet. Then, however, the point ran deep into the ground, and the old man was thrown forward and nearly fell down. Meanwhile, the Indians who were looking on were making jocular remarks and poking fun at the man who happened to be plowing, but he—after he had performed his small stint—had his revenge by making fun of the next victim.

After he had watched them for a little while and enjoyed the fun, Jack had a chance to look on a scene picturesque and beautiful. The wide valley stretched before him with bluffs rising in terraces one after another, the bright green of the willows and cottonwoods marking the course of the stream; to the west the mountains with their clear-cut outlines sharply defined against the blue sky; the gray stockade stood near at hand, and farther off the conical white lodges of the Piegans up and down the creek, with here and there a low log cabin. Outside the fence Indians passed to and fro, some of them on foot, others on horseback, and their bright-colored blankets, beaded belts and knife sheaths gave life and color to the picture.

For some time the work went on, and then the Major asked Hugh and Jack to come up to his house, where they talked over the Indians and the new problems which they had to face.

“It’s interesting work looking after these people, but it’s discouraging, too,” said Major Allen. “The Indians are willing to work, but they haven’t any idea how to perform the tasks we set them, so that their efforts are ineffective, and they easily become discouraged. They have never been used to handling horses hitched to wagons, and they don’t know at all what horses can do. They hitch these little riding ponies of theirs to a big wagon and then pile it up with much more of a load than the horses can haul, and whip up the team, which strains and tugs along for a short distance, but presently gives out, and the wagon has to be unloaded or else another pair or two of horses must be attached to it.

“The Indians are as willing as can be and they are not afraid of work, but they don’t like to keep at it for a long time. They are absolutely ignorant of all farming matters and it will take them some time to learn. Last summer some of them planted little gardens, but they treated them as children would. For example, they often dug up their potatoes to see how fast they were growing, and as soon as they grew large enough to eat they tried to sell them, although if they had left them in the ground they would have continued to grow for a month longer. Now that the Indians have teams and are beginning to learn something about how to use them, they drive up to the mountains and cut wood and haul it down, either to sell or to use themselves in winter. Some of them have built good log cabins in which they pass the winter, but of course in summer they prefer to live in their lodges.”

“Well, Major,” said Hugh, “you can hardly expect these Indians, who all their lives have been chasing buffalo, to take hold of work at once.”

“No,” said the Major, “that can’t be expected, and I don’t look for it. I am very well satisfied with the way they have taken hold. They’re willing and they seem honest.”

“Yes, I think so,” said Hugh, “and from what I can hear they’ve had such a hard time that I think they’re really in earnest in their wish to learn how to work.”

“Their loyalty,” said the Major, “is one of the things that has struck me the most. The policemen are absolutely faithful. When I enlist them, I make them take an oath, explaining that everybody who serves the Government has to be sworn in, and that they must do as all the other public servants. They take an oath which I like, though perhaps not a very ceremonial one; still they take it as if they meant it, and I believe they do. Have you ever heard them make this oath, Mr. Johnson?”

“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t reckon I have. I would like to hear it, and so would son here. What is it?”

“When they are sworn,” said Major Allen, “they lift up the right hand and, stretching it toward the sky, say, ‘The sun is good,’ and then, ‘The earth is good,’ and bending down they touch the ground with the hand; and as they stand up again they say, ‘I will obey the orders of my chief, that I may live long with my family.’

“Now these policemen get only eight dollars a month; they’re likely to be called on at any time to ride any distance; they have to furnish their own horses, and yet they never, so far as I have heard, complain. They’re a good lot of people, and I ask for nothing better than to stay here and work with them, but I hope that I shall never have as bad a time as I had when they were starving during the first two or three months that I was here.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “that must have been a terrible time.”

As they were walking down to the trader’s store, Jack, who had been much impressed by Major Allen’s talk about the Indians, said to Hugh, “Now, Hugh, what do you think will become of these Indians? Of course, the buffalo never can come back, so hunting days must be nearly over. How are the people to support themselves, or are they to be looked after in future by the Government?”

“Why, son,” said Hugh, “I guess that question is puzzling, and it’s going to puzzle a lot of smarter men than you and I will ever be. It’s a sure thing that these Indians can never make a living in this country by farming. They might make a living by cattle if they had any, or had any means of getting them, but of course the Indians have no money and no means of earning any money to buy cattle with. They certainly can’t hire out to work, because there is no one in this country that will hire them and pay wages. If they had cattle and would take care of them they might do well, because this is one of the finest grazing ranges in the world, but you know very well that if the Government were to give each one of these Indians a cow to-morrow, a week hence very few of them would still have his cow. They would kill them and eat them, and then sit around and hope that the Government would give them another. They have got to have a lot of instruction before they will look out for the future.”

“Well,” said Jack, “you can’t blame them. In the past when they wanted food they went out and killed something, and they can’t be expected to understand that things are changing.”

“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t expect it of them, but if they don’t come to understand it very soon they will have to suffer again just what they suffered two years ago.”

“Well,” said Jack, “it’s mighty hard lines; it’s heartbreaking to think of.”

“So it is,” said Hugh. “I feel mighty badly whenever I think of it, but I reckon it’s the law. I expect the white people had to go through an awful lot of suffering before they got to the point where ‘most every man realized that he had to work hard for a living, and I reckon if you look around back where you live you’ll find that there are a good many people in those big cities there that don’t realize this yet.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “I suppose there are, but these Indians are so kindly and generous and hospitable that I feel a personal sympathy for each one of them that, of course, I don’t feel for the inefficient people back East.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “that’s natural, of course. You know these people and you don’t know the others.”

Soon after they got back to the trader’s store dinner was ready, and after dinner they lounged about the store talking with Bruce.

CHAPTER IV
A MEDICINE PIPE CEREMONY

TOWARD the middle of the afternoon a wagon drove up to the store and Bruce’s wife, carrying a baby, came out and got in and said a few words to her husband. He rose and walked toward the wagon and then turned and said, “I’m just going over with the woman to Red Eagle’s camp; the baby’s been sick and she wants to have him doctor it. He’s going to unwrap his medicine pipe. Do you men want to go along? I don’t know if Jack has ever seen a medicine pipe unwrapped.”

“No,” said Hugh, “I reckon he hasn’t. What do you say, son? Do you want to go?”

“You bet, Hugh,” said Jack. “I’d be mighty glad to go. We won’t be in the way, will we, Mr. Bruce?”

“No,” said Bruce, “not a bit. Come along.”

It was not a long drive over to Two Medicine Lodge Creek. Red Eagle was camped not far from the old piskun, where in old times the Blackfeet used to drive the buffalo over the cliff, where the fall from the great height killed or crippled many of the herd and gave the people food. As the wagon drove up to Red Eagle’s lodge, it was surrounded by a pack of dogs which, with furious barkings and snappings, threatened the visitors, but when no attention was paid to them they quieted down at once, and stood about with welcoming waggings of their tails. Mrs. Bruce climbed out of the wagon and carrying her baby, some food and tobacco and a large sack of dried sarvis berries, entered the old man’s lodge, while the men drove the wagon off a little distance, unhitched the horses and tied them to the wagon wheels. Returning to the lodge, Bruce looked in and said, “The old man hasn’t begun to get ready yet. We may as well stop outside until he is ready to begin.”

“Let’s go up to the cliff, son,” said Hugh, “and see where the people used to kill buffalo.”

The three walked over to the almost vertical bluffs which rose sixty or eighty feet above the valley. Here the ground was strewn with weathered bones of which the soil itself seemed partly composed, for it was filled with minute fragments of the bones and teeth of buffalo.

“Now, son,” said Hugh, “this is a sacred place to the Indians. They used to make medicine here and perform ceremonies to bring the buffalo up on the prairie near here, so that they could lead them over the cliff. You see that pile of horns over there?” and he pointed to a great heap of horn sheaths of the buffalo, as big as a hay-cock. There must have been more than a thousand horn sheaths in it.

Jack looked at it in astonishment, for it was something the like of which he had never seen.

“Although they have not used this place now for many years, the Indians still try to keep up that pile of horns, and whenever it is blown down or knocked over by the horses they heap it up again. In old times there were arranged in certain places on the ground a lot of horns all directed the same way, that is, with the points of the horns pointing the way they wanted the buffalo to run. Some of the horns were those of bulls and some of cows. That meant that they wanted bulls as well as cows to fall over the cliff. They used to lead the buffalo up to the cliff, and fix things so that they would be running fast when they got to the edge of the cliff. The leaders might perhaps try to stop, but they could not stop because those behind pushed them along and shoved them over. Those that were behind could not see what was in front of the leaders and kept running until they got to the edge of the cliff and then they went over. The fall killed some of the buffalo and crippled others. Besides that, there was a big pen built about the place where the buffalo fell down; a fence made of stones and logs and brush, and women and children and men were hidden all about it. As soon as the buffalo came tumbling down, these people showed themselves all around the fence, frightening the buffalo, so that those that were still able to travel, instead of trying to run on, simply ran around in a circle inside the fence. Then the men killed them with arrows, and after all were dead the women went into the pen and skinned the buffalo and took away the meat, and then the skulls and most of the big bones were carried off to a distance and the pen cleaned up for the next drive.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve heard about this jumping the buffalo over the cut bank and catching them in pens, but I never supposed that I would see the place where it had been done.”

“Well,” said Mr. Bruce, “this is sure one of the places and you don’t need anybody to tell you so, because you can look around and see the bones of the buffalo all about you.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “that’s so; the place speaks for itself.”

“There are lots of old-time things hidden in this ground that we are standing on,” said Bruce; “old arrow points and knives and fleshers, and maybe other tools. Once in a while some of these things are found, but most of them are covered up by the wash that comes down from the cliff. Old Black Coming In Sight Over The Hill, who lives right above here, has found lots of arrow points. A couple of years ago he showed me a double handful that he had picked up, and also a bone flesher made from the cannon bone of a buffalo. There are a good many other places like this. One of them is up on Sun River, and from that Louis Pambrun got a knife made of that black rock that looks like glass, and a stone ax and a lot of stone flesher points and, oh, a whole mess of stuff.”

“My,” said Jack, “wouldn’t I like to see some of those things that have come from one of these places. It surely seems as if it would make the whole business of killing buffalo in the old-time fashion mighty real to one.”

“Well,” said Bruce, “we’ll try and look around and see if we can’t get hold of something of that kind for you before you go.”

After a little more examination of the bluffs, the three returned to Red Eagle’s lodge. The preparations for the ceremony were not yet completed and all sat down near the lodge, and while the two elder men smoked, Jack looked about him and tried to make friends with the little children who were racing about playing their games. One little fellow only about two years of age quite won Jack’s heart by his friendly smile and evident lack of fear. His clothing consisted of several strings of beads, a buckskin string about his neck, to which was attached a stone charm, and a very short shirt which came down to his lower ribs. He had been playing in the stream or in some half-dried puddle, and the lower part of his person was covered by a thick coating of mud. The little fellow marched up to Jack in a confident way, shook hands with him in a matter-of-fact fashion and clambered up on his knee, and after looking at Jack’s clothing and buttons and listening to the ticking of his watch, sat perfectly still watching the doings of his fellows. The children were amusing themselves by making miserable the lives of the dogs. When they found a dog sleeping somewhere or playing near them, they would creep up to it and beat it with long twigs and pieces of wood until the dog ran away into the brush with melancholy howlings, which seemed to delight the young Indians.

At length a woman’s voice called from the lodge, and Bruce and Hugh rose and passed in, Jack following. A number of Indians were seated around the fire, but Red Eagle, the principal personage, sat at the back of the lodge with the fire between himself and the door. At his left was an unoccupied space, to which the three newcomers were motioned. To the left of the doorway, in the women’s place, sat several women, some of whom had babies either on their backs or between their knees. To the right of Red Eagle was his wife and assistant, the Bear Woman.

Red Eagle was a large, fine-looking man of majestic presence. His massive face, kindly and benignant in expression, was framed in long gray hair which hung down over his broad shoulders. He was one of the oldest men in the tribe, and was blind.

After Hugh and the others had seated themselves, there was a little pause, and then the Bear Woman took up a dried willow branch, which had two parallel twigs close together, serving for a pair of tongs, and lifted from the fire a live coal, which she placed on the ground before the Bear Man, who then began to sing a low, monotonous chant in a minor key, in which all the other Indians soon joined. While singing, the old man interrupted himself at intervals to exclaim ni-ai, (my shelter or covering), the other Indians keeping up the singing. After a few moments he reached his hand under the robe on which he was sitting and drew out a small pouch, which he passed to the Bear Woman. She slowly untied it and took from it a pinch of the dried needles of the sweet pine, which she held over the coal. Then the Bear Man sang four times, and as the music rose and fell the Bear Woman’s hand rose and fell over the coal. At the end of the fourth song Red Eagle stretched out his hand and made a downward gesture, and the Bear Woman let fall the incense on the coal, and immediately the fragrant perfume of the burning pine needles filled the lodge. The singing continued a little longer and then stopped. Then both Red Eagle and his assistant stretched out their hands over the smoke of the burning sweet pine, rubbed them together, and then, seeming to grasp some of the smoke in their hands, rubbed it over their heads and forearms, and reaching out and grasping more of it, passed it over their heads, shoulders, and upper arms. They also seemed to take handfuls of the smoke and eat it or breathe it in, the idea being that they were purifying themselves without and within. Then presently the Bear Man turned his face toward the sun and began to pray. Some portion of what he said Jack could understand, but afterward he asked Bruce to interpret the prayer, and this is what it was:

“Hear Above People, hear Thunder, those Animals [meaning his secret helpers or medicine animals], hear. Pity us, pity us. Let us live, let us live. Give us full life. Let us grow to be old. Listen. Crow Arrow, let him live. In his wandering about let no danger befall him from bad beasts or dangers that are on the trail. Let his wife and his boy, this child with the shining hair, live to be very old and let them have plenty of everything. Let White Bull live, keep him when he is traveling, protect him from all dangers, from perils from animals, and from all dangers on the trail. Let his relations live and have abundance, and White Warrior, let him live, care for him and keep him safe from dangers, wherever he may be. All people let live. O Creator, have pity on the people so that they may live well, free from danger!”

Then he turned his face and appeared to address the bundle hung on the lodge poles behind him containing the pipe: “Oh, tell them to have pity on us. Let the young people grow, increase their flesh. Let all men, women, and children have full life. Harden the bodies of old people so that they may reach great age.”

The prayer ended and all the people gave a long-drawn ah-h-h-h, meaning yes, about the equivalent of our amen.

Jack sat spellbound as he watched the old man while he prayed. Here, indeed, was a priest who really wished for what he was asking. Here was one who threw himself on the mercy of his God and would not let Him go. He implored, he urged, he insisted, and would not be denied, and as Jack saw the great beads of sweat stand out on the old man’s brow his memory went back to one of his Sunday-school lessons of long ago, and he thought of a struggle told of in the Bible, when at the ford Jabbock, another patriarch, wrestled through the long night with his God and prevailed.

But Jack had little time to think about this, for now the singing was resumed; Red Eagle starting it as before, the others after a little time joining in the plaintive refrain. Again the Bear Woman sprinkled sweet pine on the coal, and again the priest and priestess purified themselves by passing the smoke over their arms, heads, and bodies. Then they seemed again to take handfuls of it and to hold the smoke under the large package tied to the lodge poles above them. Presently, as the singing continued, the Bear Woman rose to her knees and very slowly and reverently untied the package from the poles and placed it on the robe between the Bear Man and herself.

Now Red Eagle began a new song, and after he and the woman had again passed their hands through the smoke, they moved them over the bundle, raising them alternately in time to the music. At first the hands were closed, except the forefinger, which pointed straight out, and the up-and-down motions were quick and sharp, representing the dainty rise and fall of the feet of the antelope as it walks. Then, at a change in the air, the fingers were all bent, but the hand not closed, and the up-and-down motions became deliberate and heavy, representing the slow tread of a walking bear. At another change the old man raised his hands, partly closed, the forefinger extended, pointing upward and slightly bent inward, to the side of his head, and moving his face this way and that, as if looking about him, called out in a shrill voice, Hoo. The hand sign meant buffalo and the motion of the head signified looking or watching. This sign, as Bruce afterward explained to Jack, was related to the word ni-ai, so often used in the songs, meaning my shelter, my covering, my robe; for the shelter, covering, or robe of these Indians is made from the buffalo.

Again the air of the song changed, and the priest and his wife holding their hands palm downward, all the fingers extended forward, moved them up and down, making the sign for walking, which represented going to war, and the sign for danger or watchfulness, the forefingers pointed straight up and held at the side of the head, like a pricked ear, with a startled expression of countenance and a watchful look.

After this song was ended, Red Eagle began slowly and carefully to remove the wrappings from the package at his side, but he still sang, though the air was again changed to a slower, more monotonous chant. After the strings had been untied from the double-mouthed red cloth sack which formed the outer covering of the package, he drew from it a long bundle, wrapped in cloths of various colors. One by one he took off these cloths, until, after many had been removed, the medicine pipe was revealed. It was a handsome pipe stem about four feet long, wrapped for a part of its length with large showy beads and profusely ornamented with ermine skins and tails and with the feathers of eagles and other birds, which hung from it in thick bunches. Near the lower or pipe end of the stem was a separate plume made of twelve tail feathers of the war eagle, each having its extremity wrapped with red or yellow horse hair, which hung down in a long tuft. The whole stem was handsome and heavy.

After the covering had been removed, the old man bent for a moment in silence over the pipe, and then raised it slowly and tenderly to his face, making a soft, cooing, caressing sound. He pressed it to his lips and whispered to it, while he raised his sightless eyes toward the sun, as if he could look through their veil and through the lodge covering and see some being invisible to others. After a few moments’ silence he again spoke to the pipe in a low voice, and passed it over his arms, shoulders, and both sides of his head. Then he began the song again, shaking the pipe in time to the music. When he had finished he again prayed, and said, “O Sun, O Moon and Stars, pity us, pity us. Look down.” Then followed again the substance of the first prayer, and he ended with the petition for men who were now away on the warpath, saying, “Little Plume, let him survive. Tearing Lodge and Double Rider, let them survive and return, bringing the heads.” Then turning, he passed the pipe to Hugh, who held it before his face and bent his head. Then it went to Jack, who imitated Hugh. Then Bruce took it and made a prayer, and from him it passed to an old blind warrior, who prayed long and fervently, and so it went around the circle, each one who received it making a prayer. Jack listened hard to try to hear what the different people said, but they spoke in low tones, and only now and then could he catch a word: Kĭm´-o-kĭt (have pity); nā´pi (old man), or na-tōs´ (sun). When the pipe went back around the circle to the other side of the lodge, where were the women and their little babies, the women prayed as they took it and then passed the pipe stem over the bodies and heads of their little ones, believing that the sacred influence would benefit the children.

Meanwhile, Red Eagle had taken up a medicine rattle and again began to sing, shaking the rattle in time to the music. When at length the pipe returned to him he put down his rattle, took the stem and repeated rapidly a number of times the words, “Pity us, pity us, pity us.” Then, putting the stem on the robe between himself and his wife, he rose, began a new song and began to dance, first to the east, and then turning about toward the west. The people sitting in the lodge accompanied him in a melodious but plaintive minor chant. Presently he stopped dancing, faced about, and, sitting down, prayed again, concluding with these words, “Let the Sun shine upon us and our lives be without shadows.” Then he made a sign that the ceremony was over, and all rose and filed out of the lodge.

Jack was mightily impressed by the ceremony that he had just witnessed, yet, though he was anxious to ask many questions, he hardly felt like doing so of Bruce, especially in the presence of his wife, whose faith in the religion of which the old man was the priest he supposed to be strong. It was not until after they had got back to the Agency, therefore, that he said very much about it.

Before supper, however, he had an opportunity to speak to Hugh, and to ask him some questions about the religion of these Indians.

“That is one of the most solemn things I ever saw, Hugh,” he said, “and I want to ask some questions about it. I don’t know if I ever told you how I felt that time when Last Bull gave me my name and prayed over me. Of course that was two or three years ago, and I was a good deal younger then than I am now; but I never before had had anything make me feel as solemn as that prayer did, and that’s just the way I felt to-day when Red Eagle was praying. It seems to me that when these Indians pray, they pray as if they meant what they were saying. They seem to be in earnest about it. Now, when I hear a white man praying,—that is, most white men, I don’t mean to say it’s the same with all,—they don’t seem to be in earnest; they seem to be going through a sort of form. Did you notice how the sweat stood out on that old man’s face when he was making his prayer; how solemn he was, and how he acted just as if he were begging somebody for something?”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I noticed that, and it’s so that when these Indians pray they are surely in earnest. They are not getting off something that they’ve learned by heart and just saying it because they have to; they mean all that they say and they are really asking favors. People say that they’re nothing but poor savages and that they’re pagans, and all that, but I tell you when they’re talking to their God they could give points to a whole lot of white folks.”

“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve seen some Indians pray, and I’ve been present at some ceremonies, like the medicine lodge and like opening the beaver bundle, but I never saw anything that seemed to me as real as this that we’ve seen to-day.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “I am right glad we went, and I’m glad that you saw it. These Indians and all the other Indians that I know anything about are changing mighty fast. They’re losing their old ways and picking up new ones that are not half so good. They’re changing all the time, and before you are many years older you won’t be able to see any of these old-time ways. There are three or four railroads now running across through the country that used to belong all to the Indians, and now that the buffalo are about gone they’ve got to come on to their reservations and learn to work to earn a living, and just as soon as they do that you’ll see all the old customs go, and when they once go they’ll very soon be forgotten.”

“But what a pity it is, Hugh,” said Jack, “that they’ve got to change! Why can’t they be left out here to live their life in the old way?”

“Why, son,” said Hugh, “you are talking now without thinking, talking just as I have felt a great many times; but you know and I know from what we’ve both seen that before very long these people are all going to be crowded out of the most of this country by the white folks. Don’t you remember a couple of years ago when we came back from the coast, how the little towns were springing up all along the new railroad that they were building, and now that the railroad has been finished, all along it, east and west, there are growing up settlements of people that will soon be towns. The white people are coming in crowds, and as soon as they’ve taken all the best locations along the railroad they’ll begin to spread out and take up other locations, and I believe that I’ll live long enough to see this Montana Territory full of people. It’ll be here just as I’ve seen it happen in the South. First the cattle will come into the country, lots of them, and for a while it will be all cows and cowboys; and then, little by little, the ranchers will come in, and they’ll settle first on one creek bottom and then on another, and then maybe mines will be found in the mountains, and new railroads will be built, and at last there won’t be room in the country for anybody but white folks that are working hard to make money out of the prairie and the river bottoms, and even out of the mountains. A few years ago I wouldn’t have believed it, but I have seen it happen now in lots of different parts of the country, and I reckon it will happen here, just as it has in so many other places.”

“Well, Hugh,” said Jack, “I suppose that’s so. I remember, as you say, the way the settlements were springing up along the new railroad when we came back from British Columbia, and this time, coming out, I could see the little towns starting all along the Northern Pacific, back in Minnesota and west of there, but it does seem awfully rough that these Indians should all be driven from their own land and should have to be penned up on a little reservation. And I don’t see what in the world they’re going to do to live unless the Government feeds them.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t either. I suppose maybe some time they’ll have to turn into cattlemen. I always had an idea they’d make good cow hands, if they could be taught to look after cattle. Certainly the Indians used to take awful good care of their ponies, and if they could be taught to take good care of cows, they could make a good living just as long as they’ve got the range that most any reservation will furnish. You know the Navahoes down South and some others of those Southern Indians have big herds of sheep and take pretty good care of them, but of course sheep and cattle are different things.”

That evening in the store Hugh asked Bruce what he thought of the probability of the Indians taking to cattle-raising.

“Why,” said Bruce, “they could make good cowmen if they’d look after the stock. This is one of the greatest cattle ranges in the whole country, and the few cattle that I own have done mighty well. I have had two Indians, my brothers-in-law, looking after the stock, and they are getting to understand how to handle cattle well. But the trouble is that the average Indian hasn’t much feeling of responsibility, and instead of spending the day on his horse looking after the cattle, he’s likely to get off and lie down in the sun and sleep for half a day and let the stock get away from him. They haven’t yet got any idea of the importance of staying with a job. They’ll work hard until they get tired of it, and then they’ll stop, and you can’t start them up again. You see, they’ve never been used to working steadily. They’d work as long as they felt like it, and then stop. That’s what they’ve got to learn before they can accomplish anything toward making a living. They’ve got to learn the lesson of steady, continued effort, and it’s going to be mighty hard to teach them that.”

Late in the evening Hugh said to Jack, “Well, son, we’ve seen about all we need to around here, haven’t we? What do you say to our starting out to the mountains to make our trip?”

“Why,” said Jack, “I’m ready, and I don’t see why we can’t go off right away.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “the sooner we get off the better it will suit me, and if you feel like it, we’ll get hold of Joe to-morrow and pack up our stuff and start. I reckon we can have a good time up at the lakes hunting around there. You see, nobody’s ever been up to the heads of any of those rivers, and I’d like to go up there and see what there is, and I reckon you would, too.”

“Sure, I would,” said Jack.

“All right,” said Hugh, “let’s get hold of Joe to-morrow, and maybe we’ll start the next day. I don’t think there’s anything to keep us here.”

CHAPTER V
OFF FOR THE MOUNTAINS

WHEN Joe appeared early the next morning he was at once sent off to get the horses. Jack went with him, and an hour or two later the wagon, two saddle horses, and three loose animals were standing in front of the trading store. Beds, provisions, pack saddles, and a tent were soon loaded into the wagon, and before very long the party pulled out across Badger Creek, above the stockade, and climbed the hills toward the north. Hugh and Joe rode in the wagon, while Jack drove the loose horses ahead of it. For some distance there was a road which was partly wagon road and partly old travois trail, but gradually the track became more and more dim, and soon Jack found himself riding over the unmarked prairie. Before this, however, they crossed Two Medicine Lodge River, just below Old Red Eagle’s camp, and climbed the high hill on the other side and saw before them the wide, undulating prairie and pinnacled mountains to the northwest. After reaching substantially level ground Jack pulled up, and when the wagon overtook him asked Joe, “Which way do we go from here on, Joe?”

“Well,” said Joe, “keep pretty well off to your left, riding pretty nearly straight for that pointed mountain that you see over there, the one away to the left of Chief Mountain.”

“Oh,” asked Jack, “is that Chief Mountain that we see sticking up there like a finger off to the north?”

“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s it, the last mountain to the right. But you want to keep off to the left, and in three or four hours you’ll come to a big wide valley with a good-sized river running through it. I reckon we’d better camp there, hadn’t we, White Bull?” he asked, turning to Hugh.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s a good place. We can’t get on as far as Milk River to-night; in fact, we’ll do well if we get up to the head of it to-morrow.”

“All right,” said Jack, “I’ll go on. I don’t believe you will be far behind me, anyhow.”

“No,” said Joe, “we’ll be pretty close to you. There’s a big flat in the valley we’re going to and some timber at the upper end, and we’ll camp there. Maybe you’ll see some of the people there, too. Cross Guns often camps up at the head of that flat.”

For several hours Jack trotted briskly along over the prairie, keeping the horses well together ahead of him. They drove very nicely and gave him little trouble. He was surprised and pleased to find how easy riding seemed, for it was nearly a year since he had been on a horse. It was pleasant under the bright warm sun, with the fragrance of the sage brush in his nostrils, the green swells of the prairie on either side, the beautiful flowers showing everywhere, and the air full of the sweet songs of prairie birds.

As he rode over a hill about the middle of the afternoon he saw before him a wide valley, through which ran a considerable stream, with large cottonwoods and low willows marking its course at various points, and turning a little more to the left he pushed the horses down the hills, and at length came out on a wide grassy bottom. Still to the left there was a grove of tall cottonwood trees, among which shone two or three white lodges, and he rode up toward them, slackening his pace as he did so. The horses that he was driving at once began to feed, and looking back he saw the wagon coming into sight on the crest of the bluffs that he had just left. Leaving the horses to feed, he galloped to the timber where the lodges stood, and rode up to one of them.

At the fierce barkings of the dogs, a woman put her head out of a door, and when she saw Jack, put her hand quickly over her mouth in surprise, and then spoke to someone in the lodge, and a moment later Cross Guns came through the door, and walking up to Jack shook hands with him very cordially. By means of signs and broken Piegan the two held a short conversation, and then, as Cross Guns saw the wagon approaching, he signed to Jack to go and tell his friends to come up and camp here, and Jack, riding off, delivered the message to Hugh and Joe, and then brought the loose horses close to the lodge. Meanwhile Cross Guns had had one of his lodges cleared and a fire built in it, so that the three men at once moved into a house, and thus were spared the labor of putting up their tent. It was a fine, new buffalo skin lodge; perhaps the lightest, warmest, and most comfortable portable shelter ever devised by any people.

After the horses had been turned out and put in charge of Cross Guns’ young nephew, who took them off and turned them out with Cross Guns’ herd, the wife of their host came in and cooked supper for them, while the others lounged comfortably about on the beds with their feet toward the fire and talked.

“Who is Cross Guns, Hugh?” whispered Jack. “I know his face perfectly well, but I don’t remember where I’ve seen him, nor who his relations are.”

“Why,” said Hugh, “don’t you know? He’s one of the sons of Old White Calf and a brother of Wolf Tail. Old White Calf is the chief now, and a good old man, always thinking about what he can do for his people.”

“Of course,” said Jack, “I know White Calf perfectly well, and I know what a good man he is, but I had forgotten that Cross Guns is his son.”

“And this woman here,” said Hugh, “do you know who she is?”