Rising Wolf
The White Blackfoot

I LEANED OUT AND FIRED STRAIGHT AT A BIG HEAD ([p. 105])

COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE SPRAGUE PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

[Contents]

[Illustrations]

The drawings are by Frank E. Schoonover

[Introduction]

One of the greatest pleasures of my long life on the plains was my intimate friendship with Hugh Monroe, or Rising Wolf, whose tale of his first experiences upon the Saskatchewan-Missouri River plains is set forth in Rising Wolf just as I had it from him before the lodge fires of the long ago.

At first an engagé of the Hudson's Bay Company, then of the American Fur Company, and finally free trapper, Hugh Monroe saw more "new country" and had more adventures than most of the early men of the West. During the last years of his long life he lived much with his grandson, William Jackson, ex-Custer scout, who was my partner, and we loved to have him with us. Slender of figure, and not tall, blue-eyed and once brown-haired, he must have been in his time a man of fine appearance. Honest he was and truthful. Kind of heart and brave. A good Christian, too, and yet with no small faith in the gods of his Blackfoot people. And he was a man of tremendous vitality. Up to the very last he went about with his loved flintlock gun, trapping beavers and shooting an occasional deer.

He died in his ninety-eighth year, and we buried him in the Two Medicine Valley, under the shadow of the cliffs over which he had so many times helped the Pi-kun-i stampede herds of buffalo to their death, and in sight of that great, sky-piercing height of red rock on the north side of the Two Medicine Lake, which we named Rising Wolf Mountain. It is a fitting monument to the man who was the first of his race to see it, and the great expanse it overlooks.

J. W. S.

Rising Wolf
The White Blackfoot

HUGH MONROE'S STORY
OF HIS FIRST YEAR ON THE PLAINS

[CHAPTER I]
WITH THE HUDSON'S BAY COMPANY

You ask me for the story of my life. My friend, it would fill many volumes, for I have lived a long life of great adventure. But I am glad! You shall have the story. Let us set it forth in order. So! I begin:

I was born in Three Rivers Settlement, Province of Quebec, July 9, 1798. My father was Captain Hugh Monroe, of the English Army. My mother was Amélie de la Roche, daughter of a noble family of French émigrés. Her father owned a fine mansion in Montreal, and the large estate in Three Rivers, where my father lived with her what time he was not with his regiment on some expedition.

My childhood days were quiet enough. I played with the children of our peasantry; a Jesuit Father, resident with us, taught me a smattering of reading and writing in both French and English; and presently I got a gun, a beautiful, light smoothbore carrying thirty balls to the pound. From that time on it was always the gun with me. I ceased playing with the peasant children, and spent the most of my time hunting in the great forest surrounding the settlement. In my twelfth summer I killed my first deer. I shot two black bears when I was thirteen, and oh, how proud I was of that! An old pensioner of my mother's, a half-breed Montagnais Indian, too old and feeble to do much himself, taught me to trap the beaver, the otter, and the land fur-bearers, the fox, fisher, marten, and mink, and I caught many of them. Every spring my Grandfather de la Roche sold the pelts for me in Montreal for a good price, one winter catch, I remember, bringing me in thirty pounds, which was a large sum for a boy to earn in a few months' time.

After the beginning of 1812 I saw little of my father, for then, you know, began the war between the English and the Americans, and he was with his regiment here and there, and took part in several battles. It was in the autumn of that year that my grandfather sent for us to move in to Montreal and live with him.

I did not like the town. I could neither hunt nor trap. I had little to do with the town boys; I did not understand their ways, so different from my ways. Mornings I attended the parish school; afternoons I rowed on the river, or visited in the warehouses of the Hudson's Bay Company, with which my grandfather had much to do. There I met voyageurs and trappers from far places—men dressed all in buckskin clothes, with strangely fashioned fur caps on their heads, and beaded moccasins encasing their feet. Some were French, and some English, the one race having little to do with the other, but that made no difference with me; I made friends with both factions, and passed many, many pleasant hours listening to their tales of wild adventure, of fights with Indians, encounters with fierce bears of the Far West, and of perilous canoe trips on madly running rivers.

"That is the kind of life I want to lead," I said to myself, and, young as I was, began to importune my mother to allow me to engage with the great company. At first she but laughed at me. But as winter and summer and winter went by, and I never ceased my entreaties, not only to her, but to my grandfather, and to my father when he visited us, it became a matter not to be dismissed with idle jests.

And at last I had my way. "He was born for the adventurous life, and nothing else," said my father, "so we may as well let him begin now, and grow up to a responsible position with the company. Who knows but he may some day become its governor!"

It was my mother who objected to my going. Many a tear she shed over the little traveling-kit she prepared for me, and made me promise again and again that I would return to her, for a visit at least, at the expiration of my apprenticeship to the company. It was a fine kit that she got together for me, changes of underclothes, many pairs of stockings, several pairs of boots, an awl, and needles and thread, a comb and brush, and a razor, strop, and brush and soap. "You will need the razor later on. Oh, just think! My boy will be a bearded man when he returns to me!"

"Not if I can keep the razor. I despise whiskers! Mustaches! They are unclean! I shall keep my face smooth," I told her, and I have done so to this day.

When the time came for my going my father gave me a brace of silver-mounted pistols in holsters for the belt, and plenty of balls and extra flints for them. My grandfather gave me twenty pounds, and a sun-glass. "There are times when flint and steel are useless, but as long as the sun shines you can always make fire with this," he told me. Little did we think what an important part it was to play in my first adventure upon the plains.

At last the day for my departure came. We had breakfast by candlelight and then my grandfather took us and my kit down to the wharf in his carriage. I went into the office and signed articles of apprenticeship to the Hudson's Bay Company for five years, at twenty pounds per year, and found, my father and mother signing as witnesses. Whereupon the chief clerk gave me a letter to the factor to whom I was to report without undue delay, Factor James Hardesty, at Mountain Fort, Saskatchewan River, foot of the Rocky Mountains, the company's new fort built for the purpose of trade with the little-known tribes of the Blackfeet, said to be a very numerous people, and possessors of a vast hunting-ground teeming with beaver and other fur animals.

My mother almost fainted when she learned how very far away was my destination. She wept over me, kissed me many times, and made me promise again and again that I would return to her at the end of the five years. And so we went from the office to the end of the wharf, where were the five big keel boats of the company, all loaded, and manned by the sturdy French and English voyageurs, and I got into one of them with my kit, smoothbore in hand and pistols at my belt, and the men cast off and bent to their oars. As far as I could see them, my father and mother and grandfather kept waving their handkerchiefs to me, and I waved mine to them. I never saw them after that day! It was May 3, 1814, about two months short of my sixteenth birthday.

As I have said, there were five boats in the flotilla, and each one was loaded with four or five tons of goods for the Indian trade, everything being done up in waterproof packages of about one hundred pounds weight. The heavy goods were mostly guns, powder and ball and flints, tobacco, beads, beaver traps, and brass and copper wire for making bracelets, and ear and finger rings, and axes, and copper and brass kettles of various size, and small hand mirrors. The lighter goods comprised blankets, red, blue, and yellow woolen cloth, needles, awls, thread, and the many other articles and trinkets sure to take the Red Man's fancy. Not a very valuable cargo, you may say, nor was it there in Montreal. But at Mountain Fort, foot of the Rocky Mountains, it would be of enormous value. There a gun was worth sixty beaver pelts—sixty pounds' worth of fur—and all the other articles sold in the same proportion. Why, a yard of tobacco—it was in long twists like rope—sold there for two beaver skins!

HOW STRANGE IT SEEMED TO ME, A BOY, TO SIT IN THE PROW

I shall say little of our long journey to Mountain Fort. It was interesting, but as nothing compared to what I saw and experienced after arriving at my destination. We turned into the Ottawa River from the St. Lawrence. How strange it seemed to me, a boy, to sit in the prow as strong men drove us fast and faster toward that unknown land.

We ascended the Ottawa as far as it was navigable, and then portaged our boats and cargoes from lake to lake across a divide, and finally, early in September, arrived at York Factory, on the Saskatchewan River, and close to where the stream empties into Hudson Bay. There we wintered, and set forth again as soon as the ice went out in the spring. En route I saw, for the first time, buffaloes, elk, and one or two grizzly bears, monstrously big bears they appeared to be, even at a distance. I also saw some camps of Cree Indians, enemies of the Blackfeet, but friendly to the whites, and was told that they feared to visit the fort to trade when the Blackfeet were there.

At last, after many weary days of rowing and cordelling up the swift Saskatchewan, we arrived at Mountain Fort. It was the 10th day of July, 1815. I had been a year and a couple of months on my way to it from Montreal!

The fort, built of logs, the buildings roofed with poles and earth, was in a heavily timbered bottom above the high-water mark of the river. It was enclosed with a high, log stockade, and had a bastion at one corner, in which were two small cannon. It was later to be known as Bow Fort, as the stream it was upon, which was a main tributary of the Saskatchewan, was called by the Blackfeet Bow River.

The fort bottom came suddenly into view as our boats rounded a sharp bend of the river, and my eyes and mouth opened wide, I guess, when I saw that its shore was crowded with Indians, actually thousands of them. They had seen few white men, and few boats other than the round "bull boats" which they hastily constructed when they wanted to cross a river, and our arrival was of intense interest to them.

I noted at once that they were far different from all other Indians that I had seen on my long trip across the country. They were much taller, lighter of skin, and slenderly and gracefully built. I marveled at the length of hair of some of the men; in some instances the heavy braids touched the ground; five feet and more of hair! A very few of them wore blankets; the rest were dressed in well-tanned leather—call it buckskin if you will—garments, sewed with sinew thread. But these were well made, and very picturesque, ornamented, as many of them were, with vivid embroidery of porcupine quills, dyed all the colors of the rainbow. Men, women, and children, they all, excepting the few possessors of our company blankets, wore wraps, or togas, of buffalo cow leather, those of some of the men covered with bright-painted pictographs of their adventures, and strange animals of their dreams. I noticed that few of the men had guns; the most of them carried bows and arrows in fur or leather cases and quivers at their backs.

As we swept past the great crowd of people toward the landing, my heart went out to every one of them. I wanted to know them, these people of the plains, as yet unaffected and unspoiled by intercourse with the whites. Little did I think how very soon I was to know them, and know them intimately!

At the landing the factor, Hardesty, and some of his employees, backed by a half-circle of chiefs, awaited our coming. Little attention was paid to me, just a boy. The factor greeted the head voyageur of our flotilla, then the men, and then seemed suddenly to discover me: "And you—" he stopped and stared at me, and said impatiently to one whom I afterward learned was his clerk: "I asked for men, and they send me a boy!"

Then he turned again to me and asked: "Well, young man, what brings you here to this wild land?"

"I came to work, sir!" I answered, and handed him the letter which the company clerk had given me in Montreal. He read it and his manner toward me instantly changed.

"Ah, ha! So you are Hugh Monroe, Junior!" he exclaimed. "And you have come out to grow up with the company! I know your father well, young sir. And your Grandfather de la Roche as well. Fine gentlemen they are. Well! Well! We shall find some use for you, I am sure." And he shook hands with me, and then, after a time, told me to accompany him to his quarters.

We went up the broad beaten path in the timber to the fort, and the big, hewn timber gate swung open for us, and its keeper bowed low as he let us in. "We keep a guard here night and day, and two men up there with the cannon. We have many Indians hereabout, and as yet do not know them well," the factor told me.

We went into his quarters, a big room with an enormous fireplace at one end. It had windows of thin, oiled rawhide, which let in a yellowish light. Its furniture was home-made and comprised a desk, several chairs, a bunk, piled high with buffalo robes and blankets, and an elkhorn rack supporting several guns. I was told to put my gun and pistols on the rack, that another bunk should be put up, and that this was to be my home for the present.

We soon went out, for a long line of employees was bringing in the cargoes from the boats, and the factor had to inspect them. I made my way to the upper floor of the bastion and entered into conversation with the two men on guard there with the cannon, and looked down now and then at the great crowd of Indians out in front of the stockade. Many of them had bundles of beaver and other fur which they were waiting to trade for the newly arrived goods. The watch told me that they had been encamped at the fort for two months awaiting the coming of the boats, and that they had more fur than the cargoes of the five boats could buy, unless the factor more than doubled the price of the goods. That didn't seem possible to me.

"Why, how many Indians do you think are here?" asked one of the watch.

"Three or four thousand?" I hazarded.

He laughed. "Make it thirty thousand, and you will come nearer hitting it," he told me, and I gasped.

"There are a lot more than that," said the other watch, confidently.

"Yes, I guess there are," the first went on. "You see, young fellow, we have here right now all three tribes of the Blackfeet, and their allies, the Gros Ventres, and Sak-sis. Yes, there's probably between thirty and forty thousand of them, all told."

Again I gasped.

"Why, if they wanted to, they could take this fort without any trouble!" I exclaimed.

"Take it! Huh! In just two minutes all would be over with us if they started in. These are the boys that keep them from doing it," he said, and patted the cannon beside him.

"You see that cottonwood tree out there, how its limbs are all splintered and dead?" said the other watch. "Well, we fired a four-pound charge of trade balls into it just to show them what it would do. There was a big crowd out there before the gate, as big as there is now, and when we touched her off you should have heard the women and children yell, and seen 'em run for cover. The men, most of them, jumped when the old gun boomed, but they stood their ground and stared and stared at the shower of leaves and twigs coming down. We then fired the other one, and down came about all of the rest of the tree-top. I bet you they said to one another: 'It's no use trying to take that fort; those big guns would cut us all down just as they did the tree-top!'"

"But we are taking no chances," said the other. "You see that little gate in the big gate? Well, when the Indians come to trade we let them in through it, a few at a time, making them leave their weapons outside, and just as long as the trade lasts we keep one of the cannon pointed to the door of the trade-room."

"And do you never leave the fort and the protection of the guns?" I asked, thinking how hard it would be for me to remain shut up in the fort, never to visit in the camps of the Indians, or hunt the game with which the country teemed.

"Oh, we go out whenever we want to," said one. "You see, they wouldn't pot just a few of us, for fear that they couldn't trade here any more, and they are crazy for our goods. No, unless they can kill us all and take the fort at one swoop, we shall never be harmed by them, and it is only at a time like this, when the trade-room is full of goods, that there is any danger. Anyhow, that is the way I look at it."

"And right you are," the other watch agreed.

Just then the factor called to me that it was dinner-time, and I left the bastion and followed him into a room where the cook, a French-Huron woman, wife of one of the employees, served us our simple meal. It consisted solely of buffalo meat and strong black tea, and the factor explained that he, as well as the employees, lived upon meat and the various fruits of the country, fresh and dried, the year around. Christmas was the one exception; on that day every one had a generous portion of plum pudding with his meat dinner! You can see how it was in those days. Freight was a year en route to that far place from Montreal, and every pound of it had to be merchandise for the Indian trade. At a rough guess I should say that every pound laid down at the fort was worth from three to twenty guineas per pound in fur. Copper wire made into bracelets and other jewelry, for instance, was worth a hundred guineas, a hundred beaver skins, per pound. Naturally, the orders from London were that factors and employees alike must be satisfied with the one big treat, plum pudding for the Christmas dinner! Well, it didn't matter. We became so accustomed to a meat diet that we gave little thought to other food. In summer, when in turn the service berries, choke-cherries, and bull berries ripened, we feasted upon them, and the women dried some for winter use, not enough, however, for more than an occasional dish, stewed, and without sugar, rather flavorless.

We finished our meal and some of the employees took our place at the table after we went out. Factors of the company did not eat with the men. In fact they did not associate with them. They held themselves aloof, and ruled their forts with stern justice. They generally issued their orders through their clerks.

After the men had finished their dinner, the great occasion of the year, the trade, was opened by a feast to the chiefs of the different tribes. They came into the fort followed by their women, staggering under loads of fur, and the factor sat with them while they ate, and smoked with them afterward. After the pipe had gone the rounds, the chiefs one by one made speeches, very badly interpreted by a man named Antoine Bissette, a French-Iroquois half-breed who had married a Cree woman who had some knowledge of the Blackfoot language, and through her had acquired a few words of it. Each chief made a long speech, and at the end of it the interpreter would say: "He says dat he is friend to whites. He say dat you his brudder. He say dat he give you hees pack of furs what hees woman she has dere!"

"And what else did he say?" the factor would ask.

"An' dat is all."

"And that is all! Huh!" the factor exclaimed. "Here we have had long speeches, matters of importance to the trade may have been touched upon, and you can't tell me what has been said! I told you a year ago, Antoine, to study this language, but you do not improve in it. If anything, your interpreting is worse than it was last spring!"

"But what can I do? My woman, he is mad all the time. He say Blackfoot language no good; no will talk it. So, me, I no can learn."

"Huh!" the factor again sputtered, and with a shrug of the shoulders and a wave of the hand, led the way to the trade-room. There he gave the chiefs good value for their furs, and presents besides, and they retired, well satisfied, to make room for their people.

I spent all of the afternoon in the trade-room watching them, and saw much to interest and amuse me. The men, almost without exception, bought guns and ammunition, traps, and tobacco, and the women bought the finery. I saw one young woman pay twenty beavers for a white blanket, and proudly drape it around the stalwart form of her man. He wore it for a few minutes, and then put it over her shoulders, and when his turn came to trade he bought for her several skins' worth of copper jewelry. I saw many such instances during the trade of the next few days, and one idea of the Indians that I had—that the men took everything and merely tolerated their women, used them as mere slaves—went glimmering.

The next morning the factor told me that he would give me the day off, and advised that I spend it in visiting the camps of the different tribes, located in the river bottoms above the post. He assured me that I should be perfectly safe in doing so, and said that I had best leave my gun at home, so as to show the Indians that we regarded them as the friends that they professed to be. I did, however, thrust one of my pistols under my shirt-bosom and, upon Antoine's advice, wore a blanket Indian fashion, so the camp dogs would not bother me.

Thus equipped, I set forth.

I had a wonderful day, a day of a thousand surprises and intense interest. The trail to the next bottom above the fort ran over a point of the plain ending in a bank at the river, and looking out from it I saw that the plain for several miles was covered with the horses of the different tribes, actually thousands and thousands of them, all in bands of from sixty or seventy to two or three hundred head. I afterward found that each owner so herded his horses that they became attached to one another, and would not mix with other herds.

From the point I looked down upon the camp in the next bottom, the camp of the Pi-kun-i, or so-called Piegans, the largest tribe of the Blackfoot Nation, and tried to count the lodges. I actually counted fourteen hundred and thirty, and afterwards estimated that there were four hundred more pitched in the timber bordering the river. Well, say that there were eighteen hundred lodges, and five persons to the lodge; that made a tribe of nine thousand people!

I went down into the camp, keeping an eye upon the great wolf-like dogs lying around each lodge. Children were playing everywhere around, and the river was full of them, swimming. Women were busy with their daily tasks, cooking meat, tanning leather, or removing the hair from hides with oddly shaped elkhorn hoes tipped with steel or flint, or else sitting in the shade of the lodges gossiping, and sewing garments with awl and sinew thread, or embroidering them with colored porcupine quills. Men were also gathered in little groups, chatting and passing great stone-bowled, long-stemmed pipes from hand to hand. It was all a peaceful and interesting scene.

I did not go through the whole camp; I somehow felt bashful before so many people; but as far as I went all smiled at me pleasantly as I passed, and spoke to me in kindly tones. How I wished that I could know what they said! How I wanted to know the meaning of the strange symbols with which some of the lodges were painted! On some were paintings of animals; buffalo, otter, beaver, deer, all with a red line running from the mouth back to a triangular figure in red in the center of the body. No two lodges, with one exception, were painted alike. On many of them, perhaps most, was painted, close up to the smoke-hole and at the rear, a symbol shaped much like a Maltese cross. I determined to ask Antoine what all the paintings signified.

From this camp I went on up the river to the others, those of the Sik-si-kah, or Blackfeet proper, and the Kai-na, or Bloods; these two and the Pi-kun-i comprising the three tribes of the Blackfoot Nation. And beyond them I looked down from the edge of the plain at the big camp of the Ut-se-na, or Gros Ventres, and last, that of the Sak-sis, or Heavy Talkers, a small Athabaskan tribe which had long been under the protection of the Blackfeet, as I learned later.

That evening I asked Antoine many questions about what I had seen, only to find that he could not answer them. Nor could any of the employees. Through the open doorway between the cook-room and his quarters the factor heard my futile questioning and called to me. I went in. He had me close the door, and then asked me a question that made me gasp.

[CHAPTER II]
THE SUN-GLASS

"How would you like to travel about with the Pi-kun-i for a time, and learn their language?"

I could only stare at him, hardly believing my ears, and he added: "I am sure that you would be in no more danger than you are here in the fort, or I would not propose this."

"I would rather do it than anything else! It is just what I want to do!" I told him.

"Let me explain the situation to you fully," he went on. "But, first, did you ever hear of Lewis and Clark?

"No? Well, they are two American Army officers who, a few years ago, led an expedition from the Mississippi River up the Missouri River to its head in the Rocky Mountains, and thence down the waters of the Oregon to its confluence with the Pacific Ocean. They were the first white men ever to see the country at the headwaters of the Missouri, and between it and the ocean. Now, in the dispatches that came to me with the goods, yesterday, I received most disturbing news: Following the trail of Lewis and Clark, our rival, the American Fur Company, is pushing westward and establishing posts on the Missouri, the upper part of which is in our own territory. I am ordered to learn if it has entered our territory, and if so, to take steps to block its trade with our Blackfoot tribes. The Pi-kun-i are going south to the Missouri plains for the summer as soon as they finish their trade with us, and I want you to go with them, and, while learning their language, keep an eye out for our rivals. I can't trust Antoine to do this, and anyhow he will never become a good interpreter. I believe that you will soon master the language."

Of course the factor was mistaken. The Missouri River country was not in our territory. We were to learn that later. Nor did we then have any idea of the vast extent of the hunting-ground of the Blackfeet. It was for me to discover that it extended from the Saskatchewan, yes, even from the Slave Lakes, south to their Elk River of the South, which is the Yellowstone River of the whites, and from the Rocky Mountains eastward for an average width of more than three hundred miles. A part of it, from the tributaries of the Missouri south, had been Crow country, but the Blackfeet had driven them from it. The Pi-kun-i, with their allies, the Ut-se-na, or Gros Ventres, lived for the greater part of the time in the southern part of it, along the Missouri and its northern and southern tributaries, and the other two tribes, with their Athabaskans, the Sak-sis, liked best the plains of the Saskatchewan and its tributaries.

Before the advent of the horse the Blackfeet tribes had all lived in the Slave Lake country. The Crees had so named these great bodies of water, for the reason that in that far-away time the Blackfeet made slaves of the enemies they captured. As nearly as I could learn, it was between 1680 and 1700 when the Blackfeet began to obtain horses by raids far to the south, even to Old Mexico, and in 1741 or 1742 obtained a few guns from the post on the Assiniboine River founded by the Sieur de la Vérendrie, that unfortunate explorer who was the first white man to see the Rocky, or as he named them, the Shining, Mountains. With both guns and horses, the Blackfeet were not long in taking possession of the rich game country to the south of the Slave Lakes, and driving from it not only the Crows, but other tribes as well.

On the day after my talk with the factor, he had an interview with Lone Walker, head chief of the Pi-kun-i, to which I was an interested listener. It was agreed, as well as Antoine could explain the matter, that I was to travel south in his care, living in his lodge, and riding his horses, and that upon bringing me safe back to the fort when he and his tribes returned to trade, he should be given a gun, two blankets, and two lengths of twist tobacco. Rich presents, indeed! More than enough, as the factor said, to insure his taking the greatest care of me. And anyhow my heart went out to the chief. Tall, dignified in bearing, his handsome face and eyes expressive of a kind and honest nature, I felt from the start that he would be a good friend to me, and I was not mistaken. I little realized at that time, however, what a really great man he was with his people.

Owing to their desire to start south at once, the Pi-kun-i were the first to trade in their take of furs. They were a matter of ten or twelve days doing it, and in the meantime I kept pretty close in the trade-room listening to Antoine's interpretations of their needs, and memorizing the words. In that way I learned their names for the different trade articles, and a few helpful sentences as well, such as the equivalent in their language for "What is it?" "Where is it?" "What is it named?" and so on. And then, one day, I saw Antoine's wife sitting with a Sak-si woman, the two apparently conversing with one another by means of signs. I asked Antoine about it and learned that it was the sign language, used by all the tribes of the plains; that almost anything could be told by it, even stories, and that his wife understood it very well.

"Then why don't you learn it? Would it not be of great help in your interpreting?" the factor asked him.

"I am try! I am do my possible! Sare, honneur, my han's, my fingare, he is not queek to do it!" he answered.

"Huh! Antoine, you're a fool! Yes, and so am I, or I would have known about this sign language, and have learned it long since!" the factor exclaimed.

"My woman, she will teach it to you; I will help," Antoine volunteered.

We began lessons with her that very evening, and before I left I had pretty well learned it. The signs are invariably so significant of the thought to be expressed, that, once seen and understood, they are not easily forgotten. I know not where the sign language originated, but I think that it came to the people of the plains from Mexico, spreading from one tribe to another until it finally reached the Blackfeet. The tribes of the forests, and of the two coasts, and the Great Lakes, knew it not.

At last the morning came upon which the Pi-kun-i were to break camp. On the evening before Lone Walker had sent my outfit of things over to his lodge, ready to be put upon one of his pack horses, and now, leading a horse for me, he came to the fort with his under-chiefs for a farewell meal and smoke with the factor.

I hastily ate my morning meat and, while the smoking was going on, saddled and bridled the horse. The factor had given me his own light, English, hunting-saddle, and I thought it a very comfortable one to ride upon. Later, when I got from a warrior a Spanish saddle that he had taken in a raid far to the south, I learned what comfort in riding really was!

The horse saddled, I said good-bye to the men. The voyageurs with whom I had come to the fort were soon to load the boats with furs and return to York Factory, and eventually Montreal, and I handed the head man a letter for my mother, telling her of my safe arrival at the fort, of the thousands of wild Indians that I had seen, and the expedition upon which I was about to embark. If all went well, she would receive it in about a year's time.

The round of smoking ended, the chiefs came out with the factor, and I said a last good-bye to him, and we mounted and set forth.

There were just twenty-four of the chiefs, one for each band, or gens, of the Pi-kun-i—Lone Walker, as I afterward learned, being chief of the I-nuk-siks, or Small Robes Band, as well as head chief of the tribe. With them were five other men, each wearing his hair done into a huge, furbound knot on the foretop of his head, the insignia of the sun priest, or so-called medicine man. None of the party wore war bonnets, or war costumes, and that rather surprised me. I soon learned that they were never worn except when the men were going into battle—if there was time to put them on, and when dancing, or observing some great religious ceremony. No! The decked-out Indian, hunting, or traveling, or sitting about in camp, and the Indian wearing nothing but a breech clout and a pair of moccasins, is just the Indian of the artists' dreams! My Indians wore plain leather shirts, and wide-flapped leggings, and quill-embroidered moccasins, and their wraps were also of leather, some of them painted with pictographs of the wearer's adventures in war and hunting.

But for all that they were picturesque enough. Each one carried a shield slung from the left arm, and bow and arrows in a case and quiver at the back, and a gun across the saddle front. Beautifully dyed quill embroidery on the fringed leather pipe and tobacco sacks dangling from their belts, and the bright, painted symbols on the covering of their shields gave the needed color to their otherwise somewhat soberly plain, everyday wear.

And what splendidly built men they were! What fine features they had, and the small, perfectly formed hands and feet of real gentlemen. And I learned that they had the manners of gentlemen. That in their daily intercourse they were ever courteous to one another. That their jesting and joking was never rude or coarse, and how they did love a good joke and laugh! And proud they were, of their lineage, and their war records, and their women and children, of their great herds of horses, and their vast domain. But it was a just and natural pride, in no way different from the pride of our own best people. And with it was great kindliness of heart and ready proffers of help for all the unfortunate, for widows and orphans, the old and the sick. Such were the old-time Blackfoot chiefs.

Camp had been broken while the chiefs were saying their farewells in the fort, and now, as we rode out upon the plain from the river bottom, we saw the great caravan strung out away ahead of us and to our right. It was like a huge snake making its way southward over the ridges and the hollows of the plain, a snake about three miles in length!

It was advancing at a slow trot, and at a livelier pace we rode along its length to take the lead. Each family had its place in it, the women and children riding pack and travois horses, the men and youths driving the loose ones. The trappings of the horses, broad leather breast bands and cruppers, blazed with color, beautifully worked designs of porcupine-quill embroidery. The quaintly shaped parflèches, fringed pouches and sacks of rawhide and leather, upon the pack horses were brightly painted. Some horses, generally white ones daubed with red ochre, the sacred color, carried nothing but the pipe and pouches of a medicine man, and were always led. The lodge-pole horses dragged, generally, four lodge poles, two fastened to each side of the saddle by the small ends, and these and the ends of the travois poles scraped harshly into the plain and wore deeper than ever the many furrows of the broad trail.

As I rode with the chiefs along the edge of the long column I believe that every man, woman, and child of it gave me a smile, and some sort of greeting—one of which, "Ok-yi, nap-i-an-i-kap-i!" (Welcome, white youth), I already knew. And to all I replied: "Ok-yi, ni-tuk-a!" (Welcome, friend), which was a sad error when addressed to a woman or girl, embarrassing them, and causing all who heard to laugh. But the greetings and the smiles gave me heart; I felt that I was already liked by these people of the plains, and that was pleasant. I certainly liked them.

We passed the long column and rode on ahead of it, but not in the real lead. Ahead of us several hundred men, the scouts for the day, rode spread out like a great fan far to the right and left of the trail, as well as some of them upon it. They were not hunting; time and again we saw herds of buffaloes and antelopes rushing off out of their way, and none pursued them.

It was about noon when, topping a low ridge, Lone Walker led us a little to one side of the trail and dismounted. So did we all, tethering our horses to bunches of sage or greasewood, and then sitting in a little circle on the top of the rise. A medicine man unfastened the fringed and embroidered sack dangling at his belt and, getting out pipe and tobacco and some dried leaves of l'herb to mix with the tobacco, made leisurely but careful preparations for a smoke. First he thoroughly cleaned the huge, black, stone bowl, blowing through it, and then the separate, long, carved wooden stem, to make sure that they were clear. Then he fitted them together, and little by little filled the bowl with the mixture of tobacco and l'herb, tamping down each pinch with a small, blunt-ended stick. This done to his entire satisfaction, he unslung from his shoulder a section from a birch tree, about four inches in diameter and six inches in length, removed its wooden stopper, and I saw that it was hollowed out, and clay lined. Turning the mouth of the strange receptacle to the ground, he gave it a rap or two and out came a piece of partly charred punk wood which he quickly picked up and blew upon, and I realized that this was the Blackfoot way of keeping fire. But, blow as he would, there came no glow in the punk, no rise of smoke. The fire was out.

With an exclamation of disappointment the man dropped the punk back into place, put in the stopper, meantime looking around the circle to see if any one carried one of these fire boxes, as I may call them. None did. Here and there a man spoke, evidently remarking upon his disappointment. And then, suddenly, I thought of my grandfather's present to me, the sun-glass in the pouch at my side, and I called out to the medicine man: "I will light it for you!" In my excitement I forgot that he knew no word of my language.

But I had called his attention to me, and that of all the others too. They watched me closely as I fumbled in the pouch for the glass, drew it out and removed its silk wrapping. Having done that, I made signs to the medicine man to put the stem of the pipe to his mouth. He did so, and I focused the glass upon the charge of the tobacco mixture in the bowl. Almost at once it began to turn black and a thin streak of smoke to rise from it, and, drawing steadily upon the stem, the medicine man filled his mouth with smoke, his eyes growing bigger and bigger, until at last he let out a great blow of it, and then, with a shout of surprise, sprang to his feet and held the pipe aloft toward the sun. At that all the other chiefs sprang up, and shouting I knew not what, made a rush for me, and I believed my time had come!

Antoine had told me that the Blackfeet—as he called them, the heathen Blackfeet—worshiped the sun. The thought flashed through my mind that I was to be killed for using the sacred fire of their god! And as wild-eyed, excited, shouting chiefs came crowding around me I threw up my hands, in one of them the fateful glass, and cried: "I did not mean harm! It is a glass, nothing but a glass!"

As though they could understand! Or my pitiful cry save me!

But suddenly, instead of blows I saw that Lone Walker and others nearest me were stroking my shoulders, my breast, and back with their open hands, and then their own bodies, and the others, crowding, reached in between them and touched me wherever they could, and then stroked themselves, meantime shouting something to the head of the passing caravan.

Out from it rushed all who heard, men and women, and sprang from their horses and surged in to me, women frantically edging in under the arms of the men and rubbing their suckling infants against any part of my body that they could reach. And still badly frightened, I thrust the glass into Lone Walker's hand and made signs the best I could that I gave it to him. With a shout he held it aloft, tears streaming from his eyes, and began what I sensed must be a prayer to the sun. At that a great hush came upon the ever-increasing crowd. All listened closely, occasionally crying out something that I afterward learned was as we would say: "Yes! Yes! Have pity upon us all, O sun!" Then, presently, he finished the prayer, and looking around at the people addressed a few words to them. Whereupon they mounted and resumed their places in the column, and moved on.

The chiefs, however, again sat down in a circle, Lone Walker signing to me to sit beside him, and the pipe was passed from hand to hand, each one in turn taking a few whiffs of smoke from it and blowing it first toward the sun, and then to the ground. At last the pipe came to me. I passed it on to the chief on my right, but he instantly handed it back and gave me to understand that I was to smoke. I did so, blowing the smoke to sky and earth as I had seen the others do, and then passed it on. I had never smoked. The taste of it was bitter and nauseating in my mouth; my head soon began to swim and I felt terribly sick for a long time. I did not smoke again until I was past my twenty-fifth birthday.

Well, when the pipe was smoked out and put away we mounted our horses and rode on, I still sick but quite over my scare. Word of what I had done, of my bringing down sun fire, had evidently passed back the entire length of the column, for as I rode on to the head of it with the chiefs the people all called out to me again, and this time with a new name for me, and in their manner respect, even awe, was evident enough. They called me now, "Nat-o-wap-an-i-kap-i," which I thought had to do with the sun (nat-os). I was right; I soon learned that the word meant sun youth, or sacred youth. I was very proud of the name, and very glad of my grandfather's happy thought in selecting the glass for me. True, I had brought it this long way across the plains only to part with it, but my one chance use of it had given me important standing with the tribe.

We traveled on steadily ahead of the column until about four o'clock in the afternoon, and then once more dismounted and gathered in a circle, this time on the edge of a long slope running down to the timbered valley of a small stream. Again the medicine man got out his pipe and filled it, and I taught Lone Walker how to light the charge with the sun-glass, every one intently watching, and making exclamations of wonder and satisfaction when the feat was accomplished. This time I firmly passed the pipe when it came to me, and while the chiefs smoked and chatted I watched the long procession of the tribe pass down the slope into the valley, and scatter out over a big, grassy flat on the far side of the creek. There the horses were relieved of their burdens, and a few minutes later every lodge of the camp was up in place, and the women were carrying into them their various family belongings, and going for wood and water. All that was the women's work; the men sat about until all was completed.

As soon as the pipe was smoked out we got upon our horses and rode slowly down the slope to the creek, and then scattered out into camp. Lone Walker led me to the southwest part of the big circle of lodges, which was the allotted place for his band, the Small Robes, and to one of two immense lodges, which were both his property.

We got down from our horses, and I was about to unsaddle mine, when a woman took him from me, and signed that I was to follow the chief into the lodge. I did so, and, making a step in through the doorway, heard a growling and snorting that made my heart jump. And well it might, for there on each side of me, reared back and hair all bristled up, was a half-grown grizzly bear!

I dared not move, neither to retreat, nor go forward, and thus I stood for what seemed to me hours of time, and then Lone Walker scolded the bears and they dropped down at rest and I passed them and went to the place pointed out to me, the comfortable couch on the left of the chief's.

I think that the chief allowed me to stand so long facing the bears, just to try me; to learn if I had any nerve. I was glad that I had not cried out or fled. I soon became friendly with those bears, and often played with them. It has been said that grizzlies cannot be tamed. Those two were tame. They had been captured when small cubs, so small that they made no resistance to being taken up, and for months had been held up to the teats of mares, there to get the milk without which they could not have lived. I may say here that they disappeared one night in the spring of their third year, and were never seen again. They had at last answered the call of their kind.

It was with intense interest that I looked about the lodge, the first that I had ever entered, and which was to be my home for I knew not how many months.

It was a lodge of twenty-eight buffalo cow skins, tanned into soft leather, trimmed to proper shape to fit together, and sewed with strong sinew thread. It was all of twenty-four feet in diameter, and the lodge poles were at least thirty-six feet long, and so heavy that a horse dragged but two of them. There were thirty poles, and the lodge skin was in two sections. All around the inside was a leather lining running from the ground up to a height of about six feet, and attached to a rawhide line running from pole to pole. This made an air space between the lodge skin and the lining of the thickness of the poles. The pegged lodge skin did not reach the ground by four inches or more, so the air rushed in under it, and up between it and the lining, and out of the top of the lodge. This created a good draught for the fire and carried off the smoke. No air came in through or under the lining, it reflected the heat of the fire, and because of this simple construction the lodge was warm and comfortable even in the coldest winter weather. The lining was brightly painted, the design being a series of three different long, narrow, geometric figures distinctively Blackfoot.

All around the lodge, excepting on each side of the doorway, were the couches of the occupants, ten in number, a slanting back-rest of willow slats at the head and foot of each one. In the triangular spaces thus left between the couches, and on each side of the doorway, were stored no end of parflèches, bags, pouches, and leather-wrapped bundles containing the property of the different occupants of the lodge. Besides Lone Walker and myself, there were eight women and nine children, ranging from babies up to boys and girls twelve and fourteen and eighteen years old, the latter being a boy named I-sas-to, or Red Crow, whose couch and sitting-place I was to share.

Be not shocked or surprised when I tell you that Lone Walker had nineteen wives. Eight were in this lodge. The others and their children, and the chief's old father and mother were in the adjoining, big, twenty-eight-skin lodge. At first this polygamy was very repugnant to me; but I soon saw how necessary it was. The Blackfeet men were continually falling in battle with their many enemies, and only by becoming plural wives could the large preponderance of women be cared for.

Lone Walker's first, or head wife, named Sis-tsi-ah-ki, or Little Bird Woman, was a fine-looking woman of about thirty-five years. She was one of the happiest persons I have known. There was always a smile on her face, she sang constantly at her work, and her heart was as good as her smile; she was always doing something nice for others. In a way she was the head, or supervisor of the other wives, apportioning to each the work that was for the family. But each woman had her own private property, including horses, and her share of the meat and hides brought in.

There was a big gathering in our lodge that night, men constantly coming in to see the wonderful instrument that could bring down sun fire. It was late when we got to rest. The fire died down. Like the others, I disrobed under the coverings of my couch, and then I went to sleep with never a thought of fear, I, a lone white boy, in a camp of about nine thousand wild Indians!

Lone Walker aroused us soon after daylight the next morning and had me go with him and all his male children to bathe in the stream. Winter and summer the Blackfeet never neglected that daily bath, although sometimes they had to go out and rub themselves with snow, because there was nowhere open water. In winter the women and girls took their baths in sweat lodges.

After the bath we had an early meal of dried meat, roasted before the fire, and small portions of rich, dried buffalo back fat, which was used as the whites use butter.

While we were eating, Lone Walker gave me to understand that his two lodges were needing fresh meat, and that with his son I could go on ahead of the moving camp and kill some. That pleased me; it was just what I was longing to do. You can imagine how much more pleased I was when the great herd of the chief's horses were brought in, and, saying, "You gave me your fire instrument, I now give you something," he selected ten good horses in the herd and said that they were all mine. How rich I felt!

Long before the lodges came down Red Crow and I were riding out along the great south trail. As we topped the slope of the valley and I looked out upon the immense plain ahead, and at the snow-covered peaks of the great mountains bordering it on the west, I said to myself, that this was the happiest day of my life, for I, Hugh Monroe, just a boy, was entering a great section of the country that white men had never traversed!

And, oh, how keen I was to see it all—its plains and stream valleys, its tremendous mountains, its pine-crowned, flat-topped sentinel buttes! Mine was to be the honor of learning their Blackfeet names, and translating them for the map our company was to make for the use of its men.

Also, I looked forward with great desire for the adventures which I felt sure I was to have in that unknown land. Had I known what some of them were to be, I would perhaps have turned right then and made my way back to the safety of the fort.

[CHAPTER III]
HUNTING WITH RED CROW

When we rode out upon the plain from the valley on our way from the Post we saw several bands of buffaloes away off to the right and left of the trail. Red Crow paid no attention to them, and when, at last, I gave him to understand by signs that I would like to approach the nearest band, a couple of miles ahead and perhaps that far from the trail, he answered that we must do our killing on, or close to, the trail so that the women could put the meat on the pack horses when they came along.

In my hunting back in the forest at home I had learned the value of the saying about the bird in hand, and I thought that we should go after that nearest herd because we might not see another so close to the trail during the day. But I need not have worried; before the day was over I learned that the game of the plains was as ten thousand to one of the game of the Eastern forest.

We rode on perhaps three miles farther, and then, topping one of the many low ridges of the plain, saw an immense herd of buffaloes grazing on the next ridge, and right on the trail. They were slowly moving south, and we waited a long time for the last stragglers of the herd to pass over the ridge and out of sight, and then rode on at an easy lope. As we neared the top of the ridge Red Crow drew his bow from the case and quiver at his back, and then drew out four arrows, three of which he held crosswise in his mouth, fitting the fourth to the bow. I looked into the pan of my gun and made sure that it was full of powder. And then my heart began to beat fast; I was soon to have my first shot at a buffalo! I said to myself: "I must be careful to take good aim! I will not—will not get excited!"

I thought that when near the top of the ridge we would dismount, go on a few steps and cautiously rise up and shoot at the nearest of the buffaloes. But Red Crow never slackened the speed of his horse and I was obliged to follow his lead. Upon reaching the ridge top we saw the great herd resting close under us on the slope, some lying down, others apparently asleep where they stood. But they saw us as soon as we saw them, and away they went, we after them as fast as our eager horses could run.

I had never thought that a horse could be so keen for the chase. Mine just took the bit in his teeth and carried me where he willed. We were soon right at the edge of the frightened herd. I saw Red Crow, some thirty or forty yards ahead of me, ride close up to the right side of an animal and fire an arrow into it, just back of the ribs, and go on without giving it further attention. And then I realized that my horse had brought me close to one of the huge, shaggy-headed, sharp-horned animals, and I poked my gun out and fired, and saw blood almost instantly begin to gush from its nostrils. It made a few more leaps and stopped and fell, and I tried to stop my horse beside it as I shouted, "I have killed a buffalo! I have killed a buffalo!"

But I could not check up the horse, or even turn him, try as I would; a few jumps more and he had me up beside another animal. Then I wished that my pistols were in my belt, instead of in my traveling-kit. I poured a charge of powder from the horn into my hand, but spilled it all before I could get it to the muzzle of my gun. I tried again with the same result. I was not used to loading a gun when riding a horse at its top speed. I gave up the attempt and watched Red Crow, still ahead, and the huge animals thundering along on either side of me. Clumsily built though they were, with deep chest, high hump on the shoulders, and cat hammed, they were far swifter runners than any horse, except for the first few hundred yards of the start. The horse soon tired; they could keep up their killing pace for hours, when frightened. After a half-mile of the chase Red Crow dropped out of it, and I managed to turn my horse with his and start back over the ground that we had come. Ahead of us lay three dead buffaloes, and quite near one was standing humped up, head down, badly wounded. It suddenly dropped and was dead when we rode up to it. I rode on to the one I had killed, eager to examine it, and Red Crow followed me. As we approached it he laughed and gave me to understand that it was an old bull, and therefore no good, its meat too tough to eat, and he pointed to his three, two young cows and a yearling bull, as good, fat meat.

I felt sorry that I had uselessly killed the huge animal. I got down from my horse and examined it. Its massive, sharp-horned, shaggy, and bewhiskered head; its long knee hair, encircling the legs like pantalettes, and the great hump on its shoulders were all very odd. In order to get some idea of its height I lay down on its side, my feet even with its fore feet. Then I reached up and found that I could nowhere near touch the top of its hump. It was between six and seven feet in height!

"One part of it is good," Red Crow signed to me, and got off his horse and skinned down the bull's lower jaw, and pulled out and back the tongue through the opening, cut it off at the base, and handed it to me. I had it that night for my supper, well roasted over the coals, and thought it the best meat I had ever tasted.

I had been wondering how, with nothing but a knife, the hunters managed to butcher such large animals as the buffaloes were. Red Crow now showed me how it was done. We went to the first of his kills, and after withdrawing the arrow, wiping it clean with a wisp of grass, and replacing it in the quiver, he twisted the cow's head sharply around beside the body, the horns sticking into the ground holding it in place. He then grasped the under foreleg by the ankle, and using it as a lever gave a quick heave. Lo, the great body rolled up on its back and remained there propped against the sideways turned head! It was simple enough. He now cut the hide from tail to neck along the belly, and from that incision down each leg, and then, I helping in the skinning, we soon had the bare carcass lying upon its spread-out hide. Then off came the legs, next the carcass was turned upon its side, an incision was made all along the base of the hump, and it was broken off by hammering the ends of the hump, or dorsal ribs, with a joint of a leg cut off at the knee. Lastly, with a knife and the blows of the leg joint, the ribs were taken off in two sections, and nothing remained upon the hide but a portion of the backbone and the entrails. These we rolled off the hide and the job was done, except tying the portions two by two with strands of the hide, so that they would balance one another on the pack horse.

We had all three animals butchered before the moving camp came up. Then Lone Walker's outfit left the line and came out to us, his head wife supervised the packing of the meat, and we were soon on our way again.

I had had my first buffalo hunt. But I did not know that the buffaloes were to be my staff of life, my food, my shelter, and my clothing, so to speak, for nearly seventy years, until, in fact, they were to be exterminated in the early eighties!

Late in the afternoon of our seventh day out from the fort we went into camp at the junction of two beautiful, clear mountain streams, as I afterward learned, the Belly River, and Old Man's River. The former was so named on account of the broad bend it makes in its course, and the latter because it is believed that Old Man, when making the world, tarried long in the mountains at its head and gambled with Red Old Man, another god. On a mountain-side there is still to be seen a long, smooth furrow in the rock formation, and at the foot of it several huge stone balls which the gods rolled along it at the goal.

The timber along these streams was alive with deer and elk, and from the plains countless herds of buffaloes and antelopes came swarming to them morning and evening to drink. The chiefs decreed that we should camp there for some days for hunting and drying meat, and with Red Crow for my companion I had great sport, killing several of each kind of game. We would ride out in the morning, followed by Red Crow's sister, Su-yi-kai-yi-ah-ki, or Mink Woman, riding a gentle horse and leading a couple of pack horses for bringing in the meat. Of course hundreds of hunters went out each day, but by picketing each evening the horses we were to use next day, and starting very early in the morning, we got a long start of most of them and generally had all the meat we could pack before noon.

We killed buffaloes mostly, for that was the staple meat, meat that one never tired of eating. Antelope, deer, and elk meat was good fresh, for a change, but it did not dry well. As fast as we got the buffalo meat home, Sis-tsi-ah-ki divided it equally in quality and amount among the wives, and they cut it into very thin sheets, and hung it in the sun, and in about two days' time it dried out, and was then packed for transportation in parflèches, large rawhide receptacles shaped like an envelope, the flaps laced together.

Su-yi-kai-yi-ah-ki was of great help to us in our hunting. We often sent her into the timber, or around behind a ridge, or up a coulee to drive game to us, and she seldom failed to do it. She was also an expert wielder of the knife, able to skin an animal as quickly as either of us. She was about my age, and tall and slender, quick in all her actions, and very beautiful. Her especial pride was her hair, which she always kept neatly done into two long braids. The ends of them almost touched the ground when she stood up straight. Best of all, she had the same kind heart and happy disposition as her mother, Sis-tsi-ah-ki.

Let me say here that a woman's or girl's name always terminated in "ah-ki," the term for woman. For instance, if a man was named after a bear, he would be called Kyai-yo. If a woman was so named, she would be Kyai-yo-ah-ki (Bear Woman).

From the junction of Belly River and Old Man's River, we trailed southwest across the plain to a large stream that I was told was named Ahk-ai-nus-kwo-na-e-tuk-tai (Gathering-of-Many-Chiefs River), for the reason that in years gone by the chiefs of the Blackfeet tribes had there met the chiefs of tribes living on the west side of the mountains, and concluded a peace treaty with them, which, however, lasted only two summers. We camped beside the river that evening, and the next day, following it up in its deep, wide valley, came to the shore of a large lake from which it ran, and there made camp. Never had I seen so beautiful a lake, or water so clear, and I said so as well as I could in signs and my small knowledge of the language I was trying so hard to learn.

"It is beautiful," Red Crow told me, "but wait until to-morrow; I will then show you a lake far larger and more beautiful.

"We call these the Lakes Inside," he went on. "See, this lake lies partly within the mountains. The one above is wholly within them. But you shall see it all to-morrow."

Over and over I repeated the name for them: Puhkt-o-muk-si-kim-iks (Lakes Inside), until sure that I would not forget it. Now they are known as St. Mary's Lakes.

The morning after we camped at the foot of the lake, Red Crow, his sister, Mink Woman, and I were riding up the east side of the lake soon after daylight, and before any of the hunters were ready to start out. We followed a heavy game trail through quaking aspen groves and across little open, grassy parks, the still water of the lake always in view on our right, and across it the dark, timbered slope running up to a flat-topped mountain ending in an abrupt cliff hundreds of feet in height. We passed a beautiful island close in to our shore, and saw a small band of elk crossing a grassy opening in its heavy timber. Elk and deer, and now and then a few buffaloes, were continually getting out of our way, and once I got a glimpse of a big bull moose as it trotted into a willow thicket, and learned its name from Red Crow's exclamation, "Siks-tsi-so!" But I did not know for some time that the word means "black-going-out-of-sight." A most appropriate name for the shy animal, for generally that is about all that the hunter sees of it, its dark hind quarters disappearing in the thick cover it inhabits.

Passing the head of the lower lake, we crossed a half-mile wide prairie and came to the foot of the upper lake, long, narrow, and running back between mountains rising steeply to great height from the water's edge. I have traveled far; from the St. Lawrence to Hudson's Bay, and from it to the Rockies, and along them south to the Great Salt Lake, but nowhere have I seen anything to equal the beauty of that lake, and the grandeur of its surrounding mountains. I fell in love with the place right then. Red Crow was anxious to go on, but I made him wait until I gazed and gazed at the wonderful scene before me. It was all so beautiful, and yet so stern, that it hurt. Grim, cold, defiant were the rocky heights of the mountains, and blue-black the water of the lake because of its great depth; but for all that I was fascinated by it all. I felt that I would like to camp there a long, long time and climb all those tremendous heights, and explore the whole of the great valley.

"Come!" Red Crow called out at last, and we rode on, crossing the river on a good ford not far below the foot of the lake, and then following another big-game trail through more groves and parks along the west side of the lake. Even here, away back from the plains, were several herds of buffaloes, and more deer and elk trotting and running from our near approach. I was more than once tempted to shoot at one of them, but Red Crow kept signing to me: "Wait! We will kill above here."

At last we arrived at the foot of a long, rocky, and in most places wall-like ridge that ran from the mountains out across the valley and ended in a high cliff jutting out over the lake. We left our horses at the foot of it, followed a game trail up through a break in the wall and came out on the sparsely timbered, rounding top, grass-grown in places. Beyond, the lake, mountain walled, ran back several miles farther. Beyond it a narrow and heavily timbered valley ran away back toward the summit of the range, where reposed long, high belts of what I thought was snow, but later learned was glacial ice, leavings of Cold Maker, the Pi-kun-i say, and his sign that, though the sun has driven him back into the Far North, he will come again with his winds and snows.

We went on a few paces and Red Crow suddenly stopped and pointed to some moving white figures high up on the steep side of a red-rocked mountain ahead and to our right. He made the sign for them: one's forefingers sloping upward and backward from each side of the head above the ears, and by that I knew that they had slender, backward curved horns. "Ai-po-muk-a-kin-a," he called them, meaning "white-big-heads." I had seen a few skins of the animals at the fort, and the factor had told me that they were those of the Rocky Mountain ibex.

"We will go up and kill some of them!" Red Crow said, and we began a climb that lasted for hours. It was my first real mountain climb and I liked it even though I did shiver and sometimes feel faint, when we made our way along the edge of cliffs where a slip of the foot would mean the end for us. We climbed almost straight up and down watercourses; over steep ridges; and then from one rocky, timbered shelf to another, and at last approached the place where we had last seen the animals. Red Crow signed us to be cautious, and with ready bow and arrows led the way across a wide rock shelf, I close at his heels with my gun well primed and cocked, and right at my shoulder his sister, just as eager to see the game as we were. As we neared the edge of the shelf Red Crow motioned us to step up in line with him, and then we all very carefully looked down over it and saw the animals.

But there was something going on with them that made Red Crow motion me to hold still. There were five, all big, white, long-haired males, and all standing at the edge of the shelf just under us, and looking intently at something below that we could not see. Their bodies were much the shape of the buffalo, high over the shoulders, low behind, and very deep chested; and they had long hair pantalettes at the knees, and a long beard. But their heads were very different; long, narrow, flat-faced. Foolish-faced, I thought. Their hair was more of a creamy color than white, and their horns, round, long, slender, curving back to a sharp point, were coal black, as were their eyes, nose, and hoofs. But strangest of all was the attitude of the one on the right of the row; he was sitting down on his haunches, just as a dog or cat sits, as he stared down, and such a position for a hoofed animal, a ruminant, was so odd, so funny, that I almost laughed aloud.

We were not fifty feet above the ibexes, but so intent were they upon what they were watching that they never looked up. Whatever it was, it seemed to be on the shelf of rock just below them and moving to the right, for the ibexes' heads kept turning steadily that way as they watched it. Then presently we saw what it was: another ibex. He came up on the shelf that they were on, a very big, old male, and advanced toward them, and they all turned to face him, backs humped, hair bristling forward, heads lowered, and one advanced, trotting sideways, to meet him. He had also bristled up, and we thought that we were to see a big fight. They met, smelled one another's noses, and leaped into the air, coming down several feet apart, stood motionless for some time, and then the one that belonged to the band went back to his companions while another went forward and through the same performance with the newcomer. It was a very funny sight.

But I was becoming anxious to shoot. I wanted one of the strange animals and was afraid that if we delayed firing they might become aware of us and suddenly take to flight. I nudged Red Crow and signed him to shoot, and as he raised his bow I aimed at the newcomer, biggest of them all. Twang, went the bow, and whoom, my gun! My animal fell, as did the one Red Crow had chosen for his arrow, and both made faint attempts to regain their feet. The others did not run. Without doubt they had never heard the report of a gun before, and mistook it for the dropping of a time-loosened rock from the heights above. They just stood and stared at their fallen companions, and I drew back from the edge of the shelf and began reloading my gun, while Red Crow continued firing arrow after arrow from the bunch he held in his left hand with the bow. I was not long getting the charge down and pouring priming into the pan, and then I advanced for another shot.

Can you imagine my surprise when I found that I was too late? All the little band were down, dead and dying, and, as I looked, the last of them ceased struggling and lay still! I stared at them, at Red Crow and his bow, and at my gun. In many ways mine was the better weapon, but for running buffaloes, and other quick shooting at short range, I saw that the bow was the thing to use. Right there I determined to get a bow outfit and learn to use it, and always to carry it on my back, and my gun in my hands.

We found a place to get down from our shelf to the dead animals, and I carefully examined mine before skinning it. I found that it had a thick growth of short wool underneath its long, coarse hair, and after that never wondered at the ability of its kind to withstand cold. In winter, the more severe the weather and deep the snow, the higher they range on the mountains, seeking the bare rock which the fierce winds keep free from snow, for there grows their favorite food, moss, and several varieties of lichen.

When I began skinning my kill I was struck by its peculiar odor, just like that of a muskrat and a hundred times as strong. At the rear base of each horn I found a wart-like black gland filled with yellowish, greasy musk. When I finished skinning my animal I began on another, and we soon had them all skinned. I then took the boss, or dorsal ribs, of my kill and wrapped them in the two hides I was to carry, although Red Crow and his sister laughed at me, and gave me to understand that the meat was not good. I confess that I did not enjoy it. It was coarse and tough, and musky. However, a young, fat male or female of this high mountain species is good eating—when no other kind of meat is obtainable.

While we were preparing to leave the shelf I saw my first bighorns, a band of ewes and young between us and the lake, and five big rams on the mountain-side to the south of us. We had no time to go after them, as the sun was getting low, and anyhow I was well satisfied with our success of the day. We hurried down the mountain to our horses and started on the long trail to camp. Whenever we crossed a park and looked out upon the lake we saw its calm surface broken by the jumping of hundreds of fish, some of the splashes undoubtedly made by fish of great size. I afterward found that they were the so-called Mackinaw trout, running in weight up to forty pounds. Besides them these lakes are full of cutthroat trout, and what the whites call Dolly Varden trout, and whitefish.

The sun had set when we crossed the river and the big prairie at the foot of the upper lake, and started on the trail along the lower lake. It was almost dark when, hurrying along at a good lope, we crossed the park opposite the island, and entered a quaking aspen grove. And then, without warning, Red Crow's horse gave a sudden sideways leap and threw him, and went snorting and tearing off to the right, and Mink Woman's and my horses took after him, plunging and kicking with fright, and try as we would we could not stop them. I saw the girl knocked from her horse by a projecting, low bough of a cottonwood tree. Behind us Red Crow was shouting "Kyai-yo! Kyai-yo! Spom-ok-it!" (A bear! A bear! Help!)

As I could not stop my horse I sprang off him, holding fast to my gun, passed Mink Woman struggling to her feet, and ran to assist my friend, his continued cries for help almost drowned by the terrible roars of an angry bear. Never had I heard anything so terrible. It struck fear to my heart. I wanted to turn and run from it, but I just couldn't! And there close behind me came the girl, crying, "Spom-os! Spom-os!" (Help him! Help him!) I just gritted my teeth and kept on.

[CHAPTER IV]
A FIGHT WITH THE RIVER PEOPLE

I went but a little way through the brush when, in the dim light, I saw Red Crow clinging with both hands to a slender, swaying, quaking aspen, and jerking up his feet from the up-reaching swipes of a big bear's claws. He could find no lodgment for his feet and could climb no higher; as it was, the little tree threatened to snap in two at any moment. It was bending more and more to the right, and directly over the bear, and he was lifting his legs higher and higher. There was no time to be lost! Scared though I was, I raised my gun, took careful sight for a heart shot at the big animal, and pulled the trigger. Whoom! And the bear gave a louder roar than ever, fell and clawed at its side, then rose and came after me, and as I turned to run I saw the little tree snap in two and Red Crow drop to the ground.

I turned only to bump heavily into Mink Woman, and we fell, both yelling, and sprang up and ran for our lives, expecting that every jump would be our last. But we had gone only a short way when it struck me that we were not being pursued, and then, oh, how can I describe the relief I felt when I heard Red Crow shout to us: "Puk-si-put! Ahk-ai-ni!" (Come! He is dead!)

Well, when I heard that my strength seemed suddenly to go from me, and I guess that the girl felt the same way. We turned back, hand in hand, wabbly on our legs, and gasping as we recovered our breath. Again and again Red Crow called to us, and at last I got enough wind into me to answer him, and he came to meet us, and led us back to the bear.

I had not thought that a grizzly could be as big as it was. It lay there on its side as big bodied as a buffalo cow. The big mouth was open, exposing upper and lower yellow fangs as long as my forefinger. I lifted up one huge forefoot and saw that the claws were four inches and more in length. Lastly, I saw that there was an arrow deep in its breast. Then, as we stood there, Red Crow made me understand that when his horse threw him and he got to his feet, he found the bear standing erect facing him, and he had fired an arrow into it and taken to the nearest tree. I knew the rest. I saw that the arrow had pierced the bear's lungs; that it would have bled to death anyhow. But my shot had been a heart shot, and just in time, for the little tree was bending, breaking even as I fired, and the bear would have had Red Crow had it not started in pursuit of us.

"The claws, you take them!" Red Crow now signed to me. But I refused. I knew how highly they were valued for necklace ornaments, and I wanted no necklace. Nor did I want the great hide, for its new coat was short, and the old winter coat still clung to it in faded yellow patches. Red Crow quickly unjointed the long fore claws, and we hunted around and found our ibex hides, which had come to the ground with us, and resumed our way in the gathering night. The horses had, of course, gone on, and would never stop until they found the band in which they belonged.

After the experience we had had, we went on with fear in our hearts, imagining that every animal we heard moving was a bear. There was no moon, and in the thick groves we had to just feel our way. But at last we passed the foot of the lake and saw the yellow gleaming of the hundreds of lodges of the camp on the far side of the river. The ford was too deep, the water too swift for us to cross it on foot, so we called for help, and several who heard came over on horseback and took us up behind, and across to the camp, where we found Lone Walker was gathering a party to go in search for us.

What a welcome we got! The women hugged and kissed Red Crow and his sister, and me too, just as if I were another son, and Lone Walker patted us on the shoulder and followed us into the lodge, and fussed at the women to hurry and set food before us. We ate, and let Mink Woman tell the story of the day, which she did between bites, and oh, how her eyes flashed and the words poured out as she described with telling gestures our experience with the bear! A crowd of chiefs and warriors had come into the lodge when word went around that we had killed a big bear, and listened to her story with close attention and many exclamations of surprise and approval; and when she ended, and Red Crow had exhibited the huge claws, Lone Walker made a little speech to me. I understood enough of it, with his signs, to know that he praised me for my bravery in going to his son's rescue and giving the bear its death shot.

Let me say here that in those days, with only bow and arrows, or a flintlock gun, the bravest of hunters generally let the grizzly alone if he would only let them alone. The trouble was that the grizzly, sure of his terrible strength, only too often charged the hunter at sight and without the slightest provocation. I have recently read Lewis and Clark's "Journal," and find that they agree with me that the grizzly, or as they called it, the white bear, was a most ferocious and dangerous animal.

The chiefs having decided that camp should not be moved until the next day, Red Crow and his sister took me next morning up a stream now called Swift Water, running into the river from the west. There were a number of lakes upon it, and one of them, just above a falls, was a very beautiful sheet of water. Beyond it, at what was the head of the main fork of the stream, were more great deposits of ice, old Cold Maker's leavings. But I was not so much interested in them as I was in taking note of the beaver signs, which was a part of my duty on this trip of discovery into the southland. It was the factor's intention to send some engagés trappers into it if I found enough fur to keep them busy. Between this lake and a smaller one lying at the foot of a great ice sheet, I found no less than thirteen dammed ponds, all containing a number of inhabited beaver houses; and there were a number of their ponds farther down the stream.

Camp was broken the following morning, but before the lodges came down I was off on the trail with the chiefs. We topped the long, high ridge sloping up eastward from the lower lake, and looked out upon the greatest expanse of mountain- and butte-studded plains that I had ever seen. And I thrilled at the thought that I was the very first one of my race to see it. Lone Walker pointed down to a small stream heading in a great patch of pine and spruce on the side of the ridge.

"That is the Little River. Far to the east it joins the Big River of the South," he told me, and I realized that I was on top of the watershed of the Gulf of Mexico. We rode on down to the stream and I got off my horse and drank from it for good luck. The whites misnamed it when they, years afterward, called it Milk River. The Blackfoot name was best, for it is a very small river for all its three hundred and more miles of length from its source to its junction with the Missouri.

As I drank the swamp-flavored water I thought how fine it would be to make a dugout there, and voyage down the stream to the Missouri, and down that to the Mississippi, and thence to the Gulf of Mexico and its tropical shores. What a long journey it would be; thousands of miles! What strange peoples I should see; tribe after tribe of Indians, then Americans, and at last the French and the Spanish of the Far South! And what adventure there would be! Fights with some of those wild tribes, and with bears, and perhaps with lawless whites. They would try to take from me the hundreds of beaver pelts that I should trap on the way! But no! My dugout would not carry many skins, and if I survived the dangers I should arrive, poor and ragged, among a strange people, and have to work for them for a few pence a day. "Away with you, dream," I said, and mounted my horse and rejoined the chiefs.

Coming to the southernmost little branch of the south fork of the river, Lone Walker, in the lead, got down from his horse, examined some tracks in the mud, and called out something which caused the others to spring from their horses and crowd around him. So did I, and saw several fresh moccasin tracks. At sight of them the chiefs had all become greatly excited, and talked so fast that I could understand nothing of what they said. I concluded, however, that the tracks had been made by some enemy, and saw by closer examination that the makers of them had worn soft, leather-soled moccasins, very different from the parflèche or semi-rawhide soles of all Blackfoot summer footwear.

Looking back on our trail, and seeing a large body of warriors coming to take the lead, several of the chiefs signaled them to hurry; and when they rode up Lone Walker gave some orders that sent them scurrying off in all directions. One of them presently came back in sight from the timber above the crossing, and signed to us to come to him. We all mounted and went up, and he led us into the timber and to a camping-ground where many lodges, several hundred, I thought, had recently been pitched. Several of the chiefs poked out the ashes of one or two fireplaces and uncovered red coals; it was evident that the campers had moved away the day before.

The chiefs were greatly excited over the find, and after a short council hurried back to the trail and gave orders that we should go into camp right there. While we waited for the long column to come up I gave Lone Walker the query sign—holding my hand up in front of me, palm outward, and waving it like the inverted pendulum of a clock, and he answered in speech and signs both, so that I understood: "The campers here were River People. We have forbidden them to come over here on our plains, but they keep coming and stealing our buffaloes. We shall now make them cry!"

"You are going to fight them?" I signed.

"Yes."

A queer feeling came over me at his answer. I shivered. In my mind's eye I saw a great battle, arrows flying and guns booming, and men falling and crying out in their death agony. And for what? Just a few of the buffaloes that blackened the plains!

"Don't fight! There are plenty of buffaloes! Let the River People go in peace with what few they have killed," I signed, but he gave me no answer other than a grim smile, and rode out to meet the head of the column.

Word had already gone back the whole length of it of our discovery, and as the excited people came up to their allotted place in the great circle and slung the packs from their horses, the women chattering and the men urging them to hurry and get out their war clothes, dogs barking and horses calling to one another, the din of it all was deafening.

I now learned that, when there was time for the change, the warriors put on their war clothes before going against the enemy. The change was soon made, and it was startling. Somber, everyday, plain wear had given place to shirts beautifully embroidered with porcupine-quill work of bright colors and pleasing design, and fringed with white weasel skins and here and there scalps of the enemy. The leggings were also fringed, and generally painted with figures of medicine animals. Not a few wore moccasins of solid quill embroidery. Every man had on a war bonnet of eagle tail feathers, or horns and weasel skins, and carried suspended from his left arm a thick, round shield of shrunk bull hide, from the circumference of which eagle tail feathers fluttered gayly in the wind. Thus dressed, with bow and arrow case on their backs, guns in hand, and mounted on their prancing, high-spirited horses, the hundreds of warriors who soon gathered around us presented the most picturesque and at the same time formidable sight that I had ever seen. I admired them, and yet they filled me with terror against them; if they chose to attack us, our fort, our cannon and guns were as a barrier of feathers against the wind! And I, just a boy, was alone with them! I shivered. And then Lone Walker spoke kindly to me, and my fear died before his smile.

"Come! We go! You shall see something to make your heart glad!" he said.

I hesitated, and the warriors suddenly broke out into a song that I knew must be a song of battle. It thrilled me; excited me. I sprang upon my horse and we were off. Lone Walker signed to me to fall in behind, and I found myself riding beside Red Crow at the rear of the swiftly moving band. Following the trail of the enemy we soon topped a long, brushy slope and turned down into a beautiful timbered valley, and up it along a broad, clear stream in which I saw many a trout leaping for flies, and which, from the signs, was alive with beavers. It was the Pu-nak-ik-si, or Cutbank River, so named on account of the rock walls on both sides of the lower part of its valley.

Three or four miles above where we struck the valley it narrowed rapidly, hemmed in by the mountains, and we had to slow up, for the narrow trail led on through a thick growth of timber and, in places, almost impenetrable brush. Then, for a short distance below the forks, the valley widened again, and there we passed the largest beaver dam that I had ever seen. It ran for all of a half-mile from slope to slope across the valley, forming a pond of hundreds of acres in extent, that was dotted with the lodges of the bark eaters. Above it we turned up the south fork of the stream and neared the summit of the range. The valley narrowed to a width of a few hundred yards; ahead a high rock wall crossed it, and the trail ran steeply up the right mountain-side to gain its rough top. We were a long time making that for we were obliged to ride in single file because of the narrowness of the trail. The chiefs, leading, raised a great shout when they reached the edge of the wall, and signed back that they could see the enemy. We crowded on as fast as we could, Red Crow and I the last to top the wall, and oh, how anxious I was to see what was ahead!

I saw, and just held my horse and stared and stared. For a mile or more from the wall the trail still ran south up a rocky slope, then turned, and, still rising, ran along a very steep slope to the summit of the range. Along that slope the trail was black with riders and loose horses, hurrying across it at a trot and in single file, and back at the turn of the trail the rear guard of the fleeing tribe was making a stand against our advance. The warriors were afoot, their horses having gone on with the column, and our men had left their horses and were running on and spreading out, those who had guns already beginning to use them.

"Come on! Hurry!" Red Crow shouted to me, and was off. I did not follow him, not at first, but as the River People's guard retreated and our men advanced, I did ride on, dreading to see men fall, but withal so fascinated by the fight that I could not remain where I was. I went to the spot where the enemy had first made their stand, and saw several bodies lying among the rocks. They had already been scalped.

The last of the camp movers, the men, women, and children with the pack and loose horses, had all now crossed the long, steep slope, the latter part of which was very steep, and ran down to the edge of a cut-walled chasm of tremendous depth, and had gone out of sight beyond the summit. The guards were now on the trail along this most dangerous part of it, our warriors following them in single file at long bow range, but all of them except two or three in the lead, unable to use their weapons.

It was a duel between these and the two or three rear men of the enemy. Our lead man was, as I afterward learned, Lone Walker, and the men next to him Chiefs Bear Head and Bull-Turns-Around. All three had guns and were firing and reloading them and firing again as fast as they could, and doing terrible execution. One after another I saw five of the enemy fall from the trail, which was just a narrow path in the slide rock, and go bouncing and whirling down, and off the edge of that great cliff into space. It was a terrible sight! It made me tremble! I strained my body as I sat there on my horse, scrouged down as each one fell.

I could not see that any of our warriors were falling; they were keeping themselves pretty well protected with their shields. Capping the slope where all this was going on was a long, narrow wall of rock running out from the summit of the range, and happening to glance up at it I saw numbers of the enemy hurrying out along it to get opposite our men and shoot down at them. I instantly urged my horse forward, shouting as loud as I could, but no one looked back and I knew that I was not heard. I went on to where the horses had been left, jumped from mine there and ran on out along the slope, shouting again and pointing up to the top of the rock wall. At last some one saw me, and gave the alarm, and the whole party stopped and looked at me, then up where I was pointing and saw their danger, and all turned and started to retreat.

But they had no more than started than the enemy began firing down at them. It was a long way down, several hundred yards, and their arrows and the few balls they fired did no damage; and seeing that, one of the enemy toppled a boulder off the cliff. It struck the slope with a loud crash and rolled and bounded on almost as swiftly as a ball from a gun, and I expected it to hurl three or four of our running men off the trail and down over the edge of the cliff. But when within twenty or thirty feet of the line it bounded high from the slope and shot out away over the trail, and away out over the cliff, and long afterward I heard it crash onto the bottom of the chasm.

Now the enemy abandoned their weapons and began, all of them, to hurl boulders down onto the slope. Had they done that at first they would likely have swept many of our men off the trail and over the cliff; but now the most of them had passed the danger line. As the last of them were running out from under the outer point of the wall, a man there loosed a last big rock; it broke into many pieces when it hit the slope, and these went hurtling down with tremendous speed. There was no possibility of dodging them; two men were struck; one of them rolled down to the cliff and off it, but the other, the very last in the line, was whirled around, and as he dropped, half on and half off the trail, the man next to him turned back and helped him to his feet, and without further assistance he staggered on to safety. He was Lone Walker. His right shoulder was broken and terribly bruised. The man we had lost was Short Arrow, young, just recently made a warrior.

We all gathered where the horses had been left, and a doctor man bound the chief's wound as best he could. There was much talk of Short Arrow's sudden going, and regret for it; and there was rejoicing, too; the enemy had paid dearly, seven lives, for what buffalo and other game they had killed out on the Blackfeet plains.

The sun was setting. As we tightened saddle cinches and prepared to go, we had a last look out along the slope. A great crowd of people was gathered on the summit watching us, and up on the wall top over the trail, sharply outlined against the sunset sky, dozens of warriors were gathering piles of rocks to hurl down at us should we again attempt to cross the slope. Our chiefs had no thought of it. The enemy had been sufficiently punished, and anyhow the stand that they had taken was unassailable. We got onto our horses and hurried to get down into the valley below the rock wall while there was still a little light, and from there on let the horses take us home.

We arrived in camp long after midnight. The people were still up, awaiting our return, and the greeting that we got surprised me. The women and old men gathered around us, shouting the names of the warriors, praising them for their bravery, and giving thanks to the gods for their safe return. But there was mourning too; when the noise of the greeting subsided we could hear the relatives of Short Arrow wailing over their loss.

I did not sleep much that night; every time I fell into a doze I saw the bodies of the enemy bounding down that rocky slope and off the edge of the thousand foot wall, and awoke with a start.

Although suffering great pain in his shoulder, Lone Walker the next morning declared that he was able to travel, and camp was soon broken. After crossing the valley of Cutbank River we left the big south trail, turning off from it to the southeast, and after a time striking the valley of another stream, the Nat-ok-i-o-kan, or Two-Medicine-Lodge River. I learned that this was the main fork of Kyai-is-i-sak-ta, or Bear River, the stream which Lewis and Clark had named Maria's River, after the sweetheart of one of them. But I did not know that for many a year after I first saw it.

We went into camp in a heavily timbered bottom walled on the north side by a long, high cliff, at the foot of which was a great corral in the shape of a half circle, the cliff itself forming the back part of it. It was built of fallen trees, driftwood from the river, and boulders, and was very high and strong. Red Crow told me that it was a buffalo trap; that whole herds of buffaloes were driven off the cliff into it. I could not understand much of what he told me, but later on saw a great herd decoyed to a cliff and stampeded over it, a waterfall of huge, brown, whirling animals. It was a wonderful spectacle. I shall have something to say about that later on.

I now learned that we had come to this particular camping place for the purpose of building a great lodge offering, called o-kan, or his dream, to the sun. When we went into camp the lodges were not put up in the usual formation, but were set to form a great circle on the level, grassy bottom between the timber, bordering the stream, and the cliff. In the center of this circle, the sacred lodge was to be erected with ceremonies that would last for some days.

On the following morning Red Crow and I, Mink Woman accompanying us, went hunting; we were to bring in enough meat to last our two lodges until the great festival ended. As usual, we started out very early, long before the great majority of the hunters were up. We rode down the valley through a number of bottoms of varying size, seeing a few deer, a band of antelopes, and two or three elk, but finding no buffaloes until we neared the junction of the river with another stream, which Red Crow told me was Mi-sin-ski-is-i-sak-ta (Striped-Face—or, in other words, Badger River). There, on the point between the two streams, we discovered a large herd of buffaloes filing down into the bottom to drink. We hurried on through the timber to get ahead of them, intending to hide in the brush on the point of land between the streams and dash into them when they came near. But as buffaloes often did, they suddenly broke into a run when part way down the slope, their thirst and sight of the water urging them forward, so we crossed the river, and riding in the shelter of the willows made our approach. They had all crowded out on the narrow point of land ahead and were drinking from both streams.

"We will kill many!" Red Crow signed to me as we rode through the willows, and then out from the stream in the shelter of some clumps of berry brush, through which we could glimpse the solidly packed rows of the drinking animals. That was my thought, too, for I saw that we could get within fifty or sixty yards of them before they discovered our approach. I loosed the pistols in my belt, and slipped the case from my gun as we made our way into the last piece of brush; when we went out of it, Red Crow signed to me, we were to charge. Just then a gun boomed somewhere ahead of us, and at the report the buffaloes whirled out from the streams and with a thunder and rattle of hoofs came straight toward us, a solid mass of several hundred head that covered the width of the point. Red Crow yelled something to us, but we could not hear him. We all turned about, the girl letting go the two horses she was leading, and fled. Unless our horses could outrun the stampede they were sure to be gored, and down we would go to a terrible death!

[CHAPTER V]
BUFFALO HUNTING

When we cleared that brush patch I looked back. The buffaloes were no more than fifty yards behind us and the brush was gone, trampled down to its roots. I did not see the two horses that Mink Woman had been leading, or think of them at that time; my one thought was to get away from that onrushing wall of shaggy, sharp-horned, bobbing heads. Red Crow, frantically thumping his horse with his heels, was leading us, heading obliquely toward Badger River, and waving to us to follow him. Mink Woman was just ahead of me, but she had the slower horse and I was gaining upon her, even as the buffaloes were gaining upon us all. I wondered if we could possibly clear their front. I rode up beside the girl, on her left, and hung there to protect her as best I could. Nearer and nearer came the buffaloes. When they were within fifty feet of us, and we still fifty or sixty yards from the river, I fired my gun at them and to my surprise dropped a big cow. But that had no effect upon the others; they surged on over her body as though it were no more than an ant hill.

"I must try again!" I said to myself and holding gun and bridle in my right hand, drew a pistol with my left. It was to be my last shot, and I held it as long as I could. We neared the river; the herd kept gaining upon us, came up to us and I leaned out and fired straight at a big head that I could almost touch with the muzzle of the pistol. It dropped. Looking ahead then I saw that we were close to the edge of a high cutbank at the edge of the river, saw Red Crow leap his horse from it and go out of sight; a couple more jumps of our horses and we, too, would clear it. But just then a big head thumped into the side of my horse, knocking him against Mink Woman's horse. As I felt him falling with me I let go pistol and gun and bridle, and reaching out blindly grasped the mane of her horse with both hands and swung free. The next instant another big head struck her horse a mighty thud in the flank and whirled him half around and off the cutbank, and down we went with a splash into deep water; we were safe!

I let go the horse, and the girl, still on its back, swam it downstream to shallow water, I following, and we finally passed below the cutbank and went ashore on the point, Red Crow going out a little ahead of us. A man skinning a buffalo there whirled around and stared at us open-mouthed, and then cried: "What has happened to you?"

"You did it, you stampeded the buffaloes onto us! We have had a narrow escape!" Red Crow answered.

But my one thought now was of my gun and pistol; I ran on to find them, dreading to see them trampled into useless pieces of wood and iron, and the hunter mounted his horse and came with the others after me.

It was a couple of hundred yards up to where we had made our sudden turn, and there in the trampled and broken brush patch we found the two pack horses, frightfully gored and trampled, both dead. Mink Woman had led them by a single, strong rawhide rope, and the buffaloes striking it had dragged them, gored them, knocked them off their feet.

We went on, past the first buffalo that I had killed, and soon came to the other one, and just beyond it to my horse, disemboweled, down, and dying. Red Crow put an arrow into him and ended his misery. Just in front of him lay my gun, and I gave a shout of joy when I saw that it had not been trampled. We could not find the pistol, and it occurred to me that it might be under the dead horse; we turned him over and there it was, pressed hard into the ground but unbroken! We looked at one another and laughed, and Red Crow sang the "I Don't Care" song—I did not know it then—and the hunter said: "All is well! You have lost horses, they are nothing. You are wet, your clothes will dry. You have two fat buffaloes, be glad!"

And at that we laughed again. But I guess that my laugh had a little shake in it; I kept seeing that terrible wall of frightened buffaloes thundering out upon us!

The first thing that I did was to reload my gun and recovered pistol, and draw the wet charge and reload it. Then Mink Woman and I turned to our two buffaloes and Red Crow hurried home for horses to replace those that we had lost. It was late afternoon when we got into camp with our loads of meat. So ended another experience in my early life on the plains.

During the following days of our encampment there on the Two Medicine, the whole time was given over to the ceremonies of the o-kan, or medicine lodge, as our company men came to call it, and I was surprised to learn by it how intensely religious these people were, and how sincerely they reverenced and honored their gods. My greatest surprise came at the start, when I learned that it was women, not men, who had vowed to build the great lodge to the sun, the men merely assisting them. It was then, too, that I got my first insight into the important position of women in the tribe; they were far from being the slaves and drudges that I had been told they were.

During the year that had passed a number of women had vowed to the sun to build this sacrifice to him if he would cure some loved relative of his illness, or bring him safely home from the war trail, and those whose prayers were granted now banded together, under the lead of the most experienced one of their number, to fulfill their vows. The different ceremonies were very intricate, and to me, with my slight knowledge of the language, quite mysterious. But, Christian though I was, I was completely carried away by them, and took part in some of them as I was told to do by Lone Walker and his family.

On the day after the great lodge was put up, Red Crow's mother took him and Mink Woman and me into it, and had one of the medicine women give us each a small piece of the sacred dried buffalo tongues which were being handed to all the people as they came in for them. I held mine, watching what the others did with theirs, and then, when my turn came, I held it up to the sky and made a little prayer to the sun for good health, long life, and happiness, and having said that, I buried a part of the meat in the ground, at the same time crying out: "Hai-yu! Sak-wi-ah-ki, kim-o-ket!" (Oh, you! Earth Mother, pity me!)

After that was done the mother and Red Crow and his sister made sacrifices to the sun, giving a beautifully embroidered robe, a bone necklace, and a war bonnet, which a medicine man hung to the roof poles while they prayed. But I was not forgotten; the good mother handed me a pair of new, embroidered moccasins and told me to hand them to the medicine man to hang up, and prayed for me while he did so. I could not understand half of it, but enough to know that in her I had a true friend, a second mother as it were.

On the following day I learned that I had a second father, too. The warriors, gathered in front of the great lodge, were one by one counting their coups, their deeds of bravery, with the aid of friends enacting each scene of battle, and showing just how they had conquered the enemy. It was all like a play; a very interesting play. As Red Crow and I stood at the edge of the crowd looking on, Lone Walker saw us, raised his hand for silence, and said loudly, so that all could hear: "There stand my two sons, my red son and my white son. Come, son Red Crow, count coups for yourself and your brother, too, as he cannot yet speak our language well."

At that Red Crow took my hand and we walked out in front of the chief, turned and faced the crowd, and then Red Crow described how we had killed the big grizzly, I going to his rescue and giving it the death shot just in time to save him. He ended, and the drummers stationed beside the chiefs banged their drums, and the people shouted their approval. Following that, Lone Walker again addressed the crowd: "By that brave deed which you have heard, my white son has earned a name for himself," he said. "It was a brave deed; by his quick rush in and timely shot he saved my red son's life, and so he must have a brave and good man's name. I give him the name of one who has recently gone from us in his old age. Look at him, all of you, my son, Rising Wolf!"

And at that the people again shouted approval, and the drummers banged their drums. Of course I did not know then all that he had said, but I did know that I had been named Mah-kwi-i-po-ats (Wolf Rising, or, as the whites prefer to translate it, Rising Wolf).

The preparations for building the o-kan required two days' time; the attendant ceremonies four days more, four, the sacred number, the number of the world directions, north, south, east, and west. On the morning following the last day of the ceremonies we broke camp and, leaving the great lodge and its wealth of sun offerings to the elements, moved south again, or, rather, southwest, in order to regain the mountain trail. Their religious duties fulfilled, the people were very happy, and I felt as light-hearted as any of them, and eager to see more—see all of their great country.

We crossed Badger River, and then Sik-o-kin-is-i-sak-ta, or Black Barkbirch River, and encamped on a small stream named O-saks-i-i-tuk-tai, Back Fat, or as our French voyageurs later translated it, Depouille Creek. From there our next camp was on Kok-sis-tuk-wi-a-tuk-tai (Point-of-Rocks River). I never knew why the whites named it Sun River. Nor did I dream that the day was to come when I would see its broad bottoms fenced in and irrigated, and a fort built upon it to house blue-coated American soldiers. If I then gave the future any thought, it was that those great plains and mountains would ever be the hunting-ground of the Blackfeet, and the unfailing source of a great supply of furs for our company.

We camped on this stream well out from the mountains, and the next morning, moving on, at noon arrived at its junction with a great river which at first sight I knew must be the Missouri, the O-muk-at-ai of the Blackfeet tribes. Below, not far away by the sound, I could hear the dull roar of a waterfall. We turned downstream, crossed on a swift and fairly deep ford above the falls, and went into camp. As soon as the lodges were up and the women had cooked some meat for us, Red Crow and I saddled fresh horses and struck out to see the country. We had come to the trail of Lewis and Clark, and I was anxious to learn if they had had any followers, if the American Fur Company's men had come into the country, as my factor feared.

We rode to the fall, and after looking at it moved on down and came upon an old and very dim trail along which lay here and there log cuttings about eight feet long and a foot or more in diameter. They were well worn; small pieces of rock and gravel were embedded in them, and I saw at once that they had been used for rollers under boats in portaging them around the falls. I realized how great a task that had been when Red Crow guided me down to all the falls, the last a number of miles below our camp. The Blackfoot name for the falls is I-pum-is-tuk-wi (Rock-Wall-across-the-River.)

Sitting on the shore of the river below the last falls, at the point where the portage had begun, I tried to get some information from Red Crow as to the white men who had passed up there, but he could tell me nothing. As we talked I was idly heaping a pile of sand before me, and in doing so uncovered two long, rusty spikes.

"What a find! What a rich find! Give me one of them," Red Crow exclaimed, and I handed him one.

"See! It is long. It will make two arrow points," he explained. And at that I carefully pocketed mine. Material for arrowheads, iron, I mean, was very valuable at that time, in that country. Our company was selling arrow points of hoop iron at the rate of a beaver skin for six points. Some of the Blackfeet hunters were still using flint points which they made themselves.

And that reminds me of something. At the foot of the buffalo trap cliffs on the Two Medicine I picked up one evening a number of flint and obsidian arrow points, many of them perfectly and beautifully fashioned. I took them to the lodge and offered them to Lone Walker, thinking that I was doing him a good turn. But he started back from them as though they had been a rattlesnake, and refused to even touch them. "Some of those, especially the black ones, are surely Crow points, and so unlucky to us," he explained. "This was Crow country. We took it from them. Maybe our fathers killed the owners of those points. But the shadows of the dead keep coming back to watch their property, and cause sickness, trouble, to any who take it. I wish that you would take the points back where you got them and leave them there."

I did so, but carefully cached them under a rock, and years later recovered them. But that is not all. After returning to the lodge I asked Lone Walker where the people obtained the black, as they called it, ice rock for making their arrows, and he told me that away to the south, near the head of Elk River, or in other words, the Yellowstone, were springs of boiling water, some of them shooting high in the air with tremendous roaring, and that near one of these springs was a whole butte of the ice rock, and it was there that his people went to get their supply. "But it is a dreadful place!" he concluded. "We approach it with fear in our hearts, and make great sacrifices to the gods to protect us. And as soon as we arrive at the ice rock butte we snatch up what we need of it and hurry away."

He was telling me, of course, of the wonderful geysers of the Yellowstone. I believe that I am the first white person who ever heard of them.

But to continue: When Red Crow and I returned home that evening, I asked Lone Walker if his people had seen the white men who had left the cut logs in the trail around the falls, and he replied that neither the Pi-kun-i, nor any other of the Blackfeet tribes had seen them, but he himself had heard of them from the Earth House People—the Mandans—when visiting them several summers back. They had been a large party, traveling in boats, had wintered with the Mandans and gone westward, even to the Everywheres-water of the west, and the next summer had come back, this time on horses instead of in boats. If you have read Lewis and Clark's "Journal," you will remember that they met and fought—on what must have been Cutbank River—some people that they thought were Blackfeet. They were not. They must have been a war party of Crows or some other tribe going through the country.

I next asked Lone Walker if he had ever seen white men on the Missouri River waters.

"Two. In the Mandan camp. Of a race the Mandans call Nothing White Men," he answered.

And from that time the Blackfoot name for the French has been Kis-tap-ap-i-kwaks (Useless, or Nothing White Men), as distinguishing them from the English, the Red Coats, and the Americans, Long Knives.

Lone Walker's answer pleased me; it was evident that the American Fur Company had not entered the Blackfoot, or even the Mandan country, far below. But even then that company was pushing, pushing its forts farther and farther up the Missouri, and the day was coming, far off but coming, when I would be one of its employees!

We camped there at the falls several days and hunted buffaloes, making several big runs and killing all the meat that was wanted at that time. Our lodges were pitched close to the river, right where the whites are now building the town they have named Great Falls.

Our next move was out to the point of the little spur of the mountains that is named Highwood. Its slopes were just alive with deer and elk, especially elk, and Red Crow and I killed two of them, big fat bulls, for a change of meat for our lodges. We did all the hunting for Lone Walker's big family; they required an awful lot of meat; of fresh meat about three pounds a day for each person, and each day there were also a number of guests to be fed. At a rough guess I put the amount that we used at three hundred pounds a day. Do you wonder that Red Crow and I, and Mink Woman helping us, were kept pretty busy?

Leaving the Highwood we moved out to Arrow River (Ap-si-is-i-sak-ta), and once more I felt that I was in country that white men had never seen. The Arrow River valley is for most of its course a deep, walled gash in the plains; there are long stretches of it where neither man nor any animal, except the bighorn, can climb its red rock cliffs. But the moment I first set eyes upon it, I liked it. I always did like cliffs, their ledges, and caves hiding one can never tell what mysteries. There were many bighorn along these cliffs, and mule deer were plentiful in all the rough breaks of the valley. Out on the plains endless herds of buffaloes and antelopes grazed, coming daily down steep and narrow, deep-worn trails to drink at the river; and in the valley itself every patch of timber fringing the stream sheltered white-tailed deer and elk. There were many beavers, pond beavers and bank beavers, along the stream. Bear tracks were everywhere to be seen, in the dusty game trails, and in the river shore sands.

We wound down into the deep canyon by following a well-worn game trail down a coulee several miles in length, and when we went into camp between a fine cottonwood grove and the stream, and Lone Walker said that we would remain there for some time, I was much pleased, for I wanted to do a lot of hunting and exploring along the cliffs with Red Crow.

We could not do it the next day, for we had to get meat for the two lodges. That was not difficult. With Mink Woman to help us, and leading six pack horses, we left very early in the morning and rode down the valley for four or five miles, examining the many game trails that came into the valley; there was one in every break, every coulee cutting the rock wall formation. We at last struck a well-worn trail that came into the valley through a gap in the cliff not twenty feet wide, and under a projecting rock shelf about ten feet high. We saw that we could climb onto the shelf, and shoot straight down at the game as it passed, so Red Crow rode up the trail to look out on the plain and learn if it would pay us to make our stand there. He was gone a long time, and when he returned said that a very large herd of buffaloes was out beyond the head of the coulee, and slowly grazing toward it; he thought that it would be coming in to water before noon. We therefore hid our horses in some timber below the mouth of the coulee, and then all three climbed up on the rock shelf and sat down. I held my gun ready, laid a pistol on either side of me, and Red Crow strung his bow and got out a handful of arrows.

It was hot there on that shelf. The sun blazed down upon us, and we could not have held out had not a light wind been blowing down the coulee. It was past noon when a most peculiar noise came to us with the wind; a deep, roaring noise like distant, but steady thunder. I asked what caused it.

"It is the bulls; the buffalo bulls are grunting because now is their mating season," Red Crow explained. "They now take wives. They are very mad; they fight one another, and night and day keep up that grunting."

The noise became louder and louder. "They come. They are coming now to drink," said Red Crow, and soon after that we saw the lead of the herd coming around a bend in the coulee. A number of bulls came first, heads down, and swaying as they walked with ponderous tread, and as they came nearer I saw that they were making that peculiar noise with their mouths closed, or all but closed. It was what I called a grunting bellow, very deep sounding, long sustained, a sound wholly unlike any other sound in the world. It was a sound that exactly fitted the animal that made it. As the buffalo's appearance was ever that of a forbidding, melancholy animal brooding over strange mysteries, so was its close-mouthed bellowing expressive of great sadness, and unfathomable mystery; of age-old mysteries that man can never penetrate. Often, as we gazed at bulls standing on some high point, and as motionless as though of stone, Indians have said to me: "They know! They know everything, they see everything! Nothing has been hidden from them from the time Old Man made the world and put them upon it!"

Perhaps so! Let us not be too sure that we are the only wise ones that roam this earth!

Well, the herd came on, the bulls moaning and switching and cocking up their short, tufted tails, and presently the coulee was full of the animals as far as we could see. We had drawn back from the edge of the shelf and sat motionless, only our heads in view, and so we remained until the head of the long column had passed out into the bottom. I then leaned forward, and Red Crow sprang to his feet, and we began shooting down, choosing always animals with the broadest, most rounding hips, and therefore the fattest meat. With my rifle, and one after the other my pistols, I shot three good cows, and Red Crow shot four with his bow and arrows. All seven of them fell close around the mouth of the coulee. Those that had passed out into the bottom, unhurt, ran off down the valley. The rest, back up the coulee, turned and went up on the plain, in their hurry and scrambling raising such a cloud of dust that we nearly strangled in it. We got down from the shelf and began butchering our kills, taking only the best of the meat with the hides. We got into the camp before sundown, our horses staggering under their heavy loads. We had broiled tongue for our evening meal.

Yes, buffalo tongue, a whole one each of us, and some service berries, were what the women set before us that evening. How is it that I remember all those little details of the vanished years? I cannot remember what happened last year, or the year before, yet all of that long ago time is as plain to me as my hand before my face!

The next morning, with pieces of dry meat and back fat in our hands for breakfast, Red Crow and I rode out of camp at daylight for a day on the cliffs. On the previous day we had seen numbers of bighorn along them, and, opposite the mouth of the coulee where we had killed the buffaloes, had discovered what we thought was the entrance to a cave. We wanted to see that. We had told Mink Woman that she could not go with us, but after going down the valley for a mile or more found her close at our heels. Nor would she go back: "I want to see that cave as much as you do," she said. "I help you hunt, and butcher your kills; it is only fair that you do something for me now and then."

It was a beautiful morning, clear, cool, windless. As we rode along we saw deer and elk dodging out of our way, a beaver now and then and coveys of sage hens and prairie grouse. While waiting for the buffaloes to come in, the day before, we had looked out a way by which we thought it would be possible to reach the cave, and now, leaving the horses a half mile or more above our stand on the shelf, we began the ascent of the cliffs. The cave was located at the back of a very long shelf about two thirds of the way up the canyon side, and we believed that we could reach its western end by climbing the series of small shelves and sleep slopes under that part of it.

We climbed a fifty-foot slope of fallen boulders and came to the first shelf, a couple of feet higher than our heads, and Red Crow told me to use his back as a mount, and go up first. He leaned against the rock wall, bending over. I handed my gun to Mink Woman and, stepping up on his back and then on his shoulders, and steadying myself by keeping my hands against the wall, straightened up; and as my head rose above the level of the shelf I saw something that made me gasp.

[CHAPTER VI]
CAMPING ON ARROW RIVER

With flattened ears and a menacing snarl a mountain lion, not four feet back, was crouching and nervously shuffling her forefeet for a spring at me, and three or four small young ones behind her all had their backs arched and were spitting and growling too. I ducked down so quickly that I lost my balance and tumbled onto the rocks, but luckily the fall did not hurt me. I was up on my feet at once.

"What was it?" Red Crow asked.