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.
"A big lion! It has little young ones. It was making ready to spring at me," I answered, and at that he became greatly excited.
"Quick! Let me have your gun! Help me up!" he exclaimed, and I went to the wall and bent over, and Mink Woman handed him the gun after he had gotten upon my back. He straightened up, and I expected to hear himshoot; but instead he called down to us: "They are gone!" and sprang upon the shelf and we heard a scuff or two of his moccasins as he ran off. At that Mink Woman helped me get upon the shelf, and I then drew her up, and we ran around a bend of it just in time to see Red Crow, farther on, lay down my gun, draw his bow and arrows, and begin shooting at something that seemed to be in a crevice of the cliff at the back of the shelf. We hurried on to him and found that he had killed the lion there where she had made her stand in front of her young, and as we came up to him he shot the last of the little ones. There were four of them. He was mightily pleased at what he had done, for the hide of a mountain lion was valued by the Blackfeet tribes above that of any other animal. It was believed to bring good luck in hunting and in war to the owner, and was either fashioned into a bow case and quiver, or softly tanned and used as a saddle robe.
While we were skinning the animals I asked myfriend why he had not used my gun to kill the old one.
"Never the gun when the bow will do as well!" he answered. "The bow is silent. The gun goes whoom! and for far around all ears take notice of it."
There was sound sense in what he said. I determined that I would no longer delay getting a bow and learning to use it. We little thought that we were to prove his saying on the height above us. If he had fired the gun at the lion it is likely that I would not be sitting here telling you my story of those vanished days.
Having skinned the lions we folded the hides flesh side together, so that they would not dry out, and would be fresh and soft to stretch properly when we got them to camp, and packed them with us; they were light and would not interfere with our climbing. We went back to where we had come up on the shelf, and then zigzagged our way up from shelf to shelf, all the time in a deep recess in the great cliff. On theshelf above the one on which we got the lions, were the remains of a yearling bighorn which the old lion had apparently killed that morning, and that explained, we thought, why we had seen none of the animals thereabout. On the previous day we had seen several small bands there.
At last we climbed onto the cave shelf. From where we struck it, it ran out toward the valley and then circled around the projecting point of the formation, and ended in a recess similar to the one we had come up in. The cave was on our side of the point; about a hundred yards from it. We hurried out along the shelf, eager to get to the cave and explore it, but upon reaching the entrance our haste died right there; it was a mighty black hole we were looking into; a rank, damp, cold odor came from it; we could see in only a few yards; the darkness beyond might conceal something of great danger to us! A grizzly, I thought, and my companions' fears included ghosts; the shadows of the dead always lurking about to do the living harm.
Said Red Crow at last, and the set expression of his face belied his words: "Ha! I am not afraid! Let's go in!"
"Come on," I told him, and led the way.
"I am afraid! I shall wait for you here!" Mink Woman told us. But she didn't. We had taken but a few steps when she was close behind us, feeling safest there.
A few yards in, the cave narrowed to but little more than three feet, and then widened out again into a big, jagged-walled and high-roofed room. We could see but little of it at first, for we were blocking the light; but after leaving the narrow passage, and as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, we saw that the room was the end of the cave. We stood still, hardly breathing, listening for any movement there; watching for shining eyes; and at last concluded that the place was harmless enough. Then I, farthest in, saw something, a dim, white, queerly shaped object on the floor at the back of the room. I stared at it a long time, madesure that whatever it was it had no life, and then moved on. The others then saw it and Red Crow exclaimed: "What is it? What is it?"
We moved on again, and saw at last that our find was a number of painted and fringed rawhide war cylinders, receptacles in which warriors carried their war bonnets and war clothes when on a raid.
"Ghosts' property! Do not touch them!" Mink Woman exclaimed, but I was already lifting one of them, and as I did so it gave off a fresh odor of sweet grass smoke, a medicine—a sacred perfume of the Blackfeet tribes, I knew. I held it under Red Crow's nose and he sniffed at it and exclaimed: "Newly smoked!" He then took it and held it up in better light, and pointed to the painted design: "Crow! Crow painting!" he exclaimed, and turned quickly and stared out the way we had come; so did I. There was no one in sight. All was quiet; but we felt sure that the enemy was not far away!
I turned back and counted the cylinders; therewere seven, and with them were coils of rawhide rope, several bridles with Spanish bits, the first that I had ever seen, and didn't then know were of that make, and three square-shaped rawhide pouches with slings for carrying. I put my hand into one of them and brought forth a piece of freshly roasted meat! That settled it; a Crow war party was somewhere on the cliffs about us; they had perhaps slept here, and were now out on watch. I thought it strange that they had not seen us. Said Red Crow: "They must be sitting out around the point. Just think! If I had fired the gun at the lion we would now be without scalps!"
And at that he gave a little laugh; a scared little laugh, his eyes all the time on the cave entrance, as were mine, and Mink Woman's.
"What shall we do?" she whispered.
"Take these things and run," I said.
"No!" said Red Crow, and took from me the pouch, put the roast meat back and laid it in its place in the pile. "Come!" he said, and wefollowed him out. At the entrance we looked off along the length of the shelf as far as we could see its rounding curve; no one was in sight. We ran, ran for our lives back the way we had come, our backs twitching in expectation of arrow piercings. We reached the end of the shelf in the recess, halted a moment for a last look back, and seeing no one, went quickly down the slopes and over the shelves to the bottom, and thence to our picketed horses. Not until we reached them did we feel really safe.
"There! We survive!" Red Crow exclaimed. "I go for help! We shall wipe out those Crows! Hasten, you two; go down to the place of our buffalo killing and keep watch for them, but don't let them think that you know they are there on the cliffs. I shall come back as soon as I can."
He left us, and Mink Woman and I rode down to the mouth of the deep coulee, picketed our horses just below it, and then got onto the shelf from which we had shot the buffaloes the day before; and not until then did we actually beginour watch. I sat facing the bottom of the coulee, looking up it the most of the time just as though I were waiting for a herd of buffaloes to come down for water, and Mink Woman pretended to be looking up and down the canyon, but most of the time her eyes were upon the high, rounding point of the cliff opposite us, and in particular the cave shelf. We felt sure that somewhere up there the enemy lay concealed and was watching us. It was likely that, coming across the plain in the early morning, they had seen some of our people riding out to hunt, and had taken refuge in the cliff with the expectation of finding our camp and raiding our horses when night came.
It was mid-afternoon when we saw a number of riders, twenty or thirty, coming down the valley. They appeared to be in no haste, but when they had come close the sweat on their horses told us that they had ridden hard the most of the way down. Lone Walker was the leader of the party. He rode up close to our shelf and asked if we had seen the enemy while sitting there, and uponlearning that we hadn't, said that Red Crow was guiding a big party to attack the Crows from the top of the cliff. He then turned to his men and told one of them to ride up the coulee, and the rest to watch him, in order that the Crows might not have the least suspicion that we were aware of their presence.
It was hard for us all to do that, to stare up a coulee when we wanted to keep our eyes on the cliffs, but we had not to endure it long; we soon heard the whoom! whoom! whoom! of guns, and turning, saw our men on the top of the rounding point of the cliff, and shooting down at three men running along the shelf on which was the entrance to the cave. They disappeared around the bend and I knew that they were making for shelter there. But whoom! whoom! went two guns back in the recess, and soon one of the men came running back. In the meantime some of our party had found a way down to the other end of the shelf, and now came running along it out around the point. As soon as the lone enemysaw them he stopped short, fired an arrow at them that went wild, and then with a quick leap threw himself from the shelf. Down, down he went, a sickening sight as he whirled through the air, and struck the rocks far below.
"Hai! Hai! Hai! A brave end!" cried Lone Walker, and all the party echoed his words, and several made a dash across to secure his scalp and weapons. Meantime one of our men up on the extreme point of the cliff was signaling down to us, his signs plain as he stood outlined against the clear sky: "They are all wiped out! Dead! We meet you at camp!" And at that we all got upon our horses and rode home.
The cliff party, bearing the scalps and plunder they had taken from the enemy, arrived in camp at the same time we did and were hailed with great acclaim. As soon as the greeting was over Red Crow handed me one of the fringed and painted cylinders that we had discovered in the cave. "Take it," he said, "it is yours. See, I also have one. We got them all."
We went to our lodge then with Lone Walker, and Red Crow told us how he had guided the big party out, stationing a few men down at the cave, in the first place, and then leading the others out upon the point above the shelf where he thought the enemy would be sitting. Upon looking over the edge they had found the seven Crows lying flat on the rocky projection straight below, all intently watching our party across at the mouth of the coulee. Four of them had been killed where they lay. Two of the three that then ran for the cave had been shot down before they could reach it. The last man, rather than give the Pi-kun-i the honor of killing him, had committed suicide by jumping from the cliff. "He was a coward! Had I been in his place I would have fought to the last; I would have tried my best to make others die with me!" Red Crow concluded.
"I like to hear you say that. Fight to the last! That is the one thing to do!" Lone Walker told him.
With no little eagerness Red Crow and I unlaced the round end covers of our Crow war cylinders, and drew out the contents, and found that we each had a beautiful war suit and eagle tail feather war bonnet. The streaming ends of the bonnets were feathered all the way, and were so long that they would drag at our heels as we walked. Then and there a visitor in the lodge offered me five horses for my costume. I would not have parted with it for any number of horses; I had nine head, all that I could possibly use while on the trail.
We camped on Arrow River all of a week, the women busily gathering choke-cherries for winter use. Upon bringing them into camp they pounded them, pits and all, on flat rocks, and set the mass on clean rawhides to dry, and then stored it in rawhide pouches. There was never enough of it for daily use. In its raw state, or stewed, or mixed with finely pounded dry meat and marrow grease—pemmican—it was passed around as a side dish to a feast. I liked it, andalways ate my share, although never without some misgivings as to the effect of the sharp and indigestible particles of pounded pits in my stomach.
During our stay at this place an old, old man named Kip-i-tai-su-yi-kak-i (Old-Woman-Stretching-Her-Legs) came into our lodge one night, took his bow and quiver case from his back, passed it to me and said: "There, my son Rising Wolf! I heard that you wanted bow and arrows, so I give you this set, one that I took long ago in battle with the Snake People. It is a good bow. The arrows are well feathered and fly straight. I hope that you will have good success with my present, and sometimes remember that I am fond of broiled tongue!"
And at that he laughed, and we all laughed with him, and I said that he should not lack for tongues, and kept my word. I was very glad to get the bow. At first it was a little too stiff for the strength of my arms, but with daily use of it my muscles grew up to its requirement ofstrength, and I soon became a fair shot with the feathered shafts. I did not carry the bow all the time, but always used it for running buffaloes. On my first chase with it I killed three cows, and once, several years later, shot down thirteen cows with it in one run. But that was nothing. I once saw a man, named Little Otter, shoot twenty-seven buffaloes in one run! He was a big, powerfully built man, he rode a big, swift, well-trained, buffalo horse, and every time he let an arrow fly it slipped into an animal just back of the ribs and ranged forward into the heart and lungs.
You ask how a man happened to be named Old-Woman-Stretching-Her-Legs. When a child was born, a medicine man was called in to name it, and invariably the name he gave was of something he had seen, or of some incident, in one of his dreams, or, as he believed them to be, visions. Thus, in a dream, the medicine man had seen an old woman at rest, or sleeping, and she had stretched down her legs to get more ease. Hencethe name. A woman generally retained through life the name given her at birth. A man, as I have explained, was entitled to take a new name every time he counted a big coup. Some odd names that I remember are Chewing-Black-Bones; Back-Coming-in-Sight; Tail-Feathers-Coming-in-Sight-over-the-Hill; Falling Bear; and He-Talked-with-the-Buffalo.
During the time of our encampment on Arrow River, Red Crow and I killed a number of fine bighorn rams along the cliffs, and the skins of these, tanned into soft leather and smoked by the women, were made into a shirt and leggings for me. It was time that I had them, for my one suit of company clothes was falling to pieces. Also, my shoes had given out. Attired now in leather clothes, breechclout, moccasins, and with a toga, or wrap of buffalo cow leather, I was all Indian except in color. Lone Walker himself made the suit for me. Men were their own tailors; the women made only their moccasins. In time I learned to cut out and sew my clothing.
Red Crow had become the owner of one of the two huge Spanish bits that we had found in the cave with the rest of the Crow belongings. It was beautifully fashioned of hand-forged steel, its long shanks inlaid with silver, and he took good care of it, polishing and cleaning it frequently. As he was thus occupied one evening, Lone Walker pointed to the bit and asked me if I knew whence it had come. I didn't, of course, and said so, whereupon he told Mink Woman to take down a long, well-wrapped roll of buckskin that was invariably fastened to the lodge poles above his couch. I had often wondered what it might contain. He undid the fastenings, unrolled wrap after wrap of leather, and held up to my astonished gaze a shirt of mail, very fine meshed and light, and an exquisitely fashioned rapier. He passed them to me for examination, and I found etched on the rapier blade the legend: "Francisco Alvarez. Barcelona. 1693." It was an old Spanish blade.
"The people who made the bit," he told me insigns and words, very slowly and carefully so that I would understand, "made these. They live in the Far Southland; the always-summer land. I went there once with a party of our people, traveling ever south all summer. We started from our country when the grass first started in the spring, and, counting the moons, arrived in that far Southland in the first moon of winter here. We found there white men different from those who had come to the Assiniboine River and built a fort. They were dark-skinned and black-haired, most of them. They had many horses. We went south to take their horses, and captured many of them. But not without a fight, several fights. In one of the fights I killed the man who wore this iron shirt and carried this big knife. We did not get back to our country until the middle of the next summer. That is a strong shirt. Arrows cannot pierce it. It has saved my life three different times in battle with the enemy."
Well, that was news to me, that these peoplewent so very far, all the way to Mexico, on their raids. Afterward I heard many interesting tales of raids into the Far South, many parties going there in my time, and generally returning with great bands of horses and plunder taken from the Spanish, and from different Indian tribes. I learned that the Crows had the first horses that the Blackfeet tribes ever saw, and that they were almost paralyzed with astonishment when they saw men mount the strange, big animals and guide them in whatever direction they wished to go. But fear soon gave place to burning desire to own the useful animals, and they began raiding the herds of the Crows, the Snakes, and other Southern tribes, and the Spanish, and in time became owners of thousands of them through capture, and by natural increase. Lone Walker told me that his people first obtained horses when his father's father was a small boy, and as near as I could figure it, that was about 1680 to 1700. The acquisition of the horse caused a vast change in the life of the Blackfeettribes. Before that time, with only their wolf-like dogs for beasts of burden, their wanderings had been limited to the forests of the Slave Lakes region, and the edge of the plains of the Saskatchewan. With horses for riding and packing, and, later, a few guns obtained from the Sieur de la Vérendrie's company, they swept southward and conquered a vast domain and became the terror of all surrounding tribes. The Blackfeet named the horse, po-no-ka-mi-ta (elk-dog), because, like the dog, it carried burdens, and was of large size, like the elk.
One evening, there at Arrow River, Lone Walker told me that we would ride out early the next morning, and he would show me a "white men's leavings,"—nap-i-kwaks o-kit-stuks-in, in his language. I asked him what it was, and was told to be patient; that I should see it. Accordingly, we rode out on the plain on the trail by which we had come down to the river, then turned sharply to the right, following the general course of the big, walled valley, andafter several hours' travel came to a pile of rocks set on top of a low ridge on the plain, and at the head of a very long coulee, heading there and running down to the river, several miles away. "There! That is white men's leavings!" the chief exclaimed. "We know not how long ago they piled those rocks. It was in my father's time that our people found the pile, just as you see it, except that at that time a white metal figure of a man against black, crossed sticks, his arms outstretched, was stuck in the top of it, so that it faced yonder Belt Mountains."
I was tremendously interested. "What became of the man figure?" I asked.
"The finder kept it for some time, and then sacrificed it to the sun; hung it to the roof of a medicine lodge," he answered, and it seemed strange to think that an image of Jesus had been presented to a pagan god.
"How long ago do you think it was that white men put up this pile?" I asked.
"Fifty, maybe sixty, maybe seventy winters.In my father's time white men came to the camp of the Earth House People. It was in winter time. They rode horses; wore iron shirts; carried guns with big, flaring muzzles, and long knives. From the camp of the Earth House People they went west, returned soon, and went back north, whence they had come. None of our tribes saw them."
I said to myself: "The Sieur de la Vérendrie's party must have put up this monument, and yonder Belt Mountains must be those that they named the Shining Mountains!"
Well I knew the story of the brave and unfortunate Sieur. My grandfather, who had had some interest in his ventures, had related it many times. Because of enemies who had the favor of the Court, in France, he had failed in his undertakings to establish a great fur trade in the West, and he had died of a broken heart! I must confess that I felt some disappointment upon learning that I was not, as I had thought, the first of my race to see this part of the country. However, the knowledge that I had been the first white person to traverse the great Saskatchewan-Missouri River country comforted me.
As we rode homeward I learned from Lone Walker that a man named Sees Far had discovered the monument and taken the cross. He was long since dead. I was afraid to ask where the medicine lodge was built at which the cross had been sacrificed to the sun. The penalty for robbing the sun was death. The Blackfeet tribes had too much reverence for their gods to do that, and war parties of other tribes, traveling through the country and coming upon a deserted medicine lodge, gave it a wide berth; they feared the power of the shining god for whom it had been built. I remember that the Kai-na tribe of the Blackfeet once came upon three free trappers (or were they the American Company'sengagés—I forget) robbing a medicine lodge, and killed them all!
I come now to a part of my story that is notso very happy. On the morning that we broke the Arrow River camp, the chiefs, and the guard that generally rode ahead of the column, remained on the camp ground, gathered here and there in little groups smoking and telling stories, until long after the people had packed up and were traveling up the long coulee through which the trail led to the plain on the south side of the valley. I went on with Red Crow and Mink Woman, and a young man named Eagle Plume, Lone Walker's nephew, helping them herd along the chief's big band of horses in which, of course, were those that he had given me. As soon as we got out of the narrow confine of the coulee we drove the herd at one side of the beaten travois and pack trail, keeping about even with Lone Walker's outfit of women and children riders, and their loaded horses. Their place was at the head of the Little Robes Band, and that had its place in the long line about a half mile from the lead band, which was that of the Lone Eaters.
We had traveled three or four miles from theriver, and were wending our way among a wide, long setting of rough hills, keeping ever in the low places between them, when, without the slightest warning, a large body of riders dashed out from behind a steep hill and made for the head of our column. Far off as they were, we could hear them raise their war song, and could see that they were all decked out in their war finery.
"Crows! Crows! They attack us!" I heard men crying as they urged their horses forward.
"Crows! We must help fight them!" Red Crow called to me, and like one in a dream I found myself with my companions riding madly for the front.
All the men from the whole length of the line were rushing forward, even the old and weak who had scarce strength enough to string their bows. Ahead, women and children were coming back as fast as they could make their horses run, and pack horses, travois horses, and those dragging lodge poles were running in all directions and scattering their loads upon the plain. It was a scene of awful confusion and of noise; women and children yelling and crying with fright, flying past us wild eyed, our men shouting to one another to hurry, to take courage, and above all, louder than all, the yells and shouts of the enemy and our few warriors there at the front.
The Crows were forcing our men back; they were fighting their best but were far outnumbered and, as we could see, were falling not a few.I looked back, and the sight of hundreds of our men coming on was encouraging. With my companions, and twenty or thirty more riders, I was now getting close to the fighting. The Crows, in one big, long body, were riding full speed across the stand our men were making, shooting their arrows and few guns as they passed, and wheeling out and around for another charge by them. This they had done many times, and so far as I could see, but few of them had fallen.
At last we were at the front, arriving there just as the Crows were making another of their wheeling charges. They must have been all of four hundred men, and we there facing them were not two hundred. On they came, to pass close on our right, shouting their war cry, their long-tailed war bonnets, the fringe of their beautiful clothes, the plumes of their shields all a-flutter in the wind. A brave sight they were, and fearsome! As they swept past us they shot their arrows, the air was full of them, and we shot at them. Several men on both sides went down,horses were wounded and became unmanageable in their fright, carrying their riders whither they willed. My horse was dancing with excitement and jerking on his bit, making it impossible for me to take steady aim, so I fired my gun at the thickest group of the passing riders and so far as I could see did them no harm.
AS THEY SWEPT PAST US THEY SHOT THEIR ARROWS
AS THEY SWEPT PAST US THEY SHOT THEIR ARROWS
AS THEY SWEPT PAST US THEY SHOT THEIR ARROWS
This time, instead of wheeling out and around for another charge, the Crow chief led his men straight on along the line of the fleeing women and children. Swarms of our men were coming out, and he no doubt concluded to do all the damage that he could before he would have to give way before our superior numbers. Upon seeing his intent, we, too, turned back, the men crying out to one another: "The women! The children! Fight hard for them!"
Out where the Crows had first struck our column there were dead and dying and wounded women and children, as well as men, and now more began to fall. The Crows were without mercy. Here were the people who had despoiledthem; taken from them their vast hunting-ground; and now they should pay for it with their blood! They were so drunk with hatred that they were for the time reckless of harm to themselves.
We followed them close. Beyond, a great crowd of our men were riding at them, led by Lone Walker himself. I did not see what he did, I had eyes only for what was immediately around me, but I heard the tale of it many times afterward. He made straight for the Crow chief, and the latter for him, and they brought their horses together with such a shock that both fell. As they went down both men sprang free and grappled one another, Lone Walker dropping his empty gun, and the Crow letting go his bow and handful of arrows. A crowd surrounded them, the Crows endeavoring to aid their chief, our men fighting them off. The Crow chief had managed to get out his knife, but Lone Walker gave his arm such a sudden fierce twist that he dropped it, endeavored to recover it, and as hedid so Lone Walker got out his own knife and stabbed him down through his back into his heart, and he fell and died!
In the meantime we were in a terrible scrimmage; a thick mixup of riders. I had stuck my gun in under my belt, there was no time to reload it, and had fired one of my pistols, and now got out the other one. Red Crow and I were side by side. He had shot away his handful of arrows and was reaching into his quiver for more when a Crow rode up beside him, reached out and grasped him by the arm, endeavoring to pull him over and knife him. I saw him just in time to poke my pistol over past Red Crow and fire, and down he went from his horse! The sight of him falling, his awful stare of hate—would you believe it, made me sick and sorry for him, enemy though he was! "I have killed a man! I have killed a man!" I said to myself as I replaced the pistol and got out my gun to use as a club, as I saw others doing. But just then I saw a wounded woman stagger to her feet, and thenwith a cry throw up her hands and fall dead, and I shouted with joy that I had killed, and with Red Crow dashed on, thirsting now to kill! kill! kill! Right there, and for all time vanished my doubts, my tender-heartedness! The enemies of the Pi-kun-i were my enemies so long as they tried to do me harm!
Their chief dead, and faced by ever-increasing numbers of our warriors, the Crows now turned and fled, but we did not chase them far; our men were so anxious about their families, to learn if they were safe, or dead, that they had no heart for the pursuit. It was a terrible sight that met our eyes as we turned and went back to that part of the trail that had been the scene of the fight; everywhere along it were dead and wounded men and women and children and horses. I could not bear to look at them, and was glad when Lone Walker told a number of us to round up the pack and travois horses scattered out upon the plain, and drive them back to the river, where we would go into camp and bury the dead.We were a long time doing that, necessarily leaving the packs that had fallen for the owners to recover later. When we got back to the river with our drive we found many lodges already up, including our two. None of Lone Walker's great family had been harmed, nor had they met any loss of property. Red Crow and I got a hasty bite to eat, and catching fresh horses went with a strong guard that was to remain out on the plain until all the dead had been carried in for burial, and all the scattered property recovered. That was all done before sunset, and then a guard was placed about camp for the night, and another told off to herd the horses.
That was a sad evening. Everywhere in camp there was wailing for the dead; everywhere medicine men were praying for the wounded, chanting their sacred songs as they went through strange ceremonies for curing them. The chiefs gathered in our lodge to bitterly blame themselves for not having been out at the front, with the guard ahead of them, when camp was broken.They had taken count of our loss: forty-one men, thirty-two women and girls, and nine children were dead and buried—the trees in the near grove were full of them—and some of the wounded were sure to die. The Crows had lost sixty-one of their number, and some of their wounded would undoubtedly die. Not then, nor for many a night afterward, did anyone tell what he had particularly done in the fight against the enemy. It was surmised that, in wiping out the seven Crows on the cliff, another member of the party, perhaps on watch elsewhere, had been overlooked; and that he had gone home and brought his people to attack us. There were two tribes of the enemy: the River Crows and the Mountain Crows. If camping together, they were too strong for the Pi-kun-i to attack. That very evening three messengers were selected to go north to the Kai-na, camping somewhere in the Bear Paw Mountains, and ask them to come down and join in a raid against the enemy.
I pass over the ensuing days of sadness, inwhich seven of the wounded died. As soon as the others were well enough to travel we moved on, camped one night on O-to-kwi-tuk-tai, Yellow River, or as Lewis and Clark named it, Judith River, and the next day moved east to a small stream named It-tsis-ki-os-op (It-Crushed-Them). Years later it was named Armell's Creek after an American Fur Company man who built a trading post at its junction with the Missouri. The Blackfoot name was given it for the reason that some women, when digging red paint in the foot of a high cutbank bordering the stream, had been killed by a heavy fall of the earth.
The stream rises in the midst of some high, flat-topped buttes crowned with a sparse growth of scrub pine and juniper, and its valley is well timbered with pine and cottonwood. Its head is only a few miles from the foot of the Mut-si-kin-is-tuk-ists (Moccasin Mountains). On the morning after we went into camp I rode out to hunt with Red Crow, and he took me to the extreme head of the stream, which was a largespring under an overhang of wall rock. This sloped up from the sands of the floor on the right of the spring to a height of six or seven feet on the outside of the spring, and was of dark brown volcanic rock. Originally very rough, as the extreme outer and inner portion attested, this roof had in the course of ages been rubbed smooth by the animals that had come there to drink at the spring. All that had come, from small antelopes to huge buffaloes, had found the right height of it against which to rub their backs, and they had rubbed and rubbed until the whole roof as high as they could touch it was as smooth and lustrous as glass. I could see my face in it.
While standing there we heard some animals coming along one of the many trails in the surrounding timber, and presently saw that they were a file of bull elk. We had left our horses some distance back, so they saw nothing to alarm them. When they were within thirty feet of us Red Crow let fly an arrow at the leader, and the others stopped and stared at him as hefell, and struggled fruitlessly to regain his feet. That gave my companion time to slip an arrow into another one, and then I fired and dropped a third, and we had all the meat that we wanted. We butchered the three, and then went home and sent Lone Walker's nephew and some of the women out with pack horses for the meat.
From the time that the Crows made their terrible attack upon us, we kept a strong guard with the horses night and day, and kept scouting parties far out on the plains watching for the possible return of the enemy. Some men who had been sent to trail the Crows to their camp, returned in eight or nine days' time and reported that it was on The-Other-Side Bear River (O-pum-ohst Kyai-is-i-sak-ta), straight south from the pass in the Moccasin Mountains. This is the Musselshell River of Lewis and Clark. The Blackfoot name for it distinguishes it from their other Bear River, the Marias.
The returning scouts said that the camp was very large, and in two parts, showing that bothtribes of the Crows were there. Said Lone Walker when he got the news: "And so they have dared to come back into our land and hunt our game! Ha! As soon as the Kai-na come we shall make them pay dearly for that!"
The talk now was all of war. In every tree about the camp were hung the warriors' offerings to the sun, placed there with prayers to the god to give them success in the coming battle.
As I have said, the camp was always pitched in a big circle of the clan groups. Inside this circle were nine lodges set in a smaller circle, each one painted with a sacred, or "medicine" design, no two of them alike. The one always set nearest to our Small Robes group of lodges was owned by a great warrior named Mi-nik-sa-pwo-pi (Mad Plume), and had for its design a huge buffalo bull and a buffalo cow in black, the heart, and the life line running to it from the mouth, painted bright red. I had not thought that these lodges had any especial significance, but I was soon to know better. On the day afterwe killed the elk at the shining rock spring, Red Crow pointed to the buffalo medicine lodge and said to me: "Just think; we are invited there to-night! We are asked to join the Braves!"
"He does not understand," said Lone Walker, standing near us. "Let us sit here, White Son, and I will explain."
We sat there in front of our lodge, and the chief began: "Those nine are the lodges of the chiefs of the All Friends Society. It has nine different bands: the Braves, All-Crazy-Dogs, Raven Carriers, Dogs, Tails, Horns, Kit-Foxes, Siezers, and Bulls. To become a member of one of the bands one has to be of good heart, of a straight tongue, generous, and of proved bravery; so you see that you are thought to be all that, else you would not be asked to join this band of Braves, made up of our young warriors. I am a member of the Bulls, our oldest warriors. All the bands are under the orders of myself and my brother clan chiefs. There! Now you understand!"
But I didn't. I learned in time, however, that this great I-kun-uh-kat-si, or All Friends Society, had for its main object the carrying out—under the direction of the chiefs—of the tribal laws. If a man or woman was to be punished, it was a band of the society that meted it out, after the chiefs decided what the punishment should be. In battle the members of a band hung close together, shouting the name of it, and encouraging one another to do their best. Each band had its particular songs, and its own peculiar way of dancing. Its chief's lodge was its headquarters, and there of an evening the members were wont to gather for a social time, for a little feast, singing, and story telling as the pipe went round the circle.
When Red Crow and I went into the Braves' lodge that evening, Mad Plume made us welcome, and indicated that we should sit at his left. That was the only space left; all the rest was occupied by his family, and members of the band, who also gave us pleasant greeting.
"Now, then, young men," Mad Plume said to us as soon as we were seated, "we have had our eyes upon you for some time, thinking to invite you to join us. We learned that you are good-hearted, generous, truthful, that you are good to the old. We but waited to learn what you would do before the enemy, and we learned; the other day when the Crows attacked us you each did your best; you each did your share in driving them off, and each killed. So now we ask: Would you like to become Braves?"
"Yes! Yes!" we exclaimed.
"And will you always obey the orders of the tribes' chiefs, and the Braves' chief?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Then you are Braves!" he concluded. And all present signified their approval. I can't begin to tell you how pleased I was, how proud of this unexpected honor. And at last I felt absolutely safe with the Pi-kun-i; felt that they considered me one of them in every respect.
There were countless herds of game in alldirections from our camp there on It-Crushed-Them. By day the hunters scattered it, but it was the mating season of the buffaloes, they were very uneasy, constantly on the move, and fresh herds took the place of those that were frightened away. One day when Red Crow and I were out after meat, with Mink Woman trailing us with a couple of pack horses, we saw a small band of buffaloes lying on a side hill, and leaving our horses in the shelter of the timber around the shining rock spring, approached them. We followed up a shallow coulee that headed close to the resting animals, in places crawling upon hands and knees in order to keep under the shelter of low banks. Mink Woman followed us close. We had asked her to remain with the horses, but she was determined to be right with us and see the shooting at close range.
We were still several hundred yards from the buffaloes, much too far for Red Crow's arrows, and even my gun, when we heard the moaning bellow of bulls off to our left. We paid no attention to it; there had been no buffaloes in sight in that direction, and we thought that the animals making it were a long way off. That deep, muffled bellowing, however, was wonderfully deceiving; just by the sound of it, without looking, one could never determine if the animals making it were near by, or a mile or so away. But now we were suddenly warned that the bulls we heard were close; we could hear the rushing thud of their feet, and two appeared just a few yards ahead of us, attacking one another on the edge of the coulee and slipping sideways down the steep bank, head pressed against head.
"They are mad! Don't shoot, don't move, else they may attack us!" Red Crow told me, and Mink Woman, just back of us, heard him.
But they were not all; only two of a band of thirty or forty, all bulls, all outcasts from different herds, mad at one another and at all the world. The two fighting incited others to fight, and the rest, moaning and tossing their heads, switching their short tails, were soon all aroundus. They presented a most frightful spectacle! Their dark eyes seemed to shoot fire from under the overhanging shaggy hair; several more engaged in fights, and some of those afraid to do that attacked the bank of the coulee and with their sharp horns gouged out pieces of turf and tossed them in every direction. We dared not move; we hardly dared breathe; our suspense was almost unbearable. Said Mink Woman at last: "Brother, I am terribly frightened. I think that I shall have to run!"
"Don't you do it! No running unless we are about to be stepped upon!" he answered. An old bull standing not twenty feet from us heard the low talk, whirled around and stared at us. Anyhow I thought that it was at us, but if it was, he likely did not distinguish us from the rocks and sage brush among which we were lying. If he charged us I intended to shoot him in the brain, and then we should have to take our chances running from the others. But just then a bellowing started off where the band was thatwe had been approaching, and he turned and went leaping out of the coulee toward it, others following, leaving but two sets fighting in front of us. At that Mink Woman, no longer able to stand the strain, sprang to her feet and ran down the coulee, we then following her and looking back to see if we were pursued. The fighters paid no attention to us, but we kept running and never stopped until we reached our horses. Then, looking up the hill, we saw that the bulls had mingled with the band that we had been after, and all were traveling off to the south.
"Hai! We have had a narrow escape!" Red Crow exclaimed, and went on to tell me that outcast bulls were very dangerous. The hunters never tried to approach them on foot, and generally kept well away from them even when well mounted. Mink Woman listened, still shaking a little from the fright she had had, and then told me that only the summer before a mad bull had attacked a woman near camp and pierced her through the back with one of his horns, uponwhich she hung suspended despite his efforts to shake her off. Becoming frightened then, and blinded by her wrap, he had rushed right into camp and into a lodge, upsetting it and trampling its contents until killed by the men. He fell with the woman still impaled upon his horn. She was dead!
As we mounted and rode on, Red Crow told other instances of people being killed by outcast bulls. He said that bulls with a herd were not bad; that the cows would always run from the hunter, and they with them. We proved that in less than an hour, for we again approached the band that had been on the hillside, the outcast bulls now with it, and in a short run killed three cows, the bulls sprinting their best to outrun our horses.
Except for playing children and quarreling dogs, ours was a very quiet camp those days there on It-Crushed-Them. The people still mourned for their dead and, for that matter, did so for a year or more. Those not mourning hadno heart for social pleasure. All waited impatiently for the coming of the Kai-na. Day after day the medicine men got out their sacred pipes and smoked and prayed to the gods to give the warriors great success against the Crows, still encamped upon The-Other-Side Bear River, as the scouts kept reporting. I wondered if the Crows had scouts out keeping equally close watch upon our camp.
One morning Lone Walker sent Red Crow and me to the Black Butte, the extreme eastern end of the Moccasin Mountains, with dried meat and back fat for the four scouts stationed there. We started very early, arrived at the foot of the butte by something like ten o'clock, and there left our horses in a grove of cottonwoods, and began the ascent with our packs of meat. It was a long, steep, winding climb up around to its southern slope, and thence to its summit, and we did not attain it until mid-afternoon. We found two of the watchers asleep in a little enclosure of rocks just under the summit, and thetwo others sitting upon the highest point. They had seen us approaching the butte on our horses, and were expecting us. They had no word for us to take back; no enemies had appeared, the country seemed to be free from them.
It was from this high point that I got my first good view of the Bear Paw, and Wolf Mountains, across on the north side of the Missouri, and the great plains of the Missouri-Musselshell country. The plains were black with buffaloes as far out in all directions as the eye could distinguish them. I cannot begin to tell you how glad I was to be there on that high point looking out upon that vast buffalo plain, its grand mountains, its sentinel buttes, and deep-gashed river valleys. I had a sense of ownership in it all. White though my skin, and blue my eyes, I was a member of a Blackfoot tribe, yes, even a member of its law and order society. And so, in common with my red people, an owner of this great hunting-ground!
And even as I was thinking that, Red Crowturned from a long lookout upon it and said to me: "Rising Wolf, brother, what a rich, what a beautiful land is ours!"
No, that doesn't express it; he said, "Ki-sak-ow-an-on!" (Your land and ours!)
"Ai! That is truth!" I answered, and we hastened down the steep butte, mounted our horses and went homeward across the plain.
We arrived in camp to find the messengers returned from the north. With them had come several hundred warriors of the Kai-na, and the whole tribe would be with us on the following day. For the first time since the fight with the Crows our camp livened up; feasts were prepared in many lodges for our guests, and later in the evening several bands of the All Friends Society gave dances in which they joined. For the first time, I put on my Crow war suit and joined in the dance of the Braves. As I had been practicing the step all by myself in the brush, I did quite well, and even got some praise.
The Kai-na trailed in and set up their lodges just below us the next afternoon. I counted the lodges and found that there were eleven hundred and thirty, including twenty-five or thirty lodges of Gros Ventres. All together we were a camp of nearly three thousand lodges—about fifteen thousand people. I looked out at the horses grazing upon the plain; there was no estimating the number; there were thousands and thousands of them!
That evening Eagle Ribs, head chief of the Kai-na, came with his clan chiefs to our lodge to council with Lone Walker and his clan chiefs. They all used such big words to express what they had to say that I would never have known what the talk was about had they not also used signs, these for the benefit of the Gros Ventre clan chief, who did not understand the Blackfoot language anywhere near as well as I did. The council lasted far into the night. When it broke up the decision was that we were to break camp early in the morning, travel all day on the trailto the Crow camp, and on the following morning go on, the warriors as fast as possible, the rest at the usual pace. It was the general opinion that we could strike the Crow camp early in the afternoon of the second day.
On the following evening we camped upon a small stream flowing into the Musselshell through a wide valley lying between the Moccasin Mountains, and another outlying shoot from the Rockies, named Kwun-is-tuk-ists (Snow Mountains). Not so named because they were more snowy than other mountains, but for their white rock formation. From a distance large bare areas of this on the dark, timbered slopes have all the appearance of snow banks.
The two great camps of us were certainly lively enough that evening. In the early part of it there was much dancing and feasting, many gatherings in the lodges of the medicine men for prayers, and sacrifices for success on the morrow, and later on the men laid out their war suits and war bonnets ready to put on in the morning. A big fire was lighted soon after dark to call in thewatchers from the high points along the Moccasins, and the Snow Mountains, all of them excepting those upon the trail in the gap of the latter, from which they kept watch upon the camp of the enemy.
Late in the evening, nearly midnight it was, one of these last came in and told Lone Walker that the Crows seemed to be unaware of our approach, and at sundown their camp must still have been in the river valley, for they had not been seen trailing out from there. During the day movements of the buffaloes had shown that their hunters had been out from both sides of the valley for meat.
On the following morning we were all up before daylight, eating hurried meals that the women set before us, looking over our weapons, and anxious to be on our way. And the women were just as anxious that we start, for they wanted to pack up and follow as fast as they could; they were expecting to become rich with Crow property that day. Soon after daylight we mounted ourbest horses and were off, the Pi-kun-i and Kai-na chiefs, and the Ut-se-na, or Gros Ventre, chief with them in the lead, we following, band after band of the All Friends Society. All the Blackfeet tribes had this Society.
At mid-forenoon, when we topped the pass in the Snow Mountains, we found there our watchers awaiting us with somewhat disturbing news; they had not that morning seen any movement of the Crows out on the plain from their camp. Other mornings they had appeared on the plains on both sides of the river, rounding up their horses, riding out to hunt.
"Maybe they have discovered what we are up to, and have struck out for their country off there across Elk River," Lone Walker said to Eagle Ribs.
"Ai! One of their war parties may have seen us. If they did, they had plenty of time to get in with the news; we did not travel fast," said the Kai-na chief.
"Well, let us hurry on!" Lone Walker cried,and away we went down the pass and out upon the plain.
"It is just as I thought," I said to myself. "If we could keep a watch upon their camp, they could upon ours. They saw the Kai-na joining us, and have fled!"
It was a long way from the foot of the mountains out across the plain to the river; all of twenty miles, I should say. We made the length of it at a killing pace, and when, at last, we arrived at the rim of the valley our horses were covered with sweat, gasping for breath and about done for. Here and there in the big, long bottom under us a number of scattered lodges and hundreds of standing pole sets, told of the hurried flight of the Crows. We went down to the camp and examined it, and learned by raking out the fireplaces that it had been abandoned the previous evening. In the hurry of their going, they had left about all of their heavy property, all of their lodge pole sets, many lodges complete, and no end ofparflèchesand pack pouches filledwith dried meat and tongues, pemmican, and dried berries. There was also much other stuff scattered about: rolls of leather; tanned and partly tanned buffalo robes for winter use; moccasins, used, and new, and beautifully embroidered; and many pack saddles and ropes.
"Well, brothers, all this will make our women happy," said Eagle Ribs, with a wave of his hand around.
"Ai! Some of them. It will not lighten the hearts of those who mourn!" said Lone Walker.
"And we cannot now lighten them! The Crows have a night's start of us, and our horses are so tired that we cannot overtake them," said Mad Plume.
"Before night they will cross Elk River and fortify themselves so strongly in timber, or on hill, that it will be impossible for us to carry the position!" another exclaimed.
All the chiefs agreed to that, and then Lone Walker said: "All that we can do is to keep parties out after their horses as long as we remain in this south part of our country. That, and the great loss of their property here, will teach them to remain upon their own hunting-ground."
The whole party then dismounted, some gathering in groups for a smoke, others scattering out to wander in the deserted camp and gather up for their women whatever took their fancy. Red Crow and I rode to the upper camp and had great fun going from lodge to lodge and examining the heaps of stuff that the Crows had abandoned. My quest was for fur, and I collected nine beaver and two otter skins.
That evening the chiefs held another council. Some were for giving the Crows time to get over their scare, and then going down into their country—all the warriors of both our tribes, and taking them by surprise and wiping them out. Lone Walker said that to do that we would have to lose a great many men; that he thought his plan, to keep them poor in horses, was the best. Finally, I was asked to give my opinion on thematter. I had been thinking a lot about it, and in signs, and with what words I could command, spoke right out:
"When I saw the women killed by the Crows, I was so angry that I wanted to help you fight until all the Crows were dead, but I do not feel so now," I told them. "You have done great wrongs to the Crows; back there on Arrow River they did only what you have done to them. Here is a great, rich country, large enough for all. I would like to see you make peace with the Crows, they agreeing to remain on their side of Elk River, and you on your side of it."
"Ha! Your white son has a gentle heart!" a Kai-na chief told Lone Walker.
"If you mean that he has an afraid heart, you are mistaken. In the fight the other day, he killed an enemy who was about to kill my son, Red Crow," Lone Walker answered, and at that the chief clapped a hand to his mouth in surprise and approval, and his manner quickly changed to one of great friendliness to me.
Said Lone Walker to me then: "My son, what you propose cannot be done. We have twice made peace with the Crows, the last time right here on this river, and both times they broke it within a moon. It was five summers back that we made the last peace with them. It was agreed that we should remain on the north side of Elk River, they on the south side, and neither tribe should raid the other's horse herds. The two tribes of us camped here side by side for many days, making friends with one another. We gave feasts for the Crows, they gave feasts for us. Every day there was a big dance in their camp, or in ours. A young Crow and one of our girls fell in love with one another, and we let him have her. Well, at last we parted from the Crows and started north, and had gone no farther than Yellow River when one of their war parties, following us, fell upon some of our hunters and killed four, one escaping wounded. So you see how it is: the Crows will not keep their word; it is useless to make peace with them."
On the next evening a mixed party of our and Kai-na warriors, about a hundred men, set out on foot to raid the Crow horse herds. They were going to take no chances; their plan was to travel nights, to find the Crows and watch for an opportunity to run off a large number of their stock.
The two tribes of us were too many people to camp together, so many hunters scattering the game, so that after a few days we were obliged to go a long way from camp to get meat. Another council was held and the chiefs decided that we, the Pi-kun-i, should winter in the upper Yellow River country, and the Kai-na on the Missouri, between the mouth of Yellow River and the mouth of the stream upon which we were then camping. Two days later we broke camp and went our way.
We struck Yellow River higher up than where we had crossed it coming out, and went into camp in a big, timbered bottom through which flowed a small stream named Hot Spring Water.On the following day Red Crow took me to the head of it, only a few miles from its junction with Yellow River, and there I saw my first hot spring. It was very large, and deep, and the water so hot that I could not put my hand in it.
Our camp here was at the foot, and east end of the Yellow Mountains. In the gap between them and the Moccasin Mountains, rose the hot spring in a beautiful, well grassed valley. Never in all my wanderings have I seen quite so good a game country as that was, and for that matter continued to be for no less than sixty years from that time.
As soon as we went into camp the chiefs put the hunting law into effect: from that time no one was allowed to hunt buffaloes when and where he willed. A watch was kept upon the herds, and when one came close to camp the chiefs' crier went all among the lodges calling out that the herd was near, and that all who wished to join in the chase should catch up their runners and gather at a certain place. Fromthere the hunters would go out under the lead of some chief, approach the herd under cover, and then dash into it and make a big run, generally killing a large number of the animals. The strict observance of this law meant plenty of buffalo meat for all the people all the time, secured close to camp instead of far out on the winter plains. There was no law regarding the hunting of the mountain game, the elk, deer, and bighorns. They were not killed in any great number, for they became poor in winter, whereas the buffaloes retained their thick layer of fat until spring. And buffalo meat was by far the best, the most nutritious, the most easily digested. One never tired of it, as he did of the meat of other game.
When the leaves began to fall the real work of the winter was started, the taking of beavers for trade at our Mountain Fort. The streams were alive with them, and so tame were they that numbers were killed with bow and arrow. I myself killed several in that way, lying in waitfor them at dams they were building, or on their trails to their wood cutting and dragging operations. But when winter came, and the ponds and streams froze over and they retired to their snug houses in the ponds, and dens in the stream banks, the one way then to get them was by setting traps, through the ice, at the entrances to their homes; they came out daily to their sunken piles of food sticks, dragged back what they wanted and ate the bark, and then took the stripped sticks out into the water, where they drifted off with the current.
By the time real winter set in, about all the beavers for miles around had been caught, and then most of the trappers rested. Red Crow, however, was so anxious to obtain pelts enough for the purchase of one of our company guns that he would not stop, and finally persuaded his father to allow us to go over on the head of Arrow River and trap there for a time. Red Crow's mother, Sis-tsa-ki, wanted to go with us, but Lone Walker said that he couldn't possiblyspare his sits-beside-him wife, but another one, named Ah-wun-a-ki (Rattle Woman), and Red Crow's sister, Mink Woman, were allowed to go along to look after our comfort. A small lodge, lining and all, was borrowed for our use, and we started out in fine shape, taking five pack and travois horses to carry our outfit, and each riding a good horse. We made Arrow River that day, and camped pretty well on the head of it before noon the next day.
"Now, then, mother, and brother, and sister," said Red Crow after we had unpacked the horses, "we shall eat only the very best food here, and to begin, we will have stuffed entrail for our evening meal. Put up the lodge, you two, and get plenty of wood for the night, and Rising Wolf and I will go kill a fat buffalo cow."
There were a number of small bands of buffaloes in the breaks of the valley, and approaching the nearest one of them, I shot a fine young cow. We butchered it, took what meat we wanted, and a certain entrail that was streakedits whole length with threads of soft, snow-white fat. When we got to camp with our load, Rattle Woman took this entrail from us, washed it thoroughly in the stream, and brought it back to the lodge. She then cut some loin meat, or, as the whites call it, porterhouse steak, into small pieces about as large as hazel nuts and stuffed the entrail with it, the entrail being turned inside out in the process. Both ends of the entrail were then tied fast with sinew thread, and she placed it on the coals to broil, frequently turning it to keep it from burning. It was broiled for about fifteen minutes, shrinking considerably in that time, and was then thrown into a kettle of water and boiled for about fifteen minutes, and then we each took a fourth of its length and had our feast. Those who have never had meat cooked in this manner know not what good meat is! The threads of white fat on the entrail, it was turned inside out, you remember, gave it the required richness, and the tying of the ends kept in all the rich juices of the meat, something thatcannot be done by any other method of cooking. The Blackfoot name for this was is-sap-wot-sists (put-inside-entrail). Their name for the Crows was Sap-wo, an abbreviation of the word, and I have often wondered if they did not learn this method of meat cooking from them during some time of peace between the two tribes.
There were so many of us in Lone Walker's family that we never had enough is-sap-wot-sists, the highest achievement of the meat cooker's art. But here on Arrow River the four of us in our snug lodge, with game all about us, had it every day, with good portions of dried berries that we had taken from the abandoned Crow camp. We certainly lived high! Red Crow had four traps, I had five. We set them carefully in ponds and along the stream, and each morning made the round of them, skinned what beavers we caught, and took the hides to the woman and girl to flesh and stretch upon rude hoops to dry. We had success beyond my wildest dreams, our traps averaging six beavers a night. It wasvirgin ground; traps had never been set there, the beavers were very unsuspicious and tame, and very numerous. The days flew by; our eagerness for our work increased rather than diminished. I was to be no gainer by it in pounds, shillings, and pence; whatever fur I caught was the property of the Company, but that made no difference; my ambition was to become an expert trapper and plainsman, and in that way get a good standing with the Company.
At the end of a month there we had a visit from Lone Walker's nephew. The chief had become uneasy about us, and had sent him to tell us to return. We were doing too well to go back then, and answered that we would trail in before the end of another month. We were really in no danger; the weather was cold, except for an occasional Chinook wind, there was considerable snow on the ground, and even in mild winters war parties were seldom abroad. So we trapped on and on, killed what meat we wanted,—oh, it was a happy time to me. Nor were our evenings around the lodge fire the least of it. My companions night after night told stories of the gods; stories of the adventures and the bravery of heroic Blackfeet men and women, all very interesting and instructive to me. At last came a second summons from Lone Walker for us to return, and this time we heeded it; we had anyhow pretty well cleaned out the beavers, getting only one or two a night for some time back. But Red Crow had to go in for more horses before we could move, the horses we had with us not being enough to pack our catch, and the lodge and other things. We took in with us, in ten skin bales, two hundred and forty beaver skins and nine otter skins, of which a few more than half were mine! Our big catch was the talk of the camp for several days.
Several evenings after our return to camp an old medicine man told me that, according to a vision he had had, he was collecting enough wolf skins for a big, wolf robe couch cover, and thatI could go with him the next morning if I would like to see how he caught the animals. He had completed his trap the day before, and thought that there were already in it all the wolves that he needed.
Of course, I wanted to learn all I could about trapping, and so rode down the valley with him the next morning. About three miles below camp we entered a big, open bottom and he pointed to his trap, away out in the center of it. In the distance it appeared to be a round corral, and so it was, a corral of heavy eight-or nine-foot posts set closely together in the ground, and slanting inward at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. At the base the corral was about twelve feet in diameter. In one place a pile of rocks and earth was heaped against it, and when I saw that I did not need the old man's explanation of how he caught the wolves; they jumped into the corral from the earth slant to the top of it, enticed there by a pile of meat, and, once in, they could not jump high enough to get out.
Several wolves that were hanging about the corral ran away at our approach, and as we came close we could see that there were wolves in the corral. We dismounted, climbed the earth slope and looked in, and I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw that it held thirteen big wolves and a dead coyote. The latter had undoubtedly been the first to jump down for the bait, and the wolves had come later, and killed him. The wolves pretended to pay no attention to us, as we looked down upon them, milling around and sticking their noses into the interstices of the posts, but they had wary eyes upon us all the same. The old man got out his bow, and some all-wood arrows, the sharp tips fire hardened, and shot the wolves one by one without a miss, each shaft striking at one side of the backbone just back of the ribs and ranging down and forward into heart and lungs. Some of the animals struggled a bit, but all died without a whimper. When the last one fell he removed two posts that had simply been tied to those set firmly inthe ground, and dragged the animals out through the opening one by one. I helped him skin them.
"There! I wanted eight, I have thirteen skins. My work is done; it is now for my woman to tan them and make the robe," he exclaimed.
"You will not replace the two posts, and put in fresh bait for more wolves?" I asked.
"No, I have all that I need," he answered. "Eight are enough for a big robe. I shall lie upon it, sleep upon it, and the strength that is in the wolves will become my strength, so my vision told me. I am well satisfied."
"And I am glad to have learned how to catch wolves," I told him, and we packed the skins upon our horses and went home. Years afterward, along in the 60's and 70's, when wolf skins went up to five dollars each, I somewhat improved upon the old man's corral trap, making mine of logs laid up to form a hollow pyramid about ten by sixteen feet at the base, and four by ten feet at the top. This was much more quicklyand easily built than the stake corral, which involved the digging of a deep trench in which to set the stakes, and the building of an incline to the top. The wolves did not hesitate to step up from one to another of the inslanting logs and jump down upon the quantities of meat I placed inside, and there I had them. During one winter at St. Mary's Lakes, the winter of 1872-73, my sons and I caught more than seven hundred wolves in our pyramid log trap!