“I jumped from my horse and raised her up.”CHAPTER FIVEBREAKING CAMP
“I jumped from my horse and raised her up.”
“I jumped from my horse and raised her up.”
“I jumped from my horse and raised her up.”
The camp finally began to break up in earnest. Small bands went off in different directions to their various hunting grounds that had been decided on by the council. We were among the last to leave. There were about sixty tepees and two hundred and fifty Indians in our band. We had about four hundred horses, and more than five hundred dogs, it seemed to me.
Chief Washakie at that time was about twenty-seven years old. He was a very large Indian and good looking. His wife, Hanabi, did not appear to be more than twenty years old. She had only one child, a little boy papoose about six months old.
Pocatello was not so large as Washakie. He was a Shoshone, but his wife was a Bannock. She had three papooses when I first saw her. Pocatello was a wicked looking Indian. His tribe did more damage to the emigrants than any other tribe in the West. He wanted to be the big chief of the Shoshones; he thought he ought to be the leader because he was older than Washakie,but the tribe would not have it that way. He did draw away about five hundred of the tribe, however, and tried to change the tribe name to “Osasibi”; but Washakie’s Indians called them “Saididig,” which means dog-stealers.
When this band of Indian outlaws joined us in the Big Hole Basin, they had new quilts, white women’s clothes, new guns, watches, saddles, and hats. Mother told me that they had just attacked a large train of emigrants, and had killed the people, burned their wagons and robbed them of everything. They had some very large horses and mules with them. Mother wanted to buy a saddle and a hat for me, but I told her that I would not wear a hat whose owner had been killed and scalped by old Pocatello.
Washakie and Pocatello were never very friendly. Pocatello wanted to keep up a constant warfare against the whites; but Washakie knew that meant only trouble and that the Indians would finally get the worst of it; so he would have nothing to do with Pocatello’s murderous business. Because Washakie thought it would be much better to live in peace with the whites, Pocatello called him a squaw and said he was afraid to fight.
I was very glad to go; for I was tired of being stared at by so many Indians. There were hundreds of young Indians in the camp and many old ones, too, that had never seen a white person before. They would gather around me as if I were some wild animal. If I moved more suddenly towards them, they would jump back and scream like wildcats. My mother told them that I would not bite, but if they bothered me too much I might kick some of their ribs loose, for I could kick worse than a wild horse.
Two or three days after we had left the big camp, thepack on one of our horses turned under his belly and he began to run and kick like mad. This started the rest of the pack horses and they came running past us. Mother tried to stop them, but one of the runaways bumped against her horse and knocked it down. It rolled over with her. I thought she was killed. I jumped from my horse and raised her up. She was not dead, but she was badly bruised and one of her arms was broken. I think I never cried harder in my life than I did then, for I thought my poor mother was going to die. She told me not to cry, that she would be all right soon.
L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.Buffaloes on the plains.
L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.Buffaloes on the plains.
L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.
Buffaloes on the plains.
Washakie’s wife was there and she told me to dash ahead and tell the chief to hurry back. When he came, he ordered the band to stop and pitch camp. We had to stay there a week to let mother get well enough to travel again. There were a great many antelope in the valley and plenty of fish in the stream by the camp. When mother would go to sleep, I would go fishing. When she awoke Hanabi would call, “Yagakicome,” and I would get back in double-quick time.
One day while we were camped here waiting for mother to get better, I went out with Washakie and the other Indians to chase antelope. About fifty of us circled arounda bunch and took turns chasing them. The poor little animals were gradually worn out by this running and finally they would drop down one after another, hiding their heads under the bushes, while the Indians shot them to death with their bows and arrows. I killed two myself. When I got home and told mother about it, she bragged about me so much that I thought I was a “heap big Injun.”
Mother’s arm soon got well enough for her to travel, for the medicine man had fixed it up very well, so we took up our journey again. There were a great many buffaloes and antelope too, where we next pitched camp. We stayed there for about three weeks. During the times that she could not watch me, mother had Washakie take me out on his hunting trips. That just suited me. It was lots of fun to watch the Indian with the big spear dash up and cut the hamstrings of the great animals. When they had been crippled in this way, we would rush up and shoot arrows into their necks until they dropped dead. The first day we killed six, two large bulls and four cows.
L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.Why the buffalo disappeared; part of the white man’s trail.
L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.Why the buffalo disappeared; part of the white man’s trail.
L. A. Huffman, Miles City, Mont.
Why the buffalo disappeared; part of the white man’s trail.
I told Washakie that my bow was too small to kill buffaloes with. He laughed and said I should have a bigger one. When we got back to camp, he told some Indians what I had said and one very old Indian, whose name was Morogonai, gave me a very fine bow and another Indian gave me eight good arrows. I felt very proud then; I told mother that the next time I went out I would kill a whole herd of buffaloes. She said she knew I would, but she did not know what they could do with all the meat.
Washakie said that I was just like the rest of the white men. They would kill buffaloes as long as there were any in sight and leave their carcasses over the prairies for the wolves. He said that was not the way of the Indians. They killed only what they needed and saved all the meat and hides.
“The Great Spirit,” he said, “would not like it if we slaughtered the game as the whites do. It would bring bad luck, and the Indians would go hungry if they killed the deer and buffaloes when they were not needed for food and clothing.”
Two or three days after this we went out again and killed two more buffaloes. When we got back mother asked how many I had killed. I told her that I shot twice at them and I believed I had hit one. She said that I would be the best hunter in the tribe afterwhile, and some day, she said, I would be a big chief.