SIXTEENTH CHAPTERHOMEWARD BOUND
SIXTEENTH CHAPTER
When using her bull boat to cross over the river, a woman knelt in the bow and dipped her paddle in front of her; but, with a second and freighted boat in tow, my husband and I paddled, seated one at each side of our boat. We had not much need to use our paddles as long as we rode the current.
Crow-Flies-High led the way. We had gone, I think, an hour or two, and Crow-Flies-High’s boat was rounding a point, when I saw him rise to his knees and back water with his paddle. My husband and I speeded up; and, as we came near, Crow-Flies-High pointed to the bank just below the point. It was thickly covered with buffaloes.
Scar’s wife put her hand to her mouth for astonishment, but made no sound. If buffaloes have not good sight, they have keen ears; and she knew better than to cry out.
A bit of woodland stretched along the shore farther on. Crow-Flies-High signed for us to follow, and we floated silently down to the end of the woods, where the trees hid us from the herd. The men sprang out and held the boats while we women landed.
The bank was high and rather steep, but at its foot was a narrow bench of sand a foot or more above the water’s level. We hastily unloaded our boats and dragged them out upon this sand.
Along the Missouri’s edge are always to be found dead-and-dry willow sticks, left there by the falling current. I gathered an armful of these, and, having climbed the bank, laid them together in a kind of floor. Son-of-a-Star now helped me fetch up our bundles, and we piled them on this willow floor. He also brought up my two boats. These I turned, bottom up, over my pile of bundles, to keep off frost and rain.
The men now seized their guns and hastened off after the buffaloes. It was about noon. I think we had spent less than an hour unloading the boats and packing them and our stuff to the top of the bank.
While our hunters were stalking the herd, we women stayed in camp, keeping very quiet, and stilling the dogs if they whined or barked. Before long we heard thepoh-poh-poh!of guns, and knew the herd was started. We now arose and began gathering sticks for a fire. I think the first man to return struck fire for us, and we got dinner.
We did not trouble to set up our tent. “The weather is not cold,” said Crow-Flies-High’s wife. “We can sleep in the open air.” I cut buck-brush bushes and spread a robe over them for my bed. Dry grass stuffed under one end of the robe did for a pillow. My covering was a pair of buffalo skins. We were weary and went to bed early. The night was clear; and, with the fresh river air blowing in my face, I soon fell asleep.
We were astir the next morning at an early hour. While Son-of-a-Star started a fire, I went to fill my copper kettle at the river. My husband had asked me to boil him some meat, for the broth; for in old times we Indians drank broth instead of coffee.
The river’s roar, I thought, sounded louder than usual; and, when I reached the edge of the high bank, I saw that the current was thronged with masses of ice. This amazed me, for the river had been running free for a fortnight. The Missouri is never a silent stream, and now to the roar of its waters was added the groaning and crashing of the ice cakes, as they grated and pounded one another in the current.
When the Missouri is running ice, the mid-current will be thronged, well-nigh choked, with ice masses, but near the banks, where are shallows, the water will be free, since here thestream is not deep enough to float the ice chunks. On the side of the river under our camp was a margin of ice-free water of this kind; and I now saw, out near the edge of the floating ice, two bull boats bound together, with a woman in the foremost, paddling with all her might. She was struggling to keep from being caught in the ice and crushed.
I ran down the bank to the bench of sand below, just as the boats came sweeping by. The woman saw me and held out her paddle crying, “Daughter, save me!” I seized the wet blade, and tugging hard, drew the boats to shore. The woman wasAmaheetseekuma,[27]or Lies-on Red-Hill, a woman older than I, and my friend.
[27]A mä hēēt´ sēē kṳ mä
Lies-on-Red-Hill, though rather fat, scrambled quickly out of the boat and began tumbling her bundles out upon the sand. The other women of our party now came down, and we helped my friend carry her bundles up to the camp.
As we sat by the fire, wringing and drying her moccasins, Lies-on-Red-Hill told us her story: “My husband, Short Bull, and I were hunting buffaloes. We dried much meat, which I loaded in my two boats, to freight down the river. While I paddled, Short Bull was to go along the shore with our horses. ‘We will meet at Beaver Wood,’ he said, ‘and camp.’ But I did not findhim at Beaver Wood. Then ice came. I was afraid to camp alone, and tried to paddle down stream, keeping near the shore, where was no ice. More ice came, and I feared I should be upset and drown.”
It was not until afterwards, when we reached our village, that we learned why Short Bull did not meet his wife. He got to Beaver Wood ahead of her. Not finding her, and thinking she had passed him, he went on to the place where they had agreed to make their second camping. When again she did not come, he became alarmed, and returned up the river looking for her. In the morning he saw the river was full of ice. “She is drowned,” he thought. And he went on to Like-a-Fishhook village.
Lies-on-Red-Hill’s father was an old man named Dried Squash. He was fond of his daughter, and, when he heard she was drowned, he put her squash basket on his back and went through the village weeping and crying out, “Lies-on-Red-Hill, dear daughter, I shall never see you again.” He wanted to leap into the river and die, but his friends held him.
Lies-on-Red-Hill rested in our camp two days. The third morning the river was running free again, and she loaded her boats and paddled offdown stream. The rest of us stayed one more day, to finish drying and packing our meat. Then we, too, loaded our boats and started down the river.
We floated with the current, and the second day sighted Stands-Alone Point, or Independence, as white men now call it. Here a party of Mandans were just quitting camp. They pushed their boats into the current and caught up with us. “We knew you were coming,” they said. “Lies-on-Red-Hill told us. She passed us yesterday.”
Our united party floated safely down until we were two miles below what is now Elbowoods. Here, to our astonishment, we found that the current was hardly running, and the water was backing up and flooding the shores. We rounded a point of land, and saw what was the matter. Ice, brought down on the current, had jammed, bridging the river and partly damming it.
Fearing to go farther, we were bringing our boats to land, when we heard the sound of a gun and voices calling to us. On the opposite shore stood two white men, waving handkerchiefs.
We paddled across and landed. The white men, we found, were traders, who had married Indian women. They had a flat boat, loaded with buffalo skins and furs. With them was Lies-on-Red-Hill. One of the traders we Indians had named Spots, because he had big freckles on his face.
Like-a-Fishhook village was yet about fifteen miles away. While the rest of our party waited, one of the men went afoot, to notify our relatives.They came about noon, the next day, with ponies and saddles to help us bring home our goods. The saddles were pack saddles, made with horn frames.
It took four ponies to pack the dried meat and skins my husband and I had brought. I loaded my boats on the travois of two of my dogs.
We reached Like-a-Fishhook village at sunset. Lies-on-Red-Hill came with us, to the great joy of her father.