INDIANS OF OLD TIMES.
The next morning they were up bright and early. The horses were all
standing where they had been picketed the night before, and after the
fire was kindled, Jack and Hugh went to them, took up the picket pins,
and moved each horse so that he might have fresh grass to eat; then
while Hugh prepared breakfast, Jack rolled up the beds and prepared all
the camp furniture except the mess kit for packing. When they loaded the
horses the carcass of the deer was put on one of the packs, and
presently they started off down the creek. That night they camped at the
Platte River, and the next morning crossed it, and kept on north.
For many days they travelled northward, crossing some small streams, and
then coming to the head of Powder River, and journeying along the divide
on its east side. The marches that they made were not very long. The
grass was good, there was plenty of water, and the loads were light; so
that their horses kept in good condition and moved along briskly. After
two or three nights Hugh picketed only four of the horses, permitting
two to drag their ropes, and when morning came these two were found with
the others. A little later he freed one more, and at last another one,
so that finally there were only two horses confined at night. These were
not always the same two, but usually the two riding horses were the ones
on picket.
They made some slight changes in the packs, making two of them lighter
and two heavier; and then, sometimes Jack, instead of riding Pawnee, let
him carry a light pack, and rode the bay, while Hugh sometimes changed
off to the dun or to the paint horse. One day when their stock of fresh
meat was running low, since the deer had been almost eaten up, Hugh
killed a buck antelope, which was in fair order; but they did no
hunting, and travelled steadily.
One afternoon they camped on a small fork of Powder River, and after
camp had been made and the horses picketed, Hugh proposed that they
should take a little walk to the top of a high hill not far off, and see
what could be seen. They started, going rather slowly, and stopping
every now and then to look over the country with the field glass that
Hugh carried. Nothing was seen except the wild animals of the prairie,
and when they reached the top of the hill they sat down and took a long,
long look. Hugh was carefully examining some distant object to the north
when he felt himself pushed by Jack, and glancing around, saw that he
was lying flat on the ground. Hugh very slowly lowered his head, and
turning, looked in the direction in which Jack pointed. Coming up out of
the ravine not far away, he saw a good sized grizzly bear, and following
her, two little cubs. The cubs were still very small, and were cunning
little creatures. They ran about fast yet clumsily, sometimes attacked
each other and had a pretended fight, stood up on their hind legs and
sparred at each other with their front paws, and then one chased the
other as he ran wildly off over the hillside. Every now and then the
mother would stop to look at them, and she seemed to take pleasure in
their high spirits. Now and then she stood up on her hind legs and
looked in all directions, and she was now so close to the top of the
hill that they could see her wrinkle her nose as she sniffed the air.
Jack whispered to Hugh, "Ain't they beauties! Wouldn't I like to have
them back at the ranch. There's no way we could catch 'em and take 'em
along, is there?"
"No," whispered Hugh; "the only thing you can do is to kill 'em."
"By Jove, I don't want to do that; they're too cunning."
The little family was now quite near the top of the hill, but was
passing around it. Again the mother stood on her hind legs to look, and
while she was doing this one of the cubs rushed up in front of her and
sprang into the air, grasping her around the chest and the mother closed
her arms about it and put her head down. The whole act seemed like the
springing of a child into its mother's arms, and the mother kissing the
child.
[Illustration: "THE MOTHER KISSING THE CHILD."--_Page 49_]
"By mighty!" said Hugh, "I can't shoot at that bear, and I don't believe
you can either, son."
"Not much, we'll let them go."
They lay there and watched the bears go around the hill, and presently
the old one saw the horses and the camp equipage far below in the
valley. She stood on her hind legs and looked for a long time,
evidently much puzzled as to what these strange objects were, but after
looking for awhile she came down on all fours again, called her young
ones to her by a low cry, trotted off around the hill out of sight, and
then made her way back as she had come.
They watched her for a long time, until she was hidden behind the swells
of the prairie, and then Jack sat up and said to Hugh, "That's the
prettiest thing I ever saw, and I don't feel as if I ever could shoot at
a bear again after seeing it."
"Well," said Hugh, "that's saying a good deal, but I tell you I wouldn't
have shot at that bear for a farm."
The sun was low when they reached camp on their return. They had eaten
when they made camp, but Hugh said that he believed that Jack could eat
again, and they cooked a little meat and warmed up some of the coffee
that was in the pot, and made up a good fire, by which they sat for a
long time.
Hugh said, "I reckon this is about the last regular camp fire we can
have. We're getting up into the country now where we're liable to run
across Indians, and while I don't think there's a mite of danger to be
looked for from any of 'em, still I'd just as leave they wouldn't see
us."
"What Indians live in this country, Hugh?"
"Well," said Hugh, "the fact is it's Cheyenne country, but Sioux and
Cheyennes live here, and Crows come into it; fact is, it's a kind of
anybodys' country. The Piegans come down here and make war on the Crows
and Cheyennes, and in old times the Pawnees used to come up here on
their war journeys. You've got to keep your eye open here for all sorts
of Indians."
"Well, Hugh, these Indians haven't always been hostile, have they?"
"Not so; there was a long time when they were friendly with everybody.
It was only after white people began to come into the country and make
trouble of one sort and another that the Indians got bad. You see, the
white people didn't know nothing about Indians, and had a kind of an
idea that the whites owned the whole country, and the Indians thought
that they owned it, because they always had, up to that time; and then
there was young men that stole white men's horses and likely some of 'em
got killed; so that, on the whole, you can easy see how the wars began;
they started about twenty-five years ago. Up to that time the tribes had
been all pretty friendly. I won't say that there wasn't bad young men
that did bad things, but the old men didn't approve of that, and when
they could catch their young men doing anything o' that sort they'd
punish them. Why, from 1851 to 1854, I was trading with Indians right
along; that is, in winter."
"I wish you'd tell me about that, Hugh."
"Why, sure, I'll tell you all there is to tell. I hired out to old
Corcoran one fall. He had a trading post down on the Platte, a little
way east of the forks, and the Indians used to come in there sometimes,
but there was other posts, and he didn't get as much trade as he thought
he ought to; so he hired me to travel around to the camps, and stop with
the Indians and trade with them, and fetch in what furs I got to the
post. I started out that first winter with a big wagon, hauled by bulls,
and with quite a lot o' trade goods, to find the Cheyenne camp. I
remember we'd heard that they were up on Horse Creek, and I started up
there. It took me a long time to get there, for bulls don't travel very
fast, you know, and when I got there I found they'd moved over onto the
Platte, so I had to follow 'em there, and when I got there they were
just moving out to go further up the stream, to above where Fort Laramie
stands, and I had to trail along with 'em. However, at last they got
located for the winter, and I went into Spotted Wolf's lodge and lived
there with him. After I got there and unpacked my goods, Spotted Wolf
sent a crier out through the camp, and told the Indians that I was there
and ready to trade, and before very long I had my store agoing."
"Well, what did you trade to them, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Well, there's one thing I didn't trade to 'em, and that is whiskey.
That was before the days when anybody thought of trading liquor to the
Indians, though of course now and then in a fort they gave a man a dram,
as they called it; but in them days there wasn't never no trading of
liquor. I had tobacco and red cloth, and beads and little mirrors, and
some silver coins that they used to hammer out plates from to wear on
their heads."
"Oh, I know! I've seen pictures of Indians with great silver plates on
their scalp locks, and big ones at the top and little ones running down
to the end."
"That's it, that's just what I mean. Well, I lived pretty near the
whole winter in that camp. The Indians had plenty of dried meat and back
fat, and tongues, and we lived well. Once in a while I'd go out up into
the hills and kill a deer, or a couple of antelope; and two or three
times the buffalo came close to the camp, in good weather, so that we
made a killing; so we had fresh meat during a good part of the winter.
Along in the end of February or first of March I had all the robes and
furs that my team could haul, and I started back. I'd taken a half breed
boy with me to drive the bulls, and we got along all right till we got
down pretty close to Scott's Bluffs. When we got there I noticed that
one of the bulls was kind of sick. I didn't know what was the matter
with him. We drove along till night, and camped, and the next morning
that bull was dead. We went on, and the next day two more of the bulls
seemed sick, and the next morning they were dead; so we couldn't go no
further. I unloaded the wagon, piled up the bales of robes all around
it, went into camp there, and sent the boy on to old Corcoran, to get
some more bulls. I expected him back in about six or seven days, but I
was eighteen days there in camp before he showed up again. I tell you,
them was long days, too. Nothing to do except to sit there and watch
them bales of fur, and cook three meals a day. I got terrible tired of
it."
"After I'd been there about a week, one morning I saw an Indian dog on
the prairie, about a hundred yards off. He was sneaking around, looking
this way and that way, and when he saw me move about the camp, he just
sat down and watched me. I walked outside my stockade and called to him,
but he didn't pay no attention, just sat there. I was kind of uneasy
when I saw him, for I thought maybe a party of Indians might be coming
along, and if they did, and took a notion to them furs, there was
nothing to stop them carrying 'em all off; but nobody showed up. The
next morning the dog was still there. I went out and walked toward him,
but as fast as I walked toward him, he walked away, and I couldn't get
nearer than about a hundred yards; so I went back to the robes and
figured what I should do. I wanted to get hold o' that dog, for I was
powerful lonesome, and I thought he'd be kind o' company. I went back to
the camp, and when I got there the dog had come back to the place where
he was at first and was settin' there. I took a piece of dried meat and
went out to where the dog was, and there I scattered a few chips of meat
on the ground, and then went back to camp, and every few feet as I went
I'd cut off a little piece of meat and drop it on the ground. When I got
back, the dog had come to the place where I put the first meat, and was
nosing around, picking it up, and after a while he struck the trail of
meat toward camp, and came along pretty slowly, pretty shy and
suspicious, until he was about half way between the place where he
started and the stockade. He wouldn't come any further than that. I sat
on the bale of robes and talked to him, and called him, and coaxed him,
and he'd look at me and put back his ears and wag his tail, but he was
afraid. I worked with that dog that way three days, before I could get
him inside of the stockade, but on the fourth day he would come to me,
as I sat by the fire, and take pieces of meat out of my hand, and after
a while he lay down on the other side of the fire and went to sleep.
That night I got my hand on him and patted him, and coaxed him, and then
he saw that I was friendly, and from that time he wasn't afraid. I tell
you he was good company to me, and I got to think a heap of him before
that half breed got back. He was a pretty nice looking dog, too; had
dark brown hair, so that he looked some like a beaver; so I called him
Beaver. He got to know his name right soon, and he stayed with me for
four years; and one time, when I was in the Cheyenne camp, he
disappeared. I always believed some of them Cheyenne women got hold of
him and killed him for a feast."
"Well, that's a good story, Hugh. I wish I could have been the boy that
drove that team. I'd like to have spent a winter in an Indian camp; and
above all, in those old times."
"Yes, son, I expect you'd have liked it right well. There was a heap o'
difference between Indians then and now; they were right good people
then, they hadn't picked up many white men's ways; so long as you
treated 'em well they gave you the very best they had, and all you
wanted of it. There wa'nt any beggars then, and the men you made friends
with couldn't do enough for you. Of course when I went into old Spotted
Wolf's lodge, and used it for a store and a boarding house, I made him
some little presents, like two or three yards of red cloth, and three or
four strings of beads and a mirror or two to his women. That is all it
cost me to stop there all winter, board, lodging and mending all
attended to for me."
"Well," said Jack, "I wish I could have seen some of those old days."
"You're going to see a heap this summer, son, that will be new to you,
and you'll see a lot of old-time Indians and old-time Indian ways, up
where we're going."
By this time darkness had fallen, and the sky was full of stars. The
fire had burned down, and the air was growing cool. They spread their
beds, and before long were sleeping soundly.