A FIGHT WITH THE RIVER PEOPLE
I went but a little way through the brush when, in the dim light, I saw
Red Crow clinging with both hands to a slender, swaying, quaking aspen,
and jerking up his feet from the up-reaching swipes of a big bear's
claws. He could find no lodgment for his feet and could climb no higher;
as it was, the little tree threatened to snap in two at any moment. It
was bending more and more to the right, and directly over the bear, and
he was lifting his legs higher and higher. There was no time to be lost!
Scared though I was, I raised my gun, took careful sight for a heart
shot at the big animal, and pulled the trigger. Whoom! And the bear gave
a louder roar than ever, fell and clawed at its side, then rose and came
after me, and as I turned to run I saw the little tree snap in two and
Red Crow drop to the ground.
I turned only to bump heavily into Mink Woman, and we fell, both
yelling, and sprang up and ran for our lives, expecting that every jump
would be our last. But we had gone only a short way when it struck me
that we were not being pursued, and then, oh, how can I describe the
relief I felt when I heard Red Crow shout to us: "Puk-si-put!
Ahk-ai-ni!" (Come! He is dead!)
Well, when I heard that my strength seemed suddenly to go from me, and I
guess that the girl felt the same way. We turned back, hand in hand,
wabbly on our legs, and gasping as we recovered our breath. Again and
again Red Crow called to us, and at last I got enough wind into me to
answer him, and he came to meet us, and led us back to the bear.
I had not thought that a grizzly could be as big as it was. It lay there
on its side as big bodied as a buffalo cow. The big mouth was open,
exposing upper and lower yellow fangs as long as my forefinger. I lifted
up one huge forefoot and saw that the claws were four inches and more
in length. Lastly, I saw that there was an arrow deep in its breast.
Then, as we stood there, Red Crow made me understand that when his horse
threw him and he got to his feet, he found the bear standing erect
facing him, and he had fired an arrow into it and taken to the nearest
tree. I knew the rest. I saw that the arrow had pierced the bear's
lungs; that it would have bled to death anyhow. But my shot had been a
heart shot, and just in time, for the little tree was bending, breaking
even as I fired, and the bear would have had Red Crow had it not started
in pursuit of us.
"The claws, you take them!" Red Crow now signed to me. But I refused. I
knew how highly they were valued for necklace ornaments, and I wanted no
necklace. Nor did I want the great hide, for its new coat was short, and
the old winter coat still clung to it in faded yellow patches. Red Crow
quickly unjointed the long fore claws, and we hunted around and found
our ibex hides, which had come to the ground with us, and resumed our
way in the gathering night. The horses had, of course, gone on, and
would never stop until they found the band in which they belonged.
After the experience we had had, we went on with fear in our hearts,
imagining that every animal we heard moving was a bear. There was no
moon, and in the thick groves we had to just feel our way. But at last
we passed the foot of the lake and saw the yellow gleaming of the
hundreds of lodges of the camp on the far side of the river. The ford
was too deep, the water too swift for us to cross it on foot, so we
called for help, and several who heard came over on horseback and took
us up behind, and across to the camp, where we found Lone Walker was
gathering a party to go in search for us.
What a welcome we got! The women hugged and kissed Red Crow and his
sister, and me too, just as if I were another son, and Lone Walker
patted us on the shoulder and followed us into the lodge, and fussed at
the women to hurry and set food before us. We ate, and let Mink Woman
tell the story of the day, which she did between bites, and oh, how her
eyes flashed and the words poured out as she described with telling
gestures our experience with the bear! A crowd of chiefs and warriors
had come into the lodge when word went around that we had killed a big
bear, and listened to her story with close attention and many
exclamations of surprise and approval; and when she ended, and Red Crow
had exhibited the huge claws, Lone Walker made a little speech to me. I
understood enough of it, with his signs, to know that he praised me for
my bravery in going to his son's rescue and giving the bear its death
shot.
Let me say here that in those days, with only bow and arrows, or a
flintlock gun, the bravest of hunters generally let the grizzly alone if
he would only let them alone. The trouble was that the grizzly, sure of
his terrible strength, only too often charged the hunter at sight and
without the slightest provocation. I have recently read Lewis and
Clark's "Journal," and find that they agree with me that the grizzly, or
as they called it, the white bear, was a most ferocious and dangerous
animal.
The chiefs having decided that camp should not be moved until the next
day, Red Crow and his sister took me next morning up a stream now called
Swift Water, running into the river from the west. There were a number
of lakes upon it, and one of them, just above a falls, was a very
beautiful sheet of water. Beyond it, at what was the head of the main
fork of the stream, were more great deposits of ice, old Cold Maker's
leavings. But I was not so much interested in them as I was in taking
note of the beaver signs, which was a part of my duty on this trip of
discovery into the southland. It was the factor's intention to send some
_engagés_ trappers into it if I found enough fur to keep them busy.
Between this lake and a smaller one lying at the foot of a great ice
sheet, I found no less than thirteen dammed ponds, all containing a
number of inhabited beaver houses; and there were a number of their
ponds farther down the stream.
Camp was broken the following morning, but before the lodges came down I
was off on the trail with the chiefs. We topped the long, high ridge
sloping up eastward from the lower lake, and looked out upon the
greatest expanse of mountain- and butte-studded plains that I had ever
seen. And I thrilled at the thought that I was the very first one of my
race to see it. Lone Walker pointed down to a small stream heading in a
great patch of pine and spruce on the side of the ridge.
"That is the Little River. Far to the east it joins the Big River of the
South," he told me, and I realized that I was on top of the watershed of
the Gulf of Mexico. We rode on down to the stream and I got off my horse
and drank from it for good luck. The whites misnamed it when they, years
afterward, called it Milk River. The Blackfoot name was best, for it is
a very small river for all its three hundred and more miles of length
from its source to its junction with the Missouri.
As I drank the swamp-flavored water I thought how fine it would be to
make a dugout there, and voyage down the stream to the Missouri, and
down that to the Mississippi, and thence to the Gulf of Mexico and its
tropical shores. What a long journey it would be; thousands of miles!
What strange peoples I should see; tribe after tribe of Indians, then
Americans, and at last the French and the Spanish of the Far South! And
what adventure there would be! Fights with some of those wild tribes,
and with bears, and perhaps with lawless whites. They would try to take
from me the hundreds of beaver pelts that I should trap on the way! But
no! My dugout would not carry many skins, and if I survived the dangers
I should arrive, poor and ragged, among a strange people, and have to
work for them for a few pence a day. "Away with you, dream," I said, and
mounted my horse and rejoined the chiefs.
Coming to the southernmost little branch of the south fork of the river,
Lone Walker, in the lead, got down from his horse, examined some tracks
in the mud, and called out something which caused the others to spring
from their horses and crowd around him. So did I, and saw several fresh
moccasin tracks. At sight of them the chiefs had all become greatly
excited, and talked so fast that I could understand nothing of what they
said. I concluded, however, that the tracks had been made by some enemy,
and saw by closer examination that the makers of them had worn soft,
leather-soled moccasins, very different from the _parflèche_ or
semi-rawhide soles of all Blackfoot summer footwear.
Looking back on our trail, and seeing a large body of warriors coming to
take the lead, several of the chiefs signaled them to hurry; and when
they rode up Lone Walker gave some orders that sent them scurrying off
in all directions. One of them presently came back in sight from the
timber above the crossing, and signed to us to come to him. We
all mounted and went up, and he led us into the timber and to a
camping-ground where many lodges, several hundred, I thought, had
recently been pitched. Several of the chiefs poked out the ashes of one
or two fireplaces and uncovered red coals; it was evident that the
campers had moved away the day before.
The chiefs were greatly excited over the find, and after a short council
hurried back to the trail and gave orders that we should go into camp
right there. While we waited for the long column to come up I gave Lone
Walker the query sign--holding my hand up in front of me, palm outward,
and waving it like the inverted pendulum of a clock, and he answered in
speech and signs both, so that I understood: "The campers here were
River People. We have forbidden them to come over here on our plains,
but they keep coming and stealing our buffaloes. We shall now make them
cry!"
"You are going to fight them?" I signed.
"Yes."
A queer feeling came over me at his answer. I shivered. In my mind's eye
I saw a great battle, arrows flying and guns booming, and men falling
and crying out in their death agony. And for what? Just a few of the
buffaloes that blackened the plains!
"Don't fight! There are plenty of buffaloes! Let the River People go in
peace with what few they have killed," I signed, but he gave me no
answer other than a grim smile, and rode out to meet the head of the
column.
Word had already gone back the whole length of it of our discovery, and
as the excited people came up to their allotted place in the great
circle and slung the packs from their horses, the women chattering and
the men urging them to hurry and get out their war clothes, dogs barking
and horses calling to one another, the din of it all was deafening.
I now learned that, when there was time for the change, the warriors put
on their war clothes before going against the enemy. The change was
soon made, and it was startling. Somber, everyday, plain wear had given
place to shirts beautifully embroidered with porcupine-quill work of
bright colors and pleasing design, and fringed with white weasel skins
and here and there scalps of the enemy. The leggings were also fringed,
and generally painted with figures of medicine animals. Not a few wore
moccasins of solid quill embroidery. Every man had on a war bonnet of
eagle tail feathers, or horns and weasel skins, and carried suspended
from his left arm a thick, round shield of shrunk bull hide, from the
circumference of which eagle tail feathers fluttered gayly in the wind.
Thus dressed, with bow and arrow case on their backs, guns in hand, and
mounted on their prancing, high-spirited horses, the hundreds of
warriors who soon gathered around us presented the most picturesque and
at the same time formidable sight that I had ever seen. I admired them,
and yet they filled me with terror against them; if they chose to attack
us, our fort, our cannon and guns were as a barrier of feathers against
the wind! And I, just a boy, was alone with them! I shivered. And then
Lone Walker spoke kindly to me, and my fear died before his smile.
"Come! We go! You shall see something to make your heart glad!" he said.
I hesitated, and the warriors suddenly broke out into a song that I knew
must be a song of battle. It thrilled me; excited me. I sprang upon my
horse and we were off. Lone Walker signed to me to fall in behind, and I
found myself riding beside Red Crow at the rear of the swiftly moving
band. Following the trail of the enemy we soon topped a long, brushy
slope and turned down into a beautiful timbered valley, and up it along
a broad, clear stream in which I saw many a trout leaping for flies, and
which, from the signs, was alive with beavers. It was the Pu-nak-ik-si,
or Cutbank River, so named on account of the rock walls on both sides of
the lower part of its valley.
Three or four miles above where we struck the valley it narrowed
rapidly, hemmed in by the mountains, and we had to slow up, for the
narrow trail led on through a thick growth of timber and, in places,
almost impenetrable brush. Then, for a short distance below the forks,
the valley widened again, and there we passed the largest beaver dam
that I had ever seen. It ran for all of a half-mile from slope to slope
across the valley, forming a pond of hundreds of acres in extent, that
was dotted with the lodges of the bark eaters. Above it we turned up the
south fork of the stream and neared the summit of the range. The valley
narrowed to a width of a few hundred yards; ahead a high rock wall
crossed it, and the trail ran steeply up the right mountain-side to gain
its rough top. We were a long time making that for we were obliged to
ride in single file because of the narrowness of the trail. The chiefs,
leading, raised a great shout when they reached the edge of the wall,
and signed back that they could see the enemy. We crowded on as fast as
we could, Red Crow and I the last to top the wall, and oh, how anxious
I was to see what was ahead!
I saw, and just held my horse and stared and stared. For a mile or more
from the wall the trail still ran south up a rocky slope, then turned,
and, still rising, ran along a very steep slope to the summit of the
range. Along that slope the trail was black with riders and loose
horses, hurrying across it at a trot and in single file, and back at the
turn of the trail the rear guard of the fleeing tribe was making a stand
against our advance. The warriors were afoot, their horses having gone
on with the column, and our men had left their horses and were running
on and spreading out, those who had guns already beginning to use them.
"Come on! Hurry!" Red Crow shouted to me, and was off. I did not follow
him, not at first, but as the River People's guard retreated and our men
advanced, I did ride on, dreading to see men fall, but withal so
fascinated by the fight that I could not remain where I was. I went to
the spot where the enemy had first made their stand, and saw several
bodies lying among the rocks. They had already been scalped.
The last of the camp movers, the men, women, and children with the pack
and loose horses, had all now crossed the long, steep slope, the latter
part of which was very steep, and ran down to the edge of a cut-walled
chasm of tremendous depth, and had gone out of sight beyond the summit.
The guards were now on the trail along this most dangerous part of it,
our warriors following them in single file at long bow range, but all of
them except two or three in the lead, unable to use their weapons.
It was a duel between these and the two or three rear men of the enemy.
Our lead man was, as I afterward learned, Lone Walker, and the men next
to him Chiefs Bear Head and Bull-Turns-Around. All three had guns and
were firing and reloading them and firing again as fast as they could,
and doing terrible execution. One after another I saw five of the enemy
fall from the trail, which was just a narrow path in the slide rock,
and go bouncing and whirling down, and off the edge of that great cliff
into space. It was a terrible sight! It made me tremble! I strained my
body as I sat there on my horse, scrouged down as each one fell.
I could not see that any of our warriors were falling; they were keeping
themselves pretty well protected with their shields. Capping the slope
where all this was going on was a long, narrow wall of rock running out
from the summit of the range, and happening to glance up at it I saw
numbers of the enemy hurrying out along it to get opposite our men and
shoot down at them. I instantly urged my horse forward, shouting as loud
as I could, but no one looked back and I knew that I was not heard. I
went on to where the horses had been left, jumped from mine there and
ran on out along the slope, shouting again and pointing up to the top of
the rock wall. At last some one saw me, and gave the alarm, and the
whole party stopped and looked at me, then up where I was pointing and
saw their danger, and all turned and started to retreat.
But they had no more than started than the enemy began firing down at
them. It was a long way down, several hundred yards, and their arrows
and the few balls they fired did no damage; and seeing that, one of the
enemy toppled a boulder off the cliff. It struck the slope with a loud
crash and rolled and bounded on almost as swiftly as a ball from a gun,
and I expected it to hurl three or four of our running men off the trail
and down over the edge of the cliff. But when within twenty or thirty
feet of the line it bounded high from the slope and shot out away over
the trail, and away out over the cliff, and long afterward I heard it
crash onto the bottom of the chasm.
Now the enemy abandoned their weapons and began, all of them, to hurl
boulders down onto the slope. Had they done that at first they would
likely have swept many of our men off the trail and over the cliff; but
now the most of them had passed the danger line. As the last of them
were running out from under the outer point of the wall, a man there
loosed a last big rock; it broke into many pieces when it hit the slope,
and these went hurtling down with tremendous speed. There was no
possibility of dodging them; two men were struck; one of them rolled
down to the cliff and off it, but the other, the very last in the line,
was whirled around, and as he dropped, half on and half off the trail,
the man next to him turned back and helped him to his feet, and without
further assistance he staggered on to safety. He was Lone Walker. His
right shoulder was broken and terribly bruised. The man we had lost was
Short Arrow, young, just recently made a warrior.
We all gathered where the horses had been left, and a doctor man bound
the chief's wound as best he could. There was much talk of Short Arrow's
sudden going, and regret for it; and there was rejoicing, too; the enemy
had paid dearly, seven lives, for what buffalo and other game they had
killed out on the Blackfeet plains.
The sun was setting. As we tightened saddle cinches and prepared to go,
we had a last look out along the slope. A great crowd of people was
gathered on the summit watching us, and up on the wall top over the
trail, sharply outlined against the sunset sky, dozens of warriors were
gathering piles of rocks to hurl down at us should we again attempt to
cross the slope. Our chiefs had no thought of it. The enemy had been
sufficiently punished, and anyhow the stand that they had taken was
unassailable. We got onto our horses and hurried to get down into the
valley below the rock wall while there was still a little light, and
from there on let the horses take us home.
We arrived in camp long after midnight. The people were still up,
awaiting our return, and the greeting that we got surprised me. The
women and old men gathered around us, shouting the names of the
warriors, praising them for their bravery, and giving thanks to the
gods for their safe return. But there was mourning too; when the noise
of the greeting subsided we could hear the relatives of Short Arrow
wailing over their loss.
I did not sleep much that night; every time I fell into a doze I saw the
bodies of the enemy bounding down that rocky slope and off the edge of
the thousand foot wall, and awoke with a start.
Although suffering great pain in his shoulder, Lone Walker the next
morning declared that he was able to travel, and camp was soon broken.
After crossing the valley of Cutbank River we left the big south trail,
turning off from it to the southeast, and after a time striking the
valley of another stream, the Nat-ok-i-o-kan, or Two-Medicine-Lodge
River. I learned that this was the main fork of Kyai-is-i-sak-ta, or
Bear River, the stream which Lewis and Clark had named Maria's River,
after the sweetheart of one of them. But I did not know that for many a
year after I first saw it.
We went into camp in a heavily timbered bottom walled on the north side
by a long, high cliff, at the foot of which was a great corral in the
shape of a half circle, the cliff itself forming the back part of it. It
was built of fallen trees, driftwood from the river, and boulders, and
was very high and strong. Red Crow told me that it was a buffalo trap;
that whole herds of buffaloes were driven off the cliff into it. I could
not understand much of what he told me, but later on saw a great herd
decoyed to a cliff and stampeded over it, a waterfall of huge, brown,
whirling animals. It was a wonderful spectacle. I shall have something
to say about that later on.
I now learned that we had come to this particular camping place for the
purpose of building a great lodge offering, called o-kan, or his dream,
to the sun. When we went into camp the lodges were not put up in the
usual formation, but were set to form a great circle on the level,
grassy bottom between the timber, bordering the stream, and the cliff.
In the center of this circle, the sacred lodge was to be erected with
ceremonies that would last for some days.
On the following morning Red Crow and I, Mink Woman accompanying us,
went hunting; we were to bring in enough meat to last our two lodges
until the great festival ended. As usual, we started out very early,
long before the great majority of the hunters were up. We rode down the
valley through a number of bottoms of varying size, seeing a few deer, a
band of antelopes, and two or three elk, but finding no buffaloes until
we neared the junction of the river with another stream, which Red Crow
told me was Mi-sin-ski-is-i-sak-ta (Striped-Face--or, in other words,
Badger River). There, on the point between the two streams, we
discovered a large herd of buffaloes filing down into the bottom to
drink. We hurried on through the timber to get ahead of them, intending
to hide in the brush on the point of land between the streams and dash
into them when they came near. But as buffaloes often did, they suddenly
broke into a run when part way down the slope, their thirst and sight
of the water urging them forward, so we crossed the river, and riding in
the shelter of the willows made our approach. They had all crowded out
on the narrow point of land ahead and were drinking from both streams.
"We will kill many!" Red Crow signed to me as we rode through the
willows, and then out from the stream in the shelter of some clumps of
berry brush, through which we could glimpse the solidly packed rows of
the drinking animals. That was my thought, too, for I saw that we could
get within fifty or sixty yards of them before they discovered our
approach. I loosed the pistols in my belt, and slipped the case from my
gun as we made our way into the last piece of brush; when we went out of
it, Red Crow signed to me, we were to charge. Just then a gun boomed
somewhere ahead of us, and at the report the buffaloes whirled out from
the streams and with a thunder and rattle of hoofs came straight toward
us, a solid mass of several hundred head that covered the width of the
point. Red Crow yelled something to us, but we could not hear him. We
all turned about, the girl letting go the two horses she was leading,
and fled. Unless our horses could outrun the stampede they were sure to
be gored, and down we would go to a terrible death!