together, talk the matter over, and stop this stealing and fighting.
He laughed and said that when I got older I might fix things to suit
myself, but as things were going there, he had to be a little careful.
Some of his men would rather be fighting than at peace; and Pocatello
was poisoning the minds of as many of the tribe as he could with the
spirit of war, to draw them away with him. For his part, Washakie said,
he would rather live at peace.
The camp packed up and made a start from the open country. We made a
long string of Indians, horses, and dogs trailing through the hills.
For about a week we kept traveling southward along the river that came
out of the beautiful lake until we reached another large stream. When
these two streams came together, they made a very large river. It was
the Piupa, or Snake River, which we had crossed before. We pitched our
tepees by a stream that flowed into the north fork of this big river.
It was not very wide, but it was deep and full of fish. We papooses had
heaps of fun catching them.
After we had been in camp here a few days, Washakie told me that I
might begin breaking the colts. That was more fun for me. We caught
one, tied it to a tree and let it stand there until it stopped pulling
back, then we led it to water. We staked it out near camp and let it
stay there to feed all night. The next morning I found that I could
lead it alone to water, so I thought I would try to ride it.
I was putting my saddle on it when mother said, “You had better ride it
bareback.” I told her that I could not stay on without my saddle, so
she told me to do as I liked. The colt, however, objected so strongly
to being saddled that he came near getting away from me.
[Illustration: Crow Indian ponies feeding among the sage. From a
photograph taken near Custer battle field, Montana.
_Howard R. Driggs_]
“Put a blanket over its head, so it cannot see,” said mother.
I tied the broncho to a brush, threw a blanket over its head, and
mother helped me to tie it on. By this time about fifty kids had
gathered around to see the fun. When the saddle was cinched, mother
said, “Now get on and I will pull the blanket off its head.”
I mounted carefully and then said, “Let him go.” Off came the blanket
and away went the horse. He whirled and sprang into the air, coming
down with his head between his forelegs. I went flying toward the
creek, and I didn’t stop till I got to the bottom of it. When I crawled
out and wiped the water out of my eyes, I could see that colt going
across the prairie with my saddle under his belly and kicking at every
jump.
“Let him go,” said my mother, as I started after him.
I said I would ride that horse if I never killed another Indian.
“How many have you killed?” she asked in surprise.
“Not half as many as I am going to,” I said. “And I have half a notion
to start in on some of these black imps that are laughing at me.”
When I got some dry clothes on, a young Indian rode up on a horse and
I got him to go and catch the colt for me. He brought the broncho back
and helped me tie a strap around him so tight I could just put my
fingers under it, then he held the colt while I got on him.
When I said, “Let him go!” the colt leaped into a run and the young
Indian followed after me, keeping it out of the brush and away from the
horses that were staked around. The colt soon got tired and stopped
running. I had a fine ride. After a while we went back to camp and I
staked the colt out for the night. The next day I rode the broncho
again, and very soon I had it well trained.
It took mother and me some time to gather up my saddle, and when we got
it together we could hardly tell what it had been in the first place;
but after about a week of mending, we made it a great deal stouter than
it was. The next colt was not so fractious and I soon got so that I
could ride any of them without much trouble.
About this time we had another stampede. One night a guard came running
into camp with the word that he had seen a big band of Crows coming. It
was in the middle of the night, but all of the squaws and papooses were
pulled out of bed and ordered to get into the brush and stay there till
morning. I told mother that I would not go one step without my horse.
She said that I could not find him in the dark, but I was certain that
I knew right where he was, and off I put with mother after me calling,
“Yagaki, Yagaki, come back, come back.” I outran her, however, and
happened to find my pinto. Jumping on it I dashed back to mother. She
scolded me and told me that the Crows might have got me; but I said I
would have to see the Crows before I believed there were any within a
hundred miles of us.
The Indians, however, gathered up all their horses and stayed around
them all night. Mother, Hanabi, and I went down to the river about
a mile away to hide among the willows and trees with seven or eight
hundred other squaws and papooses. They made such a racket with their
excited talking and crying that no one could sleep. All of them
expected to be killed before morning.
But morning came and no Crows. The Indians were mad as hornets, or at
least they acted that way. Washakie sent out some men to where the
guard said he saw the Crows. They found that he had seen only a big
dust and thought it was made by their enemies. I asked Washakie if he
thought that there was any real danger of the Crows coming to attack
us. He said that he did not think they would come to fight us in this
place, but that they might try to steal our horses, or even attack
small bands of our Indians if they ran on to them away from camp.
Every once in a while after that we would have a Crow scare. If
the Indians saw a cloud of dust, they thought the Crows were after
them. They acted like a band of sheep that had been run by coyotes.
Every little thing would scare them. It made me tired to see them so
cowardly. I told Washakie that I did not think they would fight if they
had a chance.
“When are you going to send more Indians out to steal the Crows’
horses?” I asked him.
“Why, do you want to go with them?”
I told him that I had not lost any horses.
“Well, we have,” he said, “and we are going to get them back before
snow flies. The War Chief will attend to that.”
I found out afterwards that Washakie meant business. He was no coward.
[Illustration: “I flung the lasso over his head and jerked him from his
pony.”]
CHAPTER NINE
PAPOOSE TROUBLES
After this second Crow scare, things quieted down again. I kept on
breaking colts, and whipping kids once in a while. One day while I was
riding a wild colt, the boy whom I had kicked before for trying to
see my sore legs began to act smart again. He was riding with other
papooses along with me to see the fun, and every once in a while he
would poke my pony with a stick to see him jump. I warned him once or
twice to quit; but this only seemed to make him worse.
I had a long rawhide rope around the colt’s neck, and I made a noose in
the loose end. When he punched my horse again, I flung the lasso over
his head and jerked him from his pony. This scared my broncho and he
broke into a run. Before I could stop him, I had nearly choked the life
out of that kid. The blood was coming out of his nose and mouth and I
thought that I had surely killed him; but as soon as I loosened the
rope, he began to bawl, and when he got up he put out for camp on the
dead run, yelling and groaning as if he was being murdered. I started
for camp, too, for I knew that things would be popping pretty soon. As
he passed our camp, mother asked who had hurt him. “Yagaki!” he cried,
running on to his mother.
Before I got home, mother met me and asked, “What have you been doing,
Yagaki?”
“Trying to kill that blamed kid,” I said.
“Well, you have nearly done it this time,” she said. “How did it
happen?”
I told her all about it.
“It will cause another camp fight,” she said.
I turned loose the colt I was riding and started after my pinto pony.
“Where are you going?” she asked me.
“After my horse.”
“What for?”
“Because I want him.”
When I had caught and saddled my pony I saw the boy and his father and
mother with some more Indians coming towards our tent. I jumped on
my horse and started off. Mother called to me to stop, but I kept on
going. I thought that if they wanted to fight they could fight; I was
going to get out of it as fast as my pinto could carry me, so I went up
the river and hid in the brush. After dark I heard the Indians calling
“Yagaki, Yagaki,” but I would not answer them.
After a while the mosquitoes got so bad in the brush that I could not
stay there, so when everything was still I crept out, but I did not
know where to go or what to do. I sat down on a stump and tried to
decide. I knew that there would be a racket in camp and I felt bad on
account of mother, but I was not a bit sorry for the papoose I had
hurt; just then I almost wished I had killed him. I had some pretty
mean feelings as I sat there on the stump. I was more homesick than I
had ever been before.
[Illustration: Indian girls carrying water.
_Bur. Am. Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution_]
It was not a very pleasant situation, I tell you, to be so far away
from home among a lot of Indians who were mad at me. I did not know but
that they would kill me. I was worried; but after thinking the matter
over I decided that it would be better for me to go back and face the
music.
When I got near camp I met a lot of Indians that mother had sent out to
hunt me. They said that Washakie was also out trying to find me. When I
asked them what the Indians were going to do to me, they said that they
would do nothing, that I had done what any of them would have done. I
told them that I was afraid that it would start another camp fight, but
they laughed and said it would not. This made me feel much better.
When I reached camp, mother asked me where I had been. I told her and
she said I was a foolish boy for running away like that. “Well,” I
said, “I thought it might stop another camp fight if I went away.”
It was not long before Washakie returned. He gave me a long talk,
telling me not to run away any more but to come to him if I got into
trouble again. He would see that I did not get hurt. I told him that I
thought I had better go home, for I was always getting into trouble and
making it hard for mother and him. He told me he would not let me go
home for that, but advised me to be a little more careful, as I might
have killed the boy. “A rope tied to a wild horse and around a boy’s
neck,” he said, “is not much fun for the boy.”
“Well I forgot about the rope’s being tied to the horse,” I said, “the
boy made me so mad that I did not know what I was doing.”
Washakie said that the boy’s neck was badly skinned and that his father
and mother were very angry about it, but that he would try to calm
them. The other papooses who saw it thought that I did just right. The
chief had a long talk with the boy’s parents, and I heard no more about
it, but I saw the boy wearing a greasy rag about his neck, and whenever
I came near, he would look very savagely at me.
The mosquitoes made us move from this camp. We went east nearly to
the Teton Peaks, where we found game plentiful and the streams full
of trout. The valley with its river running north and south through
the middle of it was beautiful. There was no timber on the banks of
the stream, but it was bordered with great patches of willows from
one to two miles wide extending for about twenty miles along it. The
white-tailed deer were plentiful among the willows. I killed five while
we were there and mother tanned the skins and made a suit of clothes
for me out of them. The clothes were nice and warm. The Indians also
killed a number of moose among the willows.
[Illustration: A white-tailed deer.
_Albert Schlechten, Bozeman, Mont._]
Washakie told me that his tribe had had a great fight with the Sioux
Indians in this valley many years before when he was a small boy. He
said that his people lost a great many of their best men. He took me
all over the battle ground.
We stayed in this valley about thirty days and I began again breaking
colts. When I brought up the first one, mother said, “Leave your rope
here.” I told her I could not manage the colt without it.
“Well, don’t use it on any more papooses,” she said, and I minded her.
The Indians killed a great many elk, deer, and moose while in this
valley, and the squaws had all they could do tanning the skins and
drying the meat. I asked Washakie if he was planning to winter in this
valley.
“Oh, no,” he replied. “The snow falls too deep here. After the buffalo
get fat, and we kill all we want for our winter use, we will go a long
way west out of the buffalo country, but where there are plenty of deer
and antelope and fish. Some of the fish,” he said, “are as long as you
are.”
Berries were getting ripe, so we papooses would go with our mothers
up in the hills and gather them to dry. It was great fun. One day,
however, things got pretty exciting. We were in a canyon busy gathering
the berries when all at once we heard a terrible screaming. Pretty soon
there came a crowd of squaws and papooses. One was yelling, “A bear has
killed my girl.”
I jumped on my pinto pony, for I was riding him that day, and started
up through the brush as fast as I could go. When I got a little way
up the canyon, where the brush was not so thick, I could see a bear
running up the hill. I went a little farther and found the girl
stretched out on the ground as if she were dead. Then I shouted as
loudly as I could for some of the Indians to come back, but they had
all gone. I tried to lift her on to my horse but she was too heavy for
me, so I laid her down again. Then she asked me for a drink. I took the
cup she had been picking berries in and gave her some water. Then she
said she felt better.
“Where is my mother?” she asked.
I told her that they had all run down the canyon like scared sheep.
Then I helped her to her feet. She was crying all the time, and she
said that her head and side and arm hurt her very much. I asked her if
she could ride. She said she would try, so I helped her up on my horse
and led it until we got out of the canyon. Then she told me to get on
behind her as she thought she could guide the horse. We had about four
miles to go, so I climbed upon the pony with her.
When we got in sight of camp we saw some Indians coming full tilt, and
when they met us there was the greatest hubbub I ever heard. When we
reached the camp the girl’s mother came running up and threw her arms
about the girl and acted as if she were crazy. She would have hugged
me too if I had been willing. She said that I was a brave boy. Mother
came up and said, “Yagaki, I thought you had come down to camp ahead of
me or I never would have come without you.”
[Illustration: A black bear.
_New York Zoölogical Society_]
“Oh, you were as scared as any of them,” I said.
“I know I was scared,” she said, “but I never would have left you, if I
had known you were still in the canyon.”
That night the girl’s father and mother came to our tepee to see what
I wanted for saving their daughter’s life. I told them that I wanted
nothing.
“You are a good, brave boy,” said her father.
I asked her mother why she ran away and left the girl.
“Well,” she said, “I saw the bear knock my girl down and jump on her
and I thought she was dead, and I thought the bear would kill me, then
there would be two of us dead.”
The father said that the bears killed many people because they tried to
help the one that was first caught. He felt that it was better for the
rest to run. I did not agree with him. I thought that everybody should
help kill the bear even if they did run the risk of getting killed.
“Yes, you have already shown what you would do,” said my mother. “You
are a brave boy.”
“It was a brave act for a boy,” said Washakie; “but we must not brag
too much about Yagaki or he will begin to think he is a great hero. It
is about time we went to sleep.”
The girl’s mother told me that I might have her daughter for a wife
when I got big enough; but I told her she could keep the girl, I did
not want her.
The next day I wanted mother and the other Indians to go up the canyon
after more service berries, but they wouldn’t go a step. They had had
bear scares enough for that time. The Indians left the bears alone
unless they caught these animals in the open.
One morning we saw two bears crossing the valley. About fifty Indians
on horses started after them. I ran and got my pinto pony. When I came
back for my saddle, mother asked where I was going.
“To help kill those bears yonder.”
“No, you are not,” she said.
“Oh, let him go,” said Washakie, and she consented. I jumped on the
horse and started after the bears as hard as I could go. The Indians
had headed them away from the timber and were popping arrows into them.
My horse was not a bit scared so I ran up to one of the bears and shot
three arrows into his side.
“Keep back, you little dunce,” shouted the Indians, “that bear will
tear you to pieces.”
But the bear was too full of arrows to tear much. He looked like a
porcupine with his quills on end. Very soon the two bears dropped dead;
but their skins were so full of holes that they were not worth much;
the meat was not much good either.
[Illustration: A baby elk in its hiding place.
_S. N. Leek, Jackson, Wyoming_]
That night the Indians had a big dance around the two hides. I joined
in the fun and sang as loud as any of them. They thought I was pretty
daring. One old Indian said, “The little fool doesn’t know any better.
If a bear once got hold of him he would not be so brave.” But they
gave me one of the hides and mother tanned it and sewed up most of the
holes. It made me a very good robe to sleep in.
While we were in this valley another small band of Indians joined us.
The girl that had hit me with the fishing pole was with them. When she
saw that the other Indians liked me so much, she wanted to make up with
me. She came around several times before she said anything to me, but
finally one day she walked over to where I was helping mother stake
down a moose hide to dry and said, “Yagaki, I am sorry that I hit you
that day with the fish pole.”
“I am not,” I said.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because we had lots of fun that day.”
“Why don’t you be friends with her?” mother asked.
I said that I did not want to be her friend.
“You are a mean boy,” said mother; “you should be friends.”
“Not much,” I said; but I did finally tell the girl that it was all
right.
Then she wanted me to go over to their tepee and play, but I told her
that I was afraid her mother would cut my head off.
“No,” she said, “mother will not hurt you. She feels sorry for what we
did to your folks, and so does my father.”
Well, we passed the trouble over and became pretty good friends after
that.
[Illustration: A squaw tanning buckskin.
_Creel_]
By this time we had gathered most of the berries that grew along the
foothills; the squaws were afraid to go farther into the mountains
after the bear excitement; so then they stopped berry picking and went
to work in earnest tanning buckskin and drying meat for winter use.
The Indians quit hunting for elk and deer; for they already had all of
the skins that the women could get ready for the trading trip they had
planned.
It was the custom of the tribe to make a journey almost every fall to
Salt Lake City, and other White settlements, and swap their buckskin
and buffalo robes for red blankets, beads, ammunition, and other things
they needed. Mother and Hanabi worked all day and away into the night
to get their skins ready in time, and I helped them all I could. I
got an old horse and dragged down enough wood to last while we stayed
there. I carried all the water for them, and no kid dared to call me a
squaw either.
Finally the time came for us to begin killing buffaloes for our
winter’s supply of meat. We did not have to hunt them, however, for we
could see them at any time in almost any direction. Many a time I went
out with Washakie to watch the hunters kill the buffaloes. Washakie
wanted only five and we soon got them; but it took mother and Hanabi a
good many days to tan their hides and get the meat ready for winter.
[Illustration: “Three or four buckets of water came over me.”]
CHAPTER TEN
A LONG JOURNEY
Nothing went wrong while we were getting ready for the long trip to
market, and finally everything was in shape to pack up. Our camp by
this time was very large, for Indians had been coming in every few days
until there were fully a thousand of them, and there must have been as
many as five thousand horses. When we took the trail, I could not see
half of the long string of pack animals.
We had twenty pack horses for our own family, loaded with buffalo
robes, elk and deer skins, and our camp outfit. Washakie had a fine big
tepee of elk hides made so it would shed rain. It could be divided in
two parts. Sometimes if we were going to stop just one night, we would
put up only half of it; but if we made a longer camp, we would set up
the whole wigwam.
After we were well started, I noticed that the Indians broke up into
small bands. That night there were only twenty-five tepees left in our
camp. Washakie said that it was better to travel in small parties, for
we could make better time and get better pasture for our horses.
In two or three days we reached the big river where I had come near
choking the papoose to death with my rope. It was quite wide and the
current was very swift where we forded it. When we got in the deepest
place, mother’s horse stumbled over a boulder and fell, and away went
mother down the stream; for she could not withstand the swift current.
I saw her going and started after her, but I could not catch her until
she was carried into the deep, quieter waters. My horse was a good
swimmer, and I was soon at her side. I pulled her to the bank and
tried to help her out of the water, but the willows were so thick at
this place we had a hard time getting on land. Washakie hurried to the
rescue.
“You came nearly going to the Happy Hunting Grounds that time, mother,”
he said.
Washakie thought that we had better stop there so that mother could put
on dry clothes and get over her scare, for he was afraid it would make
her sick. We pitched camp for the night by a grove of cottonwoods near
the river.
Just before dark an Indian came running in and told Washakie that the
Crows had overtaken a small bunch of our Indians and had killed them
and taken all their horses. Washakie ordered the War Chief to take
every one of our warriors and follow the Crows clear into the Crow
country if necessary to punish them. The War Chief told his men to
get ready for a long trip, and the women and children to hide in the
willows until they heard from them. I never saw greater excitement
among the squaws and papooses than we had that night. They were
bawling, and yelling, and rushing everywhere.
“Come on, Yagaki,” called mother, “let us get into the brush.”
“Not much,” I said, “I am going with the warriors to kill Crows.”
Mother grabbed me by one arm and Hanabi by the other, and mother began
to cry and say to Washakie,
“Make him come; make him come.”
Washakie laughed and said that I was just fooling, that I hadn’t lost
any Crows. He said that he was going to guard the camp.
“So am I,” I said. With that mother let me go. I ran and caught my
pinto pony, put my saddle and a few buffalo robes on him and went with
mother and Hanabi down the river. When we reached the rest of the
crowd, I could hear the papooses howling like a pack of young coyotes.
“What is the use of hiding and making such a racket?” I asked. “If the
Crows have any ears they can hear this noise for five miles.”
Mother said that it made no difference for the Crows did not dare to
come into the brush after us.
“Are the Crows as big cowards as our Indians?” I asked.
She said that they were.
“Then there is no danger,” I said; “we had better go to sleep.”
It was not long before we heard Washakie call for us to come back.
“There,” I said; “another scare is over with no Crows at all. I shall
never hide again.”
When we got to camp we learned that a few Crows had chased some of our
Indians and had fired a few shots at them, but nobody had been killed,
and not even a horse had been stolen. About fifty of our young warriors
were following the Crows; but I knew that they would never overtake
them.
[Illustration: Indians traveling.
_E. S. Curtis_]
The next day we packed up early and hit the trail pretty hard. For
several days we headed south. We left the Piupa, or Snake River, and
crossed over the mountains. Finally we came to a place called Tosaibi,
which I learned later to be Soda Springs, in southeastern Idaho.
We could not use the water of these springs, so we went on a short
distance and camped on a good-sized river which the Indians called
Titsapa; this was the Bear River.
They said that this stream ran into a big salt lake that reached nearly
to my old home. That started me to thinking about my dear father and
mother, my brothers and sisters I should like so much to see, and I
could feel the tears running down my cheeks. Mother saw them and came
and sat down by my side.
“Yagaki,” she said, “I fear you do not like to live with us.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“What are you crying about?”
I told her that I was thinking of my white mother.