I told her that she was. But I could not help wanting to see my white
mother and my people just the same.
We followed down the Titsapa for one day’s travel and there we stayed
for three days. At this place part of our band was going to leave us
and make the journey to Salt Lake City to sell our robes and buckskins
and what furs we had. I wanted to go with the party, but mother would
not let me. Hanabi and Washakie went. They took twelve pack horses
very heavily loaded and also two young horses to sell if they got a
chance. They left mother and me with the camp outfit and sixty-four
head of horses to look after. Those that were not going to Salt Lake
City intended to go off northwest and strike the head of another river,
about four days’ travel away, and stay there till the others returned.
When mother and I went to packing up for our return, we found that we
did not have pack saddles enough for all of our camp outfit. Besides
our tepee, bedding, clothing, and utensils, we had sixteen sacks of
dried meat and two sacks of service berries. This was too much for
our eight pack saddles. Mother said that we could get along if we had
two more saddles so I told her to use mine for one and I would ride
bareback. She did not like to do this, but she finally consented, and
another boy let us have his saddle, so we packed ten horses. This took
a good deal of time each morning.
After three days of slow traveling we reached the head of a stream
which they called Tobitapa; the whites now call it the Portneuf River.
There were fifteen squaws, about thirty-five papooses, and three old
men Indians in our camp.
Washakie thought it would take them fifteen days to go to Salt Lake
City and get back to where we were. I asked mother whether she was not
afraid that the Crows would come and kill all of us while they were
gone.
“No,” she said, “the Crows never come this far south.”
Then I asked her why she did not want me to go to Salt Lake City with
the others. She said that she could not take care of so many horses
without me to help, and she was afraid, too, that the white men would
take me away from her.
“Is that the reason Washakie does not like to take me with him when he
goes among the whites?” I asked her.
She told me that Washakie said that if I ever got dissatisfied and
wanted to go home, he would give me my horse and a good outfit, and see
that I got home safe. “But,” she said, “I hope that you will never want
to go away, for I believe it would kill me if you should leave me.”
I told her not to worry because I thought that I should always stay
with her. It always made her seem happier when I would tell her that.
If she ever saw me look unhappy, she would turn away and cry. She did
everything she could to make me happy, and I tried to be kind to her.
Mother was afraid that I would get sick from not having bread and milk
to eat, for I told her that was what I always had for supper when I
was home. She thought that eating meat all the time would not agree
with me and would make me unhealthy. Often she would have fried fish
and fried chickens or ducks for supper. When I first went to live with
her, she made a small sack and tied it to my saddle. She would keep
this sack full of the best dried fish when we were traveling, so that
I could eat if I got hungry; for she said that I could not go all day
without eating anything, as the Indians often did. Every morning she
would empty my lunch sack and refill it with fresh food. She soon found
out what I liked best, and she always had it for me; so you see I had
plenty to eat, even if I was with Indians; and that is more than a
great many white children had at that time.
I was very healthy while I was with the Indians. I think the reason
was that I did not like their way of doctoring. When any of them got
a cold, they would dig a hole two or three feet deep by the side of a
cold spring. Into this hole they would put a few cobblestones. Then
they would build a fire in the hole, get the stones right hot, and
then scrape the fire all out. The sick person had to get into the hole
with a cup of water, and after being covered with a buffalo robe, he
would pour the water on the hot rocks and make a steam. This would
make him sweat like sixty. When he had sweated long enough some one
would jerk off the robe and he would jump into the cold water of the
spring. As soon as he got out of the water, they would throw a buffalo
robe around him, let him sweat awhile, then they would cool him off
gradually by taking the robe off a little at a time while he quit
sweating. He was then supposed to be well.
[Illustration: Indian sweat house covered; fire in foreground.
_Dr. T. M. Bridges_]
One chilly day I was out hunting chickens, and was quite a distance
from camp when a heavy rainstorm came and soaked me through before I
could get home. That night I coughed and coughed so that nobody in our
tepee could sleep. The next day mother wanted to dig a hole for me. I
told her that I did not want a hole dug for me until I was dead. She
begged me to take a sweat.
“Not much,” I said, “no more of your jumping into springs for me.”
I had not forgotten how they tried to cure my sore legs with a
salt-springs bath.
She said that it would not hurt me. But I told her that I was played
out and I would not do it.
“Well,” she said, “you need not jump into the cold water. The heat of
the rocks and the steam from the ground will sweat you enough.”
“You had better do it,” said Washakie, “before you get sick in bed.”
“All right,” I said, “go to digging.”
Very soon she had the hole dug and everything ready, then she said,
“Come now, pull off your clothes and get in here.”
“Pull off nothing,” I said.
“You must,” she said.
“Jerk them off,” urged Washakie; “I will hold this buffalo robe over
you so that you will not be seen.”
[Illustration: Framework of an Indian sweat house.
_Dr. T. M. Bridges_]
So off came my clothes and into the hole I went. I got over the rocks
just the way an old sitting hen does over her eggs. Mother gave me a
cup of water and I poured it over the heated boulders. She stood there
to keep the robe over the hole and kept asking me if I was sweating.
I told her that I was getting wetter than a fish; but for some cause
she kept me for quite a while, then she jerked off the robe and whack!
three or four buckets of cold water came all over me. Oh, I jumped out
of that hole in a hurry!
Washakie stood there with the robe, threw it over me, carried me into
the tepee and put me to bed. Then he threw more robes over me, and how
I did sweat! It was rough doctoring, but it cured my cold all right.
This was after Washakie and his party had got back from Salt Lake. They
were gone twenty-two days instead of fifteen. Washakie had disposed
of his robes and skins at a good price, and he had sold the two
horses, so he came back pretty well outfitted for the winter. He had
twenty-four blankets, a lot of calico, some red flannel for the tongues
of moccasins, some underclothing for me, and about a peck of beads of
all colors and sizes. The beads were to swap for tanned buckskin, and
the blankets for buffalo robes. He brought me a butcher knife, a new
bridle, two pounds of candy, and a lot of fishhooks. I felt “heap rich”
and very happy.
[Illustration: “Away we went to the bottom.”]
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SNOWY MOONS
Snow had already fallen on the mountain tops when Washakie got back,
so he was in a hurry to get the camp moved to the winter range. Mother
and Hanabi began at once to arrange the packs for traveling. We soon
started for our winter quarters.
We went down the Tobitapa (Portneuf) to the Piupa (Snake River), then
up the Piupa, and then west over the divide on to the headwaters of
Angitapa (Rock Creek). At this place we stayed six days and killed
sixteen buffaloes, two for each family. That was to be the last killing
of buffaloes until the next year. Washakie bought four of the buffalo
hides from other Indians, which made six in all. He said that he wanted
something for the women to do through the winter.
When we started from here we went west over a big mountain upon which
we had to camp in about three feet of snow. We had to tie up all our
horses to keep them from running away, for we had nothing for them to
eat. Early the next morning we were off and that night we got out
of the snow, but it was still very cold. The next day we came to a
beautiful stream. It was not very large, but it was fairly alive with
mountain trout. We went down the stream two days’ travel and there we
stayed for about a month, I think. Washakie had intended to winter
here, but he changed his mind and followed the stream farther down
until he came to another river. I do not remember what the Indians
called this river, but they told me that fish as long as I was tall
came up the river in the springtime. We had a very good camping ground
that winter. It was sheltered from the wind, but we had a great deal
more snow than had fallen the winter before.
About six hundred yards above our camp was a large grove of dry quaking
aspens, mostly small poles. I told mother that if she would help me
pile a lot of them, I would haul them down with the horses. She did not
believe that I could do it, but she helped me gather the poles just the
same.
Washakie had brought from Salt Lake City the inch auger I asked him to
get for me, so I went to work to make a sled like the one I had seen my
father make. I got two crooked sticks for runners, pinned on some cross
pieces, and soon had the thing ready. It did not look much like a sled,
but it answered the purpose pretty well.
I got up two lazy old horses of mother’s, put on their pack saddles and
tied ropes from the sleds to the pack saddles, then I mounted one of
the horses and away we went for the grove. After putting on quite a few
poles and tying them on with a rope, I took the load to camp without
any bother at all. All of the Indians were out watching me bring in my
first load of wood.
“What cannot a white man do?” said the old War Chief.
In a few days I had all of the wood we needed down to the camp. Hanabi
said that I was as good as two squaws. After getting our wood up, I
lent the sled to some of the Indians. They thought they could haul wood
as well as I could, so they hitched up their horses and started out.
But they went on higher up the hill where it was steeper than where I
got my wood. Then they put on a big load and started down. The sled ran
into the horses’ heels, scared them, and they started to run. The horse
that the Indian was riding broke loose from the sled, and the other
horse ran away with the sled fastened to him, scattering the poles all
over the side of the hill, and bolting down through the camp. The sled
jammed against the tepees and jerked three or four of them down. Then
the frightened horse struck out through some cottonwoods, slammed the
sled against the trees, and broke it all to pieces.
[Illustration: Shoshone tepee with sagebrush windbreak.]
This discouraged the Indians. They said that the squaws could pack wood
if they wanted any, that it was their work anyhow. That ended the wood
hauling.
I got the Indian boys to help me fix up the sled again. We pulled it up
on a hill with a horse and turned it towards camp. I wanted some of the
boys to get on with me and slide down, but they were afraid. They said
they wanted to see me do it first, so away I went. Then they came down
with the horse and we pulled the sled up again. By hard begging, I got
two of them on the sled. As soon as we started, one jumped off, but the
other stayed with me. When we reached the bottom, he said it was the
finest ride he ever had. The next time several of the boys were ready
to try it, and five of us got on. Away we went to the bottom. Oh, what
fun we had! It was not long till they all wanted to get on, and the
heavier we loaded it, the faster it would go. When the track got slick,
the sled would carry us nearly to camp.
We kept this up for days. When the track was well made, we would pull
the sled up without a horse. All of the big boys and girls joined in
the coasting, and sometimes the older Indians would ride too. The sled
was kept going all the time, until we wore the runners out. After
that for fun we turned to fishing and hunting chickens and rabbits.
Sometimes we would go for antelope, but when we went for them, some of
the older Indians would go with us to keep us from killing too many.
The Indians were always careful to preserve the game.
Everything went off peacefully this winter. There was no quarreling nor
fighting. One young papoose and an old squaw died. We lost no horses.
We were a long way from the Crows, so we had no Crow scares. I had a
very good time, and mother seemed to enjoy the winter as well as I did.
Along towards spring seven or eight of us little boys were in the
cottonwoods shooting birds when one boy’s arrow hit the side of a
tree, glanced, and struck me in the leg. The boy was badly scared, for
he thought I was going to kick him to pieces, but I told him to stop
crying, that I knew it was an accident. He quit crying, and the other
boys thought that I was getting to be a pretty good fellow after all,
for before this they believed that if any one hurt me there would be a
kicking scrape right away.
Spring came at last. We moved down the river about fifteen miles
where we could get better grass for our horses. Here were plenty of
white-tailed deer and antelope, some elk, and a few mountain sheep.
Ducks and geese also were plentiful.
We stayed here until about the middle of May. The big fish they had
told me about began to come up the river. And they were really big
ones; two of them made all the load I could carry. They must have
weighed thirty or thirty-five pounds each. Mother and Hanabi dried
about two hundred pounds of these fish. I afterwards learned that they
were salmon. The first that came up were fat and very good, but they
kept coming thicker and thicker until they were so thin that they were
not fit to eat.
After a while we moved camp again, going down the river a little
farther and then up a deep and rocky canyon where there had been many
snowslides during the winter. We crossed over snow that had come down
in these slides that was forty or fifty feet deep and was as hard as
ice. There was not very much timber in the canyon, and the cliffs were
very high. Years afterwards very rich gold mines were found in this
place, a mining camp was started, and great quartz mills were built.[3]
[3] Virginia City, Montana.
[Illustration: “The burden bearer”--Squaw carrying wood.
_Lee Moorhouse_]
As we left the canyon, we climbed a very steep mountain for about
two miles, and then went down through thick timber until we came out
on to a beautiful prairie covered with the finest grass I had ever
seen. Off to the left was a deep canyon where one fork of the Big Hole
River headed, and here we camped for a long time. The Indians killed a
great many black-tailed deer and antelope and dried the meat. I think
Washakie and I killed seventeen while we stayed here.
Our next move was down to the forks of the river, where we stayed three
or four weeks to give the women time to tan the deerskins. It was fine
fishing in the Big Hole River.
While we were staying here, one of the War Chief’s boys was
accidentally shot and killed. Oh, what crying we had to do! Every one
in camp who could raise a yelp had to cry for about five days. I had to
mingle my gentle voice with the rest of the mourners. They killed three
horses and buried them and his bow and arrows with him. The horses were
for him to ride to the Happy Hunting Grounds. When they got ready to
bury him, every one in camp had to go up to him and put a hand on his
head and say he was sorry to have him leave us. When it came my turn,
I went into our tepee and would not come out. Mother came after me. I
told her I would not go, that I was not sorry to see him go, for he was
no good anyhow.
“Don’t say that so they will hear it,” she said. Then she went back and
made excuses for me.
They took him up to a high cliff and put him in a crevice with his
bedding, a frying pan, an ax, his bow and arrows, and some dried
buffalo meat. After this they covered him with rocks. When they got
back to camp, they let out the most pitiful howls I ever heard. I
joined them too, just as loud as I could scream, as if I was the most
broken-hearted one in the camp, but it seemed so foolish to keep up
this howling, as they did for five days. I got so hoarse I could hardly
talk.
But I did feel sorry for his poor mother. She was really
grief-stricken. She cut off her hair close to her head. I asked mother
why she did that. She said that all mothers did it when their oldest
boy died. After our mourning was over, she would still weep bitterly
and sometimes scream out her sorrow.
We next moved down the Big Hole River to where the town of Melrose is
now situated. We stayed here for about two weeks, then went on till we
came to where the Big Hole empties into the Beaver Head River and
forms the Jefferson River.
[Illustration: Coming in from an antelope hunt on Camas Prairie, Idaho,
years ago before these pronghorns were fully protected.
_Caspar W. Hodgson_]
Here we did nothing but fish. The buffalo were not fat enough to kill,
and besides, we had all of the dried elk and deer meat we wanted. It
was a beautiful place to camp, and we had the finest of grass for our
horses.
I broke a few more colts, two for mother and four for Washakie. Our
horses by this time were getting fat and looking fine, but my little
pinto was the prettiest one of all. Hardly a day passed but some Indian
would try to trade me out of him. One Indian offered me two good horses
if I would swap, but I thought too much of the pony to part with him
even for a whole band of horses. He was just as pretty as a horse could
be.
Our next journey took us a long way northeast. Washakie said that we
were going where the buffaloes were too many to count. After about a
week of travel, we reached the north fork of the Madison River, about
on a line with the Yellowstone Park; and oh, the kwaditsi (antelope)
and padahia (elk) and kotea (buffalo) there were! Every way we looked
we could see herds of them.
While we were at this camp another boy was killed by a horse. He was
dragged almost to pieces through the rocks and brush.
When I heard of it, I told mother to get her voice ready for another
big howling.
“Aren’t you ashamed to talk that way?” asked Hanabi.
“I am afraid you are a hard-hearted boy,” said mother.
After the poor fellow was buried, we went up the Madison River about
ninety miles and camped there for a month. The buffalo were now in
better condition, so we killed a good many, drying their meat and
making their hides into robes. Then we went on south and came to the
beautiful lake where we had had such a good time the summer before. It
is now called Henry’s Lake, and is the head of the north fork of the
Snake River. We did nothing here but fish, for we had enough dried meat
to last till we reached the usual hunting grounds.
[Illustration: “The warriors went on and passed ... out of our sight.”]
CHAPTER TWELVE
THE FIERCE BATTLE
We were now traveling towards the Crow country. I think our Indians
were a little afraid that the Crows were going to try to stop them;
but Washakie said that he was going through if it cost him half of his
tribe, for he was not going to be bluffed off his best hunting ground
any longer.
I thought something was up, because small bands of Indians kept joining
us, until we had gathered about seven hundred warriors. We sent all
of our surplus horses down the Snake River with Indians to guard them
until we came back. Washakie and mother kept fifteen head for pack
horses, and I kept two horses to ride. After the extra horses and packs
had gone, we started for the disputed hunting grounds.
The men all went out ahead, followed by the pack horses, with the women
and children and old men in the rear. Mother warned me to keep close to
her, for Washakie said that the Crows might tackle us that day. I said
that kind of talk was too thin. But we had not been traveling very
long before one of our scouts came tearing back and said that he had
seen where a very large band of Crows had passed, and had sighted smoke
in the timber ahead.
The men all stopped and bunched together. I heard Washakie tell them
to go ahead, to keep a good lookout, and if the Crows pounced on them,
to fight as long as there was a man left. I thought that they must be
getting brave.
We started again with the men in the lead as before, but riding very
slowly. Six or eight Indians kept riding back and forth along our line
to keep the squaws and pack horses from getting scattered.
Pretty soon we stopped again and the War Chief ordered us to camp there
for the night. “We know now,” he said, “that we must fight or go back,
and we have gone back so much that the Crows begin to think we are
afraid of them. I feel that we ought to give them a lesson this time
that they will not forget soon.”
“That is the way I look at it,” said Washakie. “Now is the time to show
them that we will fight for our rights.”
This seemed to be the way most of the warriors felt, for I heard them
talking about it in their council that night.
We camped right there, all in a bunch, with hardly room to make down
our beds. A strong guard was sent to look after the horses, but the
night passed off without any trouble. When morning came, ten men were
sent to see if they could find any signs of the Crows. They were gone
about an hour, when back they came and reported that about a thousand
Crows were camped over the ridge just ahead of us.
“We will go on to our hunting grounds,” said the War Chief, “if there
are ten thousand of them.”
The Indians painted up in grand style. They drew black streaks all over
their faces to make themselves look fiercer, and then we got ready and
started forward. We had not gone far when the squaws were ordered to
stop. The warriors went on and passed over a small ridge out of our
sight.
Pretty soon we heard shooting, then an Indian came and told us to go
back until we came to good water and stay there until we heard from the
chief. “They are fighting now,” he said.
We had hardly reached the stream of water before we saw Indians come up
on the hill and then disappear, then come in sight again. They seemed
to be fighting fiercely, and they were yelling to beat Old Billy. They
had not been fighting over an hour before half or two thirds of them
were on top of the hill and slowly coming down the side towards us.
[Illustration: A Shoshone brave (Fort Hall, Idaho).
_Dr. T. M. Bridges_]
The squaws began to cry and say that the Crows were getting the better
of our Indians and were driving them back. They kept coming closer and
closer to us. When I looked around I saw that the squaws were getting
their butcher knives; they were ready to fight if they had to. Then I
noticed that our men were not coming towards us any longer. I could see
Washakie on his big buckskin horse dashing around among the Indians and
telling them what to do, and very soon the driving turned the other
way; they began to disappear over the ridge again, and I could tell
that our Indians were beating the Crows.
We could tell the Crow Indians from ours, for they had something white
over one shoulder and under one arm, and they wore white feathers in
their hair. There were about fifteen hundred Indians engaged in the
fight on both sides, as the battle ground covered quite a piece of
country. We could see a good many horses running around without riders.
I believe that the squaws would have taken part in the battle if it
had not been for the guard of about fifty old Indians that kept riding
around us all the time to keep the squaws and papooses and horses close
together.
When our men had driven the Crows back to the ridge, they seemed to
stick there; but they were still fighting and yelling and circling
around. It looked as if they could not force the enemy back any
farther. I got so excited that I jumped on my horse and said to another
Indian boy, “Come on, let’s go up and see what they are doing and try
to help them.”
Mother grabbed my bridle and said, “You crazy little dunce; haven’t you
one bit of sense?”
“I might kill a whole flock of Crows,” I said, “for all you know.” But
she would not let me go, and I guess it was a good thing I did not.
After about six hours of fighting, one Indian, badly wounded, came
in and told us to go back to the lake, but not to unpack until we
got word from the War Chief. We went back and when we got to the top
of the divide we could still see the Indians fighting, although they
were about two miles away, and we could see loose horses all over the
prairie. The sun was nearly an hour high when we reached the lake.