Although we saw nothing more of the Crows after their attack upon us, I kept thinking about them all the time. The big war party that had gone to raid their herds returned after a month or so without a single horse. They reported that the enemy was encamped some distance up the Bighorn River, and that their horses were under so heavy a guard both night and day that they had not dared attempt to stampede them. Before real winter set in another party of our warriors went out, and had no better success. The Crows were still close herding their horses in the daytime, and keeping them in well guarded corrals at night.
It was in our lone camp on Arrow River that this thought came to me: If the Blackfeet would only make peace with the Crows, the latter might then accompany us north and trade at our post. I asked myself if it was in any way possible for me to accomplish this. Well I knew what a grand coup it would be for me if I could ride into the post and say to the factor: "Here I am, returned with a good knowledge of the Blackfoot language. I have been far, and seen much. I have had the Pi-kun-i and the Crows, after a desperate fight, make peace with one another, and have induced that far tribe to come and trade with us. They are here!"
Well, when I thought that, I became so excited that it was long before I could sleep. I thought about it all the next day, and determined to speak to Red Crow about it. When evening came, and we had eaten our fill of is-sap-wot-sists, and were resting on our soft couches, I said to him: "Brother, how is peace made with an enemy tribe? Tell me all about it!"
"Ai! You shall know," he answered. "If there is much talk of peace, the chiefs get together and council about it, and if they decide that it will be good to make peace with the enemy, they send messengers with presents of pipes and tobacco to the enemy chiefs, asking that they smoke the pipe. If the enemy chiefs accept the pipe, and smoke the tobacco with it, then their answer is that they will be glad to make peace, and they tell the messengers where they and their people will meet our chiefs and our people, and make the peace."
"If your father and the other chiefs will make peace with the Crows, will you go with me to their camp?" I asked.
"I don't know that I want peace with them! It is good to have enemies to fight and count coup upon; that is what makes us men, brave warriors!" he exclaimed.
"Yes! And oh, how many poor and unhappy widows and fatherless children!" Mink Woman put in, much to my surprise.
"Brother, you shall know my heart!" I went on. "I want this peace to be made for two reasons. First, for the sake of the women and children, and all the old, dependent upon the hunters for their food and shelter. Second, I want the Crows to go north with us and trade at our post. I want all this very much. Now, say that you will help me; that you will do all that you can toward making the peace!"
"Oh, Brother! As you love me, say yes!" Mink Woman cried.
"We all want peace, we women! Peace with all tribes!" said Rattle Woman.
"Well, I say yes. I will do what I can. Not that I want peace, but because you ask me to help you!" he answered.
So it was that, upon our return to camp, we began to urge Lone Walker to make peace with the Crows. At first he just laughed at us. Then got cross whenever we mentioned the subject, and went off visiting to be rid of us. But we kept at him, with a larger and larger following of women, and even men, and at last he called the council, and after long argument the chiefs decided to send peace messengers to the Crow camp as soon as the first geese arrived in the spring. Mad Plume was to be the lead messenger, because it was his sister who had married into the Crow tribe. Another was Ancient Otter (Mis-sum-am-un-is) and Red Crow and I the other two. Lone Walker at first declared that we should not go; that the mission was too dangerous for boys to undertake; far more dangerous than going on a raid. But in that, too, we had our way. On a sunny, although cold day in March, a flock of geese was seen flying north over the camp, and the next day we started, well mounted, with an extra robe each, and the peace pipe and tobacco in a roll upon Mad Plume's back, beside his bow and arrow case.
Yes! You shall know all: As we rode out of camp, and I looked back at my comfortable lodge home, my heart went way, way down! On the previous evening I had been told the tale of some peace messengers to the Snakes some years before. Upon entering the enemy camp and stating their mission, they had been set upon and all killed but one, he being told to go straight home and tell the Pi-kun-i chiefs that that was the Snakes' answer to their offer. That might be, I thought, the kind of answer that the Crows would give us!
I well remember how warm and windless that March day was. There were patches of snow on the north side of the hills, and in the coulees, but otherwise the brown plains were bare and dry. The mountains, of course, were impassable, so we kept along the foot of them, traveling east, and that night camped at the foot of the Black Butte. The following morning we swung around the butte and headed south by a little east, a course that would take us to the junction of Elk River and the Bighorn, my companions said. We crossed the Musselshell River at noon or a little earlier, and that night slept upon the open plain. The weather continued fine. The next morning also broke clear and warm and cloudless. We started on at sunrise and, topping a ridge, Mad Plume pointed to some dark breaks away off to the south, and told me that they marked the course of Elk River. I estimated that we were about twenty miles from them.
At about ten o'clock we marked a big wedge of gray geese coming north, and Red Crow, pointing to them, exclaimed: "See the sun's messengers! He sends them north to tell us that he is coming to drive Cold Maker back to his always-winter land!"
He had no more than said that than the geese suddenly broke their well-ordered wedge lines and, shrilly honking, turned and went straight south on wild, uneven wings!
"Ha! They have seen Cold Maker coming! Yes! He is coming; I can smell him!" Mad Plume exclaimed, and brought his horse to a stand and looked to the north.
So did we, and saw a black belt of fog all across the horizon and right down upon the ground, and coming south with frightful speed. It had advanced as far as the north slope of the Snowy Mountains when we turned and saw it, and even as we looked they were lost in its blackness! The air suddenly became strong with the odor of burning grass. I had never seen anything like it. The swiftly moving, black fog bank, apparently turning over and over like a huge roller and blotting out the plain and mountains, frightened me, and I asked my companions what it meant.
"Fearful wind, cold, and snow! Cold Maker is bringing it! He hides himself in his black breath!" Red Crow told me.
"We have to ride hard! Unless we can get to the timber we are gone!" Mad Plume cried, and away we went as though we were trying to outride a big war party. And then suddenly that black fog bank struck us and instead of fog it was a terrific storm cloud! The wind all but tore us from our horses; fine, hard snow swirled and beat into our eyes, almost blinding us, and the air became bitterly cold. I marveled at the sudden change from sunny spring to a winter blizzard. Like my companions, I had on a pair of soft leather moccasins, and over them a pair of buffalo robe moccasins, and on my hands were robe mittens, but for all their thickness and warmth both hands and feet began to numb in the terrible cold of the storm.
Mad Plume led us, we following close in single file. In front of me, not ten feet away, Red Crow and his horse were but dim shadows in the driving snow. I saw him dismount and begin running beside his horse, and I got down and did likewise. And so, alternately on foot and riding we went on and on until it seemed to me that we had traveled thrice the distance to the river breaks that we had seen so plainly before the storm came up. At last Mad Plume stopped and we crowded around him. He had to shout to make himself heard. "What think you?" he asked. "Is the wind still from the north?"
We could not answer that. To me it seemed to be coming from all directions at once.
"If Cold Maker has changed it we are sure to become lost and die. If he still blows it south we should soon get to shelter," he said, and led on.
"We are lost!" I kept saying to myself as we ran, and rode, on and on for what seemed to me hours and hours, the snow at last becoming so deep that we were obliged to remain on our horses. But just as I felt that I was beginning to freeze, that there was no longer any use in trying to keep going, we began to descend a steep slope, and at the foot of it rode into a grove of big cottonwoods and out of the terrible wind! Mad Plume led us into a deep part of the woods where grew great clumps of tall willows, and we dismounted. "Ha! We survive! And now for comfort: a lodge, fire, food! Hobble your horses and get to work!" he cried.
I couldn't hobble mine, my hands were so numb that I could do nothing with them; so I ran around swinging them and clapping them together until they became warm. I then cared for my horse, and with good will helped my companions gather material, dry poles, dead branches, brush, and armfuls of tall rye grass for a small lodge. We soon had it up and a good fire going. The cold air rushed in through a thousand little spaces between the poles; we made a lodge lining of our pishimores—pieces of buffalo robe that we used for saddle blankets—and sat back on our rye grass couches and were truly comfortable, and very thankful that Cold Maker had not overcome us! Presently one of our horses nickered, and Red Crow went out to learn the cause of it. "A big herd of elk has come in!" he called to us, and we all ran out and followed him on their trail; they had passed within fifty yards of the lodge. We soon saw them standing in a thick patch of willows, heads down, and bodies all humped up with the cold. They paid no attention to our approach and we moved right up close to them and shot down four with bows and arrows. We skinned them all, taking the hides for more lodge covering, and cut a lot of meat from a fat, dry cow that I had killed, and then we were prepared to weather the storm, no matter how long it should last.
The terrible wind and snow lasted all that night and far into the afternoon of the following day, and when it ceased the weather remained piercingly cold. When the sun came out I took up my gun and went for a walk, and going through the timber looked out upon a great river, the Sieur de la Vérendrie's La Roche Jaune, (the Yellowstone). He had seen it, where it merged with the Missouri, in 1744, and upon his return to Montreal told of the mighty flow of its waters from the snows of the Shining Mountains. How many times I had heard my grandfather and others speak of it, and even talk of an expedition to explore its vast solitudes to its source. They were sure that they would be well rewarded with furs. The very name of the river suggested riches; rich mines of gold and silver! And here I was, actually upon the shore of this great river of the West, looking out upon its frozen stretches, and in quest of neither furs nor gold, but of peace between two warring tribes! I said to myself that the Sieur de la Vérendrie and his men, and Lewis and Clark and their men had seen the mouth of the river, but that mine was the honor of first seeing its upper reaches, and oh, how proud of that I was! I did not learn until long afterward that upon their return journey from the Western Ocean, a part of the Lewis and Clark expedition had struck across the plains to the river, and followed it down to the Missouri.
I returned to the lodge to find my companions roasting our evening meal of elk ribs, and was soon eating my large share of the fat meat. When that was over we made plans for continuing our journey. While I had been out at the river, Mad Plume had climbed to the rim of the plain for a look at the country, and found that we were not far above the mouth of the Bighorn.
Said Mad Plume now: "No matter how cold it is in the morning, we must start on. The colder it is the safer we will be, for we will not likely be discovered by the Crow hunters, and that is what I most fear, discovery of us while traveling, and sudden attack upon us. I think that if we can reach the edge of the camp without being seen, we can go on through it to the chief's lodge safely enough; the people will be so curious to know why we have come that they will not then fall upon us."
"We can travel nights and escape being seen," said Ancient Otter.
"But we can't cover up our tracks; this fall of snow will last for some days. Well, we will make an early start, and anyhow keep traveling in the daytime if we find it possible," Mad Plume decided, and started to talk about other matters.
After a time Ancient Otter said: "Our camping here reminds me of the time that we made peace with the Crows just below, at the mouth of the Bighorn, and the young Crow, Little Wolf, with whom I became very friendly. I wonder if he is still living? I did not see him when we had that fight, some moons back. If he is still alive I know that he will be with us for making peace. I must tell you about him:
"On the evening of the day that we made peace, he invited me to dance with him and his friends, and I had a pleasant time. A day or two after that I asked him to one of our dances. Then we visited often in his lodge and in mine, and we became close friends. One day he said to me, in signs, of course, the Crows are fine sign talkers, 'We are five young men going south on a raid; you get together four of your friends and join us.'
"Two or three days after that we started, five Crows and five of us, Little Wolf and I joint leaders of the party. We went on foot, traveling at night, taking our time; we had the whole summer before us. We followed up the Bighorn almost to its head, then crossed a wide, high ridge and struck a stream heading in several mountain canyons, and running east into the great plain. At the mouth of one of the canyons we discovered a big camp of the enemy. We came upon it unexpectedly, soon after daylight, and after crossing a wide, level stretch of plain. Looking down from the edge of the cliff we had come to, there was the camp right under us. People were already up and moving about, some of the men preparing to ride out to hunt. We dared not attempt to go back across the plain; there was but one thing for us to do; we wriggled down into a patch of cherry brush just below the top of the cliff and in a coulee that broke it, and felt safe enough except for the fact that the brush was heavy with ripe fruit; some women and children might come up to gather it.
"The cliff was broken down in many places, more a steep slope of boulders than a cliff, and it was not high. From where we sat in the brush the nearest lodges of the camp were no more than long bow shot from us. We could see the people plainly and hear them talking. They were the Spotted Horses People.[1]
[1] Kish-tsi-pim-i-tup-i. Spotted Horses People. The Cheyennes.
"The lodge nearest us was very large, new, and evidently the lodge of a medicine man, for it was painted with figures of two long snakes with plumes on their heads. A number of women lived in it; they kept coming out and going back, but their man never once appeared.
"The horses of the camp were grazing in the valley of the stream both above and below it and we looked at them with longing, for we could see that many of them were of the spotted breed. After a time a boy on a big, dancing, spotted stallion drove a large band of horses up in front of the snake medicine lodge and then the medicine man came out to look at them. He was a very tall and heavily built man. He wore a cow leather wrap, medicine painted. My Crow friend nudged me, pointed to the big stallion and then signed to me: 'I shall take that horse to-night, and others with him!'
"I laughed, and signed back, 'You don't know that for sure. I may be the one to seize him!'
"The medicine man was talking to the boy on the stallion, louder and louder until his voice became like the roar of a wounded bear in our ears. He suddenly reached up and seized the boy by the arm, dragged him from the stallion, and then picking up a big stick began to beat him with it. We groaned at the awful sight; almost we cried out at it, we who never strike our sons. The women had come out of the lodge; they were crying, no doubt begging the man to let the boy go, but he paid no attention to them, nor to the crowd of people hurrying toward him from all parts of the camp. He beat and beat the boy, at last struck him on the head and he fell as though dead; and at that the women ran forward and lifted him and hurried him into a near-by lodge. The man watched them go, then took up his fallen wrap and went into his lodge. Said my Crow friend to me, in signs, 'We must make that man pay big for beating the boy. He shall lose his horses, all of them, and his medicine, too!'
"'Yes! Let us, you and I, take all his horses, and our men take others as they will. But his medicine, no, not that; it would bring us bad luck,' I answered.
"All that long, hot day, thirsty, hungry, we sat there in the patch of cliff brush watching the enemy camp and its horse herds. We saw nothing more of the beaten boy, and the medicine man did not appear again until nearly sunset. He then went down the valley to his herd, which had been allowed to graze back to its feeding ground, and caught out of it the stallion, rode it home and picketed it close to his lodge. Other men brought in one or two of their horses for early morning use. The sun set. The moon came up. We climbed back to the top of the cliff, went along it for some distance, and then down into the valley below the camp to water. There, where we struck the river, was to be our meeting place. After a long wait we scattered out, Little Wolf and I going together after the medicine man's herd. We had kept constant watch on it, and now went straight to it and drove it to the meeting place. Some of our companions were already there with their takings. We left the herd for them to hold, and struck out for the camp to get the big stallion. On the way up my friend again told me that he would take the medicine. I tried to get him to leave it alone, but his mind was set; the loss of the medicine, he said, should be the man's punishment for beating the boy.
"The lodge fires had all died out and the people were asleep when we arrived at the edge of the camp. We kept close to the foot of the cliff and approached the medicine man's lodge. The stallion was picketed between it and the cliff. Little Wolf signed to me to go to it and wait for him while he took the medicine, which we could see was still hanging on a tripod just back of the lodge. Again I signed him not to take it. I laid hold of his arm and tried to lead him with me toward the horse, but he signed that he would have the medicine and I let him go, and went on toward the horse.
"I don't know why I changed my course and followed my friend; something urged me to do so. I was about twenty steps behind him as he went up to the tripod and started to lift the medicine sacks from it. As he did so I saw the lodge skin suddenly raised and the medicine man sprang out from under it and seized him from behind. I ran to them as they struggled and struck the big man on the head with my gun and down he went and lay still. He had never seen me, and never knew what hit him. Neither had he made any outcry. As soon as he fell we ran to the stallion, bridled him with his picket rope and sprang upon his back, Little Wolf behind me, and still hanging to the medicine sacks. It was my intention to make the stallion carry us out from the camp as fast as he could go, but there was nowhere any outcry—any one in sight, so I let him go at a walk until we were some distance down the valley, and then hurried him the rest of the way to the meeting place. Our companions were all there with their takings, mounted and waiting for us. Little Wolf got down and caught a horse and away we went for the north, and it was a big band of horses that we drove ahead of us.
"At daybreak we stopped to change to fresh horses, and as I turned loose the stallion I signed to Little Wolf: 'There! Take your horse!'
"'I shall never put a rope on him! You saved my life; that enemy would have killed me but for you. The horse is yours,' he signed back, and went away off our trail and hung the medicine sacks in the brush where any pursuers we might have would never see them. He gave them to the sun.
"Well, when we got back to the mouth of the Bighorn we found that the Pi-kun-i had started for the Snow Mountains several days before, so after one night in the Crow camp we five took up their trail. I spent that last night in Little Wolf's lodge, and we planned to meet often again, and to go on more raids together. His last words, or signs, rather, to me were: 'Do not forget that no matter what others may do, you and I shall always be friends!'
"'Yes! Friends always,' I answered, and rode away. I have never seen him since that time."
So ended Ancient Otter's story. It heartened me. If his friend was still alive—and he certainly had not been killed in the big fight—he would be with us for making peace, as well as Mad Plume's sister. Said Mad Plume to me: "You now know why Ancient Otter is with us. He told the story to you; we knew it!"
The next morning broke very cold; the air was full of fine frost flakes; the snow was drifted and in places very deep. We unhobbled our horses, saddled them and struck off through the timber toward the mouth of the Bighorn soon after sunrise. An hour or so later we crossed the river on the ice, and turned up the valley of the Bighorn. Here I again said to myself that I was traversing country that people of my race had never seen, but I was mistaken. I learned years afterward that a Lewis and Clark man, named Cotter, had come west again in 1807, and had trapped on the headwaters of the Bighorn, and followed it down to its junction with the Yellowstone.
We saw great numbers of the different kinds of game that morning, and the sight that most impressed me was the trees full of grouse, or prairie chickens, as the whites call them. We passed hundreds of cottonwoods in which the birds were almost as plentiful as apples in an apple tree. They sat motionless upon their perches, their feathers all fluffed out, and paid not the slightest attention to us as we passed under them.
"They are cold and unhappy now, but in the next moon they will be dancing, and happy enough," Red Crow said to me. He saw that I thought he was joking, and went on: "Yes, dancing! They gather in a circle on the plain and the males dance and the females look on. Oh, they have just as good times dancing as we do."
He was right. Many a time since then I have stopped and watched the birds dance for a long time. It is a very interesting sight. After the long years I have passed in the plains and mountains, studying the habits of all wild creatures, I become impatient when I hear people speak of them as dumb creatures. Dumb! Why, they have their racial languages as well as we! If they hadn't, do you think, for instance, that the grouse could have learned their peculiar dance? Or the beavers how to build their wonderful dams and houses?
The snow was so deep that we made no more than fifteen miles that day. We hobbled the tired horses long before sunset, and put up another war lodge and made ourselves as comfortable as was possible. We had seen no signs of the Crows during the day.
It was the next afternoon that we sighted them, or rather, one rider turning down into the valley from the plain, and several miles ahead of us. We happened at the time to be in the upper end of a long grove, and, while we could see him plainly, we were sure that the trees screened us from him, bare though they were.
"The sun is almost down, he rides as if he were in no hurry; I think that the camp cannot be far away," said Ancient Otter.
"Ai! That is my thought," Mad Plume agreed, and led on, the rider having passed from our sight around a bend in the valley. We crossed a strip of open bottom, entered another grove which circled clear around the bend, and presently, looking out from the upper end of it, saw the great camp. It was pitched in a wide, open bottom about a mile from us and was in two sections, or circles, one, of course, that of the River Crows, the other the Mountain Crows. Looking out upon them, and the swarms of people passing in all directions among the lodges, I shivered a bit. Not until that moment had I been even doubtful of the success of our mission. Now a great fear came over me. Many of those people I saw were mourning for the loss of some dear one in the attack upon us some months back. I doubted that they would ever give us time to state the reason of our coming; they would kill us as soon as they saw that we were the hated Pi-kun-i! And then, to add to my fear, Mad Plume turned to Ancient Otter and asked: "Brother, which one, think you, is the camp of the Mountain Crows?"
"I can't make out for sure, but I think it is the first one. We have to make sure of that. If we enter the camp of the River Crows we shall find no one there to help us; right there will be our end!"
"Your sister and Little Wolf are in the Mountain Crow camp?" I asked Mad Plume.
"Yes!" he answered, very shortly, and continued staring thoughtfully at the camps.
Said Ancient Otter: "Oh, if we could only be a little nearer to the lodges, I could tell. Little Wolf's lodge is on the west side of the camp circle, and right next it, the first one to the south, is a lodge painted with two wolves. The Crow wolf medicine."
"Yes, I remember that lodge. It is five lodges north of my sister's lodge," said Mad Plume.
"Well, one thing we can do! Unless we freeze to death!" Mad Plume went on. "We can stay right here until night, then sneak into camp and find my sister and your friend and get them to help us, to protect us until we are in the chief's lodge."
We all agreed that that was the only thing to do, and began our chilly wait. Red Crow pointed to the many bands of horses grazing between the camp and us, and on both slopes of the valley. "What a chance for us if we were raiders!" he exclaimed.
"Don't talk foolishness at this time!" Mad Plume told him. "It is best that you pray the gods for help in what we are about to undertake!" And with that he voiced a short, earnest prayer to the sun, to Old Man, and his own medicine animal—"thou little under water animal"—he called it, to preserve us from all the dangers that we were to face there in the enemy camp. And when he had finished I cried out even as the others did: "Ai! Spuhts-uh Mut-tup-i, kim-o-ket-an-nan!" (Yes! Above People, pity have for us!)
Hai! Hai! But it was cold! Our horses stood humped up and miserable, the sweat freezing on their hair.
"We have to hobble them and turn them loose to graze, else they will freeze to death," said Mad Plume.
"Yes, we may as well do that. If all goes well with us we shall find them safe enough hereabout, and if we never come back for them, why, they will live anyhow!" said Ancient Otter. So we turned them out, and set our saddles and ropes and pishimores in a little pile, and stamped about and swung our arms trying to keep warm.
Oh, how slowly, and yet how fast the sun went down that evening. But down it went at last, and as soon as the valley was really dark we started for the camp. As we neared it Mad Plume's last words were: "Remember this: You are to expect abuse and you are to stand it until you see that there is no hope for us. Then, die fighting!"
Cheering words, weren't they!
We approached the lower camp, the lodges all yellow glow from the cheerful fires within. And a cheerful camp it was; men and women singing here and there, several dances going on, children laughing and playing—and some squalling—men shouting out to their friends to come and smoke with them. We could see many dim figures hurrying through the cold and darkness from one lodge to another. We approached the west side of the circle at a swift walk, just as though we belonged there—knew where we were going; in that piercing cold to loiter, to hesitate, would be to proclaim that we were strangers in the camp. The circle was fifteen or twenty well separated lodges in width, so we had to go far into it in order to see the inside lodges. Ancient Otter led us, looking for the lodge of the painted wolves. We were well into the circle when a man came out of a lodge that we were just passing, and my heart gave a big jump when the door curtain was thrust aside and he stepped out. He saw us, of course, but turned and went off the way we had come, and I breathed more freely. But we had not gone two lodges farther when we saw some one coming straight toward us. We had to keep on. We drew our robes yet more closely about our faces. It was an anxious moment. We were due to meet the person right in front of a well-lighted lodge, and were within a few steps of it when a number of men inside struck up a song. When opposite our leader the person said something, and half stopped; but Ancient Otter pretended that he did not hear and kept right on, we following. Then, just as I was passing the person, he did stop and stare at us! I dared not look back, and oh, how I wanted to! I expected every step I made to hear a shout of alarm that would arouse the camp. But no! We went peacefully on, and presently Ancient Otter led us out of the circle, and away out from the lodges, and when at a safe distance stopped and told us that we had been in the wrong camp; the camp of the River Crows.
"Never mind! We have had two escapes! The gods are with us! Lead on!" Mad Plume told him.
"Yes, I go! Follow, brothers, and pray! Pray for help!" he exclaimed.
We made a wide circle around to the other camp to avoid any persons who might be going from one to the other of the two, and presently struck it on the west side of the circle. No one was in sight so we went straight in among the lodges and soon saw the one of the wolf medicine, the light of the fire within revealing plainly the big wolf painting on the right of the doorway. It had the appearance of great ferocity, the wide mouth showing long, sharp fangs. Ancient Otter stopped and pointed to the lodge and said to us in a low tone: "There it is, the wolf medicine lodge, and that one just to the north of it is my friend's lodge. Come! We will go in!"
"No! It is best that we go to my sister's lodge first. We will need some one to interpret for us at once, and I am sure that by this time she speaks Crow," said Mad Plume.
Now, this should all have been arranged beforehand, for while we stood there talking a man suddenly came around a lodge behind us and called out to us something or other in his language. We pretended not to hear him.
"You haven't time to get to your sister's lodge! Follow me!" said Ancient Otter, and we started on at a swift walk. But the Crow came faster; something in our appearance, and our silence when he addressed us had aroused his suspicions. As Ancient Otter raised the door curtain of the lodge and the light streamed out full in his face, the man recognized him as one of the hated Pi-kun-i and shouted—as I afterwards learned—that the enemy were in the camp, and as we hurried into the lodge we heard on all sides of it the answering, rallying cry of the warriors.
When Ancient Otter stepped into the lodge and the Crow, Little Wolf, saw who it was, he sprang up and embraced and kissed him, then did the same to us and motioned us to seats. We took them, but it was hard to do so with the rallying cries of the warriors and screams of frightened women and children ringing in our ears. As soon as we were seated Little Wolf signed his friend: "You have come! I am glad!"
"I am glad to see you! We are sent by our chiefs to propose peace to your chiefs. Help us! First, send for the woman of the Pi-kun-i, sister of the chief there, Mad Plume."
"Yes!" Little Wolf signed, and spoke to one of his women, and she hurried out. He spoke to another, and as she went out he signed to us, "I am sending that one for our chiefs! Now, sit you here! I go to stand outside and keep the crazy warriors back." And with that he snatched up his bow case, drew out the bow and a handful of arrows, and ran outside, thrusting back a man entering as he reached the doorway. He went none too soon; a great crowd was gathering about the lodge, shouting angrily, crying for our scalps, no doubt. We held our weapons ready and kept our eyes on the lodge skin, expecting every moment that the warriors would raise it and pour in upon us. I tell you, that was an anxious time. I must have shown that I was terribly frightened, for Mad Plume gave my shoulder a pat and said to me: "Take courage, younger brother, take courage!"
Just then the door curtain was thrust aside and a handsome young woman rushed in, and Mad Plume sprang up and embraced her. She clung to him, crying: "Oh, my brother! What a risk for you to come here at this time! Oh, I hope that all will be well with us! My man is out there with Little Wolf, holding back the warriors! Oh, why don't the chiefs come! Oh, they have come! Listen!"
The noise outside had suddenly died down; some one was addressing the crowd in a deep and powerful voice, and in a minute or two she said to us: "It is the head chief, Spotted Bull. He commands his head warriors to see that you are not harmed, and tells the others to all go home!"
And then, a little later: "They are going; they are minding him! Oh, I am glad! For the present you are safe!"
Again, the door curtain was raised and Little Wolf came in, followed by a young man who hurried to greet Mad Plume. Red Crow told me that it was his brother-in-law. In turn he gave us greeting. Then Little Wolf's wives returned, and he ordered them to hurry and set food before us, which they presently did, big wooden bowls full of boiled boss ribs of buffalo. I should have been hungry; perhaps I was, but I was so excited and anxious that I ate only a few mouthfuls. Presently we heard some one talking loudly outside the doorway. Little Wolf answered him, and then spoke to Mad Plume's sister, telling her to interpret, and she said to us: "Spotted Bull sends you word that the chiefs will council together to-morrow morning, and then have a talk with you."
"Yes. I told Spotted Bull that you were peace messengers from your chiefs," Little Wolf signed to us.
After the meal was over there was some talk, Mad Plume's sister interpreting, and then it was decided that Ancient Otter should sleep in his friend's lodge, and that we three should be the guests of Mad Plume's brother-in-law. Accordingly we went over to his lodge, big, and well fitted out with soft, robe couches, and Mad Plume and his sister fell to talking. She first had to hear all about her relatives and friends, who had died, and how the living were doing. She then told about the Crows, and her life with them. She said that her man was very kind to her, that she was perfectly happy except for the fact that, owing to the continuous war between the Crows and the Pi-kun-i, she could not occasionally visit her relatives. As to the last fight, she said that a big war party had started out on the trail of some Snakes, who had taken a large herd of horses, and while after them had discovered the Pi-kun-i moving out from Arrow River without the usual line of warriors in the lead of the column, and so had made the attack. And at that her man, who was listening, understanding considerable of her language, told her to tell us that the people who had lost relatives in the fight were still mourning, and he feared that they might win over the chiefs to refuse our peace pipe. She added that she thought most of the women would want peace, and that she would go among them early in the morning, and get them to urge their men to talk for it.
That was about all Red Crow and I heard of the talk. Tired out, and made drowsy by the comfortable heat of the lodge, a great change from the bitter cold that we had experienced, we fell asleep. And we slept soundly under the assurance that the Crow chief's guards were in the lodges on either side of us.
Early the next morning, right after preparing food for us, Mad Plume's sister went out on her round of talks for peace, and soon afterward some of the Crow men began to drop in for a chat and smoke, and especially ask about certain of the Pi-kun-i with whom they had become very friendly in time of peace. I was surprised and pleased at the large number of these visitors; it was proof that there were many in the camp who would be on the side of peace. Another thing that surprised me was the elegance of dress of these men. Without exception they wore beautiful quill-embroidered shirts and leggings and moccasins, garments that our people put on only on great occasions. And if anything they were even taller, more graceful, and with more pride in their bearing than the men of the Blackfeet tribes, and that is saying much. They were all apparently much interested in me, wanting to know all that my friends could tell them about my presence in the country, and why one so young should be a peace messenger. To that last question Mad Plume answered that, when the time for it came, I would probably tell my reason for being there. After a time Ancient Otter came in with his friend, Little Wolf, and we anxiously awaited the call from the council of chiefs.
When noon came, and there was still no word from them, our anxiety increased. Then Mad Plume's sister returned and told us to take courage. Both Spotted Bull and Lone Runner, chief of the River Crows, and some of the clan chiefs of both tribes, were for accepting the peace pipe, but that other clan chiefs, and a good number of warriors wanted the pipe sent back. The objectors to peace were mostly those who had lost relatives in the Arrow River fight. She thought that these would eventually do as the head chiefs desired.
It was not until late afternoon that a messenger called us to the council. We went over to the big lodge accompanied by Little Wolf, and Mad Plume's brother-in-law and sister, the latter to act as interpreter. There was an immense crowd in the camp, most of the River Crows having come up to hear all about the peace talk, and many that we passed stared at us with anything but friendly eyes. Had it not been for our guard of warriors coming right behind us, we might never have reached the council lodge.
We were not greeted with smiles or any word of welcome when we entered the lodge and took the seats left vacant for us, but, not at all daunted, Mad Plume leaned forward and placed the peace pipe and tobacco in front of Spotted Bull, and said: "Lone Walker, your friend, sends you this pipe and tobacco, with these words: 'Peace is good, and war is bad! Let us smoke together and each declare that there shall be peace between the Crow Tribes and the Blackfeet Tribes.'"
"Ai! Learning from our young man, Little Wolf, that you had come with an offer of peace from our good friend, Lone Walker, we have been considering the matter all day," Spotted Bull answered. "From the beginning my brother there, chief of our brother tribe, and I have talked for peace, and so have many of our clan chiefs. But a few still hold out that between us and the Blackfeet tribes there can be no peace."
"You mean me when you say that!" exclaimed one of the clan chiefs, a big, haughty appearing, flashing eyed man. "Yes! I hold out for war, war always between us and the Pi-kun-i! And I am not alone in that desire; I can go out in this camp and bring you many, very many men who think as I do!"
Now, when Mad Plume's sister had told us what this man said, Mad Plume then, much to my surprise, told her to say to the chief that he would like to have his friend, Rising Wolf, the white youth, speak a few words to the council. She did so, and Spotted Bull replied, "Yes! Let us hear what he has to say!"
I considered a moment or two. My first thought was to tell the council that they were not powerful enough to fight the Blackfeet tribes, and their Gros Ventre and Sak-si allies. But I said to myself that that wouldn't do. Nothing had even been said of the flight of the Crows, their abandonment of much of their property after the Arrow River fight. At last I said to the interpreter, "Tell them this for me:
"I would like to see peace made on account of the women and children! In war they suffer, not you men. I have been sick ever since that Arrow River fight, for I then saw women and girls and even children killed as well as men! White men do not do that! They would sooner die than kill women! They believe that it is only cowards who kill women.
"This is a great country. There is plenty of room in it for the Crow tribes and the Blackfeet tribes, and game enough upon the plains and in the mountains for all. Then why fight? Why keep the women and children mourning for loss of father and brother and son? Now, my Red Coat chief wants the Crows and the Blackfeet and all different tribes to be friends with one another, and friendly with him. From the Far East he has come with guns, and tobacco, and all kinds of goods, and built a white man's lodge on Bow River, and he wants you all to come there and smoke and feast with him, and give him your beaver skins for his guns and other things. You Crows can't do that if you are at war with the Blackfeet. I say this: Make peace, and be happy."
While the woman was interpreting that I asked Mad Plume if it would not be well for him to offer to give back to the Crows the lodges and things that we had taken after their flight.
"No. About everything has been used up, and they have new lodges. And I don't think that they want to be reminded that they fled from us," he answered.
Just then the woman finished speaking and I happened to be looking across at the man who had declared that he was for war, always war! A great change had taken place in him as he listened. Instead of hatred and defiance, his eyes now expressed great interest, intense desire; and leaning forward he said to Spotted Bull, as I afterward learned, "Lift the pipe! Fill, and light it!"
Spotted Bull looked around at the circle and asked: "Is that what you all say?"
"Yes! Yes!" they answered, and he took the pipe from its wrappings, cut some of the tobacco, mixed it with dried red willow bark, filled the bowl, and after lighting the pipe and taking a few whiffs, passed it to Mad Plume, saying: "Let us smoke together. Tell my good friend, Lone Walker, that there shall be peace between him and me, between his children and mine, and that as soon as it is warm enough for us to travel we will go and camp beside him and hold the peace council with him and his chiefs."
Mad Plume took a few whiffs of smoke, then started the pipe on the round of the circle, and answered: "I am glad to have that word to take back to him. All you chiefs here, remember this, when you come, my lodge is your lodge. We shall have many smokes together!"
Suitable replies were made to that. Then the fierce chief asked many questions about the Red Coats' trading post, and the price in beaver skins of different articles. And then, a little later, the council broke up and we returned to Little Wolf's lodge, much pleased at the success of our mission.
Said Mad Plume's sister, "It was your talk that won them over, Rising Wolf."
"I am glad of that! I hoped that my talk about the poor women would do some good," I answered.
She laughed. "It was your talk about guns that they heard, not what you said about the women! More than anything else the Crows want guns," she said.
That very evening a Chinook wind set in, so we decided to make an early start for home. We wanted to get across Elk River, the Yellowstone, before the ice went out. Mad Plume's sister was so anxious to see her people again that she prevailed upon her man to take her with us, lodge and all; and Ancient Otter's friend, Little Wolf, came with us with his lodge and outfit, so we were quite a party. The two Crow tribes were to break camp three days later, and follow us. If there were any men still angry that the chiefs had accepted the peace pipe, we felt safe enough from them now that we had two lodges of their people with us, and accordingly we set out in high spirits, and, traveling leisurely, arrived in our own camp five days later. We were received with great acclaim, and as soon as it was learned that our mission was successful, that the Crows would soon be with us, great preparations for their reception went forward. Dearly they loved these opportunities for the spectacular, the dramatic incidents of life, and made the most of them.
When the Crows came, they halted some miles out from the river and put on all their finery, the men their war costumes, the women their beautiful, quill-embroidered, elk-tush-decorated gowns. Our scouts reported that they were coming, so we all dressed in our best and mounting our most lively horses went out to meet them. Lone Walker and his Bull band of the All Friends Society led, of course, all the other bands following. The women remained in camp, all but Mad Plume's sister, who rode in the rear of the Bull band, ready to act as interpreter.
We topped the slope up to the plain and found the great column of riders right close to us. They struck up a mighty song, a Crow song of greeting and peace, suddenly halted it, and then we sang the Blackfeet song of peace. And so, alternately singing, we approached one another, and at last met and the chiefs of both sides sprang from their horses and embraced one another. Then said Lone Walker, the woman interpreting, "My brothers! Because you and your children have come, this is a happy day for me and my children. We make you welcome. Come. Let us ride in to my lodge and smoke the pipe of peace together!"
Replying for both Crow tribes, Spotted Bull then answered: "Your words are straight. This is a happy day. We are glad to be with you, we shall be glad to smoke the peace pipe with you."
"Then let us mount and ride in. My lodge is your lodge. The pipe awaits you there," said Lone Walker, and they all mounted and led off, and we, holding back, fell in here and there with the long column of warriors and escorted them to our camp. In every lodge a feast and smokes awaited them, and while the chiefs counciled together, and smoked the peace pipe, and feasted, they were well entertained. And meantime, out in the big flat of Warm Spring Creek, their women were putting up their camp. The lodges were soon set, and then, even as the men were doing, the women of both camps renewed friendships, and exchanged presents and gossip. They were all expert sign talkers, as well as their men. It was, indeed, a happy time. A number of dances were held that afternoon, and I joined in the one that my band gave, and some of Lone Walker's women told me that I was a very graceful dancer. Well, I believe that I was.
On the following morning Lone Walker dispatched messengers to the chief of the Kai-na tribe, over on the Missouri, advising him of the peace that had been made with the Crows, and asking that he and some of his chiefs come over to meet the Crow chiefs, and to make plans for the return to the fort of the Red Coats. They came in due time, and more feasts and smokes, and more dances were held in their honor. At the council it was decided that the Kai-na, with the River Crows, should follow up the Missouri to the mountains, and trap northward along them, and that we, with the Mountain Crows, should go by the way of the gap between the Bear Paw and Wolf Mountains to Little River, and follow that up to the main range, and thence north to the post.
With the Mountain Crows, then, we crossed the Missouri at a place later named by the whites, Cow Island, the place where, in 1877, the Nez Percés made one of their last stands. From there we followed up the Stahk-tsi-kye-e-tuk-tai (River-in-the-Middle), which heads in the low gap dividing the Bear Paw and the Wolf Mountains, and thence went down to Little, or, as the whites say, Milk River. And here again I was in country that none of my race had ever seen.
Spring had now come. The days were warm and sunny, green grass was sprouting, buffaloes and antelopes covered the plains on all sides of us, the stream was alive with beavers, and so we were happy. The Crows had no traps, but nevertheless they kept gathering in nearly as many beaver pelts as we did with traps, simply by careful stalking, and long waiting, and good shooting with bow and arrows.
We were more than a month following up the river to its head. We then dropped over onto the St. Mary's Lakes (the Lakes Inside), trapped there for a time, and then went slowly northward, and ahead of the Kai-na and the River Crows. When the camp was still two days travel from the fort, Red Crow and I hurried on and, on the morning of the second day, suddenly appeared before Factor Hardesty as he sat in the sun just outside the gate of the fort.
"Bless me! It is little Hugh Monroe!" he cried, springing up and grasping my hand as I slid from my horse. "Well, well! Tell me quick! Did you get to the Missouri plains—and saw you any traders there?"
"I have been far beyond the Missouri! Away south of it to Elk River, the Sieur de la Vérendrie's La Roche Jaune, you know, and seen not one trader!" I answered. But I could not wait for him to ask questions. I poured out my tale of the vast country I had seen, its wealth of furs, our trouble with the Crows, and how we had made peace with them and they were coming to trade with us; and how he and the gathering of employees behind him did stare at me!
"When are they coming—the Crows and Pi-kun-i?" he asked.
"The River Crows and the Kai-na later on, the others, the Mountain Crows and the Pi-kun-i, to-day," I answered.
And at that he whirled upon the men and cried: "Hear ye that, now! Two tribes coming to-day. Go get your women busy cooking pots of meat for a feast to the chiefs. Put pipe and tobacco in my room! Run up the flag! Draw the shot from the cannon so that we can salute them and no one be hurt!"
The men flew to do his bidding, and then he had me for an hour or more telling him my adventures, and even then I had hardly begun.
"That will do for now! You have done well," he said at last, "so very well, my boy, that back you go with the Pi-kun-i for another winter in the South!"
And so ended my first year upon the plains.
THE END