When Hugh and Jack went up to the Agency the next morning they saw in the field just below the stockade a number of Indians standing about a team of horses, and as they drew nearer they could see that Major Allen was giving instructions in the art of plowing to some of the people. When they reached the group, they were busy for some time shaking hands with old friends, whom they had known under far different circumstances, but after the first salutations all turned to watch the work.
A half breed was driving the team hitched to a plow, and the agent was trying to teach the Indians to hold the plow so as to turn a straight furrow. It was new and not easy work for the red men. The handles of the plow jerked from side to side, the point either coming out of the ground or plunging so deeply into it that the man holding the handles was in danger of being thrown forward on his head. Then Major Allen would take the plow and holding it steadily would cut a smooth furrow of even depth.
Old White Calf, the chief, was anxious to learn plowing. He took hold of the handles and, although at first the plow wobbled from side to side and more than once one of the handles struck him viciously in the ribs, he cut a fair furrow for six or eight feet. Then, however, the point ran deep into the ground, and the old man was thrown forward and nearly fell down. Meanwhile, the Indians who were looking on were making jocular remarks and poking fun at the man who happened to be plowing, but he—after he had performed his small stint—had his revenge by making fun of the next victim.
After he had watched them for a little while and enjoyed the fun, Jack had a chance to look on a scene picturesque and beautiful. The wide valley stretched before him with bluffs rising in terraces one after another, the bright green of the willows and cottonwoods marking the course of the stream; to the west the mountains with their clear-cut outlines sharply defined against the blue sky; the gray stockade stood near at hand, and farther off the conical white lodges of the Piegans up and down the creek, with here and there a low log cabin. Outside the fence Indians passed to and fro, some of them on foot, others on horseback, and their bright-colored blankets, beaded belts and knife sheaths gave life and color to the picture.
For some time the work went on, and then the Major asked Hugh and Jack to come up to his house, where they talked over the Indians and the new problems which they had to face.
“It’s interesting work looking after these people, but it’s discouraging, too,” said Major Allen. “The Indians are willing to work, but they haven’t any idea how to perform the tasks we set them, so that their efforts are ineffective, and they easily become discouraged. They have never been used to handling horses hitched to wagons, and they don’t know at all what horses can do. They hitch these little riding ponies of theirs to a big wagon and then pile it up with much more of a load than the horses can haul, and whip up the team, which strains and tugs along for a short distance, but presently gives out, and the wagon has to be unloaded or else another pair or two of horses must be attached to it.
“The Indians are as willing as can be and they are not afraid of work, but they don’t like to keep at it for a long time. They are absolutely ignorant of all farming matters and it will take them some time to learn. Last summer some of them planted little gardens, but they treated them as children would. For example, they often dug up their potatoes to see how fast they were growing, and as soon as they grew large enough to eat they tried to sell them, although if they had left them in the ground they would have continued to grow for a month longer. Now that the Indians have teams and are beginning to learn something about how to use them, they drive up to the mountains and cut wood and haul it down, either to sell or to use themselves in winter. Some of them have built good log cabins in which they pass the winter, but of course in summer they prefer to live in their lodges.”
“Well, Major,” said Hugh, “you can hardly expect these Indians, who all their lives have been chasing buffalo, to take hold of work at once.”
“No,” said the Major, “that can’t be expected, and I don’t look for it. I am very well satisfied with the way they have taken hold. They’re willing and they seem honest.”
“Yes, I think so,” said Hugh, “and from what I can hear they’ve had such a hard time that I think they’re really in earnest in their wish to learn how to work.”
“Their loyalty,” said the Major, “is one of the things that has struck me the most. The policemen are absolutely faithful. When I enlist them, I make them take an oath, explaining that everybody who serves the Government has to be sworn in, and that they must do as all the other public servants. They take an oath which I like, though perhaps not a very ceremonial one; still they take it as if they meant it, and I believe they do. Have you ever heard them make this oath, Mr. Johnson?”
“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t reckon I have. I would like to hear it, and so would son here. What is it?”
“When they are sworn,” said Major Allen, “they lift up the right hand and, stretching it toward the sky, say, ‘The sun is good,’ and then, ‘The earth is good,’ and bending down they touch the ground with the hand; and as they stand up again they say, ‘I will obey the orders of my chief, that I may live long with my family.’
“Now these policemen get only eight dollars a month; they’re likely to be called on at any time to ride any distance; they have to furnish their own horses, and yet they never, so far as I have heard, complain. They’re a good lot of people, and I ask for nothing better than to stay here and work with them, but I hope that I shall never have as bad a time as I had when they were starving during the first two or three months that I was here.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “that must have been a terrible time.”
As they were walking down to the trader’s store, Jack, who had been much impressed by Major Allen’s talk about the Indians, said to Hugh, “Now, Hugh, what do you think will become of these Indians? Of course, the buffalo never can come back, so hunting days must be nearly over. How are the people to support themselves, or are they to be looked after in future by the Government?”
“Why, son,” said Hugh, “I guess that question is puzzling, and it’s going to puzzle a lot of smarter men than you and I will ever be. It’s a sure thing that these Indians can never make a living in this country by farming. They might make a living by cattle if they had any, or had any means of getting them, but of course the Indians have no money and no means of earning any money to buy cattle with. They certainly can’t hire out to work, because there is no one in this country that will hire them and pay wages. If they had cattle and would take care of them they might do well, because this is one of the finest grazing ranges in the world, but you know very well that if the Government were to give each one of these Indians a cow to-morrow, a week hence very few of them would still have his cow. They would kill them and eat them, and then sit around and hope that the Government would give them another. They have got to have a lot of instruction before they will look out for the future.”
“Well,” said Jack, “you can’t blame them. In the past when they wanted food they went out and killed something, and they can’t be expected to understand that things are changing.”
“No,” said Hugh, “I don’t expect it of them, but if they don’t come to understand it very soon they will have to suffer again just what they suffered two years ago.”
“Well,” said Jack, “it’s mighty hard lines; it’s heartbreaking to think of.”
“So it is,” said Hugh. “I feel mighty badly whenever I think of it, but I reckon it’s the law. I expect the white people had to go through an awful lot of suffering before they got to the point where ‘most every man realized that he had to work hard for a living, and I reckon if you look around back where you live you’ll find that there are a good many people in those big cities there that don’t realize this yet.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I suppose there are, but these Indians are so kindly and generous and hospitable that I feel a personal sympathy for each one of them that, of course, I don’t feel for the inefficient people back East.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “that’s natural, of course. You know these people and you don’t know the others.”
Soon after they got back to the trader’s store dinner was ready, and after dinner they lounged about the store talking with Bruce.
TOWARD the middle of the afternoon a wagon drove up to the store and Bruce’s wife, carrying a baby, came out and got in and said a few words to her husband. He rose and walked toward the wagon and then turned and said, “I’m just going over with the woman to Red Eagle’s camp; the baby’s been sick and she wants to have him doctor it. He’s going to unwrap his medicine pipe. Do you men want to go along? I don’t know if Jack has ever seen a medicine pipe unwrapped.”
“No,” said Hugh, “I reckon he hasn’t. What do you say, son? Do you want to go?”
“You bet, Hugh,” said Jack. “I’d be mighty glad to go. We won’t be in the way, will we, Mr. Bruce?”
“No,” said Bruce, “not a bit. Come along.”
It was not a long drive over to Two Medicine Lodge Creek. Red Eagle was camped not far from the old piskun, where in old times the Blackfeet used to drive the buffalo over the cliff, where the fall from the great height killed or crippled many of the herd and gave the people food. As the wagon drove up to Red Eagle’s lodge, it was surrounded by a pack of dogs which, with furious barkings and snappings, threatened the visitors, but when no attention was paid to them they quieted down at once, and stood about with welcoming waggings of their tails. Mrs. Bruce climbed out of the wagon and carrying her baby, some food and tobacco and a large sack of dried sarvis berries, entered the old man’s lodge, while the men drove the wagon off a little distance, unhitched the horses and tied them to the wagon wheels. Returning to the lodge, Bruce looked in and said, “The old man hasn’t begun to get ready yet. We may as well stop outside until he is ready to begin.”
“Let’s go up to the cliff, son,” said Hugh, “and see where the people used to kill buffalo.”
The three walked over to the almost vertical bluffs which rose sixty or eighty feet above the valley. Here the ground was strewn with weathered bones of which the soil itself seemed partly composed, for it was filled with minute fragments of the bones and teeth of buffalo.
“Now, son,” said Hugh, “this is a sacred place to the Indians. They used to make medicine here and perform ceremonies to bring the buffalo up on the prairie near here, so that they could lead them over the cliff. You see that pile of horns over there?” and he pointed to a great heap of horn sheaths of the buffalo, as big as a hay-cock. There must have been more than a thousand horn sheaths in it.
Jack looked at it in astonishment, for it was something the like of which he had never seen.
“Although they have not used this place now for many years, the Indians still try to keep up that pile of horns, and whenever it is blown down or knocked over by the horses they heap it up again. In old times there were arranged in certain places on the ground a lot of horns all directed the same way, that is, with the points of the horns pointing the way they wanted the buffalo to run. Some of the horns were those of bulls and some of cows. That meant that they wanted bulls as well as cows to fall over the cliff. They used to lead the buffalo up to the cliff, and fix things so that they would be running fast when they got to the edge of the cliff. The leaders might perhaps try to stop, but they could not stop because those behind pushed them along and shoved them over. Those that were behind could not see what was in front of the leaders and kept running until they got to the edge of the cliff and then they went over. The fall killed some of the buffalo and crippled others. Besides that, there was a big pen built about the place where the buffalo fell down; a fence made of stones and logs and brush, and women and children and men were hidden all about it. As soon as the buffalo came tumbling down, these people showed themselves all around the fence, frightening the buffalo, so that those that were still able to travel, instead of trying to run on, simply ran around in a circle inside the fence. Then the men killed them with arrows, and after all were dead the women went into the pen and skinned the buffalo and took away the meat, and then the skulls and most of the big bones were carried off to a distance and the pen cleaned up for the next drive.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve heard about this jumping the buffalo over the cut bank and catching them in pens, but I never supposed that I would see the place where it had been done.”
“Well,” said Mr. Bruce, “this is sure one of the places and you don’t need anybody to tell you so, because you can look around and see the bones of the buffalo all about you.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “that’s so; the place speaks for itself.”
“There are lots of old-time things hidden in this ground that we are standing on,” said Bruce; “old arrow points and knives and fleshers, and maybe other tools. Once in a while some of these things are found, but most of them are covered up by the wash that comes down from the cliff. Old Black Coming In Sight Over The Hill, who lives right above here, has found lots of arrow points. A couple of years ago he showed me a double handful that he had picked up, and also a bone flesher made from the cannon bone of a buffalo. There are a good many other places like this. One of them is up on Sun River, and from that Louis Pambrun got a knife made of that black rock that looks like glass, and a stone ax and a lot of stone flesher points and, oh, a whole mess of stuff.”
“My,” said Jack, “wouldn’t I like to see some of those things that have come from one of these places. It surely seems as if it would make the whole business of killing buffalo in the old-time fashion mighty real to one.”
“Well,” said Bruce, “we’ll try and look around and see if we can’t get hold of something of that kind for you before you go.”
After a little more examination of the bluffs, the three returned to Red Eagle’s lodge. The preparations for the ceremony were not yet completed and all sat down near the lodge, and while the two elder men smoked, Jack looked about him and tried to make friends with the little children who were racing about playing their games. One little fellow only about two years of age quite won Jack’s heart by his friendly smile and evident lack of fear. His clothing consisted of several strings of beads, a buckskin string about his neck, to which was attached a stone charm, and a very short shirt which came down to his lower ribs. He had been playing in the stream or in some half-dried puddle, and the lower part of his person was covered by a thick coating of mud. The little fellow marched up to Jack in a confident way, shook hands with him in a matter-of-fact fashion and clambered up on his knee, and after looking at Jack’s clothing and buttons and listening to the ticking of his watch, sat perfectly still watching the doings of his fellows. The children were amusing themselves by making miserable the lives of the dogs. When they found a dog sleeping somewhere or playing near them, they would creep up to it and beat it with long twigs and pieces of wood until the dog ran away into the brush with melancholy howlings, which seemed to delight the young Indians.
At length a woman’s voice called from the lodge, and Bruce and Hugh rose and passed in, Jack following. A number of Indians were seated around the fire, but Red Eagle, the principal personage, sat at the back of the lodge with the fire between himself and the door. At his left was an unoccupied space, to which the three newcomers were motioned. To the left of the doorway, in the women’s place, sat several women, some of whom had babies either on their backs or between their knees. To the right of Red Eagle was his wife and assistant, the Bear Woman.
Red Eagle was a large, fine-looking man of majestic presence. His massive face, kindly and benignant in expression, was framed in long gray hair which hung down over his broad shoulders. He was one of the oldest men in the tribe, and was blind.
After Hugh and the others had seated themselves, there was a little pause, and then the Bear Woman took up a dried willow branch, which had two parallel twigs close together, serving for a pair of tongs, and lifted from the fire a live coal, which she placed on the ground before the Bear Man, who then began to sing a low, monotonous chant in a minor key, in which all the other Indians soon joined. While singing, the old man interrupted himself at intervals to exclaim ni-ai, (my shelter or covering), the other Indians keeping up the singing. After a few moments he reached his hand under the robe on which he was sitting and drew out a small pouch, which he passed to the Bear Woman. She slowly untied it and took from it a pinch of the dried needles of the sweet pine, which she held over the coal. Then the Bear Man sang four times, and as the music rose and fell the Bear Woman’s hand rose and fell over the coal. At the end of the fourth song Red Eagle stretched out his hand and made a downward gesture, and the Bear Woman let fall the incense on the coal, and immediately the fragrant perfume of the burning pine needles filled the lodge. The singing continued a little longer and then stopped. Then both Red Eagle and his assistant stretched out their hands over the smoke of the burning sweet pine, rubbed them together, and then, seeming to grasp some of the smoke in their hands, rubbed it over their heads and forearms, and reaching out and grasping more of it, passed it over their heads, shoulders, and upper arms. They also seemed to take handfuls of the smoke and eat it or breathe it in, the idea being that they were purifying themselves without and within. Then presently the Bear Man turned his face toward the sun and began to pray. Some portion of what he said Jack could understand, but afterward he asked Bruce to interpret the prayer, and this is what it was:
“Hear Above People, hear Thunder, those Animals [meaning his secret helpers or medicine animals], hear. Pity us, pity us. Let us live, let us live. Give us full life. Let us grow to be old. Listen. Crow Arrow, let him live. In his wandering about let no danger befall him from bad beasts or dangers that are on the trail. Let his wife and his boy, this child with the shining hair, live to be very old and let them have plenty of everything. Let White Bull live, keep him when he is traveling, protect him from all dangers, from perils from animals, and from all dangers on the trail. Let his relations live and have abundance, and White Warrior, let him live, care for him and keep him safe from dangers, wherever he may be. All people let live. O Creator, have pity on the people so that they may live well, free from danger!”
Then he turned his face and appeared to address the bundle hung on the lodge poles behind him containing the pipe: “Oh, tell them to have pity on us. Let the young people grow, increase their flesh. Let all men, women, and children have full life. Harden the bodies of old people so that they may reach great age.”
The prayer ended and all the people gave a long-drawn ah-h-h-h, meaning yes, about the equivalent of our amen.
Jack sat spellbound as he watched the old man while he prayed. Here, indeed, was a priest who really wished for what he was asking. Here was one who threw himself on the mercy of his God and would not let Him go. He implored, he urged, he insisted, and would not be denied, and as Jack saw the great beads of sweat stand out on the old man’s brow his memory went back to one of his Sunday-school lessons of long ago, and he thought of a struggle told of in the Bible, when at the ford Jabbock, another patriarch, wrestled through the long night with his God and prevailed.
But Jack had little time to think about this, for now the singing was resumed; Red Eagle starting it as before, the others after a little time joining in the plaintive refrain. Again the Bear Woman sprinkled sweet pine on the coal, and again the priest and priestess purified themselves by passing the smoke over their arms, heads, and bodies. Then they seemed again to take handfuls of it and to hold the smoke under the large package tied to the lodge poles above them. Presently, as the singing continued, the Bear Woman rose to her knees and very slowly and reverently untied the package from the poles and placed it on the robe between the Bear Man and herself.
Now Red Eagle began a new song, and after he and the woman had again passed their hands through the smoke, they moved them over the bundle, raising them alternately in time to the music. At first the hands were closed, except the forefinger, which pointed straight out, and the up-and-down motions were quick and sharp, representing the dainty rise and fall of the feet of the antelope as it walks. Then, at a change in the air, the fingers were all bent, but the hand not closed, and the up-and-down motions became deliberate and heavy, representing the slow tread of a walking bear. At another change the old man raised his hands, partly closed, the forefinger extended, pointing upward and slightly bent inward, to the side of his head, and moving his face this way and that, as if looking about him, called out in a shrill voice, Hoo. The hand sign meant buffalo and the motion of the head signified looking or watching. This sign, as Bruce afterward explained to Jack, was related to the word ni-ai, so often used in the songs, meaning my shelter, my covering, my robe; for the shelter, covering, or robe of these Indians is made from the buffalo.
Again the air of the song changed, and the priest and his wife holding their hands palm downward, all the fingers extended forward, moved them up and down, making the sign for walking, which represented going to war, and the sign for danger or watchfulness, the forefingers pointed straight up and held at the side of the head, like a pricked ear, with a startled expression of countenance and a watchful look.
After this song was ended, Red Eagle began slowly and carefully to remove the wrappings from the package at his side, but he still sang, though the air was again changed to a slower, more monotonous chant. After the strings had been untied from the double-mouthed red cloth sack which formed the outer covering of the package, he drew from it a long bundle, wrapped in cloths of various colors. One by one he took off these cloths, until, after many had been removed, the medicine pipe was revealed. It was a handsome pipe stem about four feet long, wrapped for a part of its length with large showy beads and profusely ornamented with ermine skins and tails and with the feathers of eagles and other birds, which hung from it in thick bunches. Near the lower or pipe end of the stem was a separate plume made of twelve tail feathers of the war eagle, each having its extremity wrapped with red or yellow horse hair, which hung down in a long tuft. The whole stem was handsome and heavy.
After the covering had been removed, the old man bent for a moment in silence over the pipe, and then raised it slowly and tenderly to his face, making a soft, cooing, caressing sound. He pressed it to his lips and whispered to it, while he raised his sightless eyes toward the sun, as if he could look through their veil and through the lodge covering and see some being invisible to others. After a few moments’ silence he again spoke to the pipe in a low voice, and passed it over his arms, shoulders, and both sides of his head. Then he began the song again, shaking the pipe in time to the music. When he had finished he again prayed, and said, “O Sun, O Moon and Stars, pity us, pity us. Look down.” Then followed again the substance of the first prayer, and he ended with the petition for men who were now away on the warpath, saying, “Little Plume, let him survive. Tearing Lodge and Double Rider, let them survive and return, bringing the heads.” Then turning, he passed the pipe to Hugh, who held it before his face and bent his head. Then it went to Jack, who imitated Hugh. Then Bruce took it and made a prayer, and from him it passed to an old blind warrior, who prayed long and fervently, and so it went around the circle, each one who received it making a prayer. Jack listened hard to try to hear what the different people said, but they spoke in low tones, and only now and then could he catch a word: Kĭm´-o-kĭt (have pity); nā´pi (old man), or na-tōs´ (sun). When the pipe went back around the circle to the other side of the lodge, where were the women and their little babies, the women prayed as they took it and then passed the pipe stem over the bodies and heads of their little ones, believing that the sacred influence would benefit the children.
Meanwhile, Red Eagle had taken up a medicine rattle and again began to sing, shaking the rattle in time to the music. When at length the pipe returned to him he put down his rattle, took the stem and repeated rapidly a number of times the words, “Pity us, pity us, pity us.” Then, putting the stem on the robe between himself and his wife, he rose, began a new song and began to dance, first to the east, and then turning about toward the west. The people sitting in the lodge accompanied him in a melodious but plaintive minor chant. Presently he stopped dancing, faced about, and, sitting down, prayed again, concluding with these words, “Let the Sun shine upon us and our lives be without shadows.” Then he made a sign that the ceremony was over, and all rose and filed out of the lodge.
Jack was mightily impressed by the ceremony that he had just witnessed, yet, though he was anxious to ask many questions, he hardly felt like doing so of Bruce, especially in the presence of his wife, whose faith in the religion of which the old man was the priest he supposed to be strong. It was not until after they had got back to the Agency, therefore, that he said very much about it.
Before supper, however, he had an opportunity to speak to Hugh, and to ask him some questions about the religion of these Indians.
“That is one of the most solemn things I ever saw, Hugh,” he said, “and I want to ask some questions about it. I don’t know if I ever told you how I felt that time when Last Bull gave me my name and prayed over me. Of course that was two or three years ago, and I was a good deal younger then than I am now; but I never before had had anything make me feel as solemn as that prayer did, and that’s just the way I felt to-day when Red Eagle was praying. It seems to me that when these Indians pray, they pray as if they meant what they were saying. They seem to be in earnest about it. Now, when I hear a white man praying,—that is, most white men, I don’t mean to say it’s the same with all,—they don’t seem to be in earnest; they seem to be going through a sort of form. Did you notice how the sweat stood out on that old man’s face when he was making his prayer; how solemn he was, and how he acted just as if he were begging somebody for something?”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “I noticed that, and it’s so that when these Indians pray they are surely in earnest. They are not getting off something that they’ve learned by heart and just saying it because they have to; they mean all that they say and they are really asking favors. People say that they’re nothing but poor savages and that they’re pagans, and all that, but I tell you when they’re talking to their God they could give points to a whole lot of white folks.”
“Well,” said Jack, “I’ve seen some Indians pray, and I’ve been present at some ceremonies, like the medicine lodge and like opening the beaver bundle, but I never saw anything that seemed to me as real as this that we’ve seen to-day.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “I am right glad we went, and I’m glad that you saw it. These Indians and all the other Indians that I know anything about are changing mighty fast. They’re losing their old ways and picking up new ones that are not half so good. They’re changing all the time, and before you are many years older you won’t be able to see any of these old-time ways. There are three or four railroads now running across through the country that used to belong all to the Indians, and now that the buffalo are about gone they’ve got to come on to their reservations and learn to work to earn a living, and just as soon as they do that you’ll see all the old customs go, and when they once go they’ll very soon be forgotten.”
“But what a pity it is, Hugh,” said Jack, “that they’ve got to change! Why can’t they be left out here to live their life in the old way?”
“Why, son,” said Hugh, “you are talking now without thinking, talking just as I have felt a great many times; but you know and I know from what we’ve both seen that before very long these people are all going to be crowded out of the most of this country by the white folks. Don’t you remember a couple of years ago when we came back from the coast, how the little towns were springing up all along the new railroad that they were building, and now that the railroad has been finished, all along it, east and west, there are growing up settlements of people that will soon be towns. The white people are coming in crowds, and as soon as they’ve taken all the best locations along the railroad they’ll begin to spread out and take up other locations, and I believe that I’ll live long enough to see this Montana Territory full of people. It’ll be here just as I’ve seen it happen in the South. First the cattle will come into the country, lots of them, and for a while it will be all cows and cowboys; and then, little by little, the ranchers will come in, and they’ll settle first on one creek bottom and then on another, and then maybe mines will be found in the mountains, and new railroads will be built, and at last there won’t be room in the country for anybody but white folks that are working hard to make money out of the prairie and the river bottoms, and even out of the mountains. A few years ago I wouldn’t have believed it, but I have seen it happen now in lots of different parts of the country, and I reckon it will happen here, just as it has in so many other places.”
“Well, Hugh,” said Jack, “I suppose that’s so. I remember, as you say, the way the settlements were springing up along the new railroad when we came back from British Columbia, and this time, coming out, I could see the little towns starting all along the Northern Pacific, back in Minnesota and west of there, but it does seem awfully rough that these Indians should all be driven from their own land and should have to be penned up on a little reservation. And I don’t see what in the world they’re going to do to live unless the Government feeds them.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t either. I suppose maybe some time they’ll have to turn into cattlemen. I always had an idea they’d make good cow hands, if they could be taught to look after cattle. Certainly the Indians used to take awful good care of their ponies, and if they could be taught to take good care of cows, they could make a good living just as long as they’ve got the range that most any reservation will furnish. You know the Navahoes down South and some others of those Southern Indians have big herds of sheep and take pretty good care of them, but of course sheep and cattle are different things.”
That evening in the store Hugh asked Bruce what he thought of the probability of the Indians taking to cattle-raising.
“Why,” said Bruce, “they could make good cowmen if they’d look after the stock. This is one of the greatest cattle ranges in the whole country, and the few cattle that I own have done mighty well. I have had two Indians, my brothers-in-law, looking after the stock, and they are getting to understand how to handle cattle well. But the trouble is that the average Indian hasn’t much feeling of responsibility, and instead of spending the day on his horse looking after the cattle, he’s likely to get off and lie down in the sun and sleep for half a day and let the stock get away from him. They haven’t yet got any idea of the importance of staying with a job. They’ll work hard until they get tired of it, and then they’ll stop, and you can’t start them up again. You see, they’ve never been used to working steadily. They’d work as long as they felt like it, and then stop. That’s what they’ve got to learn before they can accomplish anything toward making a living. They’ve got to learn the lesson of steady, continued effort, and it’s going to be mighty hard to teach them that.”
Late in the evening Hugh said to Jack, “Well, son, we’ve seen about all we need to around here, haven’t we? What do you say to our starting out to the mountains to make our trip?”
“Why,” said Jack, “I’m ready, and I don’t see why we can’t go off right away.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “the sooner we get off the better it will suit me, and if you feel like it, we’ll get hold of Joe to-morrow and pack up our stuff and start. I reckon we can have a good time up at the lakes hunting around there. You see, nobody’s ever been up to the heads of any of those rivers, and I’d like to go up there and see what there is, and I reckon you would, too.”
“Sure, I would,” said Jack.
“All right,” said Hugh, “let’s get hold of Joe to-morrow, and maybe we’ll start the next day. I don’t think there’s anything to keep us here.”
WHEN Joe appeared early the next morning he was at once sent off to get the horses. Jack went with him, and an hour or two later the wagon, two saddle horses, and three loose animals were standing in front of the trading store. Beds, provisions, pack saddles, and a tent were soon loaded into the wagon, and before very long the party pulled out across Badger Creek, above the stockade, and climbed the hills toward the north. Hugh and Joe rode in the wagon, while Jack drove the loose horses ahead of it. For some distance there was a road which was partly wagon road and partly old travois trail, but gradually the track became more and more dim, and soon Jack found himself riding over the unmarked prairie. Before this, however, they crossed Two Medicine Lodge River, just below Old Red Eagle’s camp, and climbed the high hill on the other side and saw before them the wide, undulating prairie and pinnacled mountains to the northwest. After reaching substantially level ground Jack pulled up, and when the wagon overtook him asked Joe, “Which way do we go from here on, Joe?”
“Well,” said Joe, “keep pretty well off to your left, riding pretty nearly straight for that pointed mountain that you see over there, the one away to the left of Chief Mountain.”
“Oh,” asked Jack, “is that Chief Mountain that we see sticking up there like a finger off to the north?”
“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s it, the last mountain to the right. But you want to keep off to the left, and in three or four hours you’ll come to a big wide valley with a good-sized river running through it. I reckon we’d better camp there, hadn’t we, White Bull?” he asked, turning to Hugh.
“Yes,” said Hugh, “that’s a good place. We can’t get on as far as Milk River to-night; in fact, we’ll do well if we get up to the head of it to-morrow.”
“All right,” said Jack, “I’ll go on. I don’t believe you will be far behind me, anyhow.”
“No,” said Joe, “we’ll be pretty close to you. There’s a big flat in the valley we’re going to and some timber at the upper end, and we’ll camp there. Maybe you’ll see some of the people there, too. Cross Guns often camps up at the head of that flat.”
For several hours Jack trotted briskly along over the prairie, keeping the horses well together ahead of him. They drove very nicely and gave him little trouble. He was surprised and pleased to find how easy riding seemed, for it was nearly a year since he had been on a horse. It was pleasant under the bright warm sun, with the fragrance of the sage brush in his nostrils, the green swells of the prairie on either side, the beautiful flowers showing everywhere, and the air full of the sweet songs of prairie birds.
As he rode over a hill about the middle of the afternoon he saw before him a wide valley, through which ran a considerable stream, with large cottonwoods and low willows marking its course at various points, and turning a little more to the left he pushed the horses down the hills, and at length came out on a wide grassy bottom. Still to the left there was a grove of tall cottonwood trees, among which shone two or three white lodges, and he rode up toward them, slackening his pace as he did so. The horses that he was driving at once began to feed, and looking back he saw the wagon coming into sight on the crest of the bluffs that he had just left. Leaving the horses to feed, he galloped to the timber where the lodges stood, and rode up to one of them.
At the fierce barkings of the dogs, a woman put her head out of a door, and when she saw Jack, put her hand quickly over her mouth in surprise, and then spoke to someone in the lodge, and a moment later Cross Guns came through the door, and walking up to Jack shook hands with him very cordially. By means of signs and broken Piegan the two held a short conversation, and then, as Cross Guns saw the wagon approaching, he signed to Jack to go and tell his friends to come up and camp here, and Jack, riding off, delivered the message to Hugh and Joe, and then brought the loose horses close to the lodge. Meanwhile Cross Guns had had one of his lodges cleared and a fire built in it, so that the three men at once moved into a house, and thus were spared the labor of putting up their tent. It was a fine, new buffalo skin lodge; perhaps the lightest, warmest, and most comfortable portable shelter ever devised by any people.
After the horses had been turned out and put in charge of Cross Guns’ young nephew, who took them off and turned them out with Cross Guns’ herd, the wife of their host came in and cooked supper for them, while the others lounged comfortably about on the beds with their feet toward the fire and talked.
“Who is Cross Guns, Hugh?” whispered Jack. “I know his face perfectly well, but I don’t remember where I’ve seen him, nor who his relations are.”
“Why,” said Hugh, “don’t you know? He’s one of the sons of Old White Calf and a brother of Wolf Tail. Old White Calf is the chief now, and a good old man, always thinking about what he can do for his people.”
“Of course,” said Jack, “I know White Calf perfectly well, and I know what a good man he is, but I had forgotten that Cross Guns is his son.”
“And this woman here,” said Hugh, “do you know who she is?”
“No,” said Jack, “I don’t. I’ve seen her before, too, and she’s a mighty pleasant-faced woman, but I don’t know her.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “you wouldn’t think it to look at her, but she’s a granddaughter of one of the chief factors of the Hudson’s Bay Company about a hundred years ago. Old James Bull came over here, I reckon, about 1775, and after working for the Hudson’s Bay Company for a while he became one of the chief factors. He married a Piegan woman, and his son, Jim Bull, is living here yet. I reckon he must be about ninety years old. This woman is a daughter of Jim Bull. I reckon you never saw him. He’s a queer old chap, mighty religious nowadays, but they tell great stories about him in old times, about how wild he was. They say he used to go off on the warpath with the Blackfeet and fight the white traders, run off their horses, and of course kill the men when he could. Of course I don’t know whether these stories are true or not, but one of them is that one time he met a party of traders and trappers and the Blackfeet attacked them and were driven off. The fur traders were on one side of the river and the Blackfeet on the other, and after the fight was over Jim Bull, they say, came to the edge of the stream and called across to the fur traders, saying that he was a white man and wanted to make peace. He wanted to know if one of them wouldn’t cross over and talk it over with him. There was some talk among the white men as to whether it would be safe to do this, but finally one of them said he’d go over, and did so. The trader went over, and he and Bull sat down and smoked and talked about making peace and what a pity it was to fight and all that sort of thing, and then presently, while they were sitting there smoking, Jim Bull pulled out a pistol and killed the white man and scalped him and gave the war-cry and went off.
“Another time, according to the story, he went into camp dressed up like a Canadian engagé, that is, with a blanket coat, and so on, and told the man that was on guard over the horses that he was ordered to turn them out to feed. They were let go and scattered about feeding, and presently a party of Blackfeet that were hidden near by rounded them up and took them all off, and Bull went with them. He got to be so mean after a while that they say that one of the head men of one of these trapping outfits offered five hundred dollars for Bull’s head. Of course, he’s an old man now, and he gave up all these boy’s tricks a good many years ago. As I say, now he’s mighty religious. He had a Piegan woman and quite a number of children here in the country; pretty smart, too, all of them are.”
After supper was over Hugh said to Jack, “Now, son, there are quite a lot of trout in the creek there, and if you want to help out our breakfast you might go out and try to catch some.”
“A good idea, Hugh; I’ll do it,” and Jack jointed his rod and spent an hour or two fishing. The trout did not seem to care much for his flies, and at last he substituted for them a plain hook, which he baited with a grasshopper. With grasshoppers for bait, he caught about a dozen fish, none of them large, but enough to provide a breakfast for the party.
It was about sunset when he returned, and when Hugh saw his catch he said, “That’s good; those little trout are going to taste mighty well to-morrow morning, but give them to me and I’ll go out and dress them now. You know these Indians won’t eat fish nor anything that lives in the water, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Cross Guns’ wife should refuse to cook them. We may have to fry them ourselves to-morrow morning.”
It was full daylight before camp was astir, and the sun was sending long level beams from the eastern sky when Jack went out of the lodge and down to the stream to wash. When he returned Hugh was frying the fish, having thought that he had better get that done rather than to take the chance of Cross Guns’ wife refusing to do it. A little later the horses were brought in, and, soon after, bidding their host and hostess good-by, they started on toward the mountains.
As Jack drove his horse across the different channels of the river, which here cut the bottom up into a number of small, gravelly islands, he started a mother hooded merganser and her brood of tiny young from one of the banks, and was interested to see the speed with which they swam and dived to get out of reach. The trees and the prairie were alive with birds, and in a tall cottonwood he saw a great hawk’s nest, near which one of the parent birds was perched. As he rode up out of the bottom on to the higher prairie, he began to see the wall of mountains on the left, now much nearer than it had seemed when he had started the day before.
During that day’s ride no large animals had been seen. Scattered over the prairie at frequent intervals were the white bones of buffalo killed long ago, but no quadruped larger than a prairie dog or a cotton-tail showed itself.
Through the day, as he rode along, the country became more and more broken; the small streams which he crossed flowed at the bottom of deep valleys walled in by high, steep bluffs, and the pines and spruces of the mountains seemed to be coming closer and closer to him. At length, after descending the long hill, he found himself in the bottom of a rather large stream, and remembering Joe’s directions, turned to the left and followed it up toward the mountains. At length it forked, and at first he could not determine which branch of the stream to take, so he stopped, got off his horse, and waited for the wagon to come up.
Presently he saw it coming down the hill, driving toward him. Just before it reached him he saw, a mile or two above him on the river, several large animals hurrying down the bluff. The distance was so great that he could not tell what they were, but thought they acted like horses. After the wagon had come up and he had learned which way they were going, he mounted to go on, and just as he did so a bunch of about twenty horses, herded by two men, burst out of the brush a mile ahead of the wagon, dashed across the wide bottom and up the bluffs on the north side of the valley.
“What do you make of that, Hugh?” asked Jack.
“Well, I don’t know, son,” said Hugh. “It looks as if there were a couple of men there that wanted to get away and not be seen. What do you think, Joe? Are any of the people camped up in this direction?”
“I guess not,” said Joe. “I think maybe those men have been stealing horses and don’t want anybody to see them.”
“That’s the way it looks to me,” said Hugh. “But where have the horses been taken from? We don’t know and I reckon it’s no business of ours, and we’d better go right along.”
“I guess they saw us coming a long way off, Hugh,” said Jack. “Only a little while ago I saw some of those horses come down the bluffs, away above where they came out of the bottom just now. The men must have seen me coming and begun to gather up their horses and then start them on to get out of the way.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “it’s no business of ours. We’d better keep on and attend to our own affairs. Of course, if we knew who these horses had been taken from it would be different; but it isn’t like it was with us that year when we came down through the Park and had to go and steal those horses from Black Jack Dowling.”
Joe shook his head solemnly and said, “I don’t want no more of that sort of thing,” while Jack said, “That was sure a ticklish time. I’ll never forget how I felt that night when we were driving those horses off.”
“Very well,” said Hugh, “let’s go on to where those fellows came out of the brush, and see whether there’s any sign there that will tell us who they are.”
When they reached the trail made by the horses in crossing Jack rode up to the edge of the brush and said, “Why, I believe these people have been here some time. There’s a plain trail leading into these willows.”
“Hold on a minute, son,” said Hugh, and he jumped down from the wagon and went over to Jack, and the two followed the trail on foot into the brush. Evidently the people had been there for some time, for the grass and weeds were worn down where they had passed to and from the stream to a little camp concealed in the thick willows. Here was a place where a fire had been built, and a little shelter of willow stems, built something like a sweat-house, in which the men had evidently slept. A little inspection of the tiny camping ground showed that the men had had no bread or coffee, for there were no coffee grounds lying about, nor was there any place on the ground where a coffee pot had stood, and no crusts or crumbs of bread. It seemed that they had been cooking their dinner when Hugh and his party had come in sight, and this was part of some small black animal, probably a dog. Bits of the hide with the hair singed off were found about the fire, and on one piece were the stumps of the ears, the tips having been burned off. In all respects, the campers seemed to have been poorly provided; but they were white men; the tracks of the shoes told that.
“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t know who these men are, nor what they’ve been doing, but it looks to me as if they had been hiding here with a bunch of horses, maybe animals that they have stolen over in Canada. Anyhow, they haven’t taken any horses of ours, and we may as well go on.”
When they reported at the wagon, Joe could throw no light on the occurrence, and, giving up the riddle, they kept on up the valley. A few miles further on they turned off to the right, over some low ridges, into another valley overgrown with willows, which came directly from the mountains. Here Jack, as he drove the horses ahead of the wagon, started several sharp-tailed grouse, and at one crossing of a little stream saw a few elk tracks, but no four-footed game. Only once, toward the end of the afternoon, did he see anything larger than a bird or a ground squirrel; then a great gray wolf got up from a hill where he had been lying, five or six hundred yards away, and trotted slowly off out of sight.
They followed the valley toward the mountains until late in the afternoon, when they came to a broad, heavy trail, made, Hugh said, by the carts of the Red River halfbreeds in their journeyings north and south along the mountains. It was a rough road for a wagon and required careful driving, but they made fairly good progress.
Shortly after they had left Milk River it had grown cloudy, and now the wind blew and a storm threatened. Hugh called to Jack, who was not far ahead of the wagon, telling him to look out for a place to camp and to stop at the first one he found. A little later, a small stream appeared on the trail, and on the other side of it was a little meadow, where there would be grass for the horses.
The trail went down to the creek and plunged over a three-foot bank, and Jack held up his hand to stop the wagon, which was following close behind him. It took a little riding up and down the stream to find a place where the wagon could cross, but at length they got over and made camp. Before the horses were turned out, however, a cold rainstorm began, and by the time the tent was up and the fire started all hands were wet and uncomfortable, but the warmth of the fire soon made them feel better. After supper they sat about in the tent, chatting over the events of the day and the probabilities of the morrow. The rain still fell, though the wind had ceased, and they were warm and comfortable.
Before daylight the next morning Jack was roused by a rasping sound made by something scratching against the canvas of the tent. He raised himself on his elbow, but of course could see nothing, and was about to lie down again when Hugh spoke and said, “It’s snow on the tent,” and a moment later the sound was repeated, and then Jack saw that it was made by wet snow sliding down the steep roof above them. When day came he looked out of the tent door and saw that the ground was white with snow, but that it was not cold, and the rapidly falling flakes melted as they touched his clothing. Joe had gone out to look for the horses, which could be easily tracked, and presently came back driving the bunch, which he had found close at hand. They were caught and tied to the wagon, so that as soon as the storm should cease a start might be made.
Not long after breakfast it stopped snowing, and camp was quickly broken and the party moved on. After a little rough traveling, up high hills and down into deep valleys and across narrow streams, they came upon a long slope dotted here and there with young pines, and a couple of hours’ drive brought them to the top of a ridge from which they looked down into the valley of the St. Mary’s Lakes.
The scene was beautiful. The sky had not yet cleared and a heavy fog hung about the ridge, so that they could see only a short distance on either side; but in the valley below there was little mist, so that the lower end of the upper lake and the whole lower lake were visible. Rounded hills covered with pale green quaking aspens rose sharply from the water, and here and there a little open park where the green grass of summer showed against the silver poplars or the black pines. The mist clouds were moving and changing constantly, and the travelers could not see the mountain tops, but once, a long way up the upper lake, Jack saw, or thought he saw, the stern black faces of tremendous cliffs rising from the very edge of the water. Now and then a soft fold of mist dropped from the overhanging clouds and floated from the upper, across the lower, lake, now hiding and again revealing the beauty of the scene.
“Isn’t that a wonderful scene, Hugh?” asked Jack. “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the upper lake, and I had no idea how beautiful it was. All I’ve seen before is the lower end of the lower lake and the river. There’s so much more of it than I thought there was.”
“Yes,” said Hugh, “it’s surely a pretty sight, but on a clear day it’s prettier than it is now.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “I suppose so; but just think of the mystery of this fog. It might hide all sorts of things. Nobody can tell what there is beyond it.”
For a little while they sat there, looking at the view, and then came the question of getting down the steep hills to the shores of the lake.
“How are we going to get down, Joe?” asked Hugh. “If we start down here I’m afraid this wagon will get away from us, and nobody knows where it will go to. Can’t we get around to the road that goes down to the foot of the lake?”
“No,” said Joe, “it’s an awful long way down there; bad road, too; lots of gulches to cross, and maybe break a tongue, maybe break an axle.”
“Well,” said Hugh, “I don’t like this a little bit, but if there’s no other way, why, we’ll have to try it. Luckily there’s no load in the wagon, and maybe if we rough-lock the wheels and go mighty slowly we can make it; but if that wagon ever gets started with those horses ahead of it, it will sure kill the horses and smash the wagon.”
Getting out their ropes and a chain that there was in the wagon, they made preparations for locking the wheels.
“But, look here,” said Hugh; “locking wheels isn’t going to do us much good. Don’t you see that if we lock the wheels we’re just turning each pair into a pair of runners, and on this snow the wagon will go faster that way than it would if the wheels were free.”
Hugh got out the ax, however, and cutting a green quaking aspen stick lashed it to the wagon so that it dragged on the ground just in front of the hind wheels, and was held down by them. Then with Joe on foot, driving on the upper side of the wagon, and Hugh and Jack on foot with rope tied to the tail of the wagon, they slowly started down the hill. It was ticklish business. The slope was hard, grass-covered gravel, and on this were two or three inches of snow. Sometimes the drag held and sometimes it slid. Hugh and Jack tried hard to keep the tail of the wagon from swinging around and starting down hill backward. Gradually they worked their way down the hill, and presently, just as they were getting near a level piece of ground which promised easier going, the wagon began to slide, and for a little it looked as if it would get away from them. Joe was ready, however, and in response to Hugh’s shout, guided his horses into a thicket of young aspens, where the wagon stopped, and by cutting a road through these they worked down the slope until they found better traveling and got below the snow. Then Jack climbed back up the hill, got his horses, and followed the wagon.
He found that it had stopped on the shores of a little curving bay near the head of the lake, where there was good feed for the horses and plenty of wood. A little trout brook coming down from the hills tinkled pleasantly at one end of the meadow and was shaded by half a dozen ancient cottonwood trees. Joe and Hugh were putting up the tent as he reached the camp, and as soon as he had unsaddled he helped them.
Though the sky was still overcast, the air at the level of the lake was clear, and one could see a long way. Jack looked out over the lake, now absolutely without a ripple, and saw a few ducks swimming about.
After supper, as there was still a little daylight left, he jointed his rod and began to fish, at first without any success, but casting out into the lake at the point where the brook flowed into it, he got several rises, and hooked a small trout, weighing perhaps a quarter of a pound, which he soon brought to land.
After a while Joe left camp and sauntered out to join Jack. It was the first time that he had seen a trout rod, and when he saw how slender and how limber it was he shook his head and said, “What do you expect to do with that fishing pole?”
“Why,” said Jack, “I want to catch some fish, as I did the other morning.”
“Did you catch them with that pole?” asked Joe.
“Yes,” said Jack, “caught ’em with this, and I hope to catch some more with it.”
“My!” said Joe; “what’s the use of fishing with a little thing like that? You can’t catch any big fish on that. It will break right off. You better let me go back into the willows and cut you a pole that you can catch fish with.”
Jack laughed a little as he replied: “Hold on a bit and see. If any fish will rise I can catch them with this rod if I can catch them at all.”
Joe said nothing, but waited, and presently Jack got a rise from a good trout, and, fortunately, hooked it. The fish was a strong one and darted hither and thither with splendid rushes, sometimes making the reel scream as it took the line, which Jack slowly recovered whenever he could. At times the little rod bent almost double, and more than once Joe said, “Look out, you’re breaking your rod;” but when the fish yielded, the pliant bamboo sprang back and was straight again. At length, tired out, the fish turned on its side and Jack brought it close to the beach and told Joe to go and grasp it by the gills and lift it from the water. Joe did so, and the fish proved to be a splendid great trout that perhaps weighed two pounds. After the fish was saved Joe wanted to look at the rod. He went over it from butt to tip, feeling it between his fingers and muttering to himself in his astonishment that so slight an implement should have caught so big a fish.
THE sun had hardly risen the next morning before the camp was astir, and while they were breakfasting on the excellent trout which had been caught the night before, the question was discussed as to what they should do now. Immediately across the lake rose a high, castellated pile of rock, with almost vertical sides, which the boys had recognized as the mountain under which Joe had killed a mountain sheep with his arrows some years before. Both boys had spoken of this, and Hugh presently said to them, “Why don’t you boys go up there to-day and get a sheep. Fish are good, of course, but we want some fresh meat, and a good fat sheep, if you can find one, will help us out amazingly. We ought to have something to eat now, because these flies here are going to drive us away from the lake and we’ll have to get high up into the mountains. It’s true we may find game anywhere, but it will be lots better to have some fresh meat in the pack than to go along without it, and then perhaps have storms or bad luck for two or three days and have to live on bacon. The flies don’t seem very bad this morning, but it’s fly time, and they may tackle us any day and be mighty troublesome to us and to the stock.”
“Well,” said Jack, “there’s nothing I’d like better than to get up on that hill again, and if Joe feels like coming I’d like to start right off.”
“I’m ready,” said Joe. “Come on.”
It took only a short time to bring in the saddle horses, and before long the boys were mounted and riding off over the Indian trail that led toward the inlet.
The inlet is a deep, swift river which flows through a strip of land perhaps two miles long by a mile wide, which separates the lower lake from the upper, and carries the drainage of all the great mountain region about the upper lake. The lower end of this strip of land is wooded with spruces and cottonwoods, but the upper end is a wide meadow covered with heavy grass, where, in old times, buffalo, elk, and deer often fed. The Indian trail which the boys were following was originally a game trail made by the mountain bison and the elk. It wound through the bare, rolling hills, now and then crossing some tiny stream running down from the high land, and at last plunged to the level of the inlet, where a large swift stream spread itself over a graveled bar and twisted in and out among the willows and aspens. After crossing this they reached the flat of the inlet, and presently the trail came out into the open meadow, and a mile further on they rode down into the main inlet stream. This was so deep that both the boys had to tuck their feet up behind the saddles to keep from getting wet, and in one place it looked as if the horses might have to swim. The crossing was a short one, however, and presently they emerged on the other side, and in a very few moments began to climb the hill just opposite the lower end of the lake.
The hills here, though smooth, were steep and for the most part covered with a thick growth of small aspens. Here and there along the dim trail were little open parks, in one or two of which were fresh elk tracks. As the boys climbed higher, the aspens gradually gave way to pines, and then to spruces. The way grew steeper and more difficult, and at last, when they reached the top of a high hogback, above which the bare rocks rose sharply, they left their horses and began the ascent on foot. Here the snow still lay on the ground and made the climb harder, because it was impossible to see on just what one was stepping. It was rough and difficult, and the slope was so steep that sometimes the boys had to scramble along on all fours. At first it was over smooth grass made doubly slippery by the snow which covered it; then came the piled-up rocks, which in past ages had tumbled from the face of the mountains, and here progress, though slow, was easier, because the footing was more secure. It was on this slope that they passed the last few stunted spruces, and when they reached the top, they had left all the trees behind.
Nothing was to be seen save a wide expanse of gray rock and white snow, which ran up to a cliff whose top was hidden by dense mist. All the morning the clouds had been hanging about the mountains, and now the boys were fairly among them. They could see but a short distance in any direction, and the prospects for hunting were very poor.
“What do you think, Joe?” asked Jack. “Shall we sit down and wait for it to clear, or keep on?”
“Well,” said Joe, “not much use hunting when it’s like this. Any animals about are sure to see you before you see them. I’d stop here and wait a little while and see what happens.”
“All right,” said Jack, “let’s crawl in under this rock and sit there. Our eyes are not much good to us now, but anyhow we can listen and see whether we can hear anything moving around. I guess there are sheep up here all right, and if we can’t get them to-day we can to-morrow.”
“That’s so,” said Joe. “There are sure sheep here. This is a great place for them. You know Old Brockey?”
“Yes,” said Jack.
“He’s always told me that there are always sheep on this mountain in summer. They live around there in that valley where you and I killed one. In winter they live high up on the side toward the lake, but they are always here. The only thing is to find them.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “we’ve got to keep looking for them until we do.”
The boys sat there for an hour or two, pretty uncomfortable, for both were wet up to the knees. A cool breeze was blowing along the mountainside, and the dense fog, which by this time had settled down over the hills, chilled the boys to the bone; so that after a little while they got up and began to run up and down over the small level space near the boulder which sheltered them, beating their arms against their breasts in the effort to keep warm. Presently, however, and almost without warning, the sky grew lighter, the fog lifted, and they could look out over the mountainside and down on the quiet dark green lakes, and as they looked the sun came out through the clouds, sparkled on the wet foliage below them, and changed the somber lakes into patches of brilliant blue. After a little the sun reached the boys, and it was wonderful to see how their spirits rose and how soon they got warm. At once they started on, gradually working up the rough slope until they had nearly reached the foot of the great wall of rock which overhung it. They made their way slowly around the northern point of the mountain and into the rocky valley which separates it from the next mountain to the northward, but almost as soon as they entered this valley the weather changed again. Black clouds dropped down and a fierce wind began to blow, bringing with it now and then blinding snow squalls. The fog did not descend as low as before, but every now and then a flurry of snow blotted out the whole scene.
Jack and Joe backed up against a huge boulder out of the wind and waited. As they sat there, a curious squeak, almost like that of a little child’s penny trumpet, came from the rocks just below them, and both boys recognized it as the bleating cry of the little chief hare. Half a dozen small birds alighted close to the boys, as if seeking shelter from the wind, and with soft whistling twitter walked about on the stones and on the snow, apparently picking up food. They were so close that Jack could see their gray crowns and rosy breasts and backs, and he thought them about the prettiest birds he had ever seen.
“What are they, Joe?” he whispered; but Joe could give him little help. He said, “Snow birds, I guess. Anyway, they only come in cold weather. I reckon they live high up on the mountains.”
Presently the little gray-crowned finches disappeared, and only a few minutes afterward they saw a white-tailed ptarmigan walking about among the rocks just below them. Then the sun came out and the wind went down and they started once more on their hunt.
They were following a sheep trail which led along the rocks when suddenly Jack, as his head arose above a rise, saw in a little meadow below him the hips and body of a feeding animal. Instantly he slowly sank out of sight, and Joe imitated him. Jack turned to Joe and made the sign for mountain sheep and pointed in the direction of the animal. Joe signed to him to go ahead, and he crept forward, and when he took another peep he saw a two-year-old ram alone, feeding in the little meadow in the valley below. The distance was a little more than a hundred yards and the shot seemed an easy one. Jack motioned Joe to come beside him and said, “You take the shot, Joe; don’t you want to?”
“No,” said Joe, “you shoot. I’m out here all the time. I have plenty of chances to kill animals. Now you try that sheep, and see what you can do.”
“All right,” said Jack, and creeping forward to where a larger piece of rock crowned the knoll, he rose to his knees behind it, and, resting his rifle against the side of it, prepared to shoot. The sheep was still feeding and had his tail toward Jack, but was considerably below the boy’s position, so Jack aimed at the animal’s back, just in front of the hips, and drawing a fine sight, fired. The ram fell, and the boys scrambled down to it, and found it lying dead. The shot had entered the back just to the right of the backbone and had passed forward and downward through the lungs and heart.
“Good shot,” said Joe. “It’s pretty hard to shoot down hill that way; ‘most always shoot over.”
“Yes,” said Jack, “that’s so; but you see I had two or three chances, because his hips were toward me and that gave me a long surface to fire at. I made up my mind that I’d shoot at the kidneys, and if I didn’t hit them I had the chance of cutting his lungs and heart and also of breaking his back.”
“Yes,” said Joe, “that’s so. He gave you good shot.”
“Well,” said Jack, “we’ve got to get this beast back to camp, or at least as much of him as we can carry, and I suppose we may as well get at it.”
When their knives were out it did not take long to skin the sheep. The head was not worth taking along.
When, however, it came to carrying the animal they found it was much too heavy to be transported in one trip. As a matter of fact, neither of the boys was stout enough to take half the sheep on his back. They were obliged to quarter it.
“Tell you what,” said Joe, “we don’t know much.”
“Well,” replied Jack, “I guess that’s so; but what do you mean?”
“Why,” said Joe, “next time we come out hunting each one of us better take a sack and two or three strings in his pocket, and then if we kill anything we can cut the meat off the bones and put it in the sack, and that saves all the trouble of carrying the bones into camp.”
“That’s so,” said Jack. “What a pity we didn’t think of that before. But look here; hold on; why can’t we make a sack out of this sheep’s hide, cut the meat off the bones and put it in the hide, and then carry the hide between us on a pole all the way to the horses?”
“Well,” said Joe, “maybe we could do that. That’s a good idea. It’s a pretty heavy load to carry that way. It’s going to be hard to climb up the hill.”
“Well,” said Jack, “let’s try it anyhow. I don’t care much about making two trips from here to the horses if we can avoid it.”
Accordingly the hide was spread out on the rocks, flesh side up, and the boys cut away all the meat from the sheep’s skeleton. Practically the only bones they took with them were the shoulder blades, everything else being cut out and left there. This meat was carefully piled up on the sheep’s hide, and this was folded over and tied with strings cut from the sheep’s hide and passed through little holes made in the border of the hide.
“Jack,” said Joe, “do you know that this is the way our people used to carry meat into camp, away far back, long before they had horses, and when they had only a few dogs?”
“No,” said Jack, “I never heard that before. Tell me how it was.”
“Not now,” said Joe. “The first thing we’ve got to do is to see whether we can carry this load to the horses.”
Going down a little way into the valley they cut a stout quaking aspen pole, trimmed off the branches and cut it off to about twelve feet in length. Then, returning to the hide, the skin of the shanks was tied about the pole so closely that the load of meat lay immediately under it and had no swing from side to side.
When Jack took his end of the pole and lifted it on his shoulder the load seemed much heavier than he had supposed. However, Joe raised his end, and the two staggered forward, at first with more or less difficulty, but more steadily as they got used to it. Presently they began to climb the steep trail which would take them over the mountain to a point above where the horses were. Every now and then they had to stop and put down their load to rest and puff for a moment or two, until they recovered their wind. After stopping two or three times, they learned to choose a place where the load could be deposited on the top of a high rock, so that it would not be necessary each time to lift it from the ground. It was slow and weary work, but some progress was made, and at last they reached the top of the shoulder, whence the way would all be over level ground or down hill. As they were sitting there, resting and not talking, Joe put out his hand and touched Jack, and pointing down the hill, showed him a marten, resplendent in his glossy brown coat, running along and whisking his black-tipped tail. The animal did not see the boys, and after he had passed out of sight, Joe said, “You bet your life that fellow will find that sheep skeleton before night and he’ll have a good time there.”