"I heard two shots and felt that I was hurt."—Page 244
"This is how it happened," said Fox Eye, when Hugh asked him to tell the story of the attack. "I had left my horse behind and crept up close to the bull, and when I shot, it didn't get up; it just died there. Then I went back for my beast and bringing it up to the bull, I began to cut out some meat. I was busy, and I think didn't keep a good look-out, though every moment or two, as I thought, I looked about me, and then the first thing I knew I heard two shots and felt that I was hurt, and saw my horse fall. They had shot him for fear that I should run away. As I fell, I saw the three men running down to strike me, and I raised myself on one elbow, and when they were pretty near, I fired, and the first man fell. I think the others thought I had a double-barrel gun, for they separated and ran back and hid. I was charging my gun as quickly as I could, but it took me a long time to get the ball down, then I quickly crept in between the legs of the bull and used its body for a breastwork. When I looked again, I saw that the man I had shot had disappeared. I think he was only wounded.
"I wondered whether you would hear the shots and come back, and I wondered whether the three men would charge on me again. I could see their heads every little while, as they looked over the hill and I thought that they would charge; but pretty soon they started up the ridge, two of them helping the man that was hurt, and then they disappeared, and soon I heard you coming."
While Fox Eye had been talking, the other three had cut out the buffalo's tongue and taken the meat from his hump, and had put it on Hugh's horse. Hugh and Jack went back up the hill to the point where the man shot by Fox Eye had fallen. There they found blood on the grass and a trail of blood leading down a little sag to a ravine, where the man had crossed. Here there was more blood and moccasin tracks in the sand, which led up the hill. They returned to Fox Eye, who was then helped into the saddle, and Hugh and Jack mounted, and with Joe on foot, the four started down the hill. Before they had gone very far, they came in sight of the moving column, which by this time had quite overtaken them.
When they had come close enough to the camp for the people to get an idea of what had happened, a number of men rode out to meet them, and in a moment, as it seemed, the news had spread through the marching column, that enemies had been seen, and one of the people wounded. The four were at once surrounded by men, anxious for the news, and the shrieks and cries of women who did not know how great the misfortune might have been, resounded in their ears. Thirty or forty soldiers rode away hotly, to visit the scene of the encounter, and if possible to overtake the enemies. Fox Eye was put on a travois and the village started on again and camped that night on Milk River.
The camp on Milk River was a pleasant one, though there was but little wood for the fires; a few small box-elder trees and a good deal of willow brush furnished the only fuel. The stream rippled pleasantly over the rocks which formed its bed, and Hugh told Jack that this was almost the only place on the course of the stream, away from the mountains, where the bottom was hard.
The next day the camp remained here, and young men scouted north of the river, looking for buffalo. A few were seen, but not enough to justify a general hunt, and Hugh expressed the opinion, that within a day or two the camp would move south to one of the streams flowing into the Marias River.
A number of the young men, who had ridden away the night before in pursuit of the enemy, had not yet returned, and Jack asked Hugh, during the morning, whether he thought that they would overtake the Indians who had attacked Fox Eye.
"No," said Hugh, "I don't reckon they will. Those Indians had a big start, and likely they saw the camp coming and knew that they would be pursued, and have ridden clean out of the country. Of course it might be such a thing as the man that Fox Eye wounded would die, and the other two might hide his body somewhere, but I don't believe that these young men that have followed them, will see anything at all of the Indians."
"I would like to have gone off with those fellows," said Jack.
"Yes," said Hugh, "I knew you wanted to, but there would have been no sense in doing it; you'd just have had a long, hard ride, and maybe broken down your horse, all for nothing. I have seen young men start off like that more than fifty times I bet, and they hardly ever come back with anything to show for the trouble they've had."
Toward the middle of the day, the soldiers who had started off the afternoon before, began to come into the camp, stringing along one after another, on tired, stumbling ponies. They reported that nothing had been seen of the enemy, although they had ridden hard in the direction they had taken, following the trail until after dark.
"There," said Hugh to Jack, "what did I tell you? You see they've just had a wild goose chase, and haven't done anything at all. Now I'll tell you what we'll do. You and Joe and me'll go out this afternoon, just before sundown, and you and Joe take your bows and arrows, and we'll see if we can't kill a bull."
Some time before this, Hugh had traded with one of the young men of the camp, for a number of arrows, and Jack had been practicing with the Assinaboine's bow and with these new arrows for some time, so that he was now a pretty fair shot. When he had first obtained the bow, Joe had made him some blunt-headed arrows, and the two boys, going out on the prairie near the camp, had practised shooting until Jack was fairly skillful, although, of course, he could not approach Joe in marksmanship. His efforts to learn how to shoot had been a source of great delight to the small boys of the camp, who enjoyed following him about, laughing at his bad shooting, and then exhibiting to him their own skill.
The accuracy with which these little shavers could use the bow was a constant source of astonishment to Jack. They would watch him shoot at his mark a few times, hailing each miss with derisive yells, and then some naked little fellow, not half his height, would rush up to him, gesticulating and pointing, and then, seemingly without effort or aim, would plant three or four arrows in quick succession, in the very mark that Jack had been missing.
At first their comments and their company greatly embarrassed and disconcerted Jack, but he soon became accustomed to both, and rather enjoyed the society of the noisy little throng.
Jack had also practised riding bareback, both on Pawnee and his new horse, and had reached a point where, clad in moccasins and leggings, he could gallop for half a day without feeling undue fatigue. Hugh had advised him to begin on one of the buffalo running saddles, used by some of the Indians; a square cushion of buckskin, stuffed with buffalo or antelope hair, but without stirrups. Beginning with this, he had gradually passed on to riding the naked horse, and now had a firm grip with knee and calf, on the smooth sides of his mount.
Toward evening that day, the three started out and galloped swiftly up the river, gradually turning into the low hills on its south side. They had gone only three or four miles, when Hugh held up his hand and bending low in the saddle, called their attention to a buffalo, whose back was just visible over a near ridge. "Now, boys," he said, "we can get up within fifty or seventy-five yards of that fellow, and then you can try him. As soon as the bull starts, son, you want to put the quirt on your horse and get up to him as quickly as you can, then shoot at him just as you would if you were using a rifle, except that you want to ride up nearly to his shoulders, before shooting. Let the arrow go in square between the ribs and not slant forward. When you are too far behind, the arrow is likely to strike a rib and just stick in his hide. I expect Jack will get the first shot," he added, turning to Joe, "because he's got the best horse, but I don't feel noways certain that he'll kill, and you must do your best to get the buffalo, if he don't."
They trotted briskly up to the top of the ridge, and were on the crest and within thirty yards of the game, before it saw them; then it dashed off, but in a very short time, Jack was close to the animal's side, and drawing the arrow to its head, he let fly. It was the first time he had shot from a galloping horse, and he did not allow for the motion, so that to his horror and shame, he missed the buffalo clean, the arrow striking deep into the ground under its belly. As the bow twanged, his horse made a lurch to the right and he lost his balance, and would have fallen off if he had not caught the mane, and thus recovered himself. Joe, on his slower horse, was bounding along close behind the buffalo, but gaining on it very slowly, and Jack turning again, passed Joe and once more drew up beside the bull. This time his luck was better, the arrow struck the beast just behind the foreleg and low down. When the horse turned, Jack was ready for him and did not lose his seat, but the prick of the arrow angered the buffalo, which turned sharply and would have caught his horse, if it had not sheered off just as it did. This little delay enabled Joe to come up, and he planted an arrow in the buffalo's side close to Jack's. The animal charged Joe as he had Jack, but the horse easily avoided him. But now the bull was badly wounded and angry, and stopped to fight. Hugh had come up, and the three sat on their horses, fifteen or twenty yards away from the great beast, which with head down and tail stuck stiffly up in the air, glared furiously at them from under the heavy mat of brown hair, which overshadowed its little eyes. Now and then it shook its head angrily, and its long beard swept the prairie grass; but blood was flowing from its mouth and nostrils, and both Hugh and Joe said it would soon fall. By this time Jack had seen plenty of buffalo, but as he sat there and looked at this enormous beast, it seemed to him that he had never beheld any creature so terrifying.
The buffalo stood there for a few moments, ready to fight, then slowly turned as if to run, tottered a few steps and fell on its knees.
"Well," said Hugh, "I guess, son, you and Joe will have to divide that buffalo; 'pears to me from the way those arrows look, that you both killed it."
"Well," said Jack, "the first shot I made, I didn't hit it at all. I would not have thought I could shoot at an enormous animal like that, at five or six yards distance, and miss it, but I did miss it clean. I'm going back after we have butchered, to try and find that arrow."
The buffalo was a young bull, fat and in good order. They took his tongue and the meat from the boss ribs, and packing it on Joe's horse, set out for the camp again. On the way back they spent some little time looking for Jack's arrow, which was finally found, sticking almost straight up in the sand.
Two or three days after Fox Eye's accident, the camp moved again, back to the little creek near the Sweet Grass Hills, which they had left only a few days before. Here there were but few buffalo, and another move was made, still further south, to a stream running into the Marias River. After two or three short moves down this creek, buffalo were again found plenty, and several successful chases were made. As the indications seemed to be that the buffalo were more plenty east of the Marias, the camp turned in that direction and moved on toward the Missouri River.
By this time, great stores of food had been accumulated by the Indians. In every lodge were piled up parfleches of choice dried meat and back fat and tongues. Many sacks of pemmican had been made, and Jack greatly enjoyed seeing the old women at work, preparing this food. Every evening there was feasting in the camp. Men invited their friends to eat with them. Young people held dances, sometimes some of the societies held their dances. Everybody was good natured, laughing, happy.
Hugh and Jack were often invited to feast by some of Hugh's friends, and always accepted; and usually their hosts, perhaps on the suggestion of Hugh, or perhaps of Pis'kun Monroe, invited Joe to these feasts, as company for Jack. So it was that Joe, who under ordinary circumstances would have been treated only as a boy who had never done anything, and was as yet of no importance, came, through Jack's friendship, to be regarded as a young man of promise, and to stand in the public estimation, very high among the young men of the camp. Joe understood perfectly, why it was that he received this consideration, and sometimes used to talk to Jack about it, and to tell him that if it had not been for Hugh and himself, none of these honours, that he was now receiving, would have come to him.
Hugh, Jack and Joe took part in all the buffalo chases that were made, and on one of these, Jack rode his new horse and carried only his bow and arrows and his knife. On this chase he killed four cows which were afterwards identified by the private mark which his arrows bore, as did those of every other man in the camp. In this chase he let Joe ride Pawnee, and Joe killed six cows, for of course he was much more accustomed to the use of the bow, than was Jack. Often during these days, Jack and Joe rode out together, both bareback, and carrying their bows and several times coming upon single buffalo, they succeeded in killing them and bringing them into the camp. Several times, too, they came upon little herds of buffalo feeding or lying on the prairie, in places where it was possible to creep up very close to them, and Jack, who by this time had killed enough buffalo so that the novelty had worn off, persuaded Joe to creep up near the great beasts, and to lie there and watch them.
This was an amusement in which at first Joe scarcely sympathized. To him a buffalo was only so much food, and yet after they had done this once or twice, and had spent hours watching old cows lying there, chewing their cud while the yellow calves played about them, or at other times, slowly feeding along some little sag between two hills, or again, steadily travelling along with ponderous tread and swinging heads and beards sweeping the ground, Joe became as much interested in the study of the ways of these great beasts as was his white companion. Often mingled with a little group of buffalo would be a herd of antelope, feeding perfectly at home with their huge companions, and perhaps, if these started to walk in any direction, keeping along with them as if a part of the herd. Once a group of buffalo and antelope passed so close to the boys, lying on the hilltop, that Jack distinctly saw the nostrils of the nearest antelope move and twitch as it walked by, while the great bull near which it was, looked to the boy almost like a mountain.
One day, when the camp was near the Missouri River, Jack and Joe had ridden out, Jack carrying his rifle and Joe his bow, over to where the Bad Lands break away above the river. Far below them they could see the stream winding about among the yellow verdureless bluffs, which were gashed in all directions with ravines and canyons, and showed a curious mingling of colours of red and gray and green and brown and yellow. Near where they sat on their horses, a long point of level prairie stretched out toward the stream, and Jack proposed that they leave their horses in the hollow near where they were, and should walk out to the edge of the prairie and look over. He wanted to get as nearly above the stream as he could. He did not realise that several miles of broken Bad Lands lay between the point of prairie and the river.
They walked out to the point and stood there looking down. The strange scene had a fascination for Jack, who had never seen Bad Lands on so great a scale as this. As he sat there looking at the scene and wondering, Joe rose to his feet and walking a few yards southwards, looked over the bluff there, and then turning, called in a low voice to Jack. When he came up and followed Joe's glance, he saw down below them on the bluff, a single buffalo slowly working its way up the steep hillside, evidently coming from the river below. The height of the bluff was great, and the buffalo seemed to find it a hard climb. He would stick his toes into the soil and scramble half a dozen yards and then stop to rest. Then he would ascend a few yards more and again stop.
The boys lay on the edge of the bank and watched the bull slowly clamber toward them, and at length it reached the prairie only a few yards from where they were, and stopping with a grunt, stood there panting. They lay perfectly still and watched it, both feeling a little nervous as to which way the bull might turn. Joe whispered to Jack, "Look out, my friend, do not move, lie perfectly still. If he sees us he may rush upon us and kill us." For several moments they lay there and watched, and at last the buffalo slowly moved away and disappeared over a low hill. Then they sat up, and Jack said to Joe, "Well, I'm mighty glad he's gone, I tell you, he looked to me big and terrible. Of course, I suppose I might have killed him if he had turned toward us, but I was mighty glad when I saw him go the other way. Weren't you, Joe?"
"You bet I was," said Joe. "I was scared. Of course if he had come toward us you might have killed him, but I couldn't have done anything with my arrows; if he had come straight at us I'd have had to jump right over the side of the bluff."
"Yes," said Jack, "I expect that's all we could have done. I guess we could have dodged him there, but I'm glad we didn't have to try it."
The boys rose to their feet and went to the place where the buffalo had come up on the prairie, and looking down over the almost vertical cliff, they wondered how such a great and heavy beast could ever have climbed up.
"I tell you," said Jack, "they must be strong. Just think of that big animal climbing up the steep face of that bluff. I should have thought he'd have fallen over backward and rolled down every time he tried to take a step. It's wonderful."
"Oh!" said Joe, "I tell you a buffalo is a great, powerful beast. He's strong and he never gets tired, and he's big, and then besides all that he has got mysterious power. Maybe you don't believe that, but all the old men will tell you it's so."
"Well," said Jack, "I've heard something about that from Hugh, but of course I don't know anything except what I've been told; but Hugh says that all the Indians believe the buffalo has this power."
"Well," said Joe, "it's so; he has."
They set out to return to their horses, walking along over the prairie near where it broke off into the deep ravines running toward the river. As they were crossing one of the little side gullies that ran into one of these, Jack's eye was caught by an odd sparkle in the sand on the floor of the ravine, and looking a second time, he saw something that did not shine quite like a bit of gravel. He stepped toward it and saw sticking out of the sand in the wash, a bit of yellow metal, and stooping down, pulled from the soil what he took at first to be a used cartridge shell. In a moment he saw that it was not this, and calling Joe to him, said, "What can this be, Joe? I thought it was an old cartridge shell, but it isn't, it looks like a little brass whistle with the mouth part gone. You see this hole through the metal at the bottom, there has been a string through that to hold it by." Joe looked at the piece of metal which was a short tube closed at one end, and with a projection at that end, which, as Jack said, had a hole in it and had evidently served to tie the tube to something. "Why," said he, "that's a powder charger. I never saw one made of brass before, but I've seen lots made of horn and tin and copper. You fill this charger with powder from your horn, and empty it into your gun; that's the way you measure the charge."
"Oh yes," said Jack, "I've heard of that, but I never saw one before, but look here," he added, "here is something scratched on it. What is it?" And he rubbed the dust away with his finger and polished the metal on his sleeve. "Why! it's 'B. L.,' those must be the initials of the man who owned it; but I wonder how it came to be here. I suppose the man was hunting or travelling about, and the string broke and he lost it, and then finally it got washed into the gulch here."
"Yes," said Joe, "most likely that was it."
Jack put the charger in his pocket, and they went on; but hardly had they come out of the gully, when Joe stopped, and stooping down took hold of something at his feet. "Hold on, Jack," he said, "here is something more," and turning, Jack saw Joe stooping over an old piece of leather lying on the prairie. Joe took hold of the leather to lift it, but when he pulled at it, it slipped through his fingers. "Why, it's stuck fast," he said; and taking a hold of it again, he held it tighter and pulled, and the leather began to tear, and as it tore, some particles that looked like yellow gravel, escaped from the rent, and slipped down on the prairie.
"That's queer," said Jack, and both boys went down on their knees beside it. Jack picked up some of the grains that had escaped, and looked at them. They were very heavy and looked like dull brass. Poking his fingers through the rent in the leather, Joe felt about and poked out a lot more of the gravel, while Jack kept gathering it up in his hand and looking at it. Suddenly Jack's jaw dropped, and he looked at Joe with wide open eyes, while a frightened expression came on his face. "Joe," he said in a whisper, "do you know, I believe this is gold."
"You're crazy;" said Joe. "You must be very crazy. Who would leave gold lying out here on the prairie? I never heard of anything like that."
"But, Joe," said Jack, "feel how heavy it is, it must be gold. Nobody would carry brass around in a buckskin package and leave it here on the prairie any more than they would gold. Somebody must have been travelling here and lost this off his horse. This must be worth a lot of money. Now let's gather it up carefully and take it into camp and show it to Hugh, and see what he says. He'll know, dead sure."
The boys did not know how to get this on their horses without losing any of it. Evidently this old buckskin sack had lain there so long, that it was rotten and would not hold together. With their knives they dug carefully about the sack and as they dug, they found that it was in part buried in the soil, so that there was more of it below the surface of the prairie than above. Jack took off his hat and placed in it all the grains that they could gather up, and then digging deeply around the sack, they at length got below it.
"Now, Joe," said Jack, "there's only one thing to do that I can think of, to carry this stuff in the camp. We've got to have something that's strong and something that has no holes in it, so that none of the dust can get out; and the only thing of that kind that we have with us, is one of your leggings. Take off your leggings and we'll tie up the end of one of them and slip this bag and the dirt into the other end, and then tie that up and we can put it across a horse."
They did this, but it was not easy to do. In the first place the lump of dirt which held the sack was large, heavy and very frail, so that when they tried to lift it, it looked as if it would break in two. Instead of lifting it, therefore, they put the legging down on the ground, and while they lifted the lump of earth little by little, they slipped the side of the legging under it, until the whole mass was within the buckskin covering. Then they tied each end of the legging firmly with buckskin strings, and started to put it on the horse. It was very heavy. Joe said it weighed as much as half a sack of flour, that is, fifty pounds.
Both boys were in a high state of excitement and talked to each other in whispers, and kept looking guiltily over their shoulders in all directions, as if they were committing some crime. No doubt their notion was, that some one else might appear on the scene and lay claim to a portion of this treasure that they had found. Presently they mounted and set out for the camp, Jack keeping one hand behind him on the precious bundle that was tied behind his saddle, while Joe rode with his horse's head at Jack's knee, and kept his eyes fixed on the load.
"How much do you suppose there is, Joe?" said Jack.
"Why, I don't know," said Joe; "must be a hundred dollars worth of it, if it's gold."
"A hundred dollars! Pooh, Joe, you don't know anything," was the reply. "You said it weighed fifty pounds, and if it weighs as much as that, there must be thousands of dollars worth."
"My!" said Joe, "is there as much as that? I know what I'll do."
"What?" said Jack.
"I'll get me a good gun," replied Joe, "that's all I want, a good gun, and maybe a good buffalo horse."
"Why," said Jack, "if that's gold you can buy yourself all the guns and all the horses you want, and a lodge for yourself and still have plenty left."
"What'll you do, Jack, with yours?" said Joe.
"Oh, I don't know," said Jack, "I'd like to buy a lot of nice furs and robes to take home, but I expect we've got trade stuff enough to buy those things with, maybe I'll just take it home as it is. But hold on," he said, as a sudden thought struck him. "This doesn't belong to me; this is yours, you found it."
"No I didn't," said Joe, "we both found it together, and anyhow if you hadn't been along, I'd have just left it there; I wouldn't have carried a lot of yellow sand into the camp. I never saw anything like this before, and I'd a-thought it was just some kind of queer gravel. We have been partners right along, almost since you came into the camp, and we've got to be partners now."
"Well," said Jack, "we'll see what Hugh says about it. After all maybe it isn't anything. I've heard my uncle talk about fool's gold, and one day when we were coming up, I picked up apiece of yellow heavy stuff like this and asked Hugh what it was, and he told me some queer name that I can't remember, and then said some folks called it fool's gold, and he cracked it on the axe and it broke into little pieces. It looked something like this stuff we've got only the edges were sharp and not round like this, and it was bright and shiny too, and not dull, the way this is."
"Oh, I hope that this is gold, it will be great."
When they reached camp, they unsaddled and carefully carried their bundle into Pis'kun's lodge. Hugh was not there, but the boys were too impatient to wait for him long, and after a few moments, Jack left Joe on guard over the bundle, while he started out through the camp to find Hugh. Soon he came upon him, sitting in the shade of the lodges, smoking and talking with Last Bull and another old man, and going up to him with an air of much mystery, he asked him if he wouldn't come to the lodge. Hugh rose and accompanied him, looking at him meanwhile, with an expression of amused curiosity, for the boy was evidently big with some secret which he was anxious to reveal.
When they were seated in the lodge, the boys began to untie their bundle, and while doing so, told Hugh the story of their find. As they talked, his interest increased, and before the contents of the legging had been turned out into the pan borrowed from Pis'kun's wife, he was as much excited as the boys themselves. The legging was lifted up and slowly the mass of dirt mingled with yellow grains slipped out into the pan, and the moment that Hugh saw it he said, "By the Lord, boys, you've surely struck it." He took up one of the larger grains, bit it, tried it with his knife and then whispered impressively, "It's gold." For an hour or two all three were busy cleaning the grass, the soil and bits of rotten buckskin from among the yellow grains, which half filled the pan. When this was done, Hugh lifted it from the ground, and after weighing it carefully in his hand, said, "Boys, there must be twenty-five pounds of this dust. I wouldn't be surprised if there was five or six thousand dollars right here in that pan."
"My," said Jack, "that's an awful lot of money."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's a lot of money. But how did it get there? That's what I want to know. We will have to go there to-morrow and look the ground over right carefully; somebody must have dropped that sack there, right on the prairie. Didn't you see nothing else there?"
"No," said Jack, "nothing; it was just lying there half covered up by the dirt and the grass, and Joe walked right over it before he saw it."
"Hold on, Jack," said Joe, "show White Bull that powder charger."
"That's so," said Jack, and he fished the tube out of his pocket.
Hugh looked at it carefully from all sides and pondered. After he had thought a little while, he said, "Look here boys, this is queer. I have seen that powder charger before, and I know the man that made it. 'B. L.,' that's Baptiste Lajeunesse, he was one of the old time trappers and I was in Benton when he made that charger. That's gold too. It was more than thirty years ago. Bat had just come in from the mountains with a big lot of furs, and sold them and got his money, and had started out to have a good time. Just before he got into the Post though, he had lost his charger. It was one, made him long before, out of a piece of mountain sheep's horn, by a great friend, and he thought the world of it. He kept talking all the time about that charger, and when he began to spend his money and to drink, he talked about it more and more. Now, Bat was a pretty handy man with tools, and when he was a boy, he had been blacksmith at the Hudson Bay Co., and that afternoon, when he was pretty drunk, as he was going along the street, he suddenly stopped and ran into the blacksmith shop and took a hammer and fished a twenty dollar gold piece out of his pocket, and began to hammer it out on the anvil, and before any of us knew what he was after, he had made himself this charger and scratched his initials on it, and tied it with a string to his shirt in front, where he used to carry his old charger when he was in town. A few days after that, after Bat had spent all his money, he started off again into the mountains, and I have never seen him from that day to this.
"Now it would be mighty curious," the old man went on, "if there was any connection between that charger and this sack of dust. I don't see how there could be, and I don't see how we are likely to find out anything about it; but anyhow, we'll go back there to-morrow and see."
Hugh covered the pan of gold with some robes, and told Jack and Joe to remain in the lodge while he went out. Half an hour later, he returned with a heavy double sack of buckskin into which the gold was poured, and this sack was put in a partly empty sack of flour, the flour being packed around the gold and on top of it, so that there seemed to be nothing but flour in the sack, which was then placed under the other property belonging to Hugh and Jack, between their beds.
The next morning the three started back to the place where the boys had found the gold. On their way there, Jack explained to Hugh in greater detail, that the dust had really been discovered by Joe, and asked him to whom, in his opinion, it belonged.
"Why," said Hugh, "you two boys are just like a couple of fellows that start out to prospect. You are partners, and whatever either partner finds, belongs to both, share and share alike. It would have been the same if you had found it instead of Joe, half of it would have belonged to him. Now here I'm going out with you this morning, if any of us would find anything to-day, I oughtn't to have as big a share of it as either of you two, because you found the place and are taking me there and showing it to me. I am more like a man that you have hired to work on your claim and so I only get what you choose to give me. You and Joe are the bosses, I'm the hired man."
"Seems to me," said Joe, "that White Bull ought to share in what we found yesterday. Because you see Jack and me didn't know what we'd found and we had to take it to somebody and ask, and maybe if we had taken it to some one else, he'd have cheated us out of it all, so I think we ought to divide that gold into three parts, and all three share it."
"Why, yes," said Jack, "that's the best yet."
"No," said Hugh, "I guess we won't do that, you boys will have to keep your gold, and if we find any more to-day, why, maybe I'll get a chance at it, but what you found is yours and nobody else's."
"Well, but say, White Bull, you know we've got to be asking questions all the time and got to be told what to do with the dust, for neither of us know enough to get along without help. I think you ought to take your share."
"So do I," said Jack, "and I vote that unless Hugh comes in as a partner, you and I say we won't take any of this gold."
"Well, well," said Hugh, "we ain't got no chance to spend that money now, and we needn't decide right off about this. We can't do nothing with it until we get into the settlements, but when we get there, we better get paper for it, unless Joe would rather have the coin.
"Speaking of coin," he went on. "Did I ever tell you that story about Young Dog's father?"
"No. What was that, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Why," said Hugh, "a good many years, I don't know how long, nor just where it was, Young Dog's father and some of his young men were off on the war path, and they came across a few white men travelling over the prairie, and they fought them for two or three days, and in the end they killed the last one of them and captured all their stock. They got a few horses and two or three mules, and of course some food and a little clothes and the men's arms. But one of the mules was loaded with four wooden boxes, almighty heavy by what they tell. They couldn't get into them but they broke one of them open with an axe, and saw that the box was full of yellow buttons, and after breaking open each one of the boxes, they saw that each one had nothing in it but these same yellow buttons. But the queer thing about these buttons was, that none of them had eyes on to fasten them to the coat with. So they see they could not be used, and just emptied them out on the prairie and just left them there. Queer, wasn't it?"
Hugh cut tobacco, filled his pipe, lighted it and rode on, while the boys waited for him to finish his story. After a while, as he said nothing, Jack said, "Well, what happened then, Hugh?"
"When?" said Hugh.
"Why, after they went off."
"Oh, nothing happened," said Hugh, "they just went off, and after a while they got back to the village."
"Well, but," said Jack, "is that all of the story?"
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's the end."
"Well," said Jack, "I don't see anything queer about that."
"Well," said Hugh, "you see, them buttons was ten dollar gold pieces."
"Oh!" said Jack.
"I often tried," said Hugh, "to find out just where it was that those four boxes of gold were left, but I never managed to find out."
By this time they were almost at the point where they had left their horses the day before, and before long the three were standing about the place from which the sack of gold had been unearthed. Hugh sifted the loose soil at the bottom of the hole through his fingers and discovered a few small nuggets that had escaped the boys, and then they made a careful search of the prairie near at hand. Nothing was discovered, and at length, Hugh told the boys to mount their horses and the three spread out riding back over the prairie, looking carefully over it and into all the ravines, to see if signs of any sort could be seen.
The search was fruitless, and at length, from the top of a high knoll, Hugh rode his horse in a circle to call the boys to him. They came galloping toward him from either hand, but suddenly, Joe, who had disappeared behind a ridge, rode up onto it and in his turn rode in a circle, and Hugh and Jack went toward him. When they reached the ridge, he had ridden down again into the hollow and was standing at the edge of a little green place, and when they got to him, they saw before him, the skeleton of a horse, which had long been dead. Hugh looked at it carefully and then said, "Mule." Fragments of wood, lying by the animal's back-bone, were evidently the remains of a pack saddle, but nothing else was seen.
Hugh stood for a long time, looking at the skeleton, parts of which were scattered over quite a little area, showing where the wolves had pulled the bones about. Suddenly Hugh bent forward, and working his fingers in the grass near the animal's back-bone, drew forth a slender fragment of wood, which he held up before the boys' eyes. It was a part of an arrow, though the bent gray wood seemed little like the straight, clean shaft that they were accustomed to use. But by looking closely, they could see the grooves, and a little search in the soil and among the grass brought to light another piece of the shaft and a rusted sheet iron head long since separated from the wood.
For a long time, Hugh stood staring at the bones of the animal before him, and then walking away a few steps, he sat down on the ground and filled his pipe and began to smoke. He said nothing, but kept his eyes fixed on the ground as if he expected to see, written there, something which would be an answer to his unspoken thoughts. The boys had thrown themselves on the grass by his side, and were watching him and waiting patiently, while the three horses fed about close at hand.
At length the pipe was smoked out, and Hugh raised his eyes and looked at the boys, as if he had just discovered that they were near him. Then his face twisted up into a kindly smile, and he said, "Well, boys, what do you make of it?"
"I don't make anything of it, Hugh. What is it?" said Jack.
"Maybe there's been fighting here," said Joe.
"That's right, my son," said Hugh, "that mule was killed by the arrow that we found, that's sure. I expect you both took notice that that arrow was broken about the same time it was shot, likely it broke when the mule fell. What I want to find out is, who did the fighting, and whether the man that lost the mule was the man that lost the gold, and where that man is now. I expect we've got to do a little climbing and do some more hunting. This is the way I figure it as far as we've got: Somebody was jumped by Indians out here on the prairie, and made a run for the river. He had a pack animal and tried to keep it with him as long as he could, but the Indians caught up to him and shot at him and wounded the animal, and he had to let it go. I reckon he had the dust with him on his saddle, or else tied to his body somewhere, and just before he got to the edge of the bluffs, he dropped it. Maybe it was shot away. Then he went over the bluffs to hide or fight in the Bad Lands. Now I reckon, the best thing we can do, is to go back to where you found the gold and then go down into them breaks and see if we can find there, any sign of where a man got killed. All this happened a good many years ago, as you can see from that skeleton over there and the arrow that's in it, and we won't find any signs at all unless the man dropped something else. Maybe his horse might have been wounded and he had to leave that and it died, and maybe he himself got killed. Anyhow, we'll climb down there if you like, and take the natural way to the river and go a little ways. I don't reckon we'll find nothing, but might be such a thing as we would."
They mounted and rode back the way they had come, and then Hugh and Joe climbed down the bluffs, for Hugh said to Jack, "I want you to stop here, son, and look after these horses. It ain't noways likely nothing would happen to them, but it ain't good to leave your horses alone on the prairie without some one to look after them."
Jack sat for a long time, holding the ropes of the three horses and at length, as the sun sank lower and lower toward the west, he began to wonder whether anything had happened. At length, however, he heard a sound of rolling stones below him, and soon Hugh came in sight, followed by Joe. They were a long way off and could not be seen very distinctly, and every now and then they disappeared in some ravine or behind some point of bluff. But Jack thought that Hugh walked queerly, and with his head bowed forward. At length they came in sight again, and for a little while were in plain view, and then Jack could see that Hugh was carrying some burden on his shoulders. As they climbed the last steep ascent, he could see that this was a young mountain sheep, and as he had heard no shot fired, he felt sure that Joe must have killed it.
So it proved. Hugh and Joe had searched a number of the ravines without seeing anything, and had turned back to climb the hills, when suddenly they came upon an old ewe and her lamb, and Joe's ready arrow had killed the little sheep.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "we didn't find any sign of that man, but your partner here made a mighty good shot with his arrow and we brought a little piece of meat along anyhow."
"Yes," said Jack, "when I saw you killed something, I knew it must be Joe for I hadn't heard any shot. Seems to me, Joe, you're pretty lucky with sheep."
"Yes," said Joe, "pretty lucky this time sure. I just had to fire quick, but I happened to hit him just in the right place."
"Well, boys," said Hugh, "let's tie this on behind the saddle and be moving, it's getting late and I've got a pretty good hunger on. I want to get to camp."
Before long they were riding swiftly over the prairie, and though the sun had set, it was not yet dark when they reached the circle of the lodges.
It was not long after this that the camp moved eastward, and stopped near the west end of the little group of mountains which rise out of the rolling prairie, and which, Hugh told Jack, were known to to the Indians as Bear's Hand. The summer was ended now and the nights were cool. From the little prairie lakes and the infrequent streams, the travellers often started flocks of ducks, and at night and in the early morning, the fine thin music caused by the swiftly beating wings of migrating water fowl, reached their ears. Once or twice, Hugh had said to Jack, "Well, son, before long, we've got to be jogging. I reckon the best way for you to get home, and maybe for me too, is to take a boat down the Missouri River, if we can get one, until we strike a railroad, and then you can go East and I'll go West."
"But, Hugh, what can we do with the horses? I don't want to leave Pawnee up here in the Indian camp, nor the new horse, and we can't take them with us on the boat, can we?"
"Well, I don't know," said Hugh, "we'll have to find out about that. I reckon, unless they're pretty heavy loaded, they can find room for half a dozen animals, and the way things look now, we've got money enough to pay their passage. Anyhow, it's a different thing travelling over the prairie now, from what it was when we came up here. There's more danger, and I've been thinking we ought to cross over to Helena and go south from there through the mountains, and try to keep in the settlements all the way. I heard tell last winter, that they were building a railroad from Salt Lake City up north to Helena, or somewhere near there, and if we could strike that, it would save us a heap of time. Anyway, I don't intend to go South over the prairie, the way we came; that country, now, is likely full of Indians and we might get jumped 'most any time. We'll have to wait till we get to Benton, to find out how things are, and I reckon, pretty quick, we've got to pack up and go in there. I think the camp is likely to move up on the Marias before long, and I'd rather stay with them than ride off alone with you."
Since they had found it, their gold had caused Hugh and Jack much anxiety. The sack which contained it, though apparently full of flour was very much heavier than any of the other sacks of flour, and the difference in weight would have caused any one who handled it, to wonder what it contained. They were careful, therefore, always to pack their own horses, and to leave an open sack of flour among their things, in order that, if John Monroe's wife wished to use any, she would go to that, rather than open a fresh sack. So far, no one had any suspicion of the existence of the gold in the camp, and Hugh was anxious that no one should know of it, because there were several white men living with the Indians, about whom he knew very little.
It was now September. Jack had been in the camp more than two months, and besides the old men that he had come to know, he had also made the acquaintance of a number of young fellows of about his own age. From Joe and Hugh, he had learned a few words of Piegan, so that, often, he could understand what people were talking about, and sometimes mustered up courage to speak a few words himself.
One day, not long after his conversation with Hugh about returning home, the news was called out through the camp, that in three days the village would move over to Willow Rounds, on the Marias River, and would stay there a long time. When he heard this, Hugh told Jack that he thought it best, that from there, they should go into Benton and try to go down the river.
That evening Joe came to the lodge and proposed that the next day they should go up into the Bear Paw Mountains, to hunt deer. "Three others are going," he said, "Bull Calf, The Mink and Handsome Face. We ought to go early and I think we can kill some deer."
"All right, Joe," said Jack, "I'll go, and be ready to start any time you say."
"Well, then," said Joe, "let's go by the time the sun rises."
Bright and early next morning, the party started and rode up the mountain. It was not very long before they reached the pine timber, and soon after, they separated into two parties, Bull Calf and The Mink going off on the south side of the hills, while Jack and Joe and Handsome Face kept up on the western slope.
After riding through the timber for quite a long time, they came to some little parks, quite surrounded by timber, with pretty little streams flowing through them, making, as Jack thought, the best possible feeding grounds for deer. After they had passed through several of these without seeing any game, but finding plenty of tracks and old sign, Joe, who was a little ahead, stopped his horse, raised his hand as a sign for the others to wait, and slipped off on foot through the trees. In a very few moments, he had returned, and signing them to dismount and follow him, he led the way through the silent timber. All the boys wore moccasins, and treading with hunter's care, went along like so many ghosts. No twig snapped under their feet, nor did they allow the branches or bushes to scrape against their legs. After a few moments quick walk, Joe turned, and making a sign for caution, dropped to his knees and crept through the low bushes to the edge of a little park. There, as they peered through the leaves, they saw a pretty sight. Three yearling deer were feeding slowly toward them, and were now not more than fifty yards away. They acted as if they had finished their breakfast, and did not seem hungry, but rather as if they were looking for a place to lie down. They would walk along for a few steps, and then one stopping, would nibble at the grass, while the others kept on, and then, perhaps one of these would stop and be passed by the other two. In this careless fashion, they came up to within twenty-five or thirty yards of where the boys knelt, and then one of them suddenly folded his long, slender legs under him and lay down. The others stood by him, one broadside to the watchers, the other head on. Joe signed to Handsome Face, and then the two boys with arrows on the string, rose to their knees, and shot together. Each of the two deer sprang high in the air, and coming down, looked about with raised head and alert ears. The deer that was lying down, stretched his head up high and looked at them, and then about it, but did not spring to its feet. The boys could see in each of the two standing deer, the arrows buried nearly to the feathers. In a moment, the deer at which Handsome Face had shot, fell on the ground, and Joe's deer immediately afterward lay down.
Jack whispered to Joe, "Shall I kill the other?"
"Yes," said Joe, "kill him, sure." Jack took steady aim at the slender neck showing above the grass, and fired, and the deer's head disappeared.
"Well," said Jack, as the boys rose to their feet, and walked out toward the animals, "that seems to me like butchering. Of course we can use the meat, and we need the hides, but I don't think there's much fun in killing game that's as tame as that."
"Pooh," said Joe, "if they'd heard us, or smelt us, you wouldn't think they were tame; they'd have run off mighty fast, and we fellows that have arrows wouldn't have got a shot at them at all."
While Joe and Jack were butchering, Handsome Face went off into the timber, and soon returned with their horses. The deer were loaded on the animals, and they started to return to camp.
After they had begun to descend the mountain, they passed into a long, sloping valley, and here, as they were riding along, Jack discovered that the ground was covered with low huckleberry bushes, abundantly loaded with fruit. A halt was called, and the boys dismounted, and for half an hour were busily engaged picking and eating the delicious berries. While they were doing this, the sky clouded over and it began to rain a little. They mounted again and kept on down the hill, and presently, riding up onto a long-hog back, stopped there to look off to the southward and see whether they could discover their companions. To the south of this ridge was another valley, similar to the one that they had been going down. By this time the rain had stopped, but the sky was still overcast. The boys lay there on the ground, talking and waiting; suddenly Handsome Face stretched out his hand and touching Jack's arm, said, "Aamo, Aamo, Kyiyu,"—look, look, bears. The boys turned their heads in the direction that he was looking, and saw, far off in the valley to the south of them, three bears that had just come in sight from behind a little ridge. One was large and two small, and they were walking about in an aimless way that Jack did not understand.
"What are they?" he asked.
"Bears," said Joe; "old one and two cubs, pickin' berries." Jack realised now, that the bears as they walked here and there, and stuck out their noses, were gathering huckleberries, just as he had been doing a little while before.
"How'll we get them, Joe?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Joe. "Got to wait." Then he spoke some words to Handsome face, who answered him, and Joe went on speaking to Jack: "Handsome Face says, wait a little while and they'll go behind a hill and then we can get on our horses and ride down there and run them."
The boys lay there, a good deal excited, not daring to move, and fearing constantly that the old bear would see the horses and run away. But if she saw them, she must have thought they were buffalo, for she paid no heed to them, but went on with the young ones, picking berries.
At length, both the smaller bears passed out of sight, and then a little later, the old one. The boys crept on all fours to their horses, untied the deer and threw them to the ground. Jack tightened his saddle girths, and all three mounting passed down the hill towards the bears.
As they descended into the valley, the ridges, which from the height had seemed so low, began to appear higher, and to assume the proportions of quite respectable hills. Jack thought that he had marked the place where the bears disappeared, with some care, but before long, made up his mind that he had quite lost it. Joe and Handsome Face, however, rode steadily forward, as if they knew just where the place was, as of course they did. The advance was brisk, yet the boys did not gallop, and went as carefully as possible. Pretty soon, Jack could see that they must be getting near the place, for the boys used still greater caution, and at length, Joe stopped, slipped off his horse and went ahead on foot, while Handsome Face and Jack remained behind. When Joe looked over the ridge, he saw nothing, and remounting, they passed on to the next one, where he took another look. Coming back very cautiously, he whispered: "They are just over the ridge; we can rush on them from there." From the top of the ridge they could see the three bears, unsuspicious as yet, and no more than fifty yards away, and as soon as they saw them, the three dashed forward at top speed.