anthropological papers of the american museum of natural history vol. xvi, part iii the sun dance of the blackfoot indians by clark wissler [illustration] new york published by order of the trustees 1918 the sun dance of the blackfoot indians. by clark wissler. preface. the blackfoot tribes, particularly the piegan, have been more extensively studied than most other plains indians. the writer began a systematic investigation of their culture in 1903. at that time, the only works treating them seriously were those of the younger henry, maximilian, and grinnell. there were some good fragmentary articles by mclean and hale. yet, since we began work on this problem, a number of excellent books have appeared. first, the long-forgotten journals of mathew cocking and anthony hendry who went to the blackfoot country in 1754 were printed. then followed mcclintock's delightful book, "the old north trail" and later, curtis's highly illustrated account of the piegan. linguistic studies had been undertaken by tims, but later, michelson, uhlenbeck, and josselin de jong brought out studies of the language and some aspects of social organization. of more popular books, the only one to be considered here is schultz's, "my life as an indian," which, though in the form of fiction, is full of true pictures of blackfoot life and thought. one unfortunate thing about all this subsequent activity is that it centered on the piegan and as the writer's work was largely with that division before these publications appeared, there was no chance to rectify this asymmetry. the publication of this study of the sun dance has been long delayed in the hope that circumstances would permit a more intensive study of the ceremony among the canadian divisions. but the time for making such a study has really passed, since those natives who had the knowledge essential to an accurate exposition of the sun dance are now dead. it seems advisable, therefore, to publish the data as they stand. the writer saw the piegan ceremony twice, so that this study is based both upon objective observation and discussion with the native authorities on the subject. later, mr. duvall checked over the data and conclusions with these and other informants. a large series of photographs was taken, but the important phases of the ceremony are so well shown in the published works of mcclintock and curtis that a repetition here is unnecessary. clark wissler. may, 1918. contents. page. preface 225 the sun dance 229 preparation period 229 program by days 230 first day 230 second day 230 third day 230 fourth day 230 fifth day 230 sixth day 231 seventh day 231 eighth day 231 the vow 231 ceremony of the tongues 234 the medicine woman 240 the procession to the dancing lodge 248 the offering of cloth 249 the hundred-willow sweathouse 250 the dancing lodge 252 cutting the thongs 254 raising the sun pole 256 the weather dancers 258 dancing 260 society dances 262 the torture ceremony 262 sun dance songs 267 the sun dance camp 268 mythological notes 268 the blood and north blackfoot 270 illustrations. text figures. 1. the offering of human flesh. drawn from a native sketch 266 the sun dance. in our earlier paper upon the bundles of the blackfoot, we have concerned ourselves with ceremonial functions in which the ownership and chief responsibility, in theory, rested in a single individual. we come now to an affair initiated, it is true, by the owner of the natoas bundle, but yet a composite of other rituals and functions, each of which has a definite place in a program carried out by the whole tribal organization. the only trace of a similar tribal participation is in the now almost extinct tobacco-planting ceremonies conducted by the beaver owners; but here there was no complex of other unrelated ceremonies and functions. in short, the sun dance was for the blackfoot a true tribal festival, or demonstration of ceremonial functions, in which practically every important ritual owner and organization had a place. nevertheless, there were certain rituals peculiar to it which gave it its character. since the plan of this section is to give an ethnological presentation of the blackfoot sun dance, rather than a logically unfolding description of the ceremony as seen at a specified time, we shall present the general program now and take up later a somewhat analytical detailed discussion of the various phases of the ceremony. by this method, we shall be able to concentrate our attention upon a single ceremonial concept without the distraction arising from contemporaneous and intrusive procedures based upon other concepts, for as we shall see, this sun dance is a true composite. the following schedule is not given as the one observed by the writer, but as the one regarded as proper and believed to have been followed before the various divisions of the blackfoot were under the complete domination of the canadian and united states governments. preparation period. after making a vow to purchase a sun dance bundle, the woman and her husband make the necessary arrangements and perform the prescribed rites. this is an indefinite period. at the approach of summer, the invitation tobacco is sent to all the bands and the camp circle is formed. program by days. _first day._ the program opens with moving camp to a site previously selected. on the morning of this day, the medicine woman begins to fast, which may be taken as the real beginning of the ceremony. if the ceremony of "cutting the tongues" has not been previously performed or completed, it is now in order. in any event, the father and any male assistants he may choose to invite, spend a part of the day in "praying and singing over the tongues." a society brings in willows and a hundred-willow sweathouse is built. _second day._ in the morning, the camp moves again to a site still nearer that proposed for the sun dance. a few green boughs of cottonwood are kept around the base of the medicine woman's tipi as a sign of its sanctity. a sweathouse is made, as on the previous day. "praying and singing over the tongues" continues during the day and evening. _third day._ the same as the second day. _fourth day._ the camp moves again; this time to the site of the sun dance. in the afternoon, the fourth and last hundred-willow sweathouse is built and used. the singing continues during the evening in the medicine woman's tipi. _fifth day._ this is an active day.[1] the various bands cut and drag in the poles and green cottonwood boughs to be used in constructing the dancing lodge. the center, or sun pole, is selected and brought in with the ceremonies pertaining thereto. during the day, the holes for the posts are dug and the sides of the dancing lodge put in place and prepared for the raising at sunset. a wind-break is erected at the west side, facing the forked end of the sun pole. later in the day, some medicinemen take up their stations here to receive offerings to the sun and place them on the pole. in the forenoon, the ceremony connected with the opening of the natoas bundle begins in the medicine woman's tipi. this is completed by the middle of the afternoon when there is a procession from the tipi to the wind-break facing the sun pole. the thongs for the poles are cut. while these are taking place, some food is distributed among the poor people. those women, who, during the past season, promised "to come forward to the tongues" now fulfil their vows by public declarations addressed to the setting sun. the pole raisers then approach from the four quarters, erecting first the sun pole and then the rafters, with as much speed as possible. the medicine woman then returns to her tipi and the father with his male companions goes into a sweathouse. _sixth day._ in the morning, a booth is erected in the dancing lodge for the medicinemen, or weather dancers. later in the day, they approach, with processions made up of their respective bands, and take their places in the booth. at various times during the day, they dance to the sun. people also come up to be painted and prayed for. as a rule, the medicine-pipes are brought out for these men to bless and smoke. during the afternoon, the "digging dance" occurs, when the fireplace is made and the fire kindled. _seventh day._ people still come to be painted or prayed for by the medicinemen. later in the day, the dancing of the societies begins. _eighth day._ the dancing may continue on this day; otherwise, camp is broken and the bands go their several ways. the dancing may continue several days, there being no definite time for closing the ceremony. indeed, to the blackfoot mind, the really vital part of the ceremony closes on the evening of the fifth day. the dancing of the societies is free to take its course as the various organizations see fit. in former times, however, it was customary to break camp any time between the seventh and tenth days. according to our information, the four camps of the medicine woman was the rule in olden times and a hundred-willow sweathouse was made at each camp. in recent times, but two moves seem to have been made; the first day marking the move from the regular home camp to the temporary one where the second day is also spent. but one of the hundred-willow sweathouses is now made--the one on the third day. also, where formerly they used the ordinary type of sweathouse, at the close of the fourth day, the men now return to the hundred-willow sweathouse. the time then was "when the service berries are ripe", perhaps august, instead of fourth-of-july week, as in recent years.[2] even the fast is much abbreviated, usually but of two days' duration. footnotes: [1] as in many other cases, there is a difference of opinion as to what was, or is, the correct schedule. some maintain that the timber and sun pole are brought in on the fourth day and the fifth day given over to the erection of the dancing lodge only. this is, however, a matter of no great moment. [2] see grinnell, george bird, _blackfoot lodge tales_ (new york, 1903), 264, for program. the vow. the most important functionary in the blackfoot sun dance is a woman, known among the whites as the medicine woman, and upon a clear comprehension of her functions and antecedents depends our understanding of the ceremony itself. accordingly, we shall proceed with as complete an exposition of her office as the information at hand allows. in the first place, a sun dance cannot occur unless some woman qualifies for the office. on the other hand, it was almost inconceivable that there should be a summer in which such a qualification would not be made. this attitude of our informants implies that public opinion had sufficient force to call out volunteers against their own wills. there was a feeling that an annual sun dance was, from a religious and ethical point of view, necessary to the general welfare, for which some individual ought to sacrifice personal comfort and property to the extent required by custom. as we shall see later, this was no small price to pay for a doubtful honor. this feeling was sure to express itself in the subtle ways peculiar to indian society, if need be, to the direct suggestion of a candidate who in turn felt impelled to come forward as if prompted entirely from within. as a rule, however, the woman qualifies by a vow. oftimes, when a member of the family is dangerously ill, one of the women goes out of the tipi and raising her eyes to the sun calls upon it that health may be restored to the ailing one. in such an appeal she offers to make gifts to the sun, usually specifying that she will sacrifice a piece of cloth, a dress, a robe, an ax, etc., which are after a time, provided the sick one improves, hung in trees or deposited upon a hill. such appeals are still made with great frequency. it is believed that unless the woman has been industrious, truthful, and above all, true to her marriage vows, her appeal will not be answered. sometimes, when the woman addresses the sun she promises to be the medicine woman at the next sun dance. she herself may be ill and promise such a sacrifice in case she receives help. again, she may, out of gratitude for the satisfactory way in which her prayers have been answered, announce her intention to take this step. in such a case, a formal announcement is made to the sun. in company with a man, usually a medicineman experienced in the ceremonies, she steps out into the camp, where they face the sun whom the man addresses, explaining that as this woman asked for help in time of need and that inasmuch as it was granted, she in turn promises to be the medicine woman at the first opportunity. some such formal announcement is made in every case where the prayers have been answered. by this formality, the vow receives public registry. as indicated above, the prayers are not always granted. in such cases, the promises are not only not binding, but to proceed with the sun dance, or to take a secondary part in it, would be to the detriment of all concerned. the fault is said to lie in the woman's life and that only the wrath of the sun would be invoked by her participation in the ceremonies. it may be asked if a man can make such a vow. he may and does often call upon the sun, promising gifts of property or even scalps and may promise to furnish the material support for a wife, mother, sister, or in fact any woman who will come forward to perform the ceremony. thus, a blood chief once told us that he had been very ill all winter; that he had tried all kinds of doctors without relief, until he was stripped of all his property. at last, he recovered and then made a vow that with the help of his wife he would give the sun dance. this he did, but, as he expressed it, "with great difficulty because he was then poor and did not receive adequate help from his relatives." again, it must be noted that women who do not feel equal to the responsibility of the medicine woman's office, make a vow to announce publicly their virginity or faithfulness to their marriage vows, as the case may be, though for an unmarried woman to make such a pledge is the exception. this is spoken of as "the going forward to the tongues," the full meaning of which will appear later. the manner and occasion of making this vow are in most respects similar to the preceding. at a certain stage of the sun dance proceedings, all the women who made such a promise to the sun, come forward and make their statements subject to the challenge of any man present. this bears some resemblance to the virginity tests of the dakota, but applies more particularly to married women and marital virtue than otherwise. naturally, the number of women making promises of this kind was much greater than for the more important ceremony. thus, we have a custom of calling upon the sun in time of need which is an almost universal practice, a more restricted form of such appeal peculiar to women in so far that sexual morality is a necessary qualification, the more specific vow of "going forward to the tongues", and the exceptional vow to perform the medicine woman's functions at the sun dance, a fair illustration of the way in which most complex folk ceremonies are supported by a pyramid of less and less differentiated practices. in passing, it should be noted that when the vow is made to perform the medicine woman's functions, it is literally an obligation to purchase a natoas bundle, or if already the owner of a bundle, to perform its ritual.[3] a woman may own more than one of these bundles at a time; indeed, we have heard of a woman purchasing new ones at several successive sun dances. this purchase is a fundamental feature in all bundle ceremonies to which the sun dance bundle offers no exception. on the other hand, the vow means more than the mere purchase of a bundle. we are told that the requirement as to virtue holds strictly for the vow and the tongue ceremony. a woman can buy a natoas in the ordinary sense and have it transferred with the ritual even though she has not been true to her husband. we are reminded that scabby-round-robe's wife[4] was not true to her former husband and that when her husband received a beaver bundle there went with it a natoas and accessories; but that while she could use them by virtue of her relation to a beaver bundle, she was not competent to make a vow and initiate a sun dance.[5] this is consistent with the tradition that the natoas was once bought from a beaver bundle by a woman who gave the sun dance for that year and used instead of a wreath of juniper as in former ceremonies. it also throws some light on the relation of the natoas to the beaver and the sun dance rituals. footnotes: [3] this series, volume 7, 215. [4] this series, vol. 2, 83. [5] for example, we were told that some few years ago the widow of spotted-eagle took the part of the medicine woman and borrowed a natoas from the mother of curly-bear. recently (1911), the latter died. then the former claimed the natoas on the grounds that she had paid full value for it at the time and that she had now the most right to it. curly-bear consented. then, after an interval, this woman transferred it to the wife of ---who made no vow to give the sun dance, for it was generally known that the reputation of the new owner permanently disqualified her for the function of medicine woman. ceremony of the tongues. while it is obvious from the preceding, that the medicine woman takes her vow at no fixed period in the year, the order of procedure is such that as a rule, she must have taken her vow not later than the spring of the year in which the sun dance occurs. there is no absolute prohibition to qualifying at a later time, as is often the case at present when the consent of the indian agent must be obtained before the ceremony is permitted, but the normal order seems to be as just stated. any way, in the spring, the medicine woman calls upon her relatives for buffalo tongues (in recent years, those of cattle). these are then saved as requested. in passing, it may be noted that in all ceremonies, the persons upon whom the burden of responsibility falls have not only an inherent right to call upon their blood relatives, but these in turn are under obligations to respond. the number of tongues required is uncertain, some informants claiming that there should be an even hundred, others, that four to five full parfleches was the standard. naturally, in recent years, the number has been much less. these tongues are to be sliced, parboiled, and dried like meat. the slices, however, must be perfect, without holes, and come from the interior of the tongue. the slicing of these tongues appears to have been the first ceremony of the cycle. it is conducted by a man, usually the father, who formally announced the woman's vow and who conducts all the ceremonies in which the medicine woman takes part. there is no stipulation that the same man must direct all parts of the ceremony, but, by custom, this office is performed annually by the same man so long as he is physically capable. to this ceremony are called the medicine woman, the women who have promised to "go forward to take the tongues", and sometimes those having previously performed these functions. the manner of formally registering the vow and of collecting the tongues is stated as follows:-now the woman who made the vow calls on a man and woman who have been through the medicine lodge ceremony to announce it. the man and woman come to her tipi and paint her clothes and face and those of the relative for whom the vow was made with red paint. prayers are offered for them and a few songs sung. after this, the four stand in front of the tipi and the man announces the vow. he says, "sun, she is going to make a sun lodge for you. i think you and those who are above can hear what is said." then they move in turn to the south, west, and north side of the tipi, repeating the same words at each stop and finally enter the tipi. in the spring of the year, when the people run buffalo, the woman has her tipi a little towards the front or center. it may be that she is only with one of the bands, while the rest are camped elsewhere. her tipi stands alone a little to the west of the others. the people are then notified that the tongues are to be given to the woman. her husband mounts his horse and sets out, taking a pipe and tobacco, but no weapons with him. when he finds a man butchering, he sits down on a robe, fills his pipe, prays for those present, and smokes with them. the butcher cuts out the tongue, wipes it off with sagegrass, and places it near the man, who has spread some buffalo dung with sagegrass on top of it in a row before him. the tongues are placed on the sage and dung. the man then takes the tongues and rides to where the next man is butchering and goes through the same procedure. after he has gathered up all the tongues he takes them home. each time buffalo are killed the man rides out to gather in tongues until he has accumulated a hundred. the tongues having been collected, an important ceremony follows with their boiling and slicing. an experienced man and woman are invited to direct; these are spoken of as the father and the mother. also, all the women having made a vow "to go forward to the tongues" are invited. in addition, a number of women and men familiar with the ceremonies are called. the woman making the vow (the daughter) and her husband (the son) sit at the back of the fire; next to the former, sits the mother and then the other women; next to the latter, sits the father and then the men in order. the men sit on the north side and the women on the south. at the proper moment, the mother brings in the tongues, passing around to the south side, and lays them in rows on a half rawhide back of the fire. all the women having made vows are now called upon to slice the tongues. their husbands must be present. the tongues are slit open and the women are invited to slice and boil them. when all the guests are present, one of the tongues is taken and painted black on one edge and red on the other, and given to the woman who made the vow. the rest of the tongues are handed to the women for skinning and slicing; if there were more tongues than women, each was given more than one to slice. after all the women have the tongues, the woman with the painted tongue makes a confession, saying, "sun, i have been true to my husband ever since i have been with him and all my life. help me, for what i say is true. i will skin this tongue without cutting a hole in it or cutting my fingers." the next woman also makes a confession, and so on. after all have confessed, they commence to skin the tongues. as the first woman takes up the knife, the song runs: "a sharp thing i have taken; it is powerful." the knife is painted, one half red, the other black. should any of the women cut a hole in the tongue skin or cut their fingers, it is a sign that they must have lied and they are ordered from the tipi. at the outset, each woman carefully examines her tongue to see if the skin is perfect. should a hole be found, the tongue is passed to the director who marks it with black paint. after the tongues are all skinned and sliced, they are passed back to the woman who distributed them and placed in a wooden bowl. the skins of the tongues are tied in bunches with sinew so that they can tell to which woman the skins belong. the skins are to be boiled by two women. two sticks are given to one woman and one to the other. all this time singing is going on. the woman who has the two sticks paints them black, while the woman who has the other, paints it red. the three sticks are tied together at one end and are used as a tripod for hanging the kettle in which the skins of the tongues are to be boiled. the legs of the tripod, the wooden kettle hook, and all other sticks are painted half in red and half in black. also, the kettle is marked with four vertical bands of black and four of red. the four blunt sticks for stirring the pot are painted in pairs, red and black. a red and black painted stick is slipped through the bail, passed around to the north of the tipi, and handed to the two women. during all these movements there is praying and singing. the women each take hold of one end of the stick and go for water. they make four pauses on this journey, each time praying to the sun and asserting their marital rectitude and recounting such occasions as they have been improperly approached by a man. all this time, the father and his assistants sing in the tipi. one of the women takes a cup, makes four movements with it and dips the water. at this moment the song runs:- "the water that i see. water is sacred." on the return, the women make four pauses as before. when the pail is finally within the tipi, incense is burned between the fireplace and the door and the pail held in the smudge. the father takes up the board upon which some of the tongues lie and while holding it up in one hand, shakes the cup about in the water, meanwhile making a noise like the buffalo, finally striking the pail a blow with the cup. here the song runs:- "buffalo will drink." this may be taken as marking one stage of the ceremony. the boiling of the tongue is now in order. when all is ready, the father starts the songs in the next series. the two women hook the kettle on the tripods and while the kettle is heated, there are other songs and incense burned and the song runs:- "where i (buffalo speaking) sit is sacred." while the water boils, the director takes up a tongue, holds it above the kettle, lowers it slowly, making a noise as if something were drinking. after this, the women place the tongues in the kettle and proceed with the boiling. here or elsewhere, songs accompany the ceremonial acts. the pot must not boil over. when the tongues have cooked, the two women rise and stand by the fire as the songs begin. at the proper moment, they remove the kettle and place it on the spot where the smudge was made. first, they take out the painted tongues and then the others. the father takes up a small piece, singing:- "old man (sun), he wants pemmican. he wants to eat. old woman (moon), she wants back fat. she wants to eat. morningstar, he wants broth. he wants to eat." then the painted tongue is passed to the daughter. now, each of the women tears off a bit of the tongue skin and all hold up the pieces and pray. after the prayers, the pieces are placed in the earth and the tongues are hung up to dry. first, the rope is taken up and a song sung. the woman who made the vow, rises and ties one end of the rope to the tipi pole on the north side and the other end to the tipi pole on the south side, a little to the west of the fireplace. all the tongues, both painted and unpainted, are hung on this rope. during all these ceremonies there is no regular smudge. the smudges are made with sweetgrass on the grass near the rear of the tipi. the tongues are left to hang for two days before they are taken down to be cooked. when the tongues have been hung, all return to their homes, the women taking the tongue skins with them for their relatives to eat, as they are considered to be blessed and supposed to bring good luck. after two days, all meet again in the same tipi. the two women who went for the water place the tripods over the fire and while songs are sung, the pot is passed to them with the red painted sticks. the two women, each holding one end of the stick, go for water, praying on the way. when they return to the tipi a smudge, over which they hold the bucket of water, is made between the door and the fireplace. then the bucket is placed beside the smudge. while the others sing, the woman who made the vow rises and first takes the painted tongue and then the others from where they were hung. they are then placed on a buffalo hide and the woman returns to her place. four women sit down near the tongues; each one takes a tongue, one of which is the painted one. kneeling and swaying their bodies in time with the songs, they sing the buffalo songs. the painted tongue is placed in the kettle first and a song is sung: "when buffalo go to drink; it is powerful. where buffalo sit is powerful (natojiwa)." then the rest of the tongues are placed in the pot which is hooked on the tripod over the fire. songs are sung and four sticks, about the length of the forearm, for stirring the tongues, are placed where the tongues were first placed. one of the cooks takes a pair of the sticks and stirs the tongues with them. when removing the tongues from the kettle they are held between two of these sticks. another song, called the song of rest is sung, and all rest for a time and smoke. when the tongues are cooled, another song is sung, the two cooks rise, and taking the pot, place it over the smudge place near the door. to the singing of songs, the painted tongue first, and then the others, are taken out and placed on half a rawhide. the soup is poured into wooden bowls and distributed among those present. no tin cups must be used in drinking this soup. while all sing, the woman who made the vow rises and first takes the painted tongue and then all the others and hangs them up as before. this ends the ceremony. two days later, the same participants are called together to the same tipi and the woman rises and takes first the painted tongue and then the others from where they were hung. a parfleche is brought and a buffalo song sung: "buffalo i take. where i sit is powerful." the painted tongue and then the others are placed on the parfleche. wild peppermint is put in with the tongues, the parfleches are tied up and placed at the rear of the tipi. sometimes tongues are dried in front of the tipi on a stage made by setting up two travois with a lodge pole tied between them. the man and woman who lead the ceremony must not have any metal about them. brass rings, earrings, and all such trinkets must be taken off. nor must there be any knives in the vicinity. even the knives with which the tongues are cut are taken out. no one must spit in front of him, but always close to the wall under the beds. if they do, it will rain. no water is brought into the medicine lodge and when water is brought, it is covered. the only time when it is permitted to eat or drink is before sunrise and after sunset. they must be given food by the instructors. the prayers in this ceremony are prayers for good luck for everyone in the camp. this closes the preliminaries to the ceremonies leading to the sun dance and may be designated as the cutting of the tongues. as in most other cases, there seems to have been considerable variation in this procedure, both as to time and order. certainly, for a number of years, it has been much abbreviated. as implied in the program, this ceremony may be performed on the first day. the gathering of tongues was dependent upon circumstances and after the days of the great buffalo drives was a matter of gradual accumulation. thus, it was explained that by necessity, the "cutting" was often repeated, though naturally with less ceremony. the parfleches containing tongues are kept in the medicine woman's tipi where they are "prayed and sung over" during the first and second days of the program. the underlying thought seems to be that they are consecrated to the sun. in the procession of the fourth day, the parfleches are carried behind the medicine woman by her attendants. in former years, these were the women who had promised "to go forward to the tongues." they are present at the ceremony in the medicine woman's tipi and may be said to be in attendance during the entire fasting period. at the time indicated in the program, the parfleches are opened and the women in turn step out with some of the dried tongue, face the west, and each holding up a piece, address the sun then nearing the horizon. they declare their innocence of adultery, as at the time of making the vow and cutting the tongues. they also pray for themselves and their relatives after which they distribute dried tongue among them. finally, there is a general distribution of tongues among the people. however, there is another aspect of their appearance at this point. the blackfoot assume that many women have at one or more periods of their lives been invited by a man to commit the offence and that often the occasion is one of great temptation or calls for great presence of mind and will power. now, when addressing the sun, if so approached, the woman narrates the circumstances, naming the men committing the offence, and recounts the manner of her refusal. in naming the offender, they usually say, "i suppose he hears what i say." these women are also subject to challenge of their having committed adultery. it will be seen from this that the part they take in the ceremony is an ordeal for which most women have little liking and one which they will not undertake lightly. the blackfoot, themselves, regard it as one of the most solemn occasions in the ceremony. so far as we could learn, no one now living was ever present when one of these women was challenged, but the naming of men who were guilty of improper advances was not unusual. a retrospect of the concept of the tongues indicates that the entire ceremony, or their association with the medicine woman and those who are sexually pure, gives them a potency that may be acquired by eating. they seem most closely associated with sexual purity since they are less primary in the function of the medicine woman than in case of those who "go forward," the former being required to possess many virtues, the latter but one. while the medicine woman fasts and keeps to her tipi, the others do not. the medicine woman. we shall now give our attention to the medicine woman. as previously stated, she is in most respects the central figure in the whole ceremony, around whom centers its more serious and solemn aspects. on the fifth day, an elaborate ritual is demonstrated in her tipi, culminating in the procession to the dancing lodge. to this ritual belongs a medicine bundle with accessories, known as the natoas, though the name is primarily that of the headdress which the bundle contains. this bundle is transferred in the ritualistic way to the medicine woman by the ceremony and thus becomes hers to care for and guard until used again at another sun dance ceremony. the ritual and the bundle have been discussed in detail in volume 7 of this series. in addition to the contents of the bundle, there must be a special robe of elkskin, a dress of the same material, and wristlets of strong elk teeth. a new travois must be provided for moving the medicine woman outfit. sometimes she herself rides on it. this travois is made by the past medicine woman, her attendant in the ceremonies. as previously stated, the natoas ritual in the sun dance has for its mythical basis the elk-woman and the woman-who-married-a-star, though scar-face, cuts-wood, otter-woman, and scabby-round-robe are said to have made minor contributions. versions of these myths may be consulted in volume 2, part 1 of this series. the woman-who-married-a-star is credited with bringing down the digging-stick and the turnip, together with the songs pertaining thereto (p. 61), also a wreath of juniper formerly worn in place of the natoas and the eagle feather worn by the man. it is also interesting to note that the crane-woman who transfers the ritualistic attributes of these objects makes a formal declaration of her marital virtue. in the case of elk-woman, we have again the incident of the crane and the digging-stick where it is implied that the latter symbolizes the bill of the former. we are informed that many animals were present at this transfer, each contributing something to the regalia. we also find it suggested that the bunches of feathers on the natoas represent the horns of the elk, the elk robe and elk teeth wristlets further symbolizing that animal. in one version of this myth is the antagonistic implication that elk-woman was not quite up to the standard of marital virtue. in the cuts-wood myth the "going forward to the tongues" is accounted for. scabby-round-robe is credited with adding the necklace and the arrow point to the natoas and otter-woman with the wild cat-tail. the following statement of an informant has a bearing upon this point:- the natoas is said to have come from the elk. it was first owned by beaver bundle men, but it was the custom for the medicine woman in the sun dance to borrow it for her ceremony. this continued for a time, but ultimately the medicine woman bought it and kept it in a bundle of her own. the feathers on the front of the natoas are said to represent the horns of elk and the plumes at the sides, the leafy top of the large turnip. this is the same turnip which the woman who went to the sky land is supposed to have dug up. the digging-stick which accompanies the natoas also represents the stick with which she did this digging. some of the songs in the natoas ritual speak of little children running about and this refers to the ball-like image on the front of the natoas, for this image is stuffed with tobacco seeds, which, as you know, are often spoken of as children, or dwarfs (p. 201). the broad band upon which the natoas is mounted is said to represent the lizard. all these things, it is said, were added to the natoas, one at a time, by some of the beaver men. so it came about that we have the natoas as it is. now, as to the story about the elk giving the natoas the robe and the wristlets used with it. the objection is sometimes made that this first woman who ran away from her husband to join the elk was not a true woman and that the facts are therefore inconsistent with the ideal of the natoas ritual. yet, some of our people claim that the woman was true and that though she went away with the elk it was merely for the sake of receiving the ritual and that this is evident because in the story it tells how she was able to hook down trees by her magical powers and it is not conceivable that she could do this if she had not been a true woman. the ceremonial transfer of the sun dance bundle really begins with the fasting of the medicine woman on the first day. neither she nor her husband are supposed to eat or drink while the sun is visible, and then but sparingly. on the evening before, they are put to bed by the father and mother. the mother places the daughter on the south side of the fire and the father the son on the north side. they must remain in the same position until morning. before the sun rises the father and mother go to the medicine woman's tipi, stand by the door and sing. they sing as they formally enter, the father raising up the son; the mother, the daughter. the man is taken out by the father and the daughter by the mother for the morning toilet. when they return a small amount of food is fed to the son and daughter, after which the father and mother take a little food and drink. this must be before sunrise. during the day the son and especially the daughter must sit quietly in their places with bowed heads and eyes cast down. she wears a buffalo robe, hair side in, painted red, covering her head as well as her body. her hair is not braided, but hangs down freely except for a horizontal band around the head. the hair may be allowed to conceal the entire face. the daughter must do nothing for herself. if she wishes to speak it must be in almost a whisper in the ear of the mother or other attendant, who in turn will announce the import, if necessary. a fire is kept burning in the middle of the tipi, the ears are closely drawn around the smoke hole, the door closed, and the tipi cover securely staked down at the edges. though this keeps the temperature high, the medicine woman cannot use a fan, but may use the skin of a muskrat to wipe the perspiration from her face and hands. during the fasting period no noise must be made in the tipi. all the attendants must avoid unnecessary conversation and speak in a very subdued tone; utensils must not be rattled or struck together. visitors may enter, but respectfully and quietly. no noises should be made in the vicinity of the medicine tipi and boisterous acts abstained from in all parts of the camp circle. if water is brought in the vessel must be covered. no one should spit in the tipi nor do the other things forbidden at the ceremony of the tongues. throughout the whole period there is a male attendant. he keeps the fire alive during the night and until camp is moved. he can only start the fire with an ember from some other tipi, striking fire in the tipi being strictly prohibited. pipes can only be lighted from the fire by this attendant with service berry sticks. a blaze must be avoided as much as possible. the attendant cuts the tobacco and fills the pipe and when burnt out he must empty the ashes into a small hole in the ground near his seat. everyone is expected to sit quietly, leaving the moving to him. he remains on duty during the night also. formerly, the tipi of the medicine woman was moved three times, four different camps resulting, the last being at its position in the circle for the sun dance. as a considerable journey was often necessary to reach the sun dance site these camps might be far apart. theoretically, the camp is pitched late in the afternoon of each day. at the sun dance a special sweathouse ceremony takes place. this will be discussed later. after this the evening and greater part of the night are spent by those in attendance at the medicine woman's tipi in rehearsing the songs and instructing the son and daughter. like everything else, moving the camp of the medicine woman is a formal matter. the travois is made, painted red, and reserved for the special use of the medicine woman. when the time for breaking camp in the medicine woman's band arrives, she and her husband are led out and seated upon a robe at the west or rear of their tipi, facing in the direction to move. the parfleche of tongues and other paraphernalia are brought out by the attending women and put down beside the couple. the mother directs the attending women in taking down the tipi and hitching the horse to the travois. the parfleche of tongues is packed on the travois. when all is ready, the woman and man are led to their horses and assisted to mount, the woman riding the horse to the travois. the father and the son go ahead in single file, next the mother and the daughter, or medicine woman. they pause four times, as songs are sung. after they get some distance out, they stop and wait for the camp, now moving for the first time. this procession of four always leads, the two men side by side and behind them the two women likewise. at noon, when they stop for lunch, the two are again seated on a robe, the travois unhooked and laid down before them. then follows the camp some distance behind. the old men form a circle and smoke near the pair. at this time the father orders one of the men's societies to go forward and mark out a camp site. when this spot is reached, tipis are pitched and when everything is in place the medicine woman and her husband are taken inside. on the morning of each day a society is given instructions to make the sweathouse at the camping place, a man to get the creeping juniper and another to cut out the smudge place. as the sweathouse procedure is a distinct ceremony, it will be treated under another head. the following account of the evening ceremonies in the medicine woman's tipi was given by red-plume:- in the evening, after sunset, the first sweathouse is made. all those who took part in the ceremony before and a few other old men are invited. the man who fills the pipes and tends to the smoking during the ceremony remains on duty during the whole sun dance ceremony. four-bears is told to tell the mosquito society to sing that night in their own tipi which is inside of the circle. this society is to sing the sun dance songs, the weather-makers dancing songs, the rest of the people remaining quiet through the night. in the medicine lodge they sing until a little before day-break. the smudge place in the medicine lodge on the first day and for the first sweathouse is a square marked in the soft earth with a crescent in the middle of it. it is not painted. under the crescent is a dot where the smudge is made. when all the guests are assembled in the tipi the ceremony for the evening begins. food is given to all; the medicine woman and her husband have their meat cut up for them. while a song is sung a piece of meat is held over the smudge, four passes made with it, and then fed to the man and woman. the same thing is done with water. after this they may help themselves to the food. after the meal is over the singing begins. the sweetgrass is taken up and a song sung: "old man, takes spring grass. old woman comes in with her body." another man takes the smudge stick and places a live coal on the smudge place. the singer holds the grass over head and then brings it down on the coal. this song is for the morningstar: "morningstar says let us have a sweathouse." seven songs are sung for the sun and moon which are spoken of as the old man and old woman. these with the seven sung for the morningstar make fourteen sung thus far. since the men have been in the sweathouse where the paint has all washed off, five songs are sung to re-paint the man and woman. as the man sings, he takes some red earth paint with a ball of fat which he rolls in the palms of his hands. the song is: "old man says red face i take." he makes a streak crosswise on the man's forehead, vertically on his cheeks, and across the chin. the entire face is then covered with the same red paint. the robe is then taken from the man's shoulders. he sings another song as he takes up the sagegrass and brushes one side of the man's head, his arm, and then his body. at the same time, the woman is painted on the other side of the tipi. another song is sung and he takes the paint, rubs it in his hands, and sings: "this man i am making his body holy, powerful." the same words are sung for the woman. the man's body and robe are then painted. when the tongues were first taken in to be sliced, two round buffalo dungs together with a ball of sweetgrass were given to the man and woman. they keep these to wipe the paint from their hands. a song is sung for the dung. the two men and the two women hold their hands over the dung. they make four motions with the closed fists and then touch the ground to the southeast, southwest, northwest, and northeast of the dung. the words in this song are: "this may help me to live long, and help me through life." there is also part of a buffalo dung. the smudge stick is taken up, with the song: "timber i am looking for? timber i have found and taken." the two men and the two women all grasp the forked stick. they sing as they take up the dung with it and gradually move it up the stick until it rests on the fork. then it is held over the fire. someone knocks the dung into the fire and it is covered with ashes. the song is: "powerful, i start. powerful where i sit." to throw the dung off into the fire is a sign that enemies will be conquered. four songs are now sung for the muskrat skin used to wipe the faces of the man and woman: "man says, my medicine, i am looking for. i have found it." the skin is taken up. two songs are sung for the parfleche with tongues in it. it is taken up very slowly and the singing continues during all the movements made with it. it is held over the smudge and placed to one side, the cords untied, and the tongues taken out and distributed to all who are now in the tipi. the two medicinemen and women also eat. the song when first taking up the parfleche is: "buffalo i am powerfully starting. it is powerful where i sit." when undoing the cords the words are: "buffalo i take some." when the first tongue is taken out, a little piece is held up by everyone, prayers are said, the small pieces are placed on the ground, and they begin to eat them. seven songs for the eagle tail feather with which the sun is supposed to have brushed off the scar from scar-face's face and is supposed to be the feather brought down from the sun by scar-face follow: "old man says, hand me a feather." the feather is passed to the man. another song follows: "old man says he wants a hundred feathers. old woman wants different kinds of feathers." seven more songs are sung, the words of some of them are: "this man says that above have seen me. it is powerful. the ground i see is powerful. old man, says, white buffalo robe i want. old woman, says, elk i want. old man says, don't fool me. old woman says, don't fool me." the meaning of this is to be sure and give them what they ask for, that is, offerings made at the sun dance to the sun, moon, etc. seven songs are sung before they take up the rattles and the rawhide and five songs for the raven. at this time, the man takes hold of one of the rattles by the ball part touching it to the ground, while he holds the end of the handle straight up. the raven songs are: "raven says, buffalo i am looking for; buffalo i take. the wind is our medicine. the brush is our home. buffalo i take." the man pecks the rattle handle with one finger on both sides and crows. then they begin to beat the rattles on the rawhide and shake them in a circle once. now seven songs are sung for the smudge which is made of a species of fungus that grows on a kind of willow. the songs: "old man says, all right, may my lodge be put up. old woman says, all right may my lodge be put up or built." these words mean that the sun and moon are speaking and want the sun dance lodge built without any accidents. the next songs are for the natoas bundle which is not opened. the songs: "old man comes in, he says, i am looking for my bonnet. i have found it. it hears me. it is medicine." the old woman sings and uses the same words in her songs. there are six of these bonnet songs. the songs for the badger skin follow: "the man above hears me; he is powerful. the ground is my home; it is powerful." there are four songs for the badger. the badger skin and other things are not handled, the songs about them are simply sung. the songs for the natoas are: "old man says i am looking for my bonnet. i have found it: it is powerful." the woman then sings a song with the same words, which is followed by a song about the stone arrow points on the natoas. there is a song for everything which makes up the bonnet which is as follows: the leather band, the blue paint on the band, the stuffed weasel skin tied crosswise on the bonnet, the weasel tails hanging from the bonnet, two feathers in front, and two behind, two plumes on each side of the bonnet, a flint arrow point, a buffalo calf tail, a snipe, and a small doll the head of which is stuffed with tobacco seed. the song for the doll on the bonnet is: "children are running about. they are running from us. they are running towards us. they are boys. they are powerful." the man says, "give me the child," and makes the movement of reception. another song is sung: "child is crying," and the man imitates the crying of a child. the song for the little birds is: "bird says water is my medicine; it is powerful," for the calf tail: "man says calf tail i want," and for the arrow point: "sharp points are on both sides." then follows the song for the leather band which represents the lizard: "yonder man, i am angry and mad at you." this song of the lizard refers to the prairie dog chief. the blue paint on the band represents water and the song for it is: "the blue waters are our medicine." the song for the feathers is: "feathers i want." another song for the plume on the feathers: "red i want." this closes the evening ceremony. the man and woman are put to bed and all go home. this is the ceremony after the first sweathouse is made. three more moves of the entire camp and three more sweathouses must be made. the fourth move and sweathouse is where the sun dance takes place. nowadays, only one sweathouse is made for the sun dance. it seems that the final camp is marked out by a society laying rocks around its bounds, according to which the arriving bands find their proper places. at the fourth camp and on the fourth day, the natoas bundle is opened, or its formal ritual demonstrated. early in the day another tipi is pitched before the medicine tipi and the covers are joined, thus enlarging the space and providing for a few spectators. a few men and women are invited to assist in the ceremony: the men use the rattles and with the women aid in the singing. the father and other men sit on the north side of the tipi, the former next the medicine woman's husband; and the other women sit on the south side, the mother next to the medicine woman. she directs the medicine woman and the singing of the other women. the ceremony opens at about ten a. m. with the first series of songs in the ritual. three men hold a rattle in each hand, beating them upon the rawhide by a vigorous downward forward stroke, the seventh rattle is used by the father. the ritual of the natoas will be found in volume 7, pp. 215-220. normally, this ceremony transfers the natoas to the daughter. she may, however, waive the right, in which case the bundle returns to the former owner. yet, she seems to enjoy all the privileges accorded to one having been an owner. theoretically, no one can perform a transfer ceremony without having first owned the bundle in question. in case of the natoas, even now, a beaver owner is regarded as competent to conduct the proceeding, though he may never have gone through the ritual with his wife. this is consistent with the tradition that formerly the natoas was a part of the beaver bundle.[6] yet, the conditions here are slightly different from those for other bundles in that the father must provide or is charged with the responsibility to see that a natoas is provided. following the vow, either he or the son makes formal application to the owner of a natoas by the usual presentation of a pipe.[7] when the daughter begins her fasting, the father has the natoas brought to her tipi. as a rule, the father's wife owns a natoas. some informants claim that even should the daughter own a natoas, the father must provide another. on the other hand, the daughter can select the eligible natoas. in any case, the father furnishes the daughter with a dress and an elk robe for which he must be paid liberally.[8] in conclusion, it may be remarked that anyone can make up a natoas, if he has a dream so directing him; also, if he owned a natoas that was lost or otherwise destroyed; if he gave it away, without receiving payment; or if it was buried with someone. having owned a natoas and transferred it, he cannot duplicate it; should the new owner lose it, he may, if called upon, replace it; likewise, if buried, the surviving husband or wife could call upon him. in all such cases fees are given. when one transfers a medicine bundle and has been paid for it, he has no more right to it and cannot duplicate it on his own motion. should one sell the bundle without the ceremony of transfer, the ritual remains with him and he can again make up the bundle; should one make the transfer and fail to receive the pay, or waive the pay, he can make it up again. the relatives of one buried with a bundle can call upon a former owner to make it up, after which it must be formally transferred to one of them. men were sometimes killed on the warpath and their bundles lost; such were replaced as noted above. in every case these must be true duplicates; it is only a dream that authorizes new creations, or variations, however slight. an interesting sidelight is thrown upon the idealized qualities of this woman's function by the following narrative:-once while a medicine woman was sleeping in the sacred tipi during the fasting, a nephew of her husband stole in and made improper advances. being a good and true woman, like all others who give the sun dance, she spurned him. next day she told her husband the whole story. he was very angry. he was not satisfied with the confession she made, but suspected that she must have given the young man some encouragement. so when all the medicinemen and women had come into the tipi to rehearse the songs as usual, he made a statement of these suspicions and as he had two wives, he proposed to have them change places. the medicinemen pleaded for the first wife because they believed her innocent, but the husband was obdurate. so the second wife was called in to take the place. then the first wife said, "it was i who saved this man's life when he was ill. i made the vow to give the sun dance and he got well. i have suffered much in fasting, all for him. now he disgraces me before all the people. but i will put my virtue to a test. if i am true, i have already acquired power." she filled a pipe, went outside and standing now on the east side of the tipi, then on the south, the west, and the north, she addressed the sun. the day was clear, but soon after the woman entered the tipi, thunder was heard. a storm came down with hail and blew over many tipis. but in spite of these proofs, her husband was obdurate and the second wife went on with the ceremony. not long after the sun dance this same man became ill again. finally, as a last resort, he called upon the first wife to save him again. this woman told him to call upon the other woman as he seemed to have so much faith in her. so he died and was properly punished for so unjustly treating his faithful wife. footnotes: [6] in former times, the natoas and the medicine woman's costume were owned by a beaver man. when a woman gave a sun dance she gave a horse for their use. she just borrowed them. later on, a beaver man transferred them, whence they became a separate bundle.--tom kiyo. [7] should the woman already own a natoas and the transferrer (father) own one; the woman must say which bundle shall be used. she can use her own, borrow, or purchase of the transferrer.--curly-bear. [8] a piegan informant comments as follows: the woman can either buy or borrow a natoas. in the olden times she often borrowed because the natoas, the dress, the elk tooth wristlets, and the robe were owned by a beaver man's wife. after a time, however, these were transferred to a medicine woman and were thus separated from the beaver bundle. the procession to the dancing lodge. in our account of the natoas ritual we told how the father, son, etc., emerge from their tipi. the file is headed by the father, followed by the son, next the mother, then the medicine woman followed by women bearing the tongues. the father and the son are muffled in blankets (robes); the latter walks with bowed head, leaning heavily on a staff and bearing over his head a wild rhubarb stalk.[9] the medicine woman wears the natoas on her head, an elkskin (often buckskin) dress and an elkskin robe, with the digging-stick on her back. for a staff, she uses one of the smudge sticks. the women in her rear bear parfleches containing the tongues, together with blankets and other ordinary objects. two or three old men act as conductors, or flankers, keeping the way clear of spectators, etc. the procession moves slowly and by stages. the four principal personages in it keep their eyes upon the ground. the course is southward past the entrance (east side) to the dancing lodge, around the south side, the rear of the shelter and entering from the north side. here the medicine woman remains until the dancing lodge is raised at sunset, when she returns to her tipi and breaks her fast with berry soup. the father and the son go to a sweathouse after which their responsibilities also end. during the continuance of the ceremonies in the sun lodge, the medicine woman cares for the natoas bundle, now her property, until transferred to another, but is otherwise free to do as she likes. she usually remains quietly at home receiving guests and resting. the part of the medicine woman is truly a sacrifice. she and her husband must pay liberally everyone called upon for ceremonial service directly connected with the tongues and the natoas ritual. they must also pay a considerable amount of property for the natoas itself. to give the ceremony means the sacrifice of all personal property. on the other hand, there is compensation, aside from fulfilling the vow. her relatives are very proud of her since she is so virtuous. she is highly respected by her husband and family. in a measure those who "take the tongues" are also respected. the medicine woman may act as the mother in a future sun dance for which she will receive presents and she may eventually realize something by transferring the natoas to another. should anything go wrong during the ceremony, the weather be unfavorable, etc., people will look with suspicion upon her and say she must have lied in her confession to the sun. should she become ill or have deaths in the family, the same charge will be made. _the offerings of cloth._ after the procession headed by the father and he is in position at the west side of the dancing lodge, offerings of cloth and clothing are brought up by the people. a man making such an offering hands the father a filled pipe and the cloth. the father holds the pipe and offers prayers for the giver and lights and passes the pipe to other old men sitting around. the cloth he lays in a pile. then he paints the giver: first the face is smeared over with red, then black spots are daubed on the cheeks, nose, forehead, and chin, four in all. a black circle is marked around each wrist. women bringing offerings and pipes go to the mother who prays for them and paints their faces red with a black spot on the nose and a black circle around the face. there is also a black circle around each wrist. footnotes: [9] scar-face is said to have made a whistle (flageolet) of such a stalk. the pith of the growing plant is sometimes eaten for food. the hundred-willow sweathouse. as stated before, a sweathouse of special form is constructed on the third day. this is said to have originated with scar-face, it being the house into which he was taken by the sun. about the middle of the day a society is sent out for the willows. these were usually those of the younger men; the pigeons and mosquitoes. there is a belief, however, that in former times only warriors could be sent upon this errand. these persons are mounted and return in procession, singing and circling the medicine woman's tipi in the direction of the sun, and deposit their willows at the west side of the camp circle. they must not drink water while on this duty. an older society is called to build the sweathouse. they must not drink water while engaged in this operation and receive some of the tongues after the ceremonies of the fourth day. formerly, these men must have had a coup to their credit as a qualification and some informants claim that the sum total for the society should have totalled at least one hundred, the number of willows. the work begins some time before sunset by which time the sweathouse should be completed. the willows are stuck into the ground in an oval and their tops bent over and interlocked over the top. the ends point toward the east and the west, an opening or door being provided at each. the willows are then painted, one side red and the other black. next, a hole is dug in the center of the structure for the heated stones. in the meantime, a small heap of stones mixed with firewood has been placed some distance to the east. a buffalo skull is painted with red spots on one side and black on the other. sagegrass is thrust into the nose and eye-sockets. robes are then thrown over the willows and all is ready for the procession from the medicine woman's tipi. the procession from the medicine woman's tipi consists of the father and another man experienced in ceremonial affairs, the husband, the mother and the medicine woman. they approach slowly and by stages, passing around the south side of the sweathouse to the north and then to the east or entrance. all keep their eyes on the ground. the husband walks with a heavy staff; the medicine woman carries the natoas bundle with a smudge stick. the men enter the sweathouse, while the two women go to the west side and sit down facing the east. the medicine woman is on the north side with the bundle before her. after the men have entered, the fire is lighted and some of the attendants (builders of the sweathouse) lift the buffalo skull to the top of the sweathouse where it faces the east. prayers and the usual sweathouse procedure now follow while the stones and a pail of water are passed in by an attendant. the covers are then drawn down and the vapor bath taken. after the ceremony the procession returns to the medicine woman's tipi. the cover is removed from the sweathouse and the buffalo skull placed on top where it remains. should there be more than one medicine woman, another sweathouse is made on the east side of the camp circle and the others grouped around them equally. since after the sweathouse ceremony there is formal singing in the tipi until far into the night, it may be said that during the four days of the fast the ceremonies begin with the sweathouse at sundown, while on the fifth day the ceremony begins in the morning and ends at sundown. to this generalized statement the following account from a piegan may be added:- now, when the first sweathouse is to be made, orders are given in the morning to one of the societies to get the willows to make the hundred-willow sweathouse. another man is to get the creeping juniper to use in the smudge place in the medicine lodge, and still another is to cut out the smudge place. the moves are short. the people all move camp, as before, and the society goes on ahead and stakes out the camping ground. when the tipis are pitched at the new camping ground, the society comes in with the willows and the rocks for the sweathouse. they circle once around to the right of the lodges and stop outside of the circle, west of the medicine lodge. they must neither eat nor drink while building the sweathouse. they gather wood from among the tipis until they have enough to heat the rocks. robes for covering the sweathouse are borrowed from the people of the camp. one man goes to the medicine lodge and digs out the smudge place. when the sweathouse is ready for the medicinemen, four of the men who helped in the construction go and inform the men and women. they carry the parfleche with the tongues in it on a robe, each man holding a corner. the two medicinemen take the lead, the two women follow, then come the four men with the parfleche. four stops are made before they reach the sweathouse. the instructor leads, and is followed in single file by the other man, and the two women walking very slowly and singing. they march once around the sweathouse in the direction of the sun. the other old men who are to join them and the two medicinemen go in while the two women remain seated on a robe just west of it with the parfleche beside them. a smudge is made with sweetgrass, and a crescent-shaped place marked out between the square hole and the rear of the sweathouse and live coals are placed on the dot in front of the crescent. a song is sung while the smudge stick is taken up and a man goes after the coal for the smudge. the sweetgrass is placed on the live coal and the two songs for the smudge are sung: "spring grass i take. where i sit is powerful." a pipe is handed in and the pipe bowl and stem painted red. the man holds the pipe over the smudge and prays for the one who gave it to him and then passes it to the last man to his right who lights it and all smoke it. when the pipe is all burnt out, the man who blessed it, takes it, and with a red-painted stick loosens the ashes and empties some of them on the southeast corner of the square hole in the sweathouse, then on the northwest corner, on the northeast, and finally in the center. after this the buffalo skull is brought in and the songs of the buffalo sung while the same man paints it with black and red dots, the left half black and the right half in red. grass is stuffed into the eyes and nose of the skull which is passed out through the west of the sweathouse and placed on the earth taken out of the hole in the sweathouse. an extra buffalo horn wrapped with swamp grass is brought in and given to the man who paints it red and sings while doing so: "chiefs of other tribes i want to hook." he throws the horn out and all the men of this society who remain near the sweathouse try to catch it. the one who captures it is considered lucky and he is supposed to capture a gun in the next battle he witnesses. the men in the sweathouse all undress and as they pass their robes and moccasins out through the west of the sweathouse and the door, the buffalo songs are sung. the two medicinemen only wear a robe and moccasins when they go into the sweathouse. while singing, the forked stick is taken up and one of the outsiders goes for the heated stones, stopping four times before he brings them in. one of the men who is inside takes the stone with two straight sticks and places it on the southeast corner of the hole, the same is done with four more stones which are placed on the southwest, the northwest, the northeast corner and the fifth is placed in the bottom of the hole at the center. when a sixth stone is placed in the hole, they are all rolled to the bottom of the hole. water and a horn spoon or wooden bowl is brought in. a little water is thrown on the stones to wash them, the curtains are lowered, and prayers to the sun, moon, and stars, and earth begin. in groups of four, sixteen medicine lodge songs are sung. the curtains are raised and four more songs are sung; the sweathouse is opened and four songs are sung, until the sixteen have been completed. the two medicinemen go out through the west of the sweathouse while the rest go through the door. the men dress, and the parfleche containing the tongues is opened and the tongues given to the members of the society who made the sweathouse. the medicinemen and women do not eat. after all are provided with the tongues a piece is broken off each and while all hold the pieces up a prayer is said and the piece of tongue placed on the ground. then they all begin to eat. after this the robes are all returned to their owners, the buffalo skull placed on top of the frame of the sweathouse with the nose pointed towards the east and the medicinemen and women return in single file while four men follow behind carrying the empty parfleche. the men who belong to the society may now eat and drink as they wish. the dancing lodge. the dancing lodge may be said to take its origin on the fourth day, by which time the medicine woman has her tipi in place near its site and the camp circle has been formed. in construction, nine forked tree trunks about nine feet in height are set in a circle. across their tops, except the eastern face, are laid stringers about fifteen feet long of the same material.[10] in the center, is another forked tree trunk much higher than the other (this we shall call the sun pole) connected with each of the stringers by a rafter. green boughs are placed thickly against the outside of the lodge. on the inside, at the rear, is a booth screened and roofed with boughs. the material is cottonwood. that other woods were occasionally used, is attested by the fact that a locality is known as "the place of sweet pine dancing lodge." some informants claim that in former years each band was required to furnish two rafters, a post, a rail, and their proportionate amount of boughs. two rafters were used instead of one as now, each band furnishing the section opposite their place in the circle. the contradiction between the number of bands and the size of the dancing lodge seems not to have troubled our informants. now, the young men go out during the early part of the fourth day to cut the poles and boughs. this is done without ceremony. a crier usually rides around the camp circle reminding the various bands of their duty. formerly, the young women went out on horseback to drag in the poles and brush. on this occasion, they dressed in the best costumes and used the finest horse trappings obtainable. the men cut the poles and brush, hitching them to the drag ropes with their own hands. as the procession galloped toward the camp circle, the men rode behind, shooting and yelling. in recent years, the men bring the material in on wagons without demonstration. men of some prominence are selected to dig the holes for the posts. the posts are erected and the stringers put in place, excepting one on the west side nearly opposite the entrance. the rafters are leaned against the stringers, ready to be pushed in place and the green boughs piled up at convenient places near by. the cutting of the sun pole is attended with some ceremony. some informants claim that formerly this was to be carried out by the medicine woman's band; others that one of the men's societies was called upon for this service. in any event, they go out as a war party and locate a suitable tree. a man with a war record, preferably one having struck an enemy with an ax, comes forward, takes an ax, paints the blade as he recounts some event in which he killed an enemy, and then strikes the tree. four such deeds must be told before the tree can be felled. then one or two men cut the tree as the others stand around. as the tree begins to fall all give the war cry and shoot at its top, then rush up, and tearing off branches, wave them in the air as if they were trophies from an enemy. indeed, the whole proceeding, from start to finish, is a mimic attack on an enemy. the pole is cut to approximate form and taken to the site of the dancing lodge. one end is placed on a travois (in recent times on a wagon), while the riders assist with their ropes, their horses massed around the travois horse. the hole for the sun pole is dug without ceremony by relatives of the medicine woman. when it is in place, they tie a bundle of green boughs in the fork,[11] making everything ready for the raising in the evening. the sun pole now lies on the ground with the butt over the hole and the forked end supported by a piece of timber. the fork points to the west. it seems that formerly the pole was painted. just below the fork it was circled by two black bands and two red ones beneath these. footnotes: [10] obviously, this would make the dancing lodge very large. in reply to this objection it was said that they were large; that it was necessary to select as a site places where very long rafter poles could be cut; that formerly societies and others performed evolutions within on horseback. the late little-plume is credited with having introduced the present custom of reciting deeds, requiring horses, outside the dancing lodge. it may be of interest to note that the arapaho also made very large sun dance shelters. in 1908 mr. duvall measured the dancing lodge. the sun pole stood sixteen feet from the ground to the fork. the posts were eight feet and approximately sixteen feet apart. the diameter of the whole was fifty-two feet. the fireplace was east of the sun pole six feet and was four feet by two feet and five inches deep. the booth for medicinemen was five feet eight inches wide by seven feet six inches deep. the two holes were about a foot forward from the sod walls, eight inches across and six inches deep. the man who has been marking out the site for the lodge during the last few years, begins by selecting the place for the sun pole and stepping off seven paces as the radius. [11] the bundle of boughs is neither spoken of as the thunderbird's nest nor given a name of any kind; though some old men seemed to know that other tribes so designated it. we made diligent inquiry on this point and feel that the above statement is correct. reference to published photographs will show that the brush is merely gathered into a bundle and not made into the form of a nest as in case of the crow. cutting the thongs. a fresh cowskin (formerly two buffalo hides) is provided that thongs may be cut for binding the rafters to the stringers and the objects placed on the sun pole. there seems to have been no hunting ceremony for providing this hide and there is now no symbolic hunting. after the medicine woman is in the shelter, the ceremony of cutting the thongs takes place. if no one volunteers, men are "caught." the men who cut the thongs last year may do the "catching" or engage representatives to do it. formerly, this function was exercised by old warriors who had captured enemies alive. the "catchers" go quietly about the camp looking for eligibles. while pretending to pass one by without notice, they suddenly lay hold of him. the victim may pull back, but is not allowed to resort to other means of resistance. he is then led up to the hides near the front of the medicine woman's shelter. in former times, four such men were brought up for the ceremony. they must have coups to their records, otherwise they would not have been selected. in the ceremony of 1904 we observed an attempt to "catch" a man on horseback, but the struggles of the horse enabled him to escape. in former times, the friends of the interested party would have gathered around the rear and sides of the horse forcing him forward in the lead of the "catcher". this whole catching procedure is said to symbolize the capture of an enemy. in order to understand the ceremony that now takes place, it is necessary to know that the right to cut the thong is to the blackfoot a medicine to be transferred for gifts of property as in case of other medicines. the men who did the cutting in the previous year are to "sell", or transfer, this year. it is they who do the "catching", either in person or by deputy. should no one be brought forward, those who performed the rite on the previous year must again serve. as soon as a man is caught, his relatives are notified; they come out with all kinds of property to support him in the transfer. the initiate is brought into the presence of the present owner of the right, his hands and face are painted, accompanied by ritualistic prayers. while this proceeds, an old man (usually a relative) stands somewhat apart and shouts out praise for the initiate. however, this may be done by a woman, if no man comes forward. a horse and other property is then given to the former owner of the right, whence it ceases to be his. the deputy "catcher", if there is one, then receives a small present or two from the former owner. the cutting of the thong then takes place. the new owner of the right, standing up by the hide, shouts out his coups. he holds the knife in his hand and while pointing in different directions with it, he tells of a war deed. at the end of each tale he makes a pass with the knife as if to cut the hide. after four deeds are told, he cuts the hide. for example, he may say, "at such a place i captured a horse which gives me the right to cut this, etc." if there are other men with the right, they follow in turn. after this, the thongs are cut with the assistance of other men and distributed at the places where they will be needed. a thong with the tail attached is used to bind the bunch of boughs to the sun pole, the tail hanging down. while this ceremony is going on, gifts of flour, beef, etc., made by white people are distributed among the old poor people. this is regarded as a recent intrusion. the following extract from an unpublished version of the scar-face myth accounts for the thong-cutting ceremony:- her husband could tell by her eyes that she had been crying and he said, "i told you not to dig up that turnip, but nevertheless you have done so. since you are lonesome and wish to return to your people, i will take you back." then morningstar went out and killed some buffalo. after he had skinned all of them he cut the hides into long strands, fastened them together, and tied the woman and her child to one end and let her down from the sky to where her people were. before she reached the earth, a little sore-eyed boy was lying on his back, looking up at the sky and saw a very small object coming down. the boy told the men who were playing the wheel gambling game what he saw, but they laughed at him and threw dirt in his eyes and said, "you must see the gum on your eyelids or lashes." as the falling object came closer others noticed it and when it came among the group they knew that it was the woman who was missing from the camp. they untied the rawhide strand and noticed that some of the buffalo tails were on the ends of the long rope which lay piled up high before them. this woman came down with her digging-stick. as she was not a wicked woman and only lived with morningstar as her husband, she gave her digging-stick to the medicine lodge woman and the natoas was named for the turnip she dug up. when the sun dance was held, this woman told them always to cut up a rawhide into strands and tie the posts with them. also that the center post and the birch on it must be tied with them. the tail of the hide is to hang down from the center post. these rawhide strands are a representation of the rawhide rope with which this woman was let down to the earth. later, the moose hoofs are tied to this digging-stick. the plumes on the natoas are to represent the leaf of the large turnip this woman dug up while in the sky. raising the sun pole. while the hide is being cut, all the woman who made vows to take some of the tongues come forward to the parfleche placed near the medicinemen and women. each woman takes one of the tongues and stands with the person for whom her vow was made and makes a confession to the sun in a loud voice, so all may hear. then she prays to the sun for the beneficiary. after all the women have taken their tongues, some of the men tie the cloth offerings to the ends of the poles and a bunch of birch is tied between the forks of the center pole. the preceding ceremony comes to a close as the sun gets very low. about time for the sun to set, a procession of pole raisers starts from each of the four quarters of the camp circle. tipi poles are tied near the small ends in pairs, each pair carried by two men. the four parties advance in unison by four stages and at each pause sing a special song. in the last move, they rush upon the sun pole and raise it in place. in the meantime, the father and son go and stand on the center pole while their wives stand to the west. the men make wing movements with their arms toward the east. according to some informants, the medicine woman may make hooking motions at the pole, to symbolize the mythical elk-woman. four men are called upon to assist the father and son. as the latter stand upon the pole, they encircle and screen them with their blankets and join the father in singing. the songs call for good luck in erecting the dancing lodge. the son does not sing. four songs are sung. at the end of each the father blows a whistle while someone shakes the pole. the last time they jump off the pole. the son drops his blanket (some say the father also, some add moccasins) painted black as a sun offering. another blanket is handed him at once. as soon as the men leave the pole the advancing raisers rush in, raise the center pole, put on the rafters, tie them with the rawhide strands and place brush all around to form the wind-break. this is accompanied by much shouting, but without shooting. while the sun pole is being raised the daughter and mother stand watching it. they pray and make movements with the corners of their robes as though steering the rising pole. as it sways from side to side, they gesture as if righting it. as soon as the pole is set, the natoas, robe, and moccasins are taken off the daughter by the mother. she may call on someone to do this and pay a gun or a horse for the service. the mother and other attendants then lead the daughter to her tipi where she resumes her ordinary routine. the father and son go to a sweathouse where all the paint is washed off. this is not the hundred-willow sweathouse and is the fifth sweathouse, if it were counted. the two men go in and some sagegrass being handed to the father, he takes off the feathers tied to the son's hair, the hair necklace, and whistle. after the first opening of the sweathouse he takes the sagegrass and wipes off the black paint on the son and hands out through the west side of the sweathouse the necklace, whistle, and feathers which are to be taken home. at the same time, the two women are in the ceremonial lodge, the mother caring for the daughter. when the men have completed the sweathouse ceremony they go to the medicine woman's tipi. the father and his wife wrap up the natoas and place it in the badger skin. after this is done, they no longer have to eat sparingly. this ends the ceremony of the medicine woman. early the next day she and her husband must obtain the cottonwood brush with which the booth for the weather dancers is made. another man digs out the place in the booth, making it the same as the smudge place in the medicine woman's tipi, with the sod on three sides and creeping juniper on top of it. the fireplace is dug out to the west of the center post and is made as in the medicine woman's tipi. when going for and returning the brush, the woman rides one horse and leads the one dragging her travois. while when the other brush was brought in there was much shooting and shouting, there are now no demonstrations of any kind, but absolute silence. the weather dancers. early on the fifth day, a booth is built inside the dancing lodge opposite the entrance. a slight excavation about six feet square is made over which is erected a shelter of green cottonwood boughs, open on the side facing the sun pole. before the middle of the day, a procession of one or more men supposed to have power over the weather, attended by drummers, proceeds by stages from the medicine woman's tipi to this booth. they pause four times and dance, facing alternately the east and the west. they hold whistles of bone in their mouths, which are sounded in unison with the dancing. the procession is of two transverse lines, the dancers, in front, the drummers and singers behind. a great deal of dancing is done between the entrance to the dancing lodge and the booth. at intervals during the day they stand before the booth and dance to the east and west: the drummers are now stationed on the south side of the booth where women also assemble for the singing. the dancing is chiefly an up and down movement produced by flexing the knees, the eyes are directed toward the sun and wing-like movements of the hands are made in the same direction. the dancers wear breechcloth and moccasins and usually a robe around the waist. their faces and bodies are painted according to their own medicines and medicine objects worn on their heads. it is stated that there is but one weather dancer, but others may join under certain conditions. in practice this seems to amount to there being a director or leader in the dance, at least such was the case in 1903 and 1904. in 1904 the two assistant dancers went to the medicine woman's tipi to paint themselves and began their procession from there, while the leader approached in a similar manner from his own tipi, the two forming one procession before the east side of the dancing lodge was reached. the leading dancer wore a special ceremonial robe, headdress, and several medicine objects, which have been described in volume 7 (pp. 98-99). these objects and their medicine functions may be regarded as esoteric in so far as they are not absolutely essential to the office of leading dancer. yet, this same individual seems to have performed this function for a number of years. clark mentions strings of feathers tied to the finger of this dancer.[12] in 1904 there were two assistant dancers. both wore headdresses somewhat like that of their leader. one was fully dressed with a blanket around his waist; the other was nude to the belt. the latter was painted chiefly in red with a circle in blue on the back and one on the breast. the former had a pair of horizontal lines on each cheek, those on the right, black, on the left, red. it is said that formerly these dancers were nude, except for the breechcloth and moccasins. the entire body was painted. there seemed to have been no fixed painting, but the sun, moon, and stars were usually represented. around the head, they wore a wreath of juniper and bands of sagegrass around the neck, wrists, and ankles. the weather dancers are not permitted to eat or drink during the day. formerly, they remained in the booth continuously until the evening of the fourth day of their dancing; in recent years, they spend the night at home and return to the booth in the morning. the functions of these dancers are not clearly understood. they seem to be held responsible for the weather: i.â e., upon them falls the duty of preventing rain from interfering with the dancing. whether they do this because they happen to have independent shamanistic powers or whether it is a mere function of their temporary office in the ceremony, cannot be determined. other medicinemen often attempt to control the weather during the days preceding the formal entry into the booth as well as during the later days. in 1903 (piegan) there was a contest between a number of rival medicinemen some of whom conjured for rain, others for fair weather: strange to say, clouds would threaten and then pass away during these days, which coincidence was interpreted as proof of evenly matched powers. several times one of the partisans of fair weather came out near the site of the dancing lodge and danced to the sun, holding up a small pipe and occasionally shouting. he wore no regalia and danced in a different manner from that observed among the weather dancers at the booth. however, the man who led the weather dancers for many years until his death in 1908, was famous for his control over the weather. once, it is told, he became enraged at the power making the weather bad, shouting out "now, you go ahead, if you want to. i have great power and can stop you when i will." in former times, the dreams of the weather dancers while sleeping in the booth were considered of special supernatural significance, since, it is said, they were _en rapport_ with the sun. this _rapport_ may account for what seems to be one of their chief functions--blessing the people. during the days they are in the booth, individuals come to them "to be prayed for." they come up and stand before the booth. the dancer takes black paint and paints their faces. then he prays to the sun for their welfare. during this part of the ceremony the recipient faces the sun. again, the medicine-pipes and other ritualistic objects are brought up for the dancer to present to the sun. the pipes he holds up with the stems towards the sun, whom he addresses at some length, offering him a smoke, making requests, etc., after which he smokes the pipe. all the persons present are then permitted to put their lips to the pipe from which they are supposed to derive great benefits. the dancer also receives offerings made to the sun. a young man may fill a pipe and approach with his offerings. the dancer takes the pipe, smokes, prays, paints the man's face, and makes the offering. a woman or child may do this; or a whole family. formerly, a great deal of old clothing was offered at this time, a custom still practised by the blood. also children's moccasins and clothing were offered in this way. as they grew out of them they were given to the sun to promote well-being. in last analysis, it seems that while these dancers are spoken of as weather priests, they are rather sun priests, since through them appeals to the sun are made. it should be noted that they are regarded as independent of and in no way associated with the medicine woman ceremonies or the erection of the dancing lodge, but upon entrance to the booth, the leading weather dancer is said to become the chief and director of all succeeding ceremonies. the length of the ceremony depends entirely upon him and formerly continued as long as he kept his place. like other rites this one was bought and sold, but it was usual to continue in ownership many years. anyone could make a vow to dance with the weather dancer and join him in his ceremonies, but such vows were usually made by former owners of the rite. when one makes a vow to purchase the rite, its owner must sell, however reluctant he may be. the transfer must be in the sun dance. it is said that two men once alternately sold to each other for many years so that both could appear in every sun dance. footnotes: [12] clark, w. p., _the indian sign language_ (philadelphia, 1885), 72. dancing. the first ceremony of this character is named the cutting-out dance (to cut out a hole in a robe). it seems to have been performed by a society and occurs early on the fifth day. about four or six old men dance in line with a rawhide which they hold in front of them, singing and beating time on the rawhide with rattles similar to those of the beaver men. the society now divides into two parties, one placing itself north of the center pole, and the other party standing in line south of the center pole. the two parties dance back and forward in front of the pole shooting at it. the old men on the west side of the center pole dance in their places. the rawhide held in front of them, hangs down like an apron. they beat time on it, holding the rawhide in one hand, and the rattles in the other. an old man counts deeds and marks out with a knife the fireplace and the booth for the weather dancers. these are dug while the dancing and shooting take place.[13] the hole, or fire pit, is dug between the sun pole and the entrance to the dancing lodge. it is about three feet by two and "two hands" deep. a warrior is then called to start the fire. warriors now come forward in turn to count their coups. in this a man took a piece of firewood and holding it up, called out in a loud voice how he once struck a sioux, a snake, etc., then placed it in the fire. when he had recounted all he gave way to the next. stories are told of men having enough coups to make a fire large enough to threaten the destruction of the dancing lodge. we were able to confirm the statement of clark[14] that the height of the flame as determined by a buffalo tail hanging down was the criterion for determining a great warrior. one informant states as follows:-there is always a cow tail hanging down from the center post. in olden times this was a buffalo tail, to the end of which a blackened plume was tied. this hangs down over the fireplace which was used at night to furnish light for the proceedings. the assembled people were entertained by narratives of warriors as they came forward to narrate their deeds; each threw a stick on the fire for each deed counted and he whose fire blazed high enough to reach the tail was considered a great warrior. it was a great honor when a man could tell enough war deeds to scorch the tail. all this time there was singing (the cheering songs) and drumming, while berry soup was served to all. the persons taking part are designated as those "who are about to make the fire." in recent years, this ceremony has been performed in a very perfunctory manner. after the ceremony, the fire was fed in the ordinary way and kept going during the greater part of the succeeding days. the origin of this dance is often ascribed to scar-face. footnotes: [13] it will be recalled that in the sun dance of the dakota type (p. 110) there is a ceremonial shooting at the sun pole. here the shooting takes place in a perfunctory way, while the pole is dragged to the sun dance site. yet, mcquesten claims to have witnessed the driving of evil power from the sun lodge at a blood ceremony in 1912. ("the sun dance of the blackfeet" _rod and gun in canada_, march 1912.) as this is not noted in older accounts and we failed to get information as to it, we suspect it to be due to foreign influences, or perhaps the author's own interpretation. [14] clark, _ibid._, 72. society dances. in former times, the succeeding days were apportioned to the men's societies (the ikunukats) in the order of their rank, beginning at the lowest.[15] there seems to have been no fixed allotment of time to each, only the order of succession being adhered to. the ceremonies were determined chiefly by the respective society rituals, though the recounting of deeds in war was given great prominence. as a rule, each society closed its ceremonies by offering parts of its regalia, etc., to the sun, a custom still observed by the blood (see vol. 11, this series, fig. 19, p. 411). after the highest society had completed its function, the leading men of the tribe held a kind of a war dance in which coups were recounted. in this dance, again, rattles were beaten upon a rawhide. the organizations or persons having charge of the day's ceremonies must furnish the feast and all necessaries. the medicine woman and her husband usually repair to the dancing lodge each day. the man usually takes his pipe and tobacco and furnishes the smoking for the guests who sit around. his wife wears the buckskin dress and elk robe, but not the natoas. they sit on the north or right side of the booth and merely are spectators. this closes the ceremonies and camp is broken. footnotes: [15] this series, vol. 11, 365-474. the torture ceremony. the torture feature, especially prominent in the ceremonies of the mandan, hidatsa, and dakota, was formerly given a place among the dancing lodge ceremonies of the blackfoot. the information we have seems to indicate that this ceremony had not become thoroughly adjusted to its place in this series at the time of its prohibition by the united states and canadian governments. the claim is made by some of the piegan that it was borrowed from the arapaho and was not looked upon with much favor. as one man expressed it, "none of those taking the cutting lived to reach old age." it was said that a few blackfoot warriors once visited the arapaho at the time of their sun dance where they were put through the cutting ceremony. according to the blackfoot mode of thought, this means that the medicine rites (and rights) were transferred to them. when they returned, they induced others to take the cutting, to whom, of course, the rites were transferred. whether this historical statement is accurate or mythical, we have no means of knowing, but we are inclined to give it some weight as evidence. it seems, however, that warriors took the cutting because of a vow, similar to that of the medicine woman. sometimes a man dreamed that the sun required it of him. the giving of property and the conditions of the transfer were the same as for "cutting the thong," though we have no information that "catching" was permitted. such may, however, have been tolerated. the men taking the cutting were nude to the belt. sage was tied around the wrists and ankles. the hair hung down, held in place by a wreath of cedar (some informants say sage). they were painted white. rows of spots in blue extended down the sides of the face, over the shoulders and down the arms. wavy lines of the same color were also drawn down the arms. a circle representing the sun, was made on the breast, also upon the chin and probably on the back opposite the one over the heart. on the forehead was another circle representing the moon. other informants say a crescent moon in black was used instead of these circles. according to one informant, vows were made to purchase this ceremony when ill or in great danger. if the promise brought results, the vow was fulfilled at the next dance. the supplicant calls upon one having purchased the rite. they enter the booth of the weather dancers, a blanket is held up to shut out the gaze of the others. the transferrer then paints the purchaser. he cuts a hole through the skin of the right shoulder, over the scapula, and a hole over each breast. a small sharpened stick is thrust through each. a shield is hung on the back. long cords were fastened to those on the breast, the ends of which were tied fast, high up to the center pole. the purchaser goes up to the pole, embraces it, and cries for a time. then he backs off, and dancing, throws his weight on the ropes. the transferrer jerks the shield from his shoulders and if necessary, assists him in tearing loose. at once, the purchaser goes out into the hills and sleeps in different places to receive power. it is said that all who take this ceremony die in a few years, because it is equivalent to giving one's self to the sun. hence, the sun takes them for his own. the cutting was similar to that described by catlin and other writers as observed elsewhere. some informants say the dancers held whistles in their mouths and gazed at the sun as they danced. when all the thongs were torn out, some of the lacerated flesh was cut off as an offering to the sun. mclean reports the following observations upon this ceremony at a blood sun dance:- ... the chief attraction to the pale-face is what has been ignorantly termed "making braves." i desired very much to see this ceremony _once_, that i might know the facts from personal observation, and draw my own conclusions after conversing with the indians. two young men having their whole bodies painted, wearing the loin-cloth only, and with wreaths of leaves around their heads, ankles and wrists, stepped into the center of the lodge. a blanket and a pillow were laid on the ground, and one of the young men stretched himself upon them. as he lay, an old man came forward and stood over him and then in an earnest speech told the people of the brave deeds, and noble heart of the young man. in the enumeration of his virtues and noble deeds, after each separate statement the musicians beat applause. when the aged orator ceased, the young man arose, placed his hands upon the old man's shoulders, and drew them downward, as a sign of gratitude for the favorable things said about him. he lay down, and four men held him while a fifth made the incisions in his breast and back. two places were marked in each breast denoting the position and width of each incision. this being done, the wooden skewers being in readiness, a double edged knife was held in the hand, the point touching the flesh, a small piece of wood was placed on the under side to receive the point of the knife when it had gone through, and the flesh was drawn out the desired length for the knife to pierce. a quick pressure and the incision was made, the piece of wood was removed, and the skewer inserted from the under-side as the knife was being taken out. when the skewer was properly inserted, it was beaten down with the palm of the hand of the operator, that it might remain firmly in its place. this being done to each breast, with a single skewer for each, strong enough to tear away the flesh, and long enough to hold the lariats fastened to the top of the sacred pole, a double incision was made on the back of the left shoulder, to the skewer of which was fastened an indian drum. the work being pronounced good by the persons engaged in the operation, the young man arose, and one of the operators fastened the lariats giving them two or three jerks to bring them into position. the young man went up to the sacred pole, and while his countenance was exceedingly pale, and his frame trembling with emotion, threw his arms around it, and prayed earnestly for strength to pass successfully through the trying ordeal. his prayer ended he moved backward until the flesh was fully extended, and placing a small bone whistle in his mouth, he blew continuously upon it a series of short sharp sounds, while he threw himself backward, and danced until the flesh gave way and he fell. previous to his tearing himself free from the lariats, he seized the drum with both hands and with a sudden pull tore the flesh on his back, dashing the drum to the ground amid the applause of the people. as he lay on the ground, the operators examined his wounds, cut off the flesh that was hanging loosely, and the ceremony was at an end. in former years the head of a buffalo was fastened by a rope on the back of the person undergoing the feat of self-immolation, but now a drum is used for that purpose. from two to five persons undergo this torture every sun-dance. its object is military and religious. it admits the young man into the noble band of warriors, whereby he gains the esteem of his fellows, and opens up the path to fortune and fame. but it is chiefly a religious rite. in a time of sickness, or danger, or in starting upon some dangerous expedition, the young man prays to natos for help, and promises to give himself to natos if his prayers are answered. upon his return, when the annual sun-dance is held, he fulfills his vow, gives himself to his god, and thus performs a twofold duty. of course the applause of the people and the exhibition of courage are important factors in this rite, but its chief feature is a religious one. instead of being a time of feasting and pleasure, the sun-dance is a military and religious festival, in connection with which there are occasions for joy, and the feast enhances the pleasure.[16] it may be well to note that the offering of bits of flesh to the sun was a general practice not necessarily associated with the sun dance. many comparatively young men now living (1904) bear numerous scars testifying to such offerings. when in perilous situations a finger would sometimes be struck off with a call upon the sun for help. among the blood, such sacrifice of a finger by women as well as men was common at the sun dance.[17] these facts concerning the more general practice of mutilating the body to win the approval of the sun suggest that if the cutting ceremony is intrusive, it either found on hand a series of analogous customs or brought with it a concept that afterwards gave birth to them. it may be observed that the form of costume and dance is strikingly like that employed by the present weather dancers. since there seems to be no good published data on the sacrificing of skin and fingers we append the narrative of split-ears:- sometimes, when warriors are on an expedition and come in sight of the enemy they will sit in a circle while the leader, or the oldest member of the party, offers prayers that they may succeed in their undertaking. then they proceed to offer bits of their own skin to the sun. the one who prayed sits down by one of the party, takes up a needle or bodkin and a knife, thrusts the former under a small section of skin and raising it, cuts off a small slice with a knife. this leaves a circular wound a quarter of an inch or less in diameter. it is understood that the operator pulls the skin up with the needle and slices off a small section underneath that instrument. he then takes up some black paint and dips the bit of skin into it. then he holds it up to the sun and prays for the success of his victim. the bit of skin is then placed upon a piece of cloth and another is removed from the victim in the same manner and so the operator goes to each of the party in turn, each time removing a piece of skin, dipping it in black paint, and holding it up in a prayer to the sun. while each person is expected to give two pieces, they are not limited to the maximum number, some men giving four and some still more. the bits of skin thus collected are tied up in one corner of the cloth which is mounted upon a stick wrapped with wild sage, the whole being fastened in a tree or set up on the top of a high hill as the sun's offering. this sacrifice is always spoken of as feeding the sun with flesh from one's own body. the cloth is fastened to the stick in the form of a flag or banner so that it waves in the wind with the flesh offerings tied in one corner. this sacrifice is considered one of the greatest a man can make. now, as i have said, some men only give two small pieces of skin, while others give a great many more, but as they do this each time they go on an expedition, it so happens that a man who made many war expeditions has many small scars on his arms and legs. thus, we can still tell those of our old men who went upon the warpath many times in their youth. we can tell by the scars made from feeding the sun their own flesh. but, again, it so happens that men while at home may have dreams in which they are commanded to feed the sun. now it is believed that unless a man heeds such a command, he is certain to be visited by misfortune or even death, so he always makes haste to comply with the command. after such a dream he makes a sweathouse and invites in an old man who prays and makes the offering. the procedure here is the same as previously described and the offering is made into a banner and placed in a tree or upon a hill. then again, the men who are at home in the camp but who have relatives in a war party may so wish for the safety of these that they themselves offer bits of skin in their behalf. thus, you see, there are many times when people will offer bits of skin, so that it was not uncommon for a man to have one hundred or more scars upon his body. these are generally arranged in rows up and down the arms, down the legs, down the breasts and the back. i have even heard of cases where a man is said to have offered one hundred pieces of skin at one time. this, however, was unusual. [illustration: fig. 1. the offering of human flesh. the bits of flesh are tied in the corner of the banner. drawn from a native sketch.] sometimes, instead of offering skin, the warrior would offer a finger. thus, if beset by very great danger on the warpath a man may make a vow to the sun stating that if brought home safely he will sacrifice a finger. this sacrifice can be made at any time; either when on the warpath or when at home in camp or at the sun dance. in such cases, the finger is offered to the sun in the precise manner as the pieces of skin described above. there are, however, occasions upon which fingers are cut off that are not offerings to the sun. thus, people who are in mourning sometimes sacrifice a finger. in those cases it is usual to call upon some old woman who is skilled in the amputation. she cuts off the finger, usually reciting a kind of ritual, but it is not offered to the sun. it is simply thrown away. then again babies' fingers are sometimes cut off to give the child good luck. thus, if a woman lost many children she would call upon an old woman to make the sacrifice for her newly born. in this case, the tip end of a finger is cut off and wrapped up in a piece of meat which the mother is required to swallow. this is supposed to insure the child's living to maturity. it had no connection with the sun. i have told you how men are called upon to cut off pieces of skin and how certain old women were selected to amputate fingers. you should also know that in olden times there were some women and men who might be called upon to cut open dead persons for various reasons. sometimes they did this on their own account in order to get information as to the cause of death. these accounts show for one thing that the cutting ceremony in the sun dance is but one of a type of blood and flesh offerings made to the sun, in fulfillment of a vow. the sacrifice of a finger is more frequent and less specialized, though frequently done at the sun dance. then comes the very frequent offering of bits of skin, a sacrifice common in war raids at all times. the offering of bits of skin in the precise manner described here is found elsewhere in the plains. the writer has observed men so scarred among several divisions of the dakota. the method of removing the skin was here the same as followed by the blackfoot. the thrusting in of the awl has a curious similarity to the cutting and skewering in the sun dance; one may even be pardoned for wondering if it did not so arise. footnotes: [16] mclean, john, "the blackfoot sun dance" (_proceedings of the canadian institute_, third series, vol. 6, toronto, 1888), 235-237. [17] mclean, as an eye-witness to such a sacrifice, gives the following:- "as i stood outside the lodge, a young indian friend of mine, went to an old medicine-woman and presented his sacrifice to natos. during the year he had gone on a horse-stealing expedition and as is customary on such occasions had prayed to natos for protection and success, offering himself to his god if his prayers were answered. he had been successful and he now presented himself as a sacrifice. the old woman took his hand held it toward the sun and prayed, then laying a finger on a block of wood she severed it with one blow from a knife and deer's horn scraper. she held the portion of the finger cut off toward the sun and dedicated that to him as the young man's sacrifice." (p. 235.) sun dance songs. two songs have a special place in the ceremony. they are sung by the men as they ride into camp with the willows for the hundred-willow sweathouse. they are sung again when the procession of pole raisers moves up to raise the sun pole. formerly, they were sung by any considerable body of the tribe approaching the camp of strange indians. likewise, when they approached a post to open trade.[18] red-plume, a piegan, has a smudge stick on which are notches said to represent the number of different songs used in the ceremonies of the medicine woman. there are 413 which is said to be the full number of songs. these, as has been stated in volume 7, are in reality a part of the beaver bundle ritual. the singing at the dancing ceremonies after the sun lodge has been erected is usually confined to the songs of various societies concerned. there are, however, a few with characteristic airs that are regarded as peculiarly appropriate to the occasion, regardless of who may be dancing. footnotes: [18] for musical notation see mcclintock, walter, _the old north trail, or life, legends and religion of the blackfoot indians_ (london, 1910), 311. the sun dance camp. in a previous paper, we called attention to the belief that the camp circle was formed expressly for the sun dance. our informants say that formerly the circle was formed by the assemblage of the bands some time before the medicine woman began her fast. in winter, the tribes scattered out, usually two to five bands in a camp, often many miles apart. at the approach of summer, the husband of a woman having made a vow to give the sun dance sends a man to look up the camps and invite them to join his band. he carries tobacco and presents some to each head man with the invitation. as the head men receive the invitation, they order their bands to move, forming the circle at the medicine woman's camp. once formed, the circle is not broken until after the sun dance, a period estimated at from two to four months. the whole body may move about and even make long journeys aside from the four ceremonial moves required while the medicine woman is fasting. after the sun dance, they split up into parties for the fall hunt and finally went into winter quarters. the import of our former statement is thus apparent. the suggestion is that the camp circle is intimately associated with the sun dance. at least, one point is clear, the camp circle is initiated by the woman who starts the sun dance and even so is one of the preparatory steps. as previously stated in volume 7 of this series, there is much uncertainty as to the order of bands in the circle. we doubt if it ever was absolutely fixed beyond change at the will of those in charge of the sun dance proceedings. mythological notes. the way that several distinct myths are used to account for different features of the sun dance might be taken as a suggestion that the ceremony grew up among the blackfoot. we suspect, however, that we have here an example of pattern phenomena. those familiar with the detailed study of rituals in volume 7 will recall that tradition recognized the obvious fact that rituals were not produced all at once, but grew by accretions. this is so marked in the mythical accounts of ritual origin that we may suspect its appearance in the mythology of the sun dance. on page 241 we have enumerated the myths accounting for important features of the ceremony. among these are not included the parts taken by societies or the cutting sacrifices, they, as we have stated, not being regarded as integral parts of the sun dance. for the sake of completeness we offer some extracts from an unpublished version of the scar-face myth:-we will take up this narrative at the point where scar face has killed the cranes and reported with their scalps. we are told that had not scar face killed these birds, they would always have killed people, but that since he overpowered them they now fear people and have done so ever since. now, the sun, the moon, scar face, and morningstar had a scalp dance while the sun and moon sang the praise songs in honor of scar face. the sun addressed scar face: "when your people kill enemies they should scalp them and then give a scalp dance. whenever anyone counts coup or recounts his war experiences, the praise songs should be sung." we have followed this custom ever since. whenever anyone related his war deeds, some old men or old woman sang the praise songs, repeating the narrator's name during the singing. the sun was pleased with scar face. he directed morningstar and scar face to build four sweathouses, standing side by side, with their entrances facing east. when they were completed, the sun, morningstar, and scar face entered one of them, the moon remaining outside to close the door. after the sun had worked over scar face, he ordered the moon to open the door and they went into the next sweathouse, again choosing the moon to be the door attendant. now, the sun asked the moon to point out her son. the moon designated morningstar. they moved into the third sweathouse where the sun had morningstar and scar face exchange seats. again, the moon was asked to pick out her son. though she noticed that the scar on the young man's face had disappeared, she pointed to her own son. they proceeded to the fourth sweathouse. again, the sun had the two men exchange places. the moon looked in and pointing to scar face said, "this is morningstar." the sun replied, "you have mistaken him for morningstar, the other is our son." ever since that time, scar face has always been called mistaken morningstar. then the sun gave scar face a buckskin suit decorated with porcupine quills. on the breast and back of the shirt were quill-worked rosettes representing the sun; the side seams of the leggings and sleeves were covered with strips of quillwork three or four inches wide. in addition, the sleeves and leggings bore hair fringes representing the scalps of cranes killed by scar face. the sun also gave scar face a bow with a lock of hair fastened to one end, a whistle made of a hollow reed, a bladder, and the robe worn by scar face. to represent the scalping, the sun painted the upper part black. the whistle and the bladder were to be used on the woman who had refused scar face. the bow too, is a reminder of the killing of the cranes and is still used in the sun dance lodge. the sun gave scar face a circle of creeping juniper which the women that build the lodge (the sun dance or medicine lodge) are to wear on their heads. the sun told scar face of the sun dance, the lodge, and the sweathouse, and added, "when you return to your people and wish to make an offering to me, you must first build a sweathouse and there make your offerings. then i will hear your prayers and accept them. you may also make offerings to me in the sun dance lodge." he covered scar face's face with the "seventh" or red paint, drew a black circle around his face and a black dot on the bridge of his nose, and a streak of black around each wrist. he said to scar face, "this is the way the people must paint when they make offerings to me in the sun dance lodge. for the victory or scalp dance they must paint their faces black." the sun also gave him a necklace, in the center of which were strung two small shells and a pendent lock of hair, flanked on either side by four beads. this is the necklace worn by the husband of the woman owning the natoas. the sun's lodge was made of white buffalo robes and some the color of beaver skins. the door of the sun's lodge faced the east. for this reason, tipis were always turned so the doors faced east. now scar face decided to return to the place where spider waited. the narrative then proceeds in the usual way, except that the hero calls all the men of the camp to take revenge on the young woman after which he by magic turns her into a cripple. the blood and north blackfoot. the writer has upon two occasions seen the ground where a blood sun dance had been held. the dancing lodge, the sweathouse, etc., were still standing and all these were just as noted among the piegan. the blood lodge was a little larger, but the piegan said that it was formerly so with them, they now having very poor timber to work with. we have in addition two brief published accounts of eyewitnesses.[19] the chief difference we could detect was in the secondary dances of the society where the horns and the matoki[20] took a very prominent part. as there are now no such organizations among the piegan, this gives merely an outward appearance of difference. the northern piegan, as may be expected, also had the same form. as to the north blackfoot, we have only the statement of other indians that the sun dance was the same. the sarsi[21] also had the very same form and we may suspect the kutenai as well. at least, my piegan informants asserted that the kutenai had the sun dance from them. the problem here, however, must rest until we have more data, though hale is of the opinion that the blackfoot gradually displaced the kutenai and took over many plains traits from them.[22] footnotes: [19] mclean, _ibid._, 231-237; mcquesten, _ibid._, 1169-1177. [20] this series, volume 11, 410-418, 430-435. [21] goddard, pliny earle, "sarsi texts" (_university of california publications in american archaeology and ethnology_, vol. 11, no. 3, berkeley, 1915), 192-195. [22] hale, h., "on the north-western tribes of canada" (_report, fifty-seventh meeting, british association for the advancement of sciences_, 173-200, london, 1888), 198. sinopah _the indian boy_ by james willard schultz (ap-i-kun-i) with illustrations by e. boyd smith [illustration: logo] houghton mifflin company boston · new york · chicago · dallas san francisco the riverside press cambridge copyright, 1913, by james willard schultz all rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form the riverside press cambridge · massachusetts printed in the u.s.a. [illustration: "i call him sinopah!" (p. 15)] contents i. sinopah gets his name 1 ii. sinopah and sinopah 17 iii. sinopah and his playfellows 33 iv. sinopah's escape from the buffalo 43 v. the clay toys 54 vi. the story of scarface 69 vii. the buffalo trap 83 viii. spinning top 99 ix. sinopah's first bow 113 x. tracking a mountain lion 126 xi. sinopah joins the mosquito society 141 illustrations "i call him sinopah!" (page 15) _frontispiece_ his little body actually flew through the air 52 then it was that he suddenly turned 96 it was a fine shot 124 _from drawings by e. boyd smith_ sinopah the indian boy chapter i sinopah gets his name this is the story of sinopah, a blackfoot indian boy; he who afterward became the great chief pitamakan, or, as we say, the running eagle. i knew pitamakan well; also his white friend and partner in many adventures, thomas fox. both were my friends; they talked to me much about their boyhood days, so you may know that this is a true story. it was a great many years ago, in the time of the buffalo, that sinopah was born, and it was on a warm, sunny day in june that he first saw the light of the sun, to which he was afterward to make many a prayer. the great camp of the blackfeet was pitched on the two medicine river, one of the prettiest streams in all montana. only a few miles to the west of the camp the sharp peaks of the rocky mountains rose for thousands of feet into the clear blue air. to the north, and south, and east the great plains stretched away to the very edge of the horizon, and they were now green with the fresh grasses of spring. the mile-wide valley of the two medicine lay like a great gash in the plain, and several hundred feet below it. along the shores of the stream there was a belt of timber: big cottonwood trees, with bunches of willow, service berry, and rose-brush growing under them. elsewhere the wide, level bottoms were splotched with the green of lowland grass and the pale silver-green of sweet sage. thousands of horses grazed on these bottoms and out on the near plains; the blackfeet had so many of the animals that they could not count them all in a week's time. there were more than five hundred lodges, or wigwams, in the camp, and they were strung along the bottom, just outside of the timber belt, for several miles. each lodge was the home of one or two families, the average being eight persons to the lodge, so there were about four thousand people in this one camp of the three tribes of the blackfeet nation. those were wild days in which sinopah was born. fort benton, owned by the american fur company, was the only white settlement in all montana. the blackfeet owned all of the country from the saskatchewan river, in canada, south to the yellowstone river, and from the rocky mountains eastward for more than three hundred miles. the plains were covered with buffalo and antelope; in the mountains and along the rivers were countless numbers of elk, deer, bighorn, moose, black and grizzly bears, wolves, and many smaller animals. so it was that the blackfeet were very rich. they had always plenty of meat and berries, soft robes and furs, and with their many horses they roamed about on their great plains and hunted, and were happy. usually the birth of a child in the great camp was hardly mentioned. but on this june morning the news spread quickly from one end to the other of it that in the lodge of white wolf there was a baby boy. there was much talk about it because white wolf was a great chief, and it was well known that he had long wanted a son. everybody now said that the gods had been good, and had given him his wish. all that day the medicine men and warriors kept going to his lodge to say how pleased they were that this had come to him. the chief's lodge was a very large one. it was made of twenty cow buffalo skins that had been tanned into soft leather, cut to the right shape, and sewed together with sinew thread. this, the lodge skin, as it was called, was stretched over twenty-four long, tough, and slender pine poles set in the shape of a cone. the lower edge or skirt of the skin did not touch the ground by a space of something like four inches. but inside there was a lining of leather, weighted to the ground by the couches and sacks of household property, and extending upward for five or six feet. thus, between this lining and the outer lodge skin there was a space of the thickness of the lodge poles, and this was the draught flue. the cold air rushed up through it and out of the open top of the lodge, carrying with it the smoke from the fire. there were two large wings, or "ears," at the top of the skin, held stretched out by two long poles. these were shifted one way or another to protect the opening from the wind, and so the lodge was always free from smoke. the skin was waterproof; the lining kept the wind out; and so, even in the coldest winter weather, a very small fire in the centre of the lodge made the people very comfortable. at night, when the fire died out, they lay in their warm beds of buffalo robes and slept just as well as you do ill your warm home. it was in the afternoon that wesley fox, a great man of the american fur company, and uncle of thomas fox, came to white wolf's lodge. a number of warriors coming out of it greeted him pleasantly. he waited until they had passed, then raised the curtain of the little, oblong doorway, and stepped inside. "ok-yi!" (welcome) said white wolf, and motioned him to a place on his right, which was the seat for honored guests. the chief's face was all smiles. he rubbed his hands together, then spatted them, and said, in his own language, of course, "white brother mine, this is the happiest day of my life. i have a son. look, now, what a fine one he is, how big for one born this day as the sun was coming up. we are going to name him right away, and i ask you to stay and take part in the naming feast." wesley fox was already looking at the child, or, rather, at its head, which was all of it that could be seen. it was wrapped around and around, arms and all, in several bandages of soft cloth, and then laced into a cradle, the back of which was a piece of rough-hewn board. the lacings held the roll of him flat against it: he could not move hand or foot, or his head either, except for an inch or two to the right or left. altogether, in his odd wrappings and lacings, he looked like a little mummy from the tombs of the egyptian kings. the cradle was propped up at the foot of his mother's couch, so that he rested in an almost upright position. the mother, half sitting up against a willow slat back-rest, gazed across the length of the couch at the round little face, and there was a world of love shining in her big dark eyes. the baby's face, as well as its short, thin hair, was of a red bronze color. it had a funny, tender little mouth, and its eyes were very bright. all at once it began to pucker its mouth and make a queer little cry. "there! there! mother," the chief said anxiously, "it is crying; maybe it is sick. oh, what if it should get real sick and die? do something at once for it, woman. if you don't know what to do, i'll get some wise old women to come in." "there is nothing wrong with it. all babies cry a little," said the mother. and raising herself, she caught hold of the bottom of the cradle and drew it to her. there was no more crying, and the chief was happy again. presently an old, old medicine man, or sun priest, came in, followed by a number of warriors and women, all of them relatives of white wolf or of his wife. they were made welcome, and filling and lighting his great stone pipe the chief passed it to the man nearest him, and then it went clear around the circle, each one of the guests taking a few whiffs of smoke. after the smoke several women of the lodge passed around the feast, giving to each guest a wooden dish containing broiled buffalo tongue, dried camas root, and fresh, puckery berries of the red willow. there was much talk and laughter. the women passed the baby from one to another, kissing it, saying how much it looked like its father, and talking foolish little words to it just as white women do to a baby of their kind. the feast was soon over. no one was really hungry and only a very small portion of the food was eaten. the old medicine man, i-kus-kin-i, or low horn, by name, had brought his own pipe, and now filled and lighted it and passed it around. he knew why he had been invited to the lodge, but for all that it was white wolf's duty to tell the reason for the gathering of relatives, and so the chief made a little speech. "relatives and friends," he said, "soon after the sun came in sight this morning, he looked down and saw my new-born boy. before he goes out of sight to his lodge to-night, i think it right that he should know the new-born's name. so it is that i have asked you all to gather here. i call upon our old friend low horn to say what the name shall be, and i now make him a small present: low horn, in my band of horses grazing out yonder on the plain is a certain four-year-old black-and-white pinto. i give him to you. a white three-year-old, a roan four-year-old with a split ear, and a gray five-year-old, well broken and a swift buffalo runner, i also give you. let us hear the name." "yes, yes!" every one exclaimed; "let us hear the name, o wise one." there followed a long silence. the old medicine man sat bowed over in deep thought. in his hands was a small buckskin sack ornamented with bands of colored porcupine quill embroidery. presently he laid the sack on the ground, straightened up, and said:-"we all know that the naming of a new-born boy is an important matter. some names bring good luck, some bring bad luck. i am going to try hard to give this little one a name that will please the gods, and cause them to favor him. "listen! it was long ago in my young days. one winter day i took my bow and arrows and walked up on the plain to hunt buffalo. i saw a large band of them on some far hills and started out that way toward them. the day was cloudy and before i left camp people were saying that more snow was about to fall. after sighting the buffalo i hoped that a storm would come, for in the thick of it the animals would be easily approached. i walked on and on as fast as i could, for the herd was a long way off. when i was out in the middle of the great plain, cold-maker suddenly came out of the north. as always, he hid himself in the thick snowfall, which he drove in all directions with fierce cold winds. no one has ever seen the shape of him because of that. the stinging snow beat against my face, then at my back, then swirled around and around me. i could not see the distance of twenty steps in any direction, and knew not which way was the river and camp. i was lost and beginning to freeze. i prayed the gods to have pity; in some way to show me the way to the river. "then out of the awful swirling and drifting snow came a little creature with head down and drooping tail. it was a sinopah. [the "swift" or "kit" fox of the north-western plains.] "it passed close to me, showing no fear, just looking up once at me, its black eyes shining strangely, deep down in its snow-caked hair: 'oh, little brother,' i cried, 'you are going to the sheltering timber of the river. do not haste; guide me thither, else i die.' "sinopah was almost out of sight then, although so near. but when i asked for his help, he stopped and looked back, as if waiting for me. i walked toward him as fast as i could, holding my robe close against my face so as to shield it from the stinging snow. sinopah waited until i was within ten steps of him, then pushed sidling on against the drift until nearly out of sight again, when he stopped as before, as if waiting. and so we went on and on. sometimes the wind was in my face, sometimes beating against my side or back, but i knew that that was a trick of cold-maker. he wanted to confuse me; to make me think that i was going now in one direction, and again turning another way. he wanted me to go around and around in a circle until he could kill me with his freezing winds. "through it all i had faith. i believed that the gods had heard my prayers; that sinopah had been sent by them to save me. sometimes, when it seemed as if he certainly had turned and was going straight back the way we had come, doubts for a moment filled my mind, but i thrust them out. the cold grew more and more bitter; the snow rushed and whirled into deeper and deeper drifts. i became weary; i wanted to lie down and sleep; and at the last it was all i could do to struggle on. i could not have traveled much farther when suddenly we began to descend a steep hill, and i knew that we were leaving the plain and going down into the river valley. it was so. we soon got to the bottom and went on through the tall sagebrush of the lowlands. and then, seemingly very far off, but really only a few steps distant, the naked branches of cottonwoods appeared in the thick, driving snow, and i could hear the wind crying through them. i hastened then, as fast as i could, and soon stood in the shelter of the timber bordering the river. right in front of me was a dead, bent old tree that i remembered having seen before; the camp was just a little way up from it. 'little brother,' i cried, 'you have saved me.' "but sinopah was gone. i could not see him anywhere about. i went on and soon came to the camp and to my own lodge. i was saved. sinopah had led me straight home. there and then i made a vow: ever afterward, when passing the dens of the sinopahs, if i had meat i dropped a piece of it for them and their young." "ah, hah, hai!" all the guests exclaimed. "how wonderful. great medicine was sinopah." "pass me the new-born one," said low horn. a woman placed the laced little form in his hands and he looked long and kindly down at the round, smooth face. then, taking sacred, dull-red paint from a little buckskin sack, he carefully rubbed it on the baby's forehead, nose, cheeks, and chin. lastly he held the child face upward toward the sun, and said: "o all-powerful sun, and you, nap-i (old man), maker-of-the-world: behold, i have painted the new-born one with your own sacred color, and now i name him. i give him a name for his young days. a name to last until he becomes a warrior and makes a name for himself. i call him sinopah. "have pity on sinopah, o you great ones. make him grow up strong and brave; fill his heart with love for father and mother, and kind feeling for all our people. give him long life, o maker-of-the-world, and you, wonderful maker-of-the-days. have pity on us all, men, women, and children; give us all long life. i have said." "ai! ai! you gods, have pity on us," all the guests cried, and at that they all arose and went their ways. the boy was named. chapter ii sinopah and sinopah all summer long, and all through the many moons of winter, the little sinopah remained laced against his cradle-board the greater part of the time. the object in keeping him in such a position was so to shape the bones of his body that he would grow straight. straight as an arrow, instead of round-shouldered and bent, as so many white children are allowed to take shape by careless or ignorant mothers. the close confinement in the cradle did not hurt him at all; but sometimes the one position grew irksome and the baby fretted. then the mother would take him out of the cradle and let him roll naked on her couch until he tired and fell asleep, when back he would be put against the cradle-board. when summer came again, sinopah was a year old, and from that moon of his first birthday he spent less and less time in the cradle, and more and more time in creeping about on his mother's couch, or near her out on the clean, short grass. then, along in the autumn, after many attempts, he toddled on uncertain legs from his mother's to his father's knee as the two sat a few feet apart in the lodge. that was a great day for white wolf. straightway he gave a feast and summoned all the relatives, that they too might see his young son walk. uncles and aunts, they all loved the child and were proud of him; and his old gray-headed grandfather, mik-sik-um, or red crane, was his almost constant companion as soon as he began to creep. on this day the little fellow wore for the first time the suit of war-clothes his mother had been long in making. the clean, white, fringed buckskin shirt blazed with bright embroidery work, of dyed porcupine quills. the breech-clout of red cloth was held in place with a beaded belt. the fringed buckskin leggings were painted with small diagonal stripes of yellow and red ochre. the dainty little moccasins were embroidered with a solid mass of fine, glittering beads in the symbol of the sun. very quaint and brave he looked in all his finery, and his infant mind and eyes were pleased with it all. he crowed and gurgled and laughed, and, with many a fall between, went from one to another of the admiring circle of guests. once he fell and struck his head against his father's tobacco-board. all present there held their breath, anxiously watching to see what he would do. but he did not cry: he sat up quickly, made a wry face, rubbed the bruised spot for a moment, then got up and lurched on to his mother's arms. "oh-ho-hai!" every one exclaimed, clapping hand to mouth; "he heeds not pain; he perseveres; he will become a great warrior." "i give him a yellow pinto mare and a brown mare," cried an uncle. "white wolf, come and get them out of my band to-morrow and put them with your herd." then up spoke one after another of the guests, each making a present of one or more animals. in a few minutes the little sinopah became the owner of thirty-five good, young mares: "oh-ho-hai!" the old grandfather quavered, joyfully smiling and rubbing his wrinkled hands together, "think of the colts that will be coming every spring. before ever sinopah is able to go to war, he will be rich." up to this time sinopah had been bathed in tepid water in the lodge. his father now took him in hand and upon arising every morning carried him to the river for a quick dip in the cold water. it was cold, the autumn frosts having already begun, but, though the little fellow's tender flesh shrank from contact with it and he gasped, never a cry came from his firm-set lips. day after day the weather grew colder. winter came and the streams and lakes froze over, but the morning bath was continued just the same, holes frequently having to be chopped in the ice in order to get into the water. and no matter how cold it was, sinopah went naked in his father's arms from the warm bed out on the snapping, groaning river ice, and into the water without a murmur. afterward, following a rub before the fire, he felt so strong and lively that he couldn't sit still a minute, and while his mother cooked the morning meal, white wolf sat on watch to keep him from tumbling into the fire. the early morning bath was taken by all the blackfeet, young and old, every day in the year. they believed that it enabled them to hunt on the plains in the very coldest weather, without freezing, and they were right. i have seen them cutting up game with bare hands when the weather was so cold that i did not dare take off my gloves for even a moment; and yet not even their finger tips were nipped by the cruel frost. sinopah had no other food than his mother's milk until his teeth were well grown. after that time he lived almost entirely on the meat of buffalo and other game, with sometimes a few berries and roots, fresh or dried. fat buffalo meat was very nourishing. the women broiled or boiled it, and when great quantities of it were brought in by the hunters, they cut it into thin sheets and dried it in the sun for future use. sometimes they pounded the dried meat into particles as fine as meal, and made pemmican of it. this was done by mixing the pounded meat with marrow grease; that is, grease taken from the bones of the animals. when mixed, the stuff was put into bags of freshly killed hide, and then the mouths of the bags were sewed up. as the hide became dry it shrank tightly around the pemmican and made a very solid and heavy package. one of these, not larger than a half-bushel measure, weighed more than a hundred pounds. the grease preserved the meat, and the hide pretty well kept the air from it. the mixture was always sweet and good for many months, and was so very rich that a half pound of it was enough for a meal for a big, hungry man. all the blackfeet women kept a supply of pemmican constantly on hand. it was considered a great delicacy, and was most often used for a part of a feast or gathering of the people. when sinopah was three years old, his father brought him one day a fuzzy, gray-haired animal which he had captured out on the plains. it was a "swift" or "kit" fox not more than a month old. "there, my son, is a pet for you," he said; "and now we have two sinopah young ones in this lodge; one with two legs, and one with four." sinopah was not old enough to understand that, but he reached out for the funny little animal and held it tight to his breast. it did not offer to bite him, and was still too small to have any fear of man. it did fear the dogs at first, but soon became accustomed to them. sinopah's mother fed it all the meat it could eat every day, and it became very tame and playful. it loved the boy best of all the people in the lodge, and at night always slept beside him, curling up in a little fluffy ball on the pillow. it never made any noise during the daytime, but at night, if alarmed by anything, it would rouse up and bark in the oddest kind of a way. the noise it made was very hoarse and rasping and muffled, as if it were trying to bark with its mouth full of food. white wolf owned several hundred horses. they were allowed to graze out on the plains during the daytime, but at sundown they were all driven into camp and the leaders of the herd and the valuable buffalo runners and war-horses were picketed close to the lodge, to prevent the enemy stealing them. the blackfeet were always at war with the sioux, crows, crees, and other tribes, and parties of these warriors were always prowling around. one bright moonlight night, after the fire had died out and every one was sound asleep, the little fox gave a couple of hoarse, low growls that awakened sinopah's mother. the moonlight was streaming straight down through the smoke-hole of the lodge, making everything inside as plain as day, and she could see the little fellow sniffing the air with its slender, black, keen nose, and working its big, long ears nervously as it cocked its head to one side and another, listening intently. "what hear you, little wise one? what is it outside, o keen smeller?" she whispered, reaching over and patting him on the back. her caressing hand gave him courage; he got up and sneaked out of the lodge, crouching so close to the ground that his belly fairly touched it. the lodge skin was always kept raised a few inches at one side of the doorway so he could go and come whenever he chose to. this time he was gone no more than a minute. back he came on the run, barking hoarsely, all his fur stiff on end, and climbed onto the couch, snuggling close to his best friend, sinopah. "wake up! wake up," the mother whispered, bending over white wolf and shaking him. "awake! the little fox has been outside and has returned terribly scared." no sooner were the words spoken than white wolf was out of bed and making for the doorway of the lodge with gun in hand. kneeling down he drew the curtain slowly aside and looked out: not ten steps away a man was untieing the rope of his best buffalo horse from the picket-pin. as quickly as possible he poked his gun out, took aim, and fired. bang it went, and following the report the man gave a piercing scream, leaped high in the air, and fell, never to move again. at that the whole camp was awakened. men rushed out of their lodges and began shooting at a number of the enemy, some running away on foot, others riding off on horses they had already loosed from the pickets. some of the women in the lodges cried wildly in their terror; children yelled; dogs barked and howled. but in white wolf's lodge not a sound was to be heard. little sinopah waked up, heard the shooting and yelling and confusion of noise, and began to cry, but his mother quieted him at once: "there! there!" she said, putting him back in the bed and covering him up; "it is nothing; only some men come to steal horses and father is driving them away." but for all her brave words her heart was full of fear. the enemy was shooting back at the men of the camp; one of their bullets might make her a widow and sinopah an orphan. she began praying the gods to bring white wolf safely back. shivering from fright the little fox stuck his nose under the robe covering of the couch, then wriggled down beside the boy and growled occasionally. the mother sat waiting and watching. the old grandfather had been fumbling back of his couch for his bow and quiver case. he found it now and went hobbling out of the lodge on his rheumatic legs, muttering what he would do to the enemy if he could get within bow-shot of them. soon after the old man went out, the shooting and yelling ceased, and in a few moments the frightened women and children became quiet. then, away out on the plain, faint at first, but growing louder and louder, was heard the victory song. all knew what that meant: the men of the camp had killed some of the enemy and were returning. at that the people began to pour out of the lodges, each one joyfully shouting the name of husband, brother, or son who had been in the fight. sinopah's mother gently lifted him from the couch and hurried out with him in her arms, crying: "white wolf! my man white wolf! he has fought the enemy and returns victorious; a great chief is my man white wolf." close in front of the lodge a crowd of women and children was gathering, and she edged her way into it. there in their midst lay a man stretched out on his back, his wide-open, glassy eyes staring straight up at the moon; but the light had gone out of them forever. old red crane was bending over the body examining it: "'t is a crow warrior," he suddenly shouted, "and 't was my son who killed him. great is white wolf, the chief." "true! true!" everyone cried. "white wolf is a chief." the old man looked around, saw sinopah, and took him from his mother's arms: "look, little one," he said: "see what your father has done. he has killed an enemy. that is a crow warrior; your father killed him." sinopah, looking down, clapped his hands and laughed. "crow enemy," he lisped. "father killed him." and then he saw a necklace of big, long grizzly bear claws around the man's neck: "give me! give me!" he cried, motioning at it impatiently with his little hand. "sinopah wants bear finger necklace." "yes, yes. you shall have it," old red crane answered; and stooping over he cut the string, then retied it and slipped the necklace over the boy's head. sinopah shook it and the hard claws rattled against one another; that pleased him and he laughed. again red crane called his attention to the dead enemy and quavered: "when sinopah grows up he must be brave and kill many crow men." the boy laughed and answered: "sinopah kill many crows." meantime the men of the camp, some on horses and some on foot, were coming closer, and still singing the victory song. at last they came into the camp bringing the scalps and weapons of five crows they had overtaken and killed. true, the crows had managed to take a few horses and get away with them, but that did not matter; there were plenty of horses. the whole camp went wild with joy over the killing of the enemy. all the rest of the night there was feasting, singing, and dancing, and over and over the men told how they had pursued the enemy and fought them. all of this made a deep impression upon sinopah. in a way his child mind grasped the fact that to kill an enemy was the greatest thing a blackfoot could do. all through the excitement red crane was by his side pointing out how the people praised his father, and making him repeat after them: "white wolf! a great chief is white wolf." when daylight came the old man led him out for another look at the dead crow in front of the lodge, and the boy had no fear of the cold, still form. that was what the old grandfather wanted: to impress upon him the fact that a dead enemy was something to make the heart glad. it was later in the day that sinopah's mother told how the little fox had been first to discover the enemy and give the alarm. the story soon spread through the camp, and as owner of the pet, the boy came in for a share of the praise that was given it. among others, the old medicine man low horn came to the lodge. after a smoke, he made those present a little speech: "i can see that this little sinopah is going to have great luck," he said. "surely the gods favor him. it was their will that he should have the pet fox that saved us some lives and our horses last night. my medicine tells me that this boy is to be a great warrior; that he will live long; that he will be full of pity for those who mourn, and generous to the aged and the widows and orphans." "that is what we all pray for," said the old grandfather. "i hope that the gods will spare me a little while longer. i want to help white wolf teach the boy. i want to be here to see him returning proud and successful from his first war-trail." chapter iii sinopah and his playfellows it was not until sinopah was four years old that his mother ever let him out of her sight. if she missed him for a minute, even, she would run about and find him, and keep him close to her side. white wolf often told her that she should give the little one more freedom, but for answer she would only shake her head and reply: "you are wrong. he is very much too young to be turned loose." so white wolf let her have her way until sinopah's fourth summer came, and then he said to her one day: "you have done well with this boy of ours. you have fed him good food and kept him strong and healthy. but it is not right for a boy to be long kept in the lodge; he must learn early to make a play of the things that he will have to do in earnest when he grows up. from this day on he shall go about as he pleases with the children of the camp." "what you say to do must be done," tsistsaki replied, "and i know that you are right. but you know how it is with us women; we are always timid. therefore, for a time, when our son goes out to play, i will go too. at least i will be near enough to see that no harm comes to him." tsistsaki, i had forgotten to tell you, was the name of sinopah's mother. in the blackfoot language it means little bird woman. that is a very pretty name and a very good one. before her time many noted women of the tribe had borne it, and for that reason she was very glad that it had been given to her. in the next lodge there was a little boy seven years old, named lone bull, and his younger sister otaki, yellow weasel woman, with whom the little sinopah was now allowed to play, and they were very glad to have him with them. there were also many other children in that part of the camp, some of them much older than these, and often there would be twenty or thirty of them together in their different games. better than all the rest, sinopah liked lone bull and otaki, perhaps because they lived so close to him, and then their mothers were very close friends. the two mothers got together one day and planned what was to be a surprise for the children. having decided, they set to work and for all of a moon's time they were very busy when the little ones were out playing. and often, when all others were asleep, they worked far into the night by the light of the little lodge fires. another part of the work was the training of three big dogs for their share in the game; and right here i must tell you about this breed. the indians never had horses until they obtained them from the spaniards, who brought some to mexico soon after the discovery of america. before that time, and long afterwards until these animals became plentiful in all the western country, the indians used dogs as pack-animals. when moving camp they were made to carry heavy bundles of household, or, rather, "lodge-hold" things, and the hunters always made them lug in big packs of meat. long before sinopah was born, the blackfeet had so many horses that the dogs were no longer used; but the people loved the animals and had many of them; some lodges as many as twenty-five or thirty. they were very tall and heavy, long-haired and broad-headed, and much of the color of the wolf, to which they were very closely related. at night when the wolves howled all around the camp, the dogs would answer them; and then the people would say: "listen! they are talking to their brothers out there on the plain." the mothers made pack-saddles for the dogs, and got them used to being packed and led by a rawhide strand. then one day, when the children were playing in the timber back of the lodges, they packed all the things they had made on two of the dogs, and fastened the small ends of fourteen slender pine poles to the saddle of the third dog, and made him drag them. so, leading the dogs, they turned into the timber and soon came to where the children were playing. sinopah was the first to notice them, and what he saw was so surprising that at first he could hardly believe his eyes, and stood staring with his little mouth wide open. and well he might; for except that they were packed dogs instead of packed horses, it was as if the women were moving camp. the first dog carried a small, new, and brightly painted parfleche, or rawhide pouch shaped like an envelope, on each side of its saddle, and piled on top, and firmly lashed with a stout rawhide rope, were several small blankets and buffalo robes. the second dog also carried two parfleches and a couple of robes, and tied on top of the pack was a small hudson's bay company copper kettle. besides dragging the lodge poles, the third dog carried a bundle that looked like a small lodge skin, and that is just what it was. sinopah found his voice: "what is it?" he cried. "oh, how funny; my dogs packed just like horses." and then lone bull and otaki began to dance around the dogs: "oh, sinopah! we know what all this is," they shouted. "your mother and ours have given us a little lodge and everything to go in it." "ai! they speak truth, little one," his mother told him; "come, we are going to make camp for you. now, where shall it be?" "let me lead the first dog and be chief," said lone bull. "i will go ahead and choose the place for the camp." so the little procession started, each child leading a dog, the mothers following and laughing. they had worked long and hard for all this, and were very happy because the children were so excited and pleased. lone bull, very quiet and solemn-faced now, led them under three large cottonwood trees near the edge of the river. "we will camp here," he said. "in this place the camp will be well sheltered from the wind. out there on the plain is plenty of rich grass for the horses. here is good water for all. back of the bluffs there, the plain is covered with buffalo. the hunters will make big killings and the camp will be red with meat. come, sinopah, sit you down here with me while the women put up the lodge and get things in shape for the night." the mothers laughed to hear him talking so wisely, and giving orders just as if he was a chief. they soon unpacked the dogs, little otaki helping all she could. that was the way things were done by the blackfeet. the women did all the work of packing and unpacking the animals, making camp and getting firewood and water. but they did not work too hard; not nearly as hard as most white women who have a family and no servants. the men rested when in camp and were waited on by the women; but they did their share of work: in good weather and bad they hunted to provide food for their own families, and for all the widows and orphans and the old and crippled people of the great camp. that, and herding horses, fighting the enemy, and making their bows and arrows, their shields and clothing, kept them generally busy. when the dogs were unpacked and turned loose, the women tied four lodge poles together about two feet from the tips,--they were fourteen feet long,--and then set them up in the form of a square-based cone, after which all save one of the remaining poles were laid up in a circle, their tips resting in the crotches formed by the tips of the original four. the upper edge of the lodge skin was then tied to the remaining pole at the proper height, and with it raised at the back of the lodge. it was easy then to bring the side edges of the lodge skin around and fasten them together in the front with wooden skewers. lastly, the poles were pushed outward at the bottom until the skin set tightly over them. the women then hung a curtain over the little round hole in front that answered for a doorway. the bedding of robes and blankets was carried in and made up in three couches. the parfleches, tightly stuffed with dried meat, dried berries, and pemmican, were taken in and laid open near the door, water was brought in the little kettle, and the work was done. it was a fine little lodge, the skin made of tanned elk hides and almost snow-white. at the base it was about ten feet in diameter, large enough for a dozen or more children to play in. although lone bull and sinopah were playing chiefs, they could not carry it out to the end. long before everything was fixed, they went inside and got in the way of the busy women, but the mothers did not scold them. a small fire was soon made in the centre of the lodge, and when it had burned down to a bed of red coals some sheets of dried meat were quickly roasted on them. never were there happier children than those three, sitting there in their own little lodge and eating the first meal in it. they at once began to plan their play for the next day, and at sundown were glad enough to go home with their mothers, leaving the big cottonwood trees to guard their treasures during the night. chapter iv sinopah's escape from the buffalo that evening the chiefs of the tribe held a council and decided to move camp from the marias river, where they then were, out to the sweet-grass hills. these are three lone buttes about one hundred miles east of the main range of the rocky mountains, and right on the line separating montana and the canadian province of alberta. there were then, however, no monuments to mark the boundary of the two countries. the line had not yet been surveyed. when the blackfeet were told that the americans--long knives--owned the country to the south of the hills, and the english--the red coats--the land north of them, they only laughed, and said: "that is a mistake. neither the red coats nor the long knives own any of this country. away back in the beginning of things our god whom we call old man, made the world, and the animals, and us. when he made this part of the world he saw that it was the best of all, and so he gave it to us. it is our land; the white people cannot have it." when they said that, the blackfeet did not know how many the white people were and how strong. since that time their game has all been killed, and their lands have been taken from them by the white race. but i must go on with my story. very early the next morning, the camp crier went through the great camp shouting that it was to be moved to the sweet-grass hills. almost as fast as he went the lodges came down behind him. the men drove in and caught the horses, the women packed them, and in a very short time the long column of riders, loose and packed horses was strung out, heading north across the big plain. there were so many people, so many horses, that the column was all of three miles long. most of the men and women were splendidly dressed in buckskin clothes, beaded and painted and fringed; and then the trappings of the horses, the queer pouches, sacks, and parfleches they carried, were also painted in bright colors, so that the whole procession was not unlike a rainbow snake moving out across the brown plain. it was a romantic and barbaric pageant of shifting color. on this morning there was something new in the column. along in the centre of it, behind the horses that carried white wolf's lodge and packs, and his family, walked the three dogs, one behind another, loaded with the play lodge and the little packs. most of the children of the tribe had not seen them working the day before, and now they came crowding close on their horses, very much excited, and wishing that they could have such an outfit. right behind the dogs were sinopah and lone bull and otaki on their ponies, and they were very much pleased at all this attention. "you must come and visit us when we set up the little lodge," they kept telling the other children, and all promised that they would do so. "but here are many hundred little ones," sinopah's mother told him. "they can't all get into the lodge." "some can come in one time, and some another," he replied; "and it is nice just to stand and look at the outside of it." sinopah was getting wise. there had been so much hunting near the river that the game had been driven far out on the plains, and that was the reason the chiefs had decided to move to another camping-ground, where meat could be more quickly and easily killed by the hunters. it was about thirty miles across country to the hills. for half that distance only a few old buffalo bulls and two or three bands of very wild antelope were seen. but when about ten miles from the middle butte the people could see thousands and thousands of buffalo and other game close to the north, the east, and the west. most of the men now rode ahead of the column to hunt. they could be seen chasing different herds of the buffalo on their swift, trained horses, and shooting them with guns and bow and arrows; and where they passed were left many of the big, brown, shaggy-haired animals lying dead on the plain, or standing all humped up on weakening legs, sorely wounded, and soon to tumble down and die. the sight made the hearts of the people glad; there would be plenty of fresh, fat meat, many rich tongues to roast for the evening meal; food for many, many days to come. the old men watched the chase with glistening eyes, and became so excited that many of them pounded their safe, slow horses with heels and quirt, forgetting for the moment that they could not be made to go faster than an ambling trot; and so they fell to talking of what big hunts they had made in their young days. to the east the hunters who had gone in that direction rode out of sight behind a low ridge on the plain and chased a herd of several thousand buffalo. at first the animals ran eastward, but the wind was from the west and as they always ran against it, they soon circled and came thundering over the ridge and straight toward the long column of the moving camp. the hunters saw the danger in that, but could not turn them. the women and then the children began to shriek and cry, the old men to shout and try to drive a part of the column forward, the other part back, so as to save them from being gored and trampled by the frightened and wildly rushing herd. it was a terrible sight, that resistless mass of huge and sharp-horned animals coming straight for the centre of the column of traveling people. the leaders of the herd, the swiftest of the cows, had of course by this time smelled the riders, but they were now powerless to stop or to turn back, for the closely packed herd behind was pushing them; they had to keep going or be trampled to death. the old men had now succeeded in dividing the column by a little gap, and were driving the women and children and the pack-animals to the north and to the south, crowding them and widening the gap as fast as possible. the confusion increased. the horses squealed and kicked one another, and some of the frightened pack-animals ran away, scattering their loads along the plain. a few old women, regardless of danger, rode bawling after them in hope of recovering their little keepsakes and treasures. when the column was separated by a clear space of several hundred yards, the buffalo began passing through it, on each edge so close to the people that the wind caused by their rush could be felt, and their black, angrily gleaming eyes could be plainly seen. the noise of their thudding and rattling hoofs and clashing horns was terrific. sinopah and his mother were right at the north edge of the gap. his little pony, always very gentle before this, now began to get frightened and show signs of running away; and before any one could prevent it, it bolted straight out toward the passing buffalo. "oh, my boy! my little boy! save him!" his mother shrieked, and madly whipping her horse, and without thought of the danger, took after him. other women shrieked and called for help. the old men there yelled and followed after the mother, resolved to save her and the boy, and half crazed because of the slowness of their horses. sinopah never once cried out or looked back. the people watching saw his little mouth tightly shut, saw him gripping the saddle with both hands, and they yelled to him to let go; to fall off. and at the same time they knew that it was useless to shout to him, for even a clap of thunder would have been lost in the roar and clatter of the passing herd. it was only a few yards across the clear space to the edge of the stream of buffalo. as the pony ran he seemed to go faster and faster. the people watching lost all hope, and so did the mother and the old men; but without a thought for themselves they only whipped their horses the harder and pressed on. the pony now had only a few more jumps to make in order to reach the buffalo, but, excited as he was, still, from force of habit he was watching out for safe footing. so it was that when almost on the point of hitting a badger hole he suddenly jumped sideways to save himself; jumped as quickly as a cat could have done, at a right angle to his course. sinopah was not prepared for that, he was only bracing himself for straight-ahead running, and so when the pony jumped sideways he was jerked loose from all holds. his little body actually flew out of the saddle, went spinning through the air, and down he came to the ground on his feet, then fell, and went rolling over and over on the short, thick grass, and almost into the stream of buffalo. the pony kept on. as he came to the herd the animals shrank and made way for him; he entered the gap and in an instant it closed and he was lost to sight. sinopah's mother reached him almost as soon as he stopped rolling. jumping from her horse, she snatched him up from the ground and ran back as fast as she could go, thinking no more of the horse nor caring what became of it. one of the old men caught the animal and turned it over to her later. just as she got back to the people the last of the long herd of buffalo passed, and the thunder of their hoofs soon died away. she set sinopah down on his feet and looked at him, felt of him, all the men and women and children there crowding around. sinopah was not crying, nor laughing: just then his father came up on a big horse all covered with foam, and he cried out to him: "nina, awt-sim-o-ta no-tas. nok-o-twe-in-is." (father, my horse ran away. go get him.) [illustration: his little body actually flew through the air] every one laughed then, and white wolf was quickly told what had happened. very gently he reached down and drew sinopah up on the saddle in front of him: "i am not surprised that the boy escaped," he said. "i feel that the gods are good to this son of mine. i am sure that they intend him to live to great age." chapter v the clay toys the hunters had killed several hundred buffalo in the chase, so the chiefs ordered camp to be pitched right there beside a small prairie lake, and for five days the people were busy stretching and curing the buffalo hides, and cutting the tons and tons of meat into thin sheets and drying it. that first evening by the lake there was much talk about the narrow escape of sinopah. a number of instances were recalled where the end had been different. "i remember a day away back in my youth, when chief three suns lost his little girl in just such a way," said red crane. "horses are uncertain animals. they don't have much sense at any time. you all know how often they go crazy with excitement. that was just what happened to sinopah's pony to-day. the passing of that great stream of buffalo, their swift running, the thunder of their hoofs, all was too much for his little brain. he just couldn't help running too; some strange attraction there was which caused him to go right into the herd and run with it. "well, about this little girl: the hunters had chased and killed many buffalo and the women were at work skinning the animals and cutting up the meat. the little girl sat on her pony watching her mother cut up a big fat cow, when over the hill came a big herd of buffalo that had been feeding at a distance, had seen the other herd running, and now were running to join it. the animals came close in passing, and suddenly the pony went crazy and ran to join them. too late the mother ran to grasp its trailing rope. the little girl was tied fast in her saddle, so she could not fall out of it if she tried to. in about the distance of a bowshot that pony was right in front of the rushing buffalo, and they, running faster, soon closed in around it. once in a while we could see the little girl's head above the shaggy backs of the great animals as her pony jumped along with them; and then suddenly, a huge bull stuck its head under the pony and tossed it and the little girl high in the air. down they came on the backs of other buffalo, and that was the end for them. there was mourning in the camp that night, and for many a moon afterward in the lodge of three suns." sinopah had not shown much interest in his grandfather's story, and now that it was ended he wriggled out of his mother's arms and going over to his father, said:-"but my horse is not dead, father; it ran away with the buffalo. i want you to find and bring him back to me." "that i shall not do," the chief grimly answered. "i forbid any one in this camp to bring it in. 'tis an animal of crazy head and evil heart. here, now, i give it to the sun, also the saddle that is on its back. mother, make a new saddle for the boy. in place of the pony, i give him that gentle old black-and-white pinto to ride." "but i have my own horses; plenty of them," sinopah objected. "let me ride one of them." "not until you are much older," his father answered. "they are all wild and too strong-mouthed for your little hands to guide." as soon as the meat was dried, the people moved on to the middle butte of the sweet-grass hills, and from there through the gap to milk river, which runs past the northern slope of the small range. the lodges were set up in the edge of the timber bordering the stream, and the play lodge of the children was placed under some big trees close to the water. the tribe remained here for several moons. with their mothers to watch them, and often grandfather red crane, sinopah and lone bull and otaki passed the long days playing in and around the little lodge. they had crowds of guests, children coming from all parts of the big camp to join in their sports. a favorite game of blackfeet children, and one as old as the tribe itself, was the making of clay images of the different animals of the country. not all clay was good for this purpose, some of it falling apart, or cracking, as soon as it dried. the best was dark gray in color, very fine-grained, and tough when mixed with a few drops of water to about an ounce of the material. grandfather red crane discovered a foot-thick deposit of this good clay in a riverbank near the play lodge and called the children: "come over here, all of you," he shouted; "here is image earth in plenty. now i want to see which one of you can make the best buffalo." with sinopah and his two chums were a dozen other children. at the call of the old man, they all ran to him and with sticks and sharp stones began digging out lumps of the clay; pieces from the size of a hazelnut up to that of a hen's egg. these were angular in shape and very hard and tough, but that didn't matter. each child found a good-sized, flat, smooth rock, and on it mashed the clay lumps to fine powder with a smooth hand-stone. the longer the stuff was pounded, the more flour-like it became, the better it would be for making the images. some of the children were in such a hurry to start making these that they didn't half pound their clay, and afterwards their work cracked and fell to pieces. sinopah had never before played this game, so grandfather red crane sat beside him and directed the work. it was work, hard work, the pounding of the clay, and the perspiration dripped from his forehead as he kept on until it was very fine. it was done at last, and the old man gathered it in a flat heap in the centre of the flat rock. they were sitting right at the edge of the river, and dipping his fingers into the water he sprinkled the clay two or three times, and then began kneading it, just as a cook does flour for bread. "put your hand into it; feel of it," old red crane told sinopah every few minutes, and the boy kept doing so. at first the clay was very sticky, large portions of it hanging to his fingers; and although the stuff had been pounded very fine, it felt coarse and lumpy. "now here is where a big mistake is often made," said the old man. "the clay feels as if it needed a lot more water, and if you were working it, you would surely sprinkle on too much. really the stuff is almost wet enough. now see: i put on just a few drops more, and now i work it a long time." this time the old man kneaded it steadily for as much as five minutes. then he patted it down into a flat cake and ran the palm of his hand across it several times, making a smooth, dull polish on the surface. then he pinched off a small portion and worked it with the fingers of both hands. the clay was now of just the tough softness of putty as the glazier uses it for setting window panes. "there! it is just right," said the old man. "mind that you do not ever make the stuff any softer." by this time all the other children had prepared their clay and were busily shaping out images of the buffalo. the older ones were quite skillful modelers and soon had two or three made and standing on the bank in front of them. watching them, sinopah began his work, taking a lump of the clay as large as he could hold in one hand and trying to shape it. he pinched and pulled, rounded and flattened the stuff for a long time, but could not get it to look like a buffalo or any other animal. grandfather red crane sat beside him, smoking his long pipe and saying not a word. very often sinopah would sigh, stop work, and look beseechingly up, and getting no offer of help, make another trial. and so it went on for a long time. quite often the old man muttered some words, but the boy did not hear. he was praying; praying to the sun: "o great one! o you maker of the day and ruler of the world!" he kept saying; "give this boy of ours an enduring heart. give him a brave heart. give him the will to strive and keep striving for that which he wants." and then, laying aside his pipe, he reached over and took the shapeless lump of clay from sinopah. "you have done your best," he said; "i will now show you how to make an image." he made a roll of the clay so that it was much larger around at one end than at the other, and then pressed it somewhat flat. "the buffalo is very tall in front," he said, "and quite low in his hindquarters, so we will fashion his high hump and his big head out of the large end of the clay." he worked as he talked, pressing and squeezing and pushing the mass of stuff with thumbs and fingers, and in a very few minutes fashioned a very lifelike body of a buffalo. then he found a slender dead branch of willow and broke from it four pieces for the legs, and stuck them into the body in their proper place. this made the model look very queer, standing as it did on pipe-like, wooden legs. but the old man was not done with the work. he next took more clay and covered the legs with it, fashioning the stuff on the sticks, covering them with it completely so that they very closely resembled the legs of the living animal. much pleased with his success he set the little buffalo down before sinopah and said: "there is a buffalo for you, my son; now let us see how good a one you can make." sinopah was very proud of the gift. he shouted to the other children to come and look at it, and they crowded around him bringing the animals they had made. not one of them was so good as that modeled by the old man, and with fresh clay they began at once to try to do better work. the first buffalo that sinopah made was not a good one, but at least it had the shape of one in a rough way. it was plain enough that he had tried to make a model of that animal. old red crane, smoking his long-stemmed stone bowl pipe, sat close by all the morning and encouraged him; the boy made one model after another, improving each time. by the time the sun was straight above in the sky he had made seven little buffalo images, and the last one was a very fair likeness of the great shaggy beast of the plains. it was now the middle of the day and the children were very hungry, but they were so interested in making clay buffalo that they would not go home to eat. their mothers had thought of their needs, however, and coming very quietly to the play lodge under the trees, they built a small fire in it, and broiled plenty of fresh fat meat over the coals. then they called the children and old red crane, and what a feast they all had. it was very simple fare; just meat, and a handful of dried service berries for each; but none of them wanted anything else; not even salt. since the very beginning of things the indians had lived on meat and a few berries, fresh or dried. it was the white man who taught them to have other wants. after eating their fill, the children hurried back to the river and commenced modeling again. now that they had numbers of clay buffalo, they made other animals; deer, bears, elk, bighorn, wolves, beavers, horses, antelope, and mountain goats. along late in the afternoon each child had a really lifelike set of these. grandfather red crane, still with them, said several times that it was time for the little ones to go home, but still they lingered, finishing just one more animal. they had eyes for their work only, but the old man was always looking about him, up and down the river, and across at the bluffs on the north side of the valley. naught moved, or flew, or swam but what he saw it. so it was that he saw the bushes trembling and shaking a little way upstream from where he and the children sat, and he knew that this was not caused by the wind. he sat very still and watched. he wondered what it could be that was coming toward them. presently he saw a small, black-eyed face peering through the leafy branches at the edge of the thicket. then another, and another, and he knew one of them, the face of weasel tail, a boy who lived at the upper end of the big camp. "ah-ha! he is the leader of the boys up there," he thought, "and has come to raid my children here." but he said nothing, and watched and waited. and then, suddenly, with loud cries, little weasel tail sprang out of the brush, leading a dozen other whooping youngsters, and the whole band came skurrying down the shore and fell upon the little group of clay image-makers. then what fierce excitement and struggling and wrestling took place for possession of the toys. the little girls, of course, shrieked, and cried, and ran homeward for protection. but the boys of both parties just struggled with one another. sinopah was tackled by an upper camp boy of about his own age, and over and over they rolled on the gravel almost into the water. then the boy quickly sprang up, seized all the images he could, and ran away whence he had come, all the others of the band going too and carrying away nearly all the images that had been made. through it all, old red crane had sat quietly laughing, and letting the struggle go which way it would. now that it was all over, sinopah ran over to him and asked: "grandfather, why did you let those upper camp boys take our animals?" "because they earned them," the old man replied. "that was the game. it was war. those boys were your enemies and they conquered. it is now your turn. you must go and raid them. no, not to-day. you all must send scouts to watch their play, and sometime you will have a good chance to get as good as they took from here." chapter vi the story of scarface the children of the upper end of the camp kept the clay animals they had captured just two days, and then they in turn were surprised by sinopah's older comrades and lost them, and a number of their own toys also. in this encounter a boy of each party got very angry and hurt one another in the rough scramble. that evening when their fathers came home from hunting there was much talk about the trouble; it was very, very seldom that blackfeet children quarreled and came to blows, and red crane and several other old men were called to decide what had best be done. in the morning all the children of the camp were called together and red crane gave them a short talk:-"my little ones," he said, "every day you are growing taller and stronger and will soon be strong men. the blackfeet will soon depend upon you to fight the enemy, and they are all around us, and to keep our great plains and the herds of game upon them for our own use: that is one reason why you must never quarrel with one another. if you quarrel when you are children, you will quarrel with one another when you are older; it is only by being all brothers, as it were, by loving one another and standing by one another, that you can keep the tribe from being conquered by its many enemies. another reason is that the great sun himself forbids it. now, promise, all of you, that there shall be no more of this." "we take your words!" "we will quarrel no more," they shouted in answer, and were soon off to play again. that evening, when the family were all sitting around the lodge fire, sinopah rolled across the couch into his father's arms and asked: "who is the sun? how can he tell us what to do? who is old man to whom i hear you praying?" "i am glad you asked," white wolf replied. "it is time for you to know all about these things and to begin praying with us. listen, now, and i will try to make you understand. "in the beginning was no one but old man. he was the same as any of us except that he had yellow hair, blue eyes, and a white skin, and had very powerful medicine which enabled him to do great things. the time came when he thought he would like to have a world, so he made this one. he made it flat, with a straight down-cut edge all around it. but that didn't suit him, so in different parts of it he made a lot of running jumps, and at every jump a mountain arose under him. then from the mountains he cut gashes in the plains, and wherever he cut, valleys were formed and creeks and rivers ran in the bottom of them. this looked good enough for the world, and so he then made living things on it: people, animals, and all the grasses and things that leaf. "but when old man made the people he gave them paws instead of hands, so they were quite helpless and at the mercy of the bears and all other animals; whenever they wanted to, the animals killed and ate the people. "old man was so busy going here and there inspecting the world, and the things he had made, that it was some time before he saw what was going on. when he did notice it, he sat down on a big rock and scratched his head many times and thought a long time before he knew what to do. he then called all the people to him and slit down their claws, so that they became fingers and thumbs, with which the people could do all kinds of work. he showed them first how to make bows and arrows, stone knives and arrow-points, and then taught them how to shoot and kill and cut up the animals. lastly, he gave them fire with which to cook the meat and keep themselves warm. since that time we have been more and more the masters of the world. better than all the other tribes he made, old man liked us blackfeet. he saw that this part of the world was the best part, and so he gave it to us with all its many kinds of game. "away back in those first days the blackfeet had much to learn. it was the fault of a woman that caused sickness and death. the first person to get sick was a little baby. the mother took it to old man and asked why it cried; why it refused to eat? "'it is sick,' he told her,'and it may die.' "'die? what is that?' the woman asked. "'it is what happens to an animal when men shoot it with their arrows,' old man replied. 'they cease to breathe, the heart stops beating, that is the end of them.' "'but my child must not die,' the woman cried. 'you made us; you are powerful; i pray you to keep it from dying.' "old man stood silent a long time. they were at the edge of a river. at last he said to her: 'woman, it shall be as you say about this. now here is a stone, and here is a piece of wood. i will throw into the water which one of them you choose. if it floats, then your child and all the people shall live forever; if it sinks, then all of you and those yet to be born must die from one cause and another.' "old man had picked up the rock and the piece of wood while talking, and he now held them out. 'choose the one i shall throw,' he told her. "the woman stood staring at the two things a long time, and the longer she looked at them the more frightened she became; and at last she cried: 'throw the rock!' "old man did as he was told; the stone struck the water with a big splash and sank; the baby died in its mother's arms right there. death had come to the people by a woman's unwise choice. "for a long time after that, whenever a person became sick he soon died. the people had not yet learned about different medicines, and other ways for curing sickness. nor could they get help from old man: he had told them all good-bye and gone into the west, his last words being that at some far future time, when they desperately needed him, he would return. day after day they now cried out for him, and in vain. "a number of winters came and went, and all the time the people kept dying in great numbers. at last a young man who had a big scar on his face set out to visit all the animals, hoping that some one of them might tell him how to get rid of the scar. he traveled on and on for several moons, visiting in turn the bear, the beaver, the wolf, and all the others of the country. in those days all of them could talk. "'o my brother!' he said to the bear, 'i have heard that you have great medicine: i beg you to have pity and remove this scar from my face.' "'i am sorry, but i haven't the power to do that,' the bear replied. 'now there is the beaver; he is the wisest of all us animals; i advise you to see him about this.' "but the beaver could not remove the scar. he advised the young man to call on the badger; the badger sent him on to the wolf; and so it went until scarface had seen them all. then he gave up all hope, and at last, arriving at the shore of a great lake, lay down on the sands to die. "then it was that two swans came swimming close to the shore where he lay crying, and asked what was his trouble. scarface told them, and when he had ended the swans said: 'brother, do not despair: one there is, greater than all you have asked for help. his home is out there on an island; you must go to him.' "scarface rose up and looked out on the great lake, and could see nothing but the blue water extending to the very rim of the world. 'there is no island,' he said mournfully, and sat down on the sand. 'oh, why did you put false hope in my heart? go, now, and let me die in peace.' "'but we told you truth, brother,' the swans replied. 'truly, an island is out there, but so far it cannot be seen from here. we pity you; we wish to help. come now and lie down on our backs and we will carry you to the sacred island. never yet has any man of this world stepped foot on it.' "scarface looked at the swans, at the lake, and then, reaching for his bow and arrows, which he had thrown away when he lay down to die, he went and lay down on the backs of the big birds. 'it matters not where i die,' he thought. 'it may as well be out on that great blue water as here on this sandy shore.' "the swans were big and strong, their backs made a soft couch. while they swam steadily and swiftly westward on the deep waters scarface slept. when he awoke they were nearing a big island, and presently, having come to shallow water and near the shore, they told him to get off. 'this is the place,' they said, 'and yonder behind that grove of trees lives the great one'; and with that they turned, and rising on their powerful wings flew away in the direction whence they had come. "scarface waded ashore and right on the beach met the most beautiful youth he had ever seen. his clothing was of soft, white, tanned skins embroidered with quill-work of rainbow colors. "'you are welcome here,' said the youth. 'i will tell you my name: it is morning star. my father is the sun. my mother is the moon. we live here on this island.' "scarface then told who he was, and why he had come to this far place. morning star said that he had come to the right one to help him. "'but, brother,' he added, 'before going to our lodge i want you to do something for me. out there on that rocky point live a tribe of big, sharp-billed birds. one by one they have killed my brothers, and i am forbidden to fight them. i want you to go and kill them for me.' "scarface did not have to be asked twice. he strung his bow, ran out on the point, and began to shoot the wicked birds. they came at him with loud, harsh cries and tried to stab him with their bills, and one by one they fell around him until all were dead. then the two young men cut off their scalps and carried them to the moon. she was a beautiful woman and was dressed in strange and gorgeous garments. when scarface was made known to her she hugged and kissed him, and then wept. 'i cry from thinking of my dead sons,' she said. 'you have avenged their death; you have killed those wicked birds, so now i take you for my son.' "she then took scarface into her beautiful big lodge and gave him choice food. it was now almost night, and soon the sun came home from his daily task of giving light and heat to the world. when told what scarface had done, he gave him kind greeting. 'young blackfeet,' he said, 'you have done much for us this day: remain with us for a time and i will do something for you.' "scarface did stay there a long time. every night the sun taught him sacred songs, and over and over showed him different kinds of plants that were cures for different kinds of sicknesses. also he said that he was the ruler of the whole world and that people must pray to him for what they need. and that they must love one another, and not lie or steal. that they must be very kind to the old people, and the widows and orphans. "and then, one night, the sun rubbed a powerful black medicine on the young man's face which removed the scar. then loading him with many beautiful presents he led him out of the lodge, the moon and morning star following. before them stretched the wolf's road,[1] and the sun pointed to it. 'there is your trail,' he said. 'follow it and you will arrive at the camp of the blackfeet. do not forget that you are to teach them all that i have taught you.' "at that the moon and morning star wept, and so did scarface, for he had learned to love them as much as they did him. tears almost blinded him as he started out on the shining trail that mounted before him far up into the sky. on and on he followed its straight way, and at last came to the lodges of the people. "so it was, o sinopah, that the people got help in time of sickness and trouble. that shining maker of the day is our greatest god and you must ever pray to him, and make him presents." that night the little boy sat by the fire a long time and thought about all he had heard. then he went to the doorway of the lodge and old red crane pointed out the wolf's road. he thought that he would try to climb it some day when he grew to be a man. footnote: [1] the wolf's road, mah-kwi ok-so-kwi, is the constellation of stars we commonly call the milky way. chapter vii the buffalo trap the leaves of the cottonwoods along the stream were falling; high up in the blue sky geese and swans and ducks were honking and trumpeting and whistling and quacking as they winged their way southward toward the land of us-kus-sai ne-po-yi: always summer. milk river was not a good place to winter, because there was nowhere along its upper stretches much fuel; so the chiefs held a big council one day to decide where the cold season should be passed. after a whole afternoon's talk it was found that most of them preferred the upper two medicine river, and there the camp was moved after a couple of days' travel. the lodges were set up in a very heavily timbered bottom that was sheltered on the north by a high sandstone cliff several miles long. this place the blackfeet called the pis-kan, or, as we would say, "the trap": for here they were wont to decoy and kill--when everything was right--a whole herd of buffalo at one time. the last time the tribe had been there, sinopah was so young that he did not know what was being done, but since then he had heard of the wonderful way in which the animals were there lured to their death, and he was very anxious to see it all. after the camp was well settled, preparations were made for decoying or trapping a herd of buffalo. only a few men in the whole tribe were able to do this, and so they were believed to have great "medicine": that is, mysterious power given them by the gods. one of these men was white wolf, the father of sinopah. white wolf came into his lodge one evening after a visit to the other chiefs, and said to old red crane: "there is not much meat left in the lodges: we have decided that it is best to try to make a big killing to-morrow; you are asked to decoy a herd." "hah! that all depends on many things," the old man answered. "there must be a herd in the right place out there on the plain; the wind must not be in the south; and my medicine has to be right, else i will fail to do the work. i will begin now, however, and try my best to bring meat. send the camp crier around at once to notify the hunters to sing the coyote song before they sleep." old four bears was the camp crier. as soon as a horse could be saddled he mounted it and rode among the lodges from one end of the camp to the other, shouting: "listen! listen, o ye hunters. if all be right, red crane will bring meat tumbling down over the cliff to-morrow. pray then to the gods for success; sing, all of ye, the lucky hunter's song, the song of the coyote--greatest hunter of all; sing it this night before you sleep." as he went his way, prayer and song were started in every lodge, and within a short time several thousand men's deep voices were intoning prayers and quavering the strange, staccato tune of the song. powerful and weird was the sound of it all in the still, frosty night. outside the lodges the dogs sat up on their haunches and howled; and from beetling cliffs and the far reaches of valley and plain the wolves joined in with long-drawn, melancholy cry. had you been there, as i was, you too would have been strangely affected by it all. it was a very solemn and sacred time: men, women, children, even the very animals, were united in beseeching their gods for food. sinopah sat very quiet and wide-eyed watching his grandfather. the old man first got out his paint-bag and rubbed reddish-brown ochre, color best loved by the gods, on face and hands; then he sang the coyote song; and lastly, having filled and lighted a pipe, blew smoke toward the four corners of the earth, toward sky and ground, and prayed. "hai-yu, all-powerful sun! hai-yu, old man! hai-yu, thou little under-water creature," he began, "have pity on us and give us food. i pray you to give me power to bring much food to all your children here." and so he went on, praying and singing for a long time. before the old man finished, sinopah became very sleepy, but kept his eyes wide open and would not lie down: there was something in that prayer he wanted to know about: "grandfather," he cried, when the old man was done, "you prayed also to a little under-water creature. what animal is that--a mink--a muskrat--and is it very powerful?" red crane reached over and took the boy in his arms: "little one, that is the one thing i may not tell you," he replied. "the little animal is my medicine; my dream animal. like all other blackfeet youths, and as you must do some day before you are grown and start out to war, i went away from the camp by myself and fasted many days and nights in order to get a vision; that is, to get a medicine, a secret helper to guide me safely through the dangers of life. "from long fasting my body became weak, and at last it slept soundly. then it was that i--my shadow--left the body and traveled far, and asked all whom i met for help. it was while i lay by the side of a stream that this certain little creature came up out of the water and sat on the shore near me. 'i heard your call for help,' it told me, 'and i have come to help you. when you pray to the sun and old man, pray also to me and i will be your friend, your helper, coming often to you when your body sleeps and telling you what to do, and what not to do. but you must never tell any one my name.' "so it was, little sinopah, that i got my medicine, my secret helper. i am old; i have been through many battles; through dangers of all kinds; and have suffered no harm. and many, many times this little under-water creature has come to me in my dreams and given me warnings. truly, it is a powerful secret helper that i have." "grandfather, when can i go fast and get my medicine?" sinopah asked when the old man had finished. "oh, not for a long time. not until you have seen sixteen or eighteen winters," he replied. and then, tucked under warm, soft buffalo robes by his mother, the boy almost at once fell asleep. the next morning every one was up before sunrise and ready for the trapping of the buffalo. some young men had slept out on the plains back of the cliffs, and hurrying into camp they reported that a band of five or six hundred of the animals were grazing on the second ridge north of the valley. old red crane said that his dream had been favorable. he tossed up a feather, found that the wind was from the northwest, and gave orders for the people to go to the rock-piles. in a few minutes several hundred men and women, girls and boys, were climbing a trail out of the valley at the lower end of the cliffs. they went on foot, sinopah's father leading him and helping him up over the hardest places. not until all of the climbers had reached the top of the cliff, and disappeared out on the plain, did old red crane start. he rode a small, swift horse that was covered with a buffalo robe, and himself wore a robe of the same kind. he went some distance down the valley and climbed out of it by an easy, sloping trail. meantime sinopah, with his father and the other people, had come to the top of the cliffs at their eastern end, and then turned westward along the edge of them. after walking a half-mile or more, they came to where they were highest and steepest, there being in that place a straight drop of more than a hundred feet to the boulder-covered slope below. here on top of the cliff, a little way back from the brink and a hundred yards apart, began two ever-widening rows of rock-piles that extended out on the plain for more than a mile like an enormous letter v. beyond them was a low ridge, and still farther north another ridge, on which a large herd of buffalo were feeding. white wolf now turned to the people and told them to hurry and conceal themselves behind the piles of rock, and they scattered out along the two lines of the v, one or two and sometimes three people stopping and lying down beside each pile. sinopah was very impatient: he kept jerking his father's hand and asking questions, but for what seemed to him a long time the chief would not answer. at last not one person was to be seen out there on the plain: nothing was in sight but the rows of rock-piles, and far away the black mass of feeding buffalo. then white wolf lifted the boy up on his shoulder and began to explain: "pretty soon you will see your grandfather riding out toward that first ridge," he said, "so watch for him." sinopah looked for the old man; looked so hard that water came to his eyes and he had to wipe it away. when he looked off again, he saw what appeared to be a small, single buffalo climbing the first ridge out toward the buffalo herd. his father told him that the object was his grandfather on horseback. the old man was lying down on the animal, so as to make it appear that it had a high, humped back, and covered as both he and the horse were with buffalo robes, they did, indeed, together look like a small buffalo. from the top of the ridge the plain extended out with an even rise to the next ridge, on which the herd was feeding. as soon as the old man reached it, he began to ride in circles, each time nearer and nearer those whose attention he sought to attract. and quite often he tickled the horse between the legs with a stick, making it kick up its heels in a very funny manner. "if you were there," the chief told sinopah, "you would hear your grandfather making a very queer moaning sound--_m-m-m-ah! m-m-m-ah!_--just as a buffalo calf does when it is in pain, or is frightened." "_m-m-m-ah! m-m-m-ah!_" sinopah repeated. "i will learn to do that well," he said, "and when i am grown up i will call the buffalo to the pis-kan." "well, then, watch! watch closely: you are going to see a very strange thing pretty soon," his father told him. at first the big herd of buffalo feeding on the far ridge paid no attention to the object circling toward them, thinking, no doubt, that it was one of their own kind just wandering around. but when it kicked up its heels, first one of the old bulls and then another raised its head and began to stare. then, when it was close enough for its plaintive _m-m-m-ah_ cries to be heard, the cows began to take notice, thinking that what they saw was a calf in distress. several of them walked toward it a little way, sniffing the air, but the wind was wrong for them and their noses could get no scent of it. "now! now watch closely, little son," said father, and the boy stared harder than ever. one of the big cows suddenly started and ran forward a few rods, and the whole herd moved, too, and gathered in a close bunch behind her. thus they stood for a few moments, staring and tossing their heads, and then, led by the big old cow, down the ridge they came with a tremendous rattle and thunder of hoofs, and raising a thick cloud of dust behind them. this was what old red crane on his little horse had been praying for, and now he turned and rode swiftly toward the wide gap of the v-shaped rock-piles. and swift as he rode, the buffalo were swifter and gained on him steadily. "oh! oh! they will catch up with him and trample him to death," sinopah cried in terror. "no, no, he is not in danger," his father answered; "watch closely now." in a few minutes red crane rode within the v, the buffalo right after him, and soon the whole herd was in it, too. then, as the tail end of the band passed rock-pile after rock-pile, the people lying behind the heaps sprang up and shouted, and wildly waved their robes. that scared the rear animals, that alone could see and hear the people, and they ran harder than ever, so crowding those in front to run faster and faster. the band was nearing the cliff now, and were almost on top of red crane and his little horse. then it was that he suddenly turned and rode straight east between two of the rock-piles of that side of the great v. turning to follow him,--the lead cows still thought they were running to the rescue of a calf in trouble,--the herd saw people jump up from behind the rocks, and were now for the first time as badly frightened as were those in the rear. quick as a flash they turned from that danger and headed west, only to be confronted with people rising from the rock-piles on that side of the v. here, now, were people on each side, and people back whence they had come. but none were to be seen to the south, and southward they turned, running faster than ever in their great terror. red crane was now safe. sitting on his dripping horse, he watched the animals go, and raised a prayer to the gods and his little secret helper, asking that the buffalo should keep straight on. [illustration: then it was that he suddenly turned] in the mean time white wolf had run with sinopah to the edge of the cliff, and several hundred yards east of the place where the two lines of the v came close together, and there the two waited to see the end of it all. here, now, was the most anxious moment and the greatest danger; the leaders of the herd might turn before coming to the cliff, trample the people behind one or the other of the rows of rock-piles, and so circle back to the plain in safety. but no! they kept straight on; and sinopah, watching them with staring eyes and open mouth, was never so excited in his life: he felt as if he was going to burst from the dreadful danger of it all; the terrible thunder of hoofs; the wicked gleams of wild black eyes set in shaggy hair. and now the leaders of the herd saw the edge of the cliff, and tried to stop and turn to one side. but those behind them could not see it and kept pressing forward with tremendous and irresistible force. there could be no stopping. the leaders were swiftly pushed off from the cliff, and following them went the living stream of the herd, whirling and whirling through the air, falling, falling from that sheer height, and crashing down onto the boulders at the foot of the cliff. hundreds of the buffalo went over the ledge, and only the last end of the herd, just a few animals, turned at the last moment and escaped through the people to the plain. most of those that went over the cliff were killed outright by the fall, and those only crippled were soon put out of their misery by the hunters down there. then began the skinning of the animals and the cutting-up of the meat and carrying it to the lodges in the camp. when night came the work was all done and the people rested and were happy. pretty soon the moon came up and old red crane took sinopah outside. over at the foot of the cliff wolves and coyotes and foxes were howling and yelping as they fed on the bones and bits of meat that had been left there. "listen to our little brothers," he said. "it is a great feast that we are giving them this night." in some such way in the long ago, our own ancestors used to trap their food. that was when they had no weapons but the bow and arrow and flint knife, and meat and wild berries were all they had to eat. chapter viii spinning top winter was now come, but the people were very comfortable in their lodges in the two medicine valley. after all, the winters are very mild on the plains close under the rocky mountains in montana. sometimes a blizzard swoops down from the north, bringing some snow and intense cold, but it seldom lasts long. within a few days a chinook wind comes out of the west, a wind that started from the japan current of the pacific ocean, eight hundred miles away, and this is so warm that it kills the blizzard and melts the snow. sometimes, even in january, this wind is so very warm that it makes the air feel as if summer had really come. this is the way it usually is on the northern montana plains in winter. but about once in twenty years the north wind keeps the west wind back for a couple of months or more. then the snow falls deep, and the thermometer stays away down below zero, and the animals and birds die by the hundred. at such a time i have seen more than a hundred antelope, a whole band, lying frozen to death on the plain. this was a good winter; too good, the boys and girls thought, for they wanted the river to freeze over so they could play on the ice. so it was that one night when sinopah was going to crawl into his warm buffalo-robe couch, he made a short prayer to ai-sto-yim-sta, cold-maker. he was the god who lived in the north, and who made raids into the southland, hidden always in the swirling snow of the terrible blizzards he made. "hai-yu, ai-sto-yim-sta," little sinopah piped shrilly, "have pity on all of us children. come quickly; come this night and make ice for us to play on." his mother heard him and cried out to white wolf: "now what do you think this naughty boy is doing? he prays cold-maker to come and make ice for him." "is it so!" his father exclaimed. "sinopah, come here. i have something to say. now, listen!" he went on, when he had the boy close in his arms. "cold-maker is a bad god, and you must never pray to him to come. he is not like the sun, the great giver of life; he is the giver of death. many and many a one of our people he has done to death. you pray him to come and make ice. well, away out there on the plains are many of our hunters. they are coming slowly toward camp; very slowly because their horses are carrying heavy loads of meat for the women and children, and hides to be tanned into soft, warm robes. now, suppose that cold-maker does come; come now, this night? you will have the ice to play on, yes. but other children will have no fathers: they will be lying dead out on the plain." "oh, i didn't think of that," said sinopah. "cold-maker is a bad god. i will never pray again to him. but i would like to have some ice." "the ice will come soon enough," said white wolf. "now, go you to your robes and sleep." it was not long after this that there would be heavy white frost on the trees and the grass in the early morning, and thin ice along the edge of the river in the still places. little by little this ice thickened and crept out from the shore, so that white wolf had to break it when he carried sinopah with him for the daily bath. when the two of them plunged into the cold water they shivered and cried, "ah-ha-ha-ha-ah!" and shrank from the feel of it; but oh, how good they felt, when back in the warm lodge. and then one morning when they went to the river, they found it frozen clear across, the ice so thick that white wolf had to get a heavy piece of drift and break a hole in it for a bathing-place. "oh, hurry! hurry!" sinopah cried. "i want to get back to the lodge and put on my clothes, and come out here to play." but his mother would not let him start out until he had eaten all of the fat meat on a roasted buffalo rib. then, taking up his top and the whipper for it, away he ran to the river where nearly all the children of the camp were playing on the ice, nearly all of them spinning tops. sinopah had a fine top that his grandfather made for him from the tip of a buffalo bull horn. it was about three inches long, an inch or more in diameter, flat on the upper end, and dull-pointed. there was no string for it, as the spinning was done with a whip. this was a slender stick about two feet long, to an end of which were tied three or four fine buckskin strings about a foot and a half in length. the top was started spinning on the ice with the thumb and middle finger of the left hand, and then lashed frequently with the whip to keep it spinning. a favorite play was for three or four children to start their tops at the same time, each one trying to make his top spin the longest. as usual lone bull and the little girl otaki, sinopah's best friends, were with him this morning and the three spun their tops together, sometimes one and sometimes another of them winning the long-time game. sinopah won most of the games, though, and he began to think that he could spin tops as well as any one of the great crowd of children there on the ice. when he had won three games, one after another, from lone bull and otaki, he was sure that he was the best player of all, and said so. crow foot, a boy older by some years, heard the boast and cried out: "you say that you are the best spinner here? well, i say that i am the best. come on, and we will see whose words are true. we will start spinning our tops at the same time, and the one of us who spins his longest shall win the other's top." "don't you do it, sinopah," said lone bull. "he is bigger than you; he has spun tops two or three winters before we commenced; he will surely win your top." "yes, and such a nice top it is, and his only an old wooden one," said otaki. "don't play with him." "oh, i am not afraid; i can win," said sinopah. and in another moment the two boys were spinning their tops in the centre of a big crowd of children. no one spoke or moved; the only sound to be heard was the swish and slat of the whip-lashes, and the dull buzzing of the tops on the ice. after a long time crow foot made a mis-strike with his whip and the top wobbled. "he loses," the children cried; but no, he made another quick snatch at it and it righted up. then sinopah's top spun into a small, rough place in the ice and began to jump. "oh, sinopah! be careful; take courage," the crowd shouted at him, and just then he made a hard stroke with the whip that knocked the top over on its side and sent it rolling into the crowd. crow foot snatched up his top, chased the other one and recovered it, and danced around holding both up in the air, shouting: "i win the bull-horn top! i win sinopah's fine, black horn top." sinopah cried. lone bull and otaki tried to comfort him, but he cried all the harder and kept saying: "oh, my top! it is gone. what will my grandfather say? he worked so long to make it for me. oh, i want my grandfather; maybe he will get it back for me." grandfather was right there; he was never far away from the boy, always watching to see that he came to no harm. "now, what is the trouble?" he asked; but sinopah was crying so hard that he could not answer, and so lone bull told him how crow foot had won the top. "well, well. that is bad," said the old man, and he led sinopah away up the river, lone bull and otaki going also. "you mustn't cry. no matter what happens, you must not cry," red crane began. "women and girls may cry, but boys and men never." "but, grandfather, my top! crow foot has it; he won it from me. will you get it back for me?" sinopah whimpered. "i will not," red crane answered. "this is going to be a lesson to you. remember this--you, too, lone bull: those who gamble are always poor. also, gamblers are not good men: they use up so much time playing games that they seldom hunt, and their women and children have not enough meat to eat. neither are they of any account in war. if all our men gambled, the enemy would soon kill us all off." "but, grandfather, i have no top now," said sinopah, doing his best not to cry any more, "and see how clear and hard the ice is. i want to spin a top on it." "well, if you are very good, and will promise never to gamble again, i will begin making you another top to-morrow," said the old man. "now, you will all go with me after some red willow. i want the bark of it to mix with my tobacco. there is a fine patch of it growing close to the shore above here." never was there clearer ice than that on the river this morning. it was as clear as a glass window pane. everything in the water under it could be seen plainly, the rocks, gravel, and sand of the bottom, and the trout lying almost still in the deep places. while they stood looking down at a very large trout, suddenly a long, slender, dark brown animal with big, webbed hind feet, came swimming down into the deep hole. the trout saw it and turned and swam like a flash toward the branches of a sunken tree. the animal was a faster swimmer; it went so fast after the trout that it was just a brown streak in the water, and it caught the fish, and, holding it crosswise in its mouth, started to swim back upstream. "ha! am-on-is" (otter), "killer of fish," old red crane cried, and stamped on the ice. that frightened the otter; it let go of the bleeding and dying trout and swam away downstream. "o-kye-hai! you children down there," red crane shouted, "spread out and stamp on the ice. scare back an otter swimming toward you." there must have been all of a hundred children in the top-spinning crowd. the old man had to shout two or three times to make them understand, and then they all spread out and stamped the ice with their feet, and pounded it with their tops and whips, making altogether a terrible noise. old red crane, in the mean time, had gone to the shore and picked up a rock bigger than his head, and now he stood with it raised high above his head watching for the otter to come back. this it soon did, the children below having scared it, and now it swam close to the shore where the bank went straight down, hoping to find an air-hole, or a beaver-hole into which it could crawl, and then climb up into the beaver's sleeping-place above the water, where there would be plenty of air. there was no hole of any kind, except an open place in some rapids quite a long way above, and the otter had to breathe before it could get back to that place. its lungs were full of air, and it had to let it out and draw it in again, or die. so when it was quite close under red crane, it rose to the under surface of the ice and blew out the air against it, a great long wide silvery bubble. but before it could breathe it in again, red crane dashed the rock down right over it. _crash_! went the brittle ice, the jar scattering the big bubble into a hundred little bubbles, and frightening the otter away at the same time. there it was without air in its lungs, and no way to get any except at the hole at the rapids, so far, far away. that place the poor animal tried to reach. it swam slower and slower, red crane and the children following it. very soon it had to expand its lungs, and as there was no air, water instead flowed in through its nose and filled them. that was the end. the animal gave a few feeble kicks, then sank to the bottom of the river, and lay still. it was dead. dead from want of that little bubble of air it had lost. could it have kept that, letting it out against the ice, and then drawing it in again, it could have traveled for miles, or until it came to an open place where it could crawl out of the water. grandfather red crane was all excited now. "who would have thought we would get a medicine animal so easy as that?" he said. "it was just lucky that it stopped to make its bubble in front of me. but it is a good sign. sinopah, we will save the skin for you. when you grow up we will make a bow-and-arrow case of it for you, and i know that it will bring you good luck in war." and with that he sent the children to camp after an axe with which he chopped a hole in the ice. then he fished out the otter with a forked pole. it was a big otter; all of four feet long from the nose to the tip of its tail. the old man forgot all about the red willow, and dragging the animal, and the children following, he went straight back to camp, where he carefully took off its fine furred hide and stretched it to dry in the right shape. chapter ix sinopah's first bow "it is time for our son to learn to use the bow," said white wolf one evening when all the family was sitting in the light and warmth of the little lodge fire. "ai! so it is," old red crane exclaimed. "i will begin work on one for him to-morrow, and it shall not be a wooden bow; it shall be made of horn." "i wouldn't take so much trouble as that," said white wolf. "a bow of wood will be good enough for him to begin with." "but what does my time amount to?" red crane asked. "i am old, old. i tell you it makes me sick when i see the younger men start out to hunt, or leave to make war against the enemy, and i can't go with them. all i can do now is to stay here in the camp. all i can do is to teach our little sinopah; teach him to shoot and hunt; teach him to be good and kind and brave. my time is all for him. so it is that he shall have a fine little bow of horn." "father, don't you worry about these things," said white wolf. "i can hunt for us all, and i can go to war. all i ask of you is to be happy. it is great work that you are doing for our little sinopah. we are all glad that you do so much for him." the next morning the old man went up in the hills with sinopah to get some buffalo horns. they soon found the heads of some freshly killed animals, and took the horns from three of them, all big, shiny black horns of threeand four-year-old bulls. back they went then to the valley and threw the horns into a hot spring, where they were to remain a couple of days and get soft. on the third day old red crane took the horns out of the spring and found them so soft that they could be split with a knife as easily as if they were just soft wood. so he took them home to the lodge and began making a bow, sinopah watching every part of the work, and asking many questions about it, so that he could some day make such bows for himself. first, the old man cut the horns into long splints of different size, the larger ones an inch wide, and a quarter of an inch thick. the larger pieces were for the middle of the bow, the smaller ones for the ends, and all were neatly shaved, so as to lap closely one on the other,--to splice, as such work is called; all the pieces being stuck together with a very strong waterproof glue made by boiling down the hoofs of the buffalo. when this was done, the old man scraped the bow with sandstone, and then a knife, until from end to end it was as smooth as glass, and of the right shape, heavy and thick in the middle, and from there tapering each way out to the tips. lastly, to make the bow all the stronger, and springy, he glued strips of sinew to its whole outer length, and wrapped it with sinew bands about four inches apart. when finished, the bow was about three feet long. the next thing was to string the bow with a fine cord of twisted sinew, and then the arrows were made, the shafts of straight, hard, heavy greasewood, the points of thin iron bought from the traders, and the feathering of quills of wild-goose wings. the old man made eleven of these iron-pointed arrows, and then went to work on another shaft with which he took especial pains, working a whole evening in just scraping and polishing it, and soaking it full of grease. sinopah, watching him, grew restless, and asked why he worked so long on just one arrow shaft. "because this is to be a medicine arrow; a lucky arrow," red crane replied. he then took from his own quiver an arrow that had a very small, thin, sharp point of black obsidian, or natural glass. in the yellowstone country there is a whole mountain of such stuff. "now, i am going to take this point off and fasten it on this shaft," said the old man, "and you are never to use it except when in danger. my father made the point for me, and three different times it has saved my life. by that you can see it is great medicine." "oh, grandfather! tell me about it," said sinopah, snuggling up to him and hanging onto his hand so that he could not work. "well, you shall hear," the old man answered, lifting the boy into his lap and smoothing the hair back from his forehead. "ai! but the first time was long ago. why, i was not much older than you are now. my father had made a horn bow and twelve arrows for me. eleven of the arrows had common white flint points and the twelfth one carried this fine black one. just as i tell you now, my father told me then: i was not to use it except when in great danger. "one day i went hunting with two boy friends. it was a very hot day and we walked in the timber close to the river. in my left hand i carried my bow and two arrows; one a common arrow, the other having this medicine point. all the rest of the arrows were in a quiver slung at my back. "my two friends walked in the middle of the timber and near the river, and i kept at the outer edge of it. after a long time i came to a very thick patch of willows, so very thick that i could not see into it. in there i heard a queer noise; a snuffling noise, and little faint cries as of something in great pain, just such a noise as a dog makes when it is badly hurt. i thought it was a dog, one of our camp dogs, that had got hurt and had come out there to die. so i pushed into the thicket, and suddenly came face to face with a big wolf. now, wolves, as you know, never harm any one. they are afraid of man. but this wolf was different. a big fluff of white foam covered its mouth, and by that i knew it was a mad wolf, and very dangerous. when it saw me it raised up and made ready to jump at me, and at the same time i fitted the medicine arrow to my bow. the wolf opened its mouth and made ready to jump at me, and i shot the arrow right down its throat. it did jump, but never touched me. it fell almost at my feet and died, and i got back the arrow. "the next time i used the arrow-point was some winters later. i had grown to be a man. i had taken the point off from the little arrow-shaft, and fitted it onto one such as men use. i had been running buffalo one day, and killed four with my common arrows. then i shot a big, fat cow, and at the same time my horse fell and broke its leg. the cow was only wounded, and very mad. she charged me and i jumped to one side and fired a common arrow at her; it only stuck in her shoulder. "four times she turned and charged me, and four times i fired an arrow, but none of them did any good. i had but the one arrow left, this one with the medicine point. i made a little prayer, fitted it to the bow, and then shot it when the cow turned to charge me again. straight into her heart it went and down she fell, and i was saved." "yes, that makes two times; now tell about the last one," said sinopah, for the old man had stopped talking and was looking with dreamy eyes at the fire. "oh, yes, the last time," red crane answered, sitting up straight again. "no. i will not tell you about that, because you might have bad dreams about it. all i can say is that i had a fight with a crow chief and killed him with the medicine arrow." sinopah wanted to know all about the fight, but he had now become very sleepy, and was put on his couch before he had time to ask more questions. on the next day old red crane made more arrow shafts, these being made sharp at the end, instead of having iron points. they were for shooting at marks, and for a long time the old man made sinopah practice with them every day. at first he shot them at little sagebrush bushes, or a piece of robe thrown onto a bush; but after a couple of moons he was taught to shoot at a ball of grass thrown up in the air. he became so skillful that he could pierce it nearly every time. then, one morning after the early bath in a hole cut in the ice, old red crane took sinopah out to hunt with the real arrows. it was a very cold morning; the trees were covered with thick, white frost, and all up and down the valley they were popping with a noise like rifle-shots, while the ice on the river heaved and cracked with a rumbling like that of far-off thunder. not far below the camp they heard prairie chickens (sharp-tailed grouse) clucking, and presently saw a number of them sitting in a small cottonwood tree. the birds felt so cold that they sat all crouched on the tree limbs, and paid no attention to the man and boy approaching them. "well, you are close enough to them now," red crane told sinopah when they had got so near that they could see the shiny black eyes of the chickens. sinopah dropped his robe then and fitted an arrow to his bow, one of the arrows with iron point, and took aim at a bird at the top of the tree. "no, no! you must not shoot that one," red crane said, "for it would drop fluttering down among the rest and scare them all away. shoot at the very lowest bird in the tree." sinopah took quick aim and let the arrow fly; and as the bow-cord twanged the chicken fell down from the limb with the arrow in it, and after a few flutters of its wings lay still on the blood-stained snow. sinopah never said a word, but his snapping eyes showed how excited and happy he was as he shot another arrow at the next lowest bird in the tree. this time he missed, but a third arrow brought the chicken down, and three more arrows got two more birds. he was about to shoot at a fifth bird when red crane seized his arm: "that is enough," he said. "you have one for your mother, one for your father, one for yourself, and one for me. remember this: the gods do not love wasters of life. they made the animals and birds for our use, but we may kill no more than we need." sinopah never forgot that. afterwards, during all his life, he was careful never uselessly to take the life of beast or bird. most of the white hunters of our country have not done that. they have killed the buffalo and deer, the pigeons and ducks and other birds, just for the fun of seeing them die. had they shot only just enough for food, there would still be plenty of game from one end to the other of our great land. having picked up the four chickens, and the arrows that had been shot, the old man and the little hunter started back toward home. had you been in sinopah's place, without mittens on that cold morning, you would have had your fingers frozen stiff. but he never felt the cold, and his hands were almost as active as on a summer morning. that was because he had to bathe in the frozen river every day. on their way through the timber near camp they saw a cotton-tail rabbit sitting in the edge of a rose-brush thicket. "i would like to have it," said red crane, "but not unless you can kill it when it is running. now, fit an arrow to your bow and see what you can do when i throw one of these chickens that way." they were only forty or fifty feet from the rabbit. the old man tossed a chicken and the little animal started off on the jump through the snow, passing right in front of sinopah. he aimed about a foot ahead of it, and _zip_! the arrow struck it fairly just behind the shoulder. it was a fine shot. sinopah shouted as he ran to pick it up, and when he returned and held the rabbit up before red crane, the old man shouted too and made a little prayer of thanks to the gods. "never was there such a fine boy as this one you have given us," he said. [illustration: it was a fine shot] and at home he said to white wolf: "now, listen! sinopah is going to be a great chief. i know that he is." "i believe you," white wolf replied. "i am very proud of him." chapter x tracking a mountain lion now, while old red crane was teaching sinopah to hunt and kill game with bow and arrow, otaki's mother was teaching her to do woman's work. the little lodge had been set up for the children in the shelter of thick willow brush where the wind could not blow, and they now had many happy days in it. lone bull, otaki's brother, was with them, and the two boys hunted, while otaki gathered small pieces of deadwood for the fire, brought water from the river in a small pot, and did all the other work of the lodge, such as sweeping the hard, smooth earth floor with a broom made of a bunch of willow brush, and straightening out the soft robe couches. some days the boys would hunt a long time and come home to the little lodge without anything. other times they would bring in a couple of prairie chickens, or one or two rabbits. arriving at the door of the lodge they would cry out: "otaki, we have arrived. come get the meat we have killed." the little girl would then come out and say: "kyai-yo! what a fine killing my hunters have made. go inside now, and i will soon have meat on the fire." then, while the two boys sat on their couches before the fire and dried their wet moccasins, she took her little knife from the sheath dangling from her belt, and skinned and cleaned the rabbits or birds, then brought them inside and roasted them on the hot, bright-red coals. it is true that the meat did not taste so good as that of the buffalo and deer and elk and antelope that their fathers brought to camp, but they pretended that it was even better because they had killed it. they were very proud of being able to get their own food from the timber along the river. white children would not have liked the chicken and rabbit meat that otaki cooked, because she did not put any salt on it. the indians never used salt before the white people taught them to put it in their food, and even to this day many of them do not care for it. one day the two boys went away down the river, farther than they had yet gone on their hunts, and found three bullberry bushes still full of fruit. when first ripe, these berries are so sour that no one can eat them; but the freezing weather of winter turns certain of the acids into sugar, and then the berries taste something like currants, only very much better. they have both a tart and a sweet taste, and not only the indians but birds are very fond of them, the prairie chickens especially. when the boys found the three bushes, or rather small trees full of the fruit, the first thing they did was to strip off bunches of the ripe, red berries and eat them. they wondered how it was that the birds and the women of the camp had not long since found and taken them all. they soon ate all they could hold, and then said lone bull: "we should have all these berries for our lodge; there is a great quantity of them; enough to last us all winter." "you talk wisely," sinopah answered. "but of course gathering berries is not men's work. it is best that we bring otaki up here to gather them." "but she isn't strong enough for that," lone bull objected. "of course she should come and help, but i think that we ought to get our mothers to do the work." "well, then, you go after them and i will stay here and keep any one who may come along from taking the berries," said sinopah. "no one shall have them: they are our find." at that lone bull started off on the run for camp. sinopah ate a few more berries and then began to get cold from standing still so long. he started to walk around, faster and faster, and farther and farther from the trees, and on a larger circle than ever came to some strange-looking tracks in the snow. they were big, round tracks, but not far apart; not near so far as he could step. most of them showed the heel of the feet, so it was easy to see which way the animal had been going. he looked at the tracks a long time. "now, if grandfather red crane were only here, he could tell me what kind of an animal made these tracks," he said to himself. sinopah made another circle and once more came to the strange-looking tracks. "i do wish i knew what animal made them," he said. "well, i will just follow them a little way and perhaps i can learn what it was." the trail of the animal was away from the river and toward a sandstone cliff. sinopah followed it through the timber. at one place the animal had stood on its hind feet and clawed the trunk of a cottonwood tree, scattering many small pieces of the bark around on the snow. a little farther on, it had stood looking and listening for something, for here the snow was all packed smooth by its big feet. still farther on, it had sat down in the snow, and had left the imprint of a long tail. by that sinopah knew that this was not the trail of a bear, for bears' tails are no longer than a boy's hand. "it isn't a wolf either," he thought, "for wolves have very bushy tails. the mark of this one in the snow looks as if it has very short hair. why, it may be that i am following an otter." thinking that, he hurried forward on the trail and soon came near the sandstone cliff. here there was not so much timber. the ground sloped sharply up to the foot of the cliff, and on it were scattered a number of large and small rocks. he could see the trail winding around among the rocks, and said to himself again, "it must be an otter's trail." he did not stop to think that the tracks were ten times too large to have been made by an otter. nor did he know that an otter, when traveling through snow, does not walk: it lays its front feet back against its breast and pushes itself along with its hind feet, making a smooth trough in the snow with two dots in it at intervals, like this:- * * * * * * * * sinopah now began climbing the slope, and soon came to the very foot of the cliff. right in front of him the trail ended at the mouth of a narrow low hole in the rock. he walked right up to it and tried to see in, to see the animal, but a few feet back there was nothing but the darkness of night. then on the floor of the cave he saw some bones; big leg-bones and rib and backbones that looked like those of buffalo and deer, and he suddenly became scared. it was enough to scare any boy, that black cave, the freshly gnawed bones with shreds of red meat still hanging to them. he suddenly gave a little squeal of fright and ran back down the slope and toward the bullberry patch as fast as he could go. no one was there to meet him and he ran on and on toward camp, soon meeting his mother and old red crane and lone bull and otaki and their mother. as quickly as he could, he told the old man about the trail of the animal and the cave and gnawed bones. "ah ha! and you saw gnawed bones in the cave!" red crane exclaimed. "and the tracks leading to the place were big and round? well, my young hunter, it was not an otter you were following, it was a lynx; perhaps even a mountain lion." "kyai-yo!" the women cried out. "to think that he followed a sometimes killer of children!" and his mother snatched him up in her arms and said that he should not go anywhere alone again for a long time. "huh! the boys must learn," said red crane; "and anyhow no harm has been done. now, son, you go tell your father to come with his guns and the dogs, and be sure to tell no one else; we want all the berries and the animal in the cave for ourselves." white wolf was at home in the lodge. when sinopah told him what was wanted he snatched up his rifle, called the big dogs, and set out so fast on the trail that the boy had to run to keep up with him. they soon overtook the others, and in a few minutes all were looking at the trail in the snow, while the dogs sniffed at it and growled, their hair bristling straight up on their backs. "it is the trail of a mountain lion," said white wolf. "it is," red crane echoed, "and a very large one, too." white wolf started to follow the trail and made the dogs keep behind him. after them came old red crane, and then the women and children. they all soon arrived at the foot of the slope leading up to the cave, and then white wolf told them to stand where they were while he went on with the dogs. when quite near the foot of the cliff, he told the dogs to go on, and they rushed ahead on the fresh trail all in a bunch and barking eagerly. but the moment they arrived at the mouth of the cave, and looking in smelled the animal there, all at once they dropped their tails between their legs and backed away with hoarse growls. they were not hunting-dogs like our hounds. all they were good for was to guard camp, and, before the time of the horse, to carry burdens. white wolf scolded them, but could not make them go into the cave. they just whined and shivered, and looked at him with pleading eyes. seeing that they would not go in, white wolf at last cocked his rifle and walked slowly to the entrance to the cave, then stooped down and looked in. at first he could see nothing; but he kept looking and looking, and after a time saw two greenish, shining spots away back in the darkness, that he knew was the light of the animal's eyes. then he raised his rifle and fired it after a long and careful aim. _boom_! went the gun, and the powder-smoke for a moment hid the cave from the view of those watching at the foot of the slope. when white wolf fired his rifle he at once sprang off to the left of the cave, and none too soon. out of it and through the smoke came a yowling, tawny mountain lion that rolled and twisted around on the snow while blood streamed from a bullet-hole in its neck. the dogs now turned brave and closed in on it, only to be bitten and clawed by the furious big cat, and knocked off in all directions by its big front paws. several of them never stopped running until they reached camp. sinopah and the other children, as well as the women and the old man, stood watching all this from the foot of the slope, all of them so excited that they never spoke a word. they saw white wolf hurriedly reloading his rifle, and were fearing that, after all, the wounded animal would get up and run before he could shoot it again. but no; with one last weak kick it suddenly lay still in the snow, and then they all ran up the slope to look at it. sinopah took hold of the forelegs and tried to lift it, but he couldn't; the animal was far bigger and heavier than he. "ha! it is a she deer-killer," said white wolf; "and by the looks of her there must be some young ones back there in the cave. here, father, hold my gun while i go in there." he was not gone long, and returned with a wee little mountain lion in his arms. it was no larger than a house cat, and its light-colored, fuzzy fur had faint dark spots. it was so young that it did not know enough to be afraid of man, and when white wolf stroked it and rubbed its head, it purred just as our house cats do, only much louder than they. "oh! oh! give it to me, father," sinopah cried, and soon had it wrapped in a corner of his robe, where it kept right on purring. while white wolf and old red crane were skinning the big cat, the women and children went back to the berry patch, where they soon gathered nearly all of the fruit on the trees, and then they went home to their lodges, where they spread the berries on clean rawhides to dry. a part of the fruit was given to otaki to dry in the little play lodge. that evening, as sinopah sat beside his grandfather with the mountain lion kitten in his arms, he asked why service-berry bushes had so many sharp thorns. "old man made them grow there," his grandfather replied. "listen. it was this way: old man made the world, and all the animals and trees, and everything on it. but if he was a world-maker, he often was very foolish and forgetful. "one day old man was walking on the edge of a cutbank beside the river, and happening to look down he saw clusters of beautiful red berries in the water. he was very hungry, so off came his clothes and off he dived from the bank to get some of the fruit. but although he swam and dived a long time he could see no more of the berries, so he climbed up the bank and lay down. looking at the water again, there were the berries in it, just where he had seen them before, and off he dived again after them, and could not find them when he got into the water. "and so he kept climbing out on the bank, and diving again after the berries, until he became so weak that the last time he nearly drowned. it was all he could do to get back on the bank, and there, happening to look up, he saw that the little tree over his head was full of berries. at that he tossed a stick at the branches, and saw that when they moved, the branches and the berries in the water also moved. then all at once he saw that he had nearly died diving after the shadow of the berries, and that made him very angry. as soon as he could he got up and beat the tree with a club, and made thorns grow thickly on its branches: 'there! after this all your kind shall have thorns,' he said, 'and those who want your fruit in plenty must beat it off with clubs.' "so it is to-day, when our women gather quantities of the berries for winter use, they have to club it from the branches in order to save their hands." chapter xi sinopah joins the mosquito society on a summer day several years after the people wintered on the two medicine, old red crane and white wolf sat on the shady side of their lodge smoking a big pipe turn-about, and idly watching a crowd of children playing tag. swiftest of them all was sinopah, although some of the other boys were older and taller than he. white wolf laid down the smoked-out pipe and smiled happily as he softly rubbed his small, firm hands together. indians, you know, especially those of the plains, were noted for their small and beautifully shaped hands and feet. "well, my son," said red crane, "why your smiles--what is it that makes your heart glad?" "that is it," white wolf replied, pointing at sinopah, who was far in the lead of the boys and girls who chased him. "i tell you this, father," he added, "there is in this child of ours the making of a great chief. some day, if we live, we are going to be very proud of him." "ai! ai! that is so. you never spoke truer words," old red crane agreed. "how good he is, and how fearless! and how popular also! children from all parts of the camp are ever coming to ask him to play with them." "that is the great point in the making of a chief," said white wolf. "no matter how brave a man is, no matter how successful in war, if his people do not love him, he can never become a leader." "huh! as if i didn't know that!" red crane exclaimed. "why, son, that is what i was always teaching you in your young days; because of your goodness, of your kindness to the poor, to the widows and orphans, you are chief to-day." white wolf made a gesture of assent. "well," he said, "it is time that we take sinopah in hand for his training. as a beginning, let us have him join the su-is-ksis-iks at their next meeting." here, now, i have something to explain that is very interesting, and that is that nearly all indian tribes of the country had a number of societies, some of them so secret that only a very few of the most prominent men ever learned their mysteries. the tribe that had, and still has, the most fraternities, or secret societies, is the hopi, or so-called moqui tribe of northern arizona. there are several hundred secret orders in this tribe, the greatest of them being the snake and the flute societies. it is the snake order that gives every two years the great snake dance, in which, after many secret rites and prayers in their kiva, or sacred house, the members perform a public dance, during which they carry live and deadly rattlesnakes dangling from their mouths. all these societies in all the tribes are for a purpose. the hopi, or "people of peace," as they call themselves, live in a desert country, and depend upon their little plantings of corn, beans, and squash for their food. they are not, and never were, hunters and warriors. now, the most important thing in all the world for the hopi is rain; rain to make their gardens yield a plenty of food. so it is that the object of all their secret societies is to bring the rain. all the secret rites in the kivas, all the dances, have that end in view. see, now, how different were the blackfeet. they were hunters, and wanderers over a great country extending south from the saskatchewan to the yellowstone river, a distance of seven hundred miles, and from the rocky mountains eastward for several hundred miles. that was their country, their hunting-ground, and on it swarmed thousands and thousands of buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and many other kinds of game. along the borders of this great stretch of country were many tribes always trying to enter it and kill the game, and to save themselves the blackfeet were obliged to make war on them and keep them out of the country. so it was that the fraternities or societies of the blackfeet were societies of warriors and for the making of warriors. the least of these was the society of the su-is-ksis-iks, or mosquitoes, which white wolf mentioned. the mosquito society was composed entirely of young boys, but at the head of it were two or three old men who were their teachers, as they may be called. it was the duty of these old men to give talks to the boys on the right way to live, to instruct them in the ways of war, to pray for their long life and success, to teach them certain dances, and above all to make them honor and obey the teachings of the gods, especially the sun. evening came. tired and hungry, sinopah entered the lodge and sat by his father's side. his mother set before him a long, heavy rib of boiled buffalo meat, a dish of service berries, a bowl of soup, and he ate a big meal. pausing once between mouthfuls, he said: "we played tag and none caught me. we went into the river and i was the leader in the race when we swam to the far shore and back." white wolf and red crane looked at each other and smiled, and the old grandfather said to himself: "ai! ai! the time has come." the meal was soon over, and then white wolf said to the boy: "my son, your days of tag-playing are about over. your grandfather and i have made up our minds that you are big enough now to become a su-is-ksis-ik. he will take you to the next meeting of the society." "oh, that will be good," sinopah cried. "i am to become a member of a warrior band. how long will it be before i can join a higher one? i would like to be an ai-in-i-ki-quan." "oh, that time is yet some winters ahead," his father answered. "you have to go to war before joining that order, you know." the ai-in-i-ki-kwaks, or seizers, were the police of the great camp. it was their duty to guard it in time of danger and to carry out the orders of the chiefs. for instance, at times when there were great herds of buffalo near camp, the chiefs would order that no one should go out by himself to hunt and so scatter the animals and make it hard for all the hunters to get a plenty of meat and hides. certain days were set when all the men would go together and make a big hunt. if any one broke that rule, the chiefs would order the seizers to punish him, and punished he was. sometimes the man was whipped and his weapons smashed; or, worse, he might not only be whipped, but his lodge and property would be torn to pieces and some of his horses killed. besides the mosquitoes and seizers, there were a number of other orders, the buffalo bulls, they who carry the raven, the dogs, all parts of the great society of the tribe, which was called i-kun-uh-ka-tse, all friends. on the morning following the talk of white wolf and red crane, preparations were begun for sinopah's entrance into the mosquito society. first of all, red crane changed the manner of dressing the boy's hair. it had been daily combed and plaited into four long braids, two of them falling just behind, and two just in front of the ears. to these was now added a fifth braid, a slender one drooping beside the one just in front of the right ear, and the end of it was wrapped with a narrow strip of otter fur, believed to be the favorite fur of the sun. this fifth braid was the scalp-lock. were sinopah to be killed in battle the enemy would take it as a trophy of the fight. right after the morning meal the boy's mother had begun to make a pair of moccasins for him, and she kept at the work for some days. the tops or uppers of them were solidly embroidered with brightly colored porcupine quills, each small quill tightly fastened in place with many stitches of very fine sinew thread. in the mean time, old red crane fumbled around in his several pouches and finally found four beautifully tanned, snow-white antelope skins. "these your grandmother tanned the summer before she died," he told sinopah. "i have been saving them for you. they are for your first war-suit. watch, now, how i cut them, for after this you will have to make your own clothes." the old man then spread a skin out flat on his couch and cut it into an oblong square after measuring one of the boy's legs. a few stitches then made of the material a wide-flapped legging. next, the flaps were fringed by slitting them every quarter of an inch along their length, and then ornamented with tufts of red-dyed horsehair and parts of scalps that the old man had himself taken in battle. the other legging was made in the same way. the other two skins were fashioned into a loose, big-necked, fringe-seamed shirt that reached nearly to the knees. snow-white weasel skins with black tail tips were hung all around the neck and down the length of the sleeves, along with more red horsehair and scalp-locks; and lastly, red crane painted several blue and yellow things, that looked like small lizards, on the back and front of the garment. sinopah asked what animal they represented. "that i cannot tell you," the old man answered. "it is my medicine; my secret helper that came to me in my fasting dream. yes, in that fast, when my spirit wandered far, i found this little water animal, and it promised always to help me when i prayed to it. it has helped me. it has saved my life in many a dangerous place, so i put the mark of it on here and will pray to it, to help you until you get a medicine, a secret helper, for yourself." "and when shall i get it?" sinopah asked. "let me see; let me see," red crane mused. "you are now of age twelve winters. three winters after this will be your time to fast. you will go alone to some sheltered place away from camp. you will lie there without food. you will pray continually to the sun; to the moon; the stars; to all the world animals. maybe you will lie there four--five--or even seven days, eating nothing, drinking nothing except the water that your mother will take you every day. and you will sleep; you will dream. in your dream, when your shadow, your spirit goes forth on adventure, then you will find your secret helper. i shall pray that it be, that which you find, very strong medicine." "it will be strong medicine!" sinopah declared. "grandfather, i have the feeling in here, right here in my heart, that in that fasting time i shall find a very powerful secret helper." the meeting of the mosquito society was still some days off, but there was no more than time for sinopah to get ready for it. the skin of the otter that red crane had captured under the river ice was fashioned into a combined bow-case and arrow-quiver, and ornamented with bands of fine porcupine embroidery. a new bow and new arrows were made by red crane and white wolf to put into it. the bow was longer and more powerful than any that the boy had yet handled, but he was a big-muscled boy and could easily bend it. the arrows were real war-arrows; of thin, straight shafts, firm feathering, and small, sharp, barbed points that would pierce far into any living thing and could not be pulled out; also, a new beaded belt was made, this to hold the knife-sheath and support the breech-clout that covered the loins. then came at last one of the great days in the life of sinopah. dressed all in his new war-clothes, with otter-skin bow-case slung on his back, he went with his grandfather to the meeting of the mosquitoes. it was held in a very large lodge of one of the chiefs. many boys were there, sitting close together on the couches, but none of them had as fine clothes or were themselves as handsome as was he. but they were all his friends. when he entered they cried out: "oh, here is sinopah. welcome, brother, welcome." red crane went to the back of the lodge and sat with two old men. they talked together for a few minutes, and then one of them, first calling out for silence, made a long prayer. he begged the sun, and all the gods of the sky, the earth, and the waters, to give them all long life and happiness, and always a plenty of game for food. at the end of the prayer all the boys cried out, "yes, all you great gods, have pity on us; have pity on us." next the old men took up their drums and beat them in time to a war-song they sung. the boys all arose then and danced around and around the fireplace, old red crane often stopping them to show one of the dancers his mistakes. then after the dance they rested, and one of the old men gave them a talk on kindness of heart. during another rest, old red crane spoke about bravery, saying, among other things, that for the good of the tribe one must be ever ready to give his life. and so, in dancing, in listening to talks by the old men, the day passed, and toward sundown, very tired and happy, sinopah went home to rest. all the evening he was very quiet, and was first of all the family to go to bed. early the next morning a little girl stuck her head in through the doorway of the lodge and called out: "oh, sinopah, get up and come with us. we go to the river to play." the boy raised himself up and looked at her. "no, little sister," he answered; "i shall go no more to the river to play with you. i am now a mosquito. i have now to learn how to be a man." so it was. in one short day, young as he was, sinopah passed out of his childhood days into those of his youth, the beginning of the life of one of the greatest of indian chiefs. on that day he for the first time went with his father to hunt, and returned in the evening with meat of his own killing tied to the saddle. with his new bow and on a swift horse, he had joined in a buffalo run and killed a young bull. the end indian why stories sparks from war eagle's lodge-fire frank b. linderman [co skee see co cot] i dedicate this little book to my friend charles m. russell the cowboy artist george bird grinnell the indian's friend and to all others who have known and loved old montana for i hold them all as kin who have builded fires where nature wears no make-up on her skin preface the great northwest--that wonderful frontier that called to itself a world's hardiest spirits--is rapidly becoming a settled country; and before the light of civilizing influences, the blanket-indian has trailed the buffalo over the divide that time has set between the pioneer and the crowd. with his passing we have lost much of the aboriginal folk-lore, rich in its fairy-like characters, and its relation to the lives of a most warlike people. there is a wide difference between folk-lore of the so-called old world and that of america. transmitted orally through countless generations, the folk-stories of our ancestors show many evidences of distortion and of change in material particulars; but the indian seems to have been too fond of nature and too proud of tradition to have forgotten or changed the teachings of his forefathers. childlike in simplicity, beginning with creation itself, and reaching to the whys and wherefores of nature's moods and eccentricities, these tales impress me as being well worth saving. the indian has always been a lover of nature and a close observer of her many moods. the habits of the birds and animals, the voices of the winds and waters, the flickering of the shadows, and the mystic radiance of the moonlight--all appealed to him. gradually, he formulated within himself fanciful reasons for the myriad manifestations of the mighty mother and her many children; and a poet by instinct, he framed odd stories with which to convey his explanations to others. and these stories were handed down from father to son, with little variation, through countless generations, until the white man slaughtered the buffalo, took to himself the open country, and left the red man little better than a beggar. but the tribal story-teller has passed, and only here and there is to be found a patriarch who loves the legends of other days. old-man, or napa, as he is called by the tribes of blackfeet, is the strangest character in indian folk-lore. sometimes he appears as a god or creator, and again as a fool, a thief, or a clown. but to the indian, napa is not the deity; he occupies a somewhat subordinate position, possessing many attributes which have sometimes caused him to be confounded with manitou, himself. in all of this there is a curious echo of the teachings of the ancient aryans, whose belief it was that this earth was not the direct handiwork of the almighty, but of a mere member of a hierarchy of subordinate gods. the indian possesses the highest veneration for the great god, who has become familiar to the readers of indian literature as manitou. no idle tales are told of him, nor would any indian mention him irreverently. but with napa it is entirely different; he appears entitled to no reverence; he is a strange mixture of the fallible human and the powerful under-god. he made many mistakes; was seldom to be trusted; and his works and pranks run from the sublime to the ridiculous. in fact, there are many stories in which napa figures that will not bear telling at all. i propose to tell what i know of these legends, keeping as near as possible to the indian's style of story-telling, and using only tales told me by the older men of the blackfeet, chippewa, and cree tribes. contents why the chipmunk's back is striped how the ducks got their fine feathers why the kingfisher always wears a war-bonnet why the curlew's bill is long and crooked old-man remarks the world why blackfeet never kill mice how the otter skin became great medicine old-man steals the sun's leggings old-man and his conscience old-man's treachery why the night-hawk's wings are beautiful why the mountain-lion is long and lean the fire-leggings the moon and the great snake why the deer has no gall why indians whip the buffalo-berries from the bushes old-man and the fox why the birch-tree wears the slashes in its bark mistakes of old-man how the man found his mate dreams retrospection introduction it was the moon when leaves were falling, for napa had finished painting them for their dance with the north wind. just over the ragged mountain range the big moon hung in an almost starless sky, and in shadowy outline every peak lay upon the plain like a giant pattern. slowly the light spread and as slowly the shadows stole away until the october moon looked down on the great indian camp--a hundred lodges, each as perfect in design as the tusks of a young silver-tip, and all looking ghostly white in the still of the autumn night. back from the camp, keeping within the ever-moving shadows, a buffalo-wolf skulked to a hill overlooking the scene, where he stopped to look and listen, his body silhouetted against the sky. a dog howled occasionally, and the weird sound of a tom-tom accompanying the voice of a singer in the indian village reached the wolf's ears, but caused him no alarm; for not until a great herd of ponies, under the eyes of the night-herder, drifted too close, did he steal away. near the centre of the camp was the big painted lodge of war eagle, the medicine-man, and inside had gathered his grandchildren, to whom he was telling the stories of the creation and of the strange doings of napa, the creator. being a friend of the old historian, i entered unhindered, and with the children listened until the hour grew late, and on the lodge-wall the dying fire made warning shadows dance. why the chipmunk's back is striped what a splendid lodge it was, and how grand war eagle looked leaning against his back-rest in the firelight! from the tripod that supported the back-rest were suspended his weapons and his medicine-bundle, each showing the wonderful skill of the maker. the quiver that held the arrows was combined with a case for the bow, and colored quills of the porcupine had been deftly used to make it a thing of beauty. all about the lodge hung the strangely painted linings, and the firelight added richness to both color and design. war eagle's hair was white, for he had known many snows; but his eyes were keen and bright as a boy's, as he gazed in pride at his grandchildren across the lodge-fire. he was wise, and had been in many battles, for his was a warlike tribe. he knew all about the world and the people in it. he was deeply religious, and every indian child loved him for his goodness and brave deeds. about the fire were little buffalo calf, a boy of eleven years; eyes-in-the-water, his sister, a girl of nine; fine bow, a cousin of these, aged ten, and bluebird, his sister, who was but eight years old. not a sound did the children make while the old warrior filled his great pipe, and only the snapping of the lodge-fire broke the stillness. solemnly war eagle lit the tobacco that had been mixed with the dried inner bark of the red willow, and for several minutes smoked in silence, while the children's eyes grew large with expectancy. finally he spoke: "napa, old-man, is very old indeed. he made this world, and all that is on it. he came out of the south, and travelled toward the north, making the birds and animals as he passed. he made the perfumes for the winds to carry about, and he even made the war-paint for the people to use. he was a busy worker, but a great liar and thief, as i shall show you after i have told you more about him. it was old-man who taught the beaver all his cunning. it was old-man who told the bear to go to sleep when the snow grew deep in winter, and it was he who made the curlew's bill so long and crooked, although it was not that way at first. old-man used to live on this world with the animals and birds. there was no other man or woman then, and he was chief over all the animal-people and the bird-people. he could speak the language of the robin, knew the words of the bear, and understood the sign-talk of the beaver, too. he lived with the wolves, for they are the great hunters. even to-day we make the same sign for a smart man as we make for the wolf; so you see he taught them much while he lived with them. old-man made a great many mistakes in making things, as i shall show you after a while; yet he worked until he had everything good. but he often made great mischief and taught many wicked things. these i shall tell you about some day. everybody was afraid of old-man and his tricks and lies--even the animal-people, before he made men and women. he used to visit the lodges of our people and make trouble long ago, but he got so wicked that manitou grew angry at him, and one day in the month of roses, he built a lodge for old-man and told him that he must stay in it forever. of course he had to do that, and nobody knows where the lodge was built, nor in what country, but that is why we never see him as our grandfathers did, long, long ago. "what i shall tell you now happened when the world was young. it was a fine summer day, and old-man was travelling in the forest. he was going north and straight as an arrow--looking at nothing, hearing nothing. no one knows what he was after, to this day. the birds and forest-people spoke politely to him as he passed but he answered none of them. the pine-squirrel, who is always trying to find out other people's business, asked him where he was going, but old-man wouldn't tell him. the woodpecker hammered on a dead tree to make him look that way, but he wouldn't. the elk-people and the deer-people saw him pass, and all said that he must be up to some mischief or he would stop and talk a while. the pine-trees murmured, and the bushes whispered their greeting, but he kept his eyes straight ahead and went on travelling. "the sun was low when old-man heard a groan" (here war eagle groaned to show the children how it sounded), "and turning about he saw a warrior lying bruised and bleeding near a spring of cold water. old-man knelt beside the man and asked: 'is there war in this country?' "'yes,' answered the man. 'this whole day long we have fought to kill a person, but we have all been killed, i am afraid.' "'that is strange,' said old-man; 'how can one person kill so many men? who is this person, tell me his name!' but the man didn't answer--he was dead. when old-man saw that life had left the wounded man, he drank from the spring, and went on toward the north, but before long he heard a noise as of men fighting, and he stopped to look and listen. finally he saw the bushes bend and sway near a creek that flowed through the forest. he crawled toward the spot, and peering through the brush saw a great person near a pile of dead men, with his back against a pine-tree. the person was full of arrows, and he was pulling them from his ugly body. calmly the person broke the shafts of the arrows, tossed them aside, and stopped the blood flow with a brush of his hairy hand. his head was large and fierce-looking, and his eyes were small and wicked. his great body was larger than that of a buffalo-bull and covered with scars of many battles. "old-man went to the creek, and with his buffalo-horn cup brought some water to the person, asking as he approached: "'who are you, person? tell me, so i can make you a fine present, for you are great in war.' "'i am bad sickness,' replied the person. 'tribes i have met remember me and always will, for their bravest warriors are afraid when i make war upon them. i come in the night or i visit their camps in daylight. it is always the same; they are frightened and i kill them easily.' "'ho!' said old-man, 'tell me how to make bad sickness, for i often go to war myself.' he lied; for he was never in a battle in his life. the person shook his ugly head and then old-man said: "'if you will tell me how to make bad sickness i will make you small and handsome. when you are big, as you now are, it is very hard to make a living; but when you are small, little food will make you fat. your living will be easy because i will make your food grow everywhere.' "'good,' said the person, 'i will do it; you must kill the fawns of the deer and the calves of the elk when they first begin to live. when you have killed enough of them you must make a robe of their skins. whenever you wear that robe and sing--"now you sicken, now you sicken," the sickness will come--that is all there is to it.' "'good,' said old-man, 'now lie down to sleep and i will do as i promised.' "the person went to sleep and old-man breathed upon him until he grew so tiny that he laughed to see how small he had made him. then he took out his paint sack and striped the person's back with black and yellow. it looked bright and handsome and he waked the person, who was now a tiny animal with a bushy tail to make him pretty. "'now,' said old-man, 'you are the chipmunk, and must always wear those striped clothes. all of your children and their children, must wear them, too.' "after the chipmunk had looked at himself, and thanked old-man for his new clothes, he wanted to know how he could make his living, and old-man told him what to eat, and said he must cache the pine-nuts when the leaves turned yellow, so he would not have to work in the winter time. "'you are a cousin to the pine-squirrel,' said old-man, 'and you will hunt and hide as he does. you will be spry and your living will be easy to make if you do as i have told you.' "he taught the chipmunk his language and his signs, showed him where to live, and then left him, going on toward the north again. he kept looking for the cow-elk and doe-deer, and it was not long before he had killed enough of their young to make the robe as the person told him, for they were plentiful before the white man came to live on the world. he found a shady place near a creek, and there made the robe that would make bad sickness whenever he sang the queer song, but the robe was plain, and brown in color. he didn't like the looks of it. suddenly he thought how nice the back of the chipmunk looked after he had striped it with his paints. he got out his old paint sack and with the same colors made the robe look very much like the clothes of the chipmunk. he was proud of the work, and liked the new robe better; but being lazy, he wanted to save himself work, so he sent the south-wind to tell all the doe-deer and the cow-elk to come to him. they came as soon as they received the message, for they were afraid of old-man and always tried to please him. when they had all reached the place where old-man was he said to them: "'do you see this robe?' "'yes, we see it,' they replied. "'well, i have made it from the skins of your children, and then painted it to look like the chipmunk's back, for i like the looks of that person's clothes. i shall need many more of these robes during my life; and every time i make one, i don't want to have to spend my time painting it; so from now on and forever your children shall be born in spotted clothes. i want it to be that way to save me work. on all the fawns there must be spots of white like this (here he pointed to the spots on bad sickness's robe) and on all of the elk-calves the spots shall not be so white and shall be in rows and look rather yellow.' again he showed them his robe, that they might see just what he wanted. "'remember,' he said, 'after this i don't want to see any of your children running about wearing plain clothing, because that would mean more painting for me. now go away, and remember what i have said, lest i make you sick.' "the cow-elk and the doe-deer were glad to know that their children's clothes would be beautiful, and they went away to their little ones who were hidden in the tall grass, where the wolves and mountain-lions would have a hard time finding them; for you know that in the tracks of the fawn there is no scent, and the wolf cannot trail him when he is alone. that is the way manitou takes care of the weak, and all of the forest-people know about it, too. "now you know why the chipmunk's back is striped, and why the fawn and elk-calf wear their pretty clothes. "i hear the owls, and it is time for all young men who will some day be great warriors to go to bed, and for all young women to seek rest, lest beauty go away forever. ho!" how the ducks got their fine feathers another night had come, and i made my way toward war eagle's lodge. in the bright moonlight the dead leaves of the quaking-aspen fluttered down whenever the wind shook the trees; and over the village great flocks of ducks and geese and swan passed in a never-ending procession, calling to each other in strange tones as they sped away toward the waters that never freeze. in the lodge war eagle waited for his grandchildren, and when they had entered, happily, he laid aside his pipe and said: "the duck-people are travelling to-night just as they have done since the world was young. they are going away from winter because they cannot make a living when ice covers the rivers. "you have seen the duck-people often. you have noticed that they wear fine clothes but you do not know how they got them; so i will tell you to-night. "it was in the fall when leaves are yellow that it happened, and long, long ago. the duck-people had gathered to go away, just as they are doing now. the buck-deer was coming down from the high ridges to visit friends in the lowlands along the streams as they have always done. on a lake old-man saw the duck-people getting ready to go away, and at that time they all looked alike; that is, they all wore the same colored clothes. the loons and the geese and the ducks were there and playing in the sunlight. the loons were laughing loudly and the diving was fast and merry to see. on the hill where old-man stood there was a great deal of moss, and he began to tear it from the ground and roll it into a great ball. when he had gathered all he needed he shouldered the load and started for the shore of the lake, staggering under the weight of the great burden. finally the duck-people saw him coming with his load of moss and began to swim away from the shore. "'wait, my brothers!' he called, 'i have a big load here, and i am going to give you people a dance. come and help me get things ready.' "'don't you do it,' said the gray goose to the others; 'that's old-man and he is up to something bad, i am sure.' "so the loon called to old-man and said they wouldn't help him at all. "right near the water old-man dropped his ball of moss and then cut twenty long poles. with the poles he built a lodge which he covered with the moss, leaving a doorway facing the lake. inside the lodge he built a fire and when it grew bright he cried: "'say, brothers, why should you treat me this way when i am here to give you a big dance? come into the lodge,' but they wouldn't do that. finally old-man began to sing a song in the duck-talk, and keep time with his drum. the duck-people liked the music, and swam a little nearer to the shore, watching for trouble all the time, but old-man sang so sweetly that pretty soon they waddled up to the lodge and went inside. the loon stopped near the door, for he believed that what the gray goose had said was true, and that old-man was up to some mischief. the gray goose, too, was careful to stay close to the door but the ducks reached all about the fire. politely, old-man passed the pipe, and they all smoked with him because it is wrong not to smoke in a person's lodge if the pipe is offered, and the duck-people knew that. "'well,' said old-man, 'this is going to be the blind-dance, but you will have to be painted first. "'brother mallard, name the colors--tell how you want me to paint you.' "'well,' replied the mallard drake, 'paint my head green, and put a white circle around my throat, like a necklace. besides that, i want a brown breast and yellow legs: but i don't want my wife painted that way.' "old-man painted him just as he asked, and his wife, too. then the teal and the wood-duck (it took a long time to paint the wood-duck) and the spoonbill and the blue-bill and the canvasback and the goose and the brant and the loon--all chose their paint. old-man painted them all just as they wanted him to, and kept singing all the time. they looked very pretty in the firelight, for it was night before the painting was done. "'now,' said old-man, 'as this is the blind-dance, when i beat upon my drum you must all shut your eyes tight and circle around the fire as i sing. every one that peeks will have sore eyes forever.' "then the duck-people shut their eyes and old-man began to sing: 'now you come, ducks, now you come--tum-tum, tum; tum-tum, tum.' "around the fire they came with their eyes still shut, and as fast as they reached old-man, the rascal would seize them, and wring their necks. ho! things were going fine for old-man, but the loon peeked a little, and saw what was going on; several others heard the fluttering and opened their eyes, too. the loon cried out, 'he's killing us--let us fly,' and they did that. there was a great squawking and quacking and fluttering as the duck-people escaped from the lodge. ho! but old-man was angry, and he kicked the back of the loon-duck, and that is why his feet turn from his body when he walks or tries to stand. yes, that is why he is a cripple to-day. "and all of the duck-people that peeked that night at the dance still have sore eyes--just as old-man told them they would have. of course they hurt and smart no more but they stay red to pay for peeking, and always will. you have seen the mallard and the rest of the duck-people. you can see that the colors old-man painted so long ago are still bright and handsome, and they will stay that way forever and forever. ho!" why the kingfisher always wears a war-bonnet autumn nights on the upper missouri river in montana are indescribably beautiful, and under their spell imagination is a constant companion to him who lives in wilderness, lending strange, weird echoes to the voice of man or wolf, and unnatural shapes in shadow to commonplace forms. the moon had not yet climbed the distant mountain range to look down on the humbler lands when i started for war eagle's lodge; and dimming the stars in its course, the milky-way stretched across the jewelled sky. "the wolf's trail," the indians call this filmy streak that foretells fair weather, and to-night it promised much, for it seemed plainer and brighter than ever before. "how--how!" greeted war eagle, making the sign for me to be seated near him, as i entered his lodge. then he passed me his pipe and together we smoked until the children came. entering quietly, they seated themselves in exactly the same positions they had occupied on the previous evenings, and patiently waited in silence. finally war eagle laid the pipe away and said: "ho! little buffalo calf, throw a big stick on the fire and i will tell you why the kingfisher wears a war-bonnet." the boy did as he was bidden. the sparks jumped toward the smoke-hole and the blaze lighted up the lodge until it was bright as daytime, when war eagle continued: "you have often seen kingfisher at his fishing along the rivers, i know; and you have heard him laugh in his queer way, for he laughs a good deal when he flies. that same laugh nearly cost him his life once, as you will see. i am sure none could see the kingfisher without noticing his great head-dress, but not many know how he came by it because it happened so long ago that most men have forgotten. "it was one day in the winter-time when old-man and the wolf were hunting. the snow covered the land and ice was on all of the rivers. it was so cold that old-man wrapped his robe close about himself and his breath showed white in the air. of course the wolf was not cold; wolves never get cold as men do. both old-man and the wolf were hungry for they had travelled far and had killed no meat. old-man was complaining and grumbling, for his heart is not very good. it is never well to grumble when we are doing our best, because it will do no good and makes us weak in our hearts. when our hearts are weak our heads sicken and our strength goes away. yes, it is bad to grumble. "when the sun was getting low old-man and the wolf came to a great river. on the ice that covered the water, they saw four fat otters playing. "'there is meat,' said the wolf; 'wait here and i will try to catch one of those fellows.' "'no!--no!' cried old-man, 'do not run after the otter on the ice, because there are air-holes in all ice that covers rivers, and you may fall in the water and die.' old-man didn't care much if the wolf did drown. he was afraid to be left alone and hungry in the snow--that was all. "'ho!' said the wolf, 'i am swift of foot and my teeth are white and sharp. what chance has an otter against me? yes, i will go,' and he did. "away ran the otters with the wolf after them, while old-man stood on the bank and shivered with fright and cold. of course the wolf was faster than the otter, but he was running on the ice, remember, and slipping a good deal. nearer and nearer ran the wolf. in fact he was just about to seize an otter, when splash!--into an air-hole all the otters went. ho! the wolf was going so fast he couldn't stop, and swow! into the air-hole he went like a badger after mice, and the current carried him under the ice. the otters knew that hole was there. that was their country and they were running to reach that same hole all the time, but the wolf didn't know that. "old-man saw it all and began to cry and wail as women do. ho! but he made a great fuss. he ran along the bank of the river, stumbling in the snowdrifts, and crying like a woman whose child is dead; but it was because he didn't want to be left in that country alone that he cried--not because he loved his brother, the wolf. on and on he ran until he came to a place where the water was too swift to freeze, and there he waited and watched for the wolf to come out from under the ice, crying and wailing and making an awful noise, for a man. "well--right there is where the thing happened. you see, kingfisher can't fish through the ice and he knows it, too; so he always finds places like the one old-man found. he was there that day, sitting on the limb of a birch-tree, watching for fishes, and when old-man came near to kingfisher's tree, crying like an old woman, it tickled the fisher so much that he laughed that queer, chattering laugh. "old-man heard him and--ho! but he was angry. he looked about to see who was laughing at him and that made kingfisher laugh again, longer and louder than before. this time old-man saw him and swow! he threw his war-club at kingfisher; tried to kill the bird for laughing. kingfisher ducked so quickly that old-man's club just grazed the feathers on his head, making them stand up straight. "'there,' said old-man, 'i'll teach you to laugh at me when i'm sad. your feathers are standing up on the top of your head now and they will stay that way, too. as long as you live you must wear a head-dress, to pay for your laughing, and all your children must do the same. "this was long, long ago, but the kingfishers have not forgotten, and they all wear war-bonnets, and always will as long as there are kingfishers. "now i will say good night, and when the sun sleeps again i will tell you why the curlew's bill is so long and crooked. ho!" why the curlew's bill is long and crooked when we reached war eagle's lodge we stopped near the door, for the old fellow was singing--singing some old, sad song of younger days and keeping time with his tom-tom. somehow the music made me sad and not until it had ceased, did we enter. "how! how!"--he greeted us, with no trace of the sadness in his voice that i detected in his song. "you have come here to-night to learn why the curlew's bill is so long and crooked. i will tell you, as i promised, but first i must smoke." in silence we waited until the pipe was laid aside, then war eagle began: "by this time you know that old-man was not always wise, even if he did make the world, and all that is on it. he often got into trouble but something always happened to get him out of it. what i shall tell you now will show you that it is not well to try to do things just because others do them. they may be right for others, and wrong for us, but old-man didn't understand that, you see. "one day he saw some mice playing and went near to watch them. it was spring-time, and the frost was just coming out of the ground. a big flat rock was sticking out of a bank near a creek, and the sun had melted the frost from the earth about it, loosening it, so that it was about to fall. the chief-mouse would sing a song, while all the other mice danced, and then the chief would cry 'now!' and all the mice would run past the big rock. on the other side, the chief-mouse would sing again, and then say 'now!'--back they would come--right under the dangerous rock. sometimes little bits of dirt would crumble and fall near the rock, as though warning the mice that the rock was going to fall, but they paid no attention to the warning, and kept at their playing. finally old-man said: "'say, chief-mouse, i want to try that. i want to play that game. i am a good runner.' "he wasn't, you know, but he thought he could run. that is often where we make great mistakes--when we try to do things we were not intended to do. "'no--no!' cried the chief-mouse, as old-man prepared to make the race past the rock. 'no!--no!--you will shake the ground. you are too heavy, and the rock may fall and kill you. my people are light of foot and fast. we are having a good time, but if you should try to do as we are doing you might get hurt, and that would spoil our fun.' "'ho!' said old-man, 'stand back! i'll show you what a runner i am.' "he ran like a grizzly bear, and shook the ground with his weight. swow!--came the great rock on top of old-man and held him fast in the mud. my! how he screamed and called for aid. all the mice-people ran away to find help. it was a long time before the mice-people found anybody, but they finally found the coyote, and told him what had happened. coyote didn't like old-man very much, but he said he would go and see what he could do, and he did. the mice-people showed him the way, and when they all reached the spot--there was old-man deep in the mud, with the big rock on his back. he was angry and was saying things people should not say, for they do no good and make the mind wicked. "coyote said: 'keep still, you big baby. quit kicking about so. you are splashing mud in my eyes. how can i see with my eyes full of mud? tell me that. i am going to try to help you out of your trouble.' he tried but old-man insulted coyote, and called him a name that is not good, so the coyote said, 'well, stay there,' and went away. "again old-man began to call for helpers, and the curlew, who was flying over, saw the trouble, and came down to the ground to help. in those days curlew had a short, stubby bill, and he thought that he could break the rock by pecking it. he pecked and pecked away without making any headway, till old-man grew angry at him, as he did at the coyote. the harder the curlew worked, the worse old-man scolded him. old-man lost his temper altogether, you see, which is a bad thing to do, for we lose our friends with it, often. temper is like a bad dog about a lodge--no friends will come to see us when he is about. "curlew did his best but finally said: 'i'll go and try to find somebody else to help you. i guess i am too small and weak. i shall come back to you.' he was standing close to old-man when he spoke, and old-man reached out and grabbed the curlew by the bill. curlew began to scream--oh, my--oh, my--oh, my--as you still hear them in the air when it is morning. old-man hung onto the bill and finally pulled it out long and slim, and bent it downward, as it is to-day. then he let go and laughed at the curlew. "'you are a queer-looking bird now. that is a homely bill, but you shall always wear it and so shall all of your children, as long as there are curlews in the world.' "i have forgotten who it was that got old-man out of his trouble, but it seems to me it was the bear. anyhow he did get out somehow, and lived to make trouble, until manitou grew tired of him. "there are good things that old-man did and to-morrow night, if you will come early, i will tell you how old-man made the world over after the water made its war on the land, scaring all the animal-people and the bird-people. i will also tell you how he made the first man and the first woman and who they were. but now the grouse is fast asleep; nobody is stirring but those who were made to see in the dark, like the owl and the wolf.- ho!" old-man remakes the world the sun was just sinking behind the hills when we started for war eagle's lodge. "to-morrow will be a fine day," said other-person, "for grandfather says that a red sky is always the sun's promise of fine weather, and the sun cannot lie." "yes," said bluebird, "and he said that when this moon was new it travelled well south for this time of year and its points were up. that means fine, warm weather." "i wish i knew as much as grandfather," said fine-bow with pride. the pipe was laid aside at once upon our entering the lodge and the old warrior said: "i have told you that old-man taught the animals and the birds all they know. he made them and therefore knew just what each would have to understand in order to make his living. they have never forgotten anything he told them--even to this day. their grandfathers told the young ones what they had been told, just as i am telling you the things you should know. be like the birds and animals--tell your children and grandchildren what i have told you, that our people may always know how things were made, and why strange things are true. "yes--old-man taught the beaver how to build his dams to make the water deeper; taught the squirrel to plant the pine-nut so that another tree might grow and have nuts for his children; told the bear to go to sleep in the winter, when the snow made hard travelling for his short legs--told him to sleep, and promised him that he would need no meat while he slept. all winter long the bear sleeps and eats nothing, because old-man told him that he could. he sleeps so much in the winter that he spends most of his time in summer hunting. "it was old-man who showed the owl how to hunt at night and it was old-man that taught the weasel all his wonderful ways--his bloodthirsty ways--for the weasel is the bravest of the animal-people, considering his size. he taught the beaver one strange thing that you have noticed, and that is to lay sticks on the creek-bottoms, so that they will stay there as long as he wants them to. "whenever the animal-people got into trouble they always sought old-man and told him about it. all were busy working and making a living, when one day it commenced to rain. that was nothing, of course, but it didn't stop as it had always done before. no, it kept right on raining until the rivers overran their banks, and the water chased the weasel out of his hole in the ground. yes, and it found the rabbit's hiding-place and made him leave it. it crept into the lodge of the wolf at night and frightened his wife and children. it poured into the den of the bear among the rocks and he had to move. it crawled under the logs in the forest and found the mice-people. out it went to the plains and chased them out of their homes in the buffalo skulls. at last the beavers' dams broke under the strain and that made everything worse. it was bad--very bad, indeed. everybody except the fish-people were frightened and all went to find old-man that they might tell him what had happened. finally they found his fire, far up on a timbered bench, and they said that they wanted a council right away. "it was a strange sight to see the eagle sitting next to the grouse; the rabbit sitting close to the lynx; the mouse right under the very nose of the bobcat, and the tiny humming-bird talking to the hawk in a whisper, as though they had always been great friends. all about old-man's fire they sat and whispered or talked in signs. even the deer spoke to the mountain-lion, and the antelope told the wolf that he was glad to see him, because fear had made them all friends. "the whispering and the sign-making stopped when old-man raised his hand-like that" (here war eagle raised his hand with the palm outward)--"and asked them what was troubling them. "the bear spoke first, of course, and told how the water had made him move his camp. he said all the animal-people were moving their homes, and he was afraid they would be unable to find good camping-places, because of the water. then the beaver spoke, because he is wise and all the forest-people know it. he said his dams would not hold back the water that came against them; that the whole world was a lake, and that he thought they were on an island. he said he could live in the water longer than most people, but that as far as he could see they would all die except, perhaps, the fish-people, who stayed in the water all the time, anyhow. he said he couldn't think of a thing to do--then he sat down and the sign-talking and whispering commenced again. "old-man smoked a long time--smoked and thought hard. finally he grabbed his magic stone axe, and began to sing his war-song. then the rest knew he had made up his mind and knew what he would do. swow! he struck a mighty pine-tree a blow, and it fell down. swow! down went another and another, until he had ten times ten of the longest, straightest, and largest trees in all the world lying side by side before him. then old-man chopped off the limbs, and with the aid of magic rolled the great logs tight together. with withes of willow that he told the beaver to cut for him, he bound the logs fast together until they were all as one. it was a monstrous raft that old-man had built, as he sang his song in the darkness. at last he cried, 'ho! everybody hurry and sit on this raft i have made'; and they did hurry. "it was not long till the water had reached the logs; then it crept in between them, and finally it went on past the raft and off into the forest, looking for more trouble. "by and by the raft began to groan, and the willow withes squeaked and cried out as though ghost-people were crying in the night. that was when the great logs began to tremble as the water lifted them from the ground. rain was falling--night was there, and fear made cowards of the bravest on the raft. all through the forest there were bad noises--noises that make the heart cold--as the raft bumped against great trees rising from the earth that they were leaving forever. "higher and higher went the raft; higher than the bushes; higher than the limbs on the trees; higher than the woodpecker's nest; higher than the tree tops, and even higher than the mountains. then the world was no more, for the water had whipped the land in the war it made against it. "day came, and still the rain was falling. night returned, and yet the rain came down. for many days and nights they drifted in the falling rain; whirling and twisting about while the water played with the great raft, as a bear would play with a mouse. it was bad, and they were all afraid--even old-man himself was scared. "at last the sun came but there was no land. all was water. the water was the world. it reached even to the sky and touched it all about the edges. all were hungry, and some of them were grumbling, too. there are always grumblers when there is great trouble, but they are not the ones who become great chiefs--ever. "old-man sat in the middle of the raft and thought. he knew that something must be done, but he didn't know what. finally he said: 'ho! chipmunk, bring me the spotted loon. tell him i want him.' "the chipmunk found the spotted loon and told him that old-man wanted him, so the loon went to where old-man sat. when he got there, old-man said: "'spotted loon you are a great diver. nobody can dive as you can. i made you that way and i know. if you will dive and swim down to the world i think you might bring me some of the dirt that it is made of--then i am sure i can make another world.' "'it is too deep, this water,' replied the loon, 'i am afraid i shall drown.' "'well, what if you do?' said old-man. 'i gave you life, and if you lose it this way i will return it to you. you shall live again!' "'all right, old-man,' he answered, 'i am willing to try'; so he waddled to the edge of the raft. he is a poor walker--the loon, and you know i told you why. it was all because old-man kicked him in the back the night he painted all the duck-people. "down went the spotted loon, and long he stayed beneath the water. all waited and watched, and longed for good luck, but when he came to the top he was dead. everybody groaned--all felt badly, i can tell you, as old-man laid the dead loon on the logs. the loon's wife was crying, but old-man told her to shut up and she did. "then old-man blew his own breath into the loon's bill, and he came back to life. "'what did you see, brother loon?' asked old-man, while everybody crowded as close as he could. "'nothing but water,' answered the loon, 'we shall all die here, i cannot reach the world by swimming. my heart stops working.' "there were many brave ones on the raft, and the otter tried to reach the world by diving; and the beaver, and the gray goose, and the gray goose's wife; but all died in trying, and all were given a new life by old-man. things were bad and getting worse. everybody was cross, and all wondered what old-man would do next, when somebody laughed. "all turned to see what there could be to laugh at, at such a time, and old-man turned about just in time to see the muskrat bid good-by to his wife--that was what they were laughing at. but he paid no attention to old-man or the rest, and slipped from the raft to the water. flip!--his tail cut the water like a knife, and he was gone. some laughed again, but all wondered at his daring, and waited with little hope in their hearts; for the muskrat wasn't very great, they thought. "he was gone longer than the loon, longer than the beaver, longer than the otter or the gray goose or his wife, but when he came to the surface of the water he was dead. "old-man brought muskrat back to life, and asked him what he had seen on his journey. muskrat said: 'i saw trees, old-man, but i died before i got to them.' "old-man told him he was brave. he said his people should forever be great if he succeeded in bringing some dirt to the raft; so just as soon as the muskrat was rested he dove again. "when he came up he was dead, but clinched in his tiny hand old-man found some dirt--not much, but a little. a second time old-man gave the muskrat his breath, and told him that he must go once more, and bring dirt. he said there was not quite enough in the first lot, so after resting a while the muskrat tried a third time and a third time he died, but brought up a little more dirt. "everybody on the raft was anxious now, and they were all crowding about old-man; but he told them to stand back, and they did. then he blew his breath in muskrat's mouth a third time, and a third time he lived and joined his wife. "old-man then dried the dirt in his hands, rubbing it slowly and singing a queer song. finally it was dry; then he settled the hand that held the dirt in the water slowly, until the water touched the dirt. the dry dirt began to whirl about and then old-man blew upon it. hard he blew and waved his hands, and the dirt began to grow in size right before their eyes. old-man kept blowing and waving his hands until the dirt became real land, and the trees began to grow. so large it grew that none could see across it. then he stopped his blowing and sang some more. everybody wanted to get off the raft, but old-man said 'no.' "'come here, wolf,' he said, and the wolf came to him. "'you are swift of foot and brave. run around this land i have made, that i may know how large it is.' "the wolf started, and it took him half a year to get back to the raft. he was very poor from much running, too, but old-man said the world wasn't big enough yet so he blew some more, and again sent the wolf out to run around the land. he never came back--no, the old-man had made it so big that the wolf died of old age before he got back to the raft. then all the people went out upon the land to make their living, and they were happy, there, too. "after they had been on the land for a long time old-man said: 'now i shall make a man and a woman, for i am lonesome living with you people. he took two or three handfuls of mud from the world he had made, and moulded both a man and a woman. then he set them side by side and breathed upon them. they lived!--and he made them very strong and healthy--very beautiful to look upon. chippewas, he called these people, and they lived happily on that world until a white man saw an eagle sailing over the land and came to look about. he stole the woman--that white man did; and that is where all the tribes came from that we know to-day. none are pure of blood but the two humans he made of clay, and their own children. and they are the chippewas! "that is a long story and now you must hurry to bed. to-morrow night i will tell you another story--ho!" why blackfeet never kill mice muskrat and his grandmother were gathering wood for the camp the next morning, when they came to an old buffalo skull. the plains were dotted with these relics of the chase, for already the hide-hunting white man had played havoc with the great herds of buffalo. this skull was in a grove of cottonwood-trees near the river, and as they approached two mice scampered into it to hide. muskrat, in great glee, secured a stick and was about to turn the skull over and kill the mice, when his grandmother said: "no, our people never kill mice. your grandfather will tell you why if you ask him. the mice-people are our friends and we treat them as such. even small people can be good friends, you know--remember that." all the day the boy wondered why the mice-people should not be harmed; and just at dark he came for me to accompany him to war eagle's lodge. on the way he told me what his grandmother had said, and that he intended to ask for the reason, as soon as we arrived. we found the other children already there, and almost before we had seated ourselves, muskrat asked: "grandfather, why must we never kill the mice-people? grandmother said that you knew." "yes," replied war eagle, "i do know and you must know. therefore i shall tell you all to-night why the mice-people must be let alone and allowed to do as they please, for we owe them much; much more than we can ever pay. yes--they are great people, as you will see. "it happened long, long ago, when there were few men and women on the world. old-man was chief of all then, and the animal-people and the bird-people were greater than our people, because we had not been on earth long and were not wise. "there was much quarrelling among the animals and the birds. you see the bear wanted to be chief, under old-man, and so did the beaver. almost every night they would have a council and quarrel over it. beside the bear and beaver, there were other animals, and also birds, that thought they had the right to be chief. they couldn't agree and the quarrelling grew worse as time went on. some said the greatest thief should be chosen. others thought the wisest one should be the leader; while some said the swiftest traveller was the one they wanted. so it went on and on until they were most all enemies instead of friends, and you could hear them quarrelling almost every night, until old-man came along that way. "he heard about the trouble. i forget who told him, but i think it was the rabbit. anyhow he visited the council where the quarrelling was going on and listened to what each one had to say. it took until almost daylight, too. he listened to it all--every bit. when they had finished talking and the quarrelling commenced as usual, he said, 'stop!' and they did stop. "then he said to them: 'i will settle this thing right here and right now, so that there will be no more rows over it, forever.' "he opened his paint sack and took from it a small, polished bone. this he held up in the firelight, so that they might all see it, and he said: "'this will settle the quarrel. you all see this bone in my right hand, don't you?' "'yes,' they replied. "'well, now you watch the bone and my hands, too, for they are quick and cunning.' "old-man began to sing the gambling song and to slip the bone from one hand to the other so rapidly and smoothly that they were all puzzled. finally he stopped singing and held out his hands--both shut tight, and both with their backs up. "'which of my hands holds the bone now?' he asked them. "some said it was in the right hand and others claimed that it was the left hand that held it. old-man asked the bear to name the hand that held the bone, and the bear did; but when old-man opened that hand it was empty--the bone was not there. then everybody laughed at the bear. old-man smiled a little and began to sing and again pass the bone. "'beaver, you are smart; name the hand that holds the bone this time.' "the beaver said: 'it's in your right hand. i saw you put it there.' "old-man opened that hand right before the beaver's eyes, but the bone wasn't there, and again everybody laughed--especially the bear. "'now, you see,' said old-man, 'that this is not so easy as it looks, but i am going to teach you all to play the game; and when you have all learned it, you must play it until you find out who is the cleverest at the playing. whoever that is, he shall be chief under me, forever.' "some were awkward and said they didn't care much who was chief, but most all of them learned to play pretty well. first the bear and the beaver tried it, but the beaver beat the bear easily and held the bone for ever so long. finally the buffalo beat the beaver and started to play with the mouse. of course the mouse had small hands and was quicker than the buffalo--quicker to see the bone. the buffalo tried hard for he didn't want the mouse to be chief but it didn't do him any good; for the mouse won in the end. "it was a fair game and the mouse was chief under the agreement. he looked quite small among the rest but he walked right out to the centre of the council and said: "'listen, brothers--what is mine to keep is mine to give away. i am too small to be your chief and i know it. i am not warlike. i want to live in peace with my wife and family. i know nothing of war. i get my living easily. i don't like to have enemies. i am going to give my right to be chief to the man that old-man has made like himself.' "that settled it. that made the man chief forever, and that is why he is greater than the animals and the birds. that is why we never kill the mice-people. "you saw the mice run into the buffalo skull, of course. there is where they have lived and brought up their families ever since the night the mouse beat the buffalo playing the bone game. yes--the mice-people always make their nests in the heads of the dead buffalo-people, ever since that night. "our people play the same game, even today. see," and war eagle took from his paint sack a small, polished bone. then he sang just as old-man did so long ago. he let the children try to guess the hand that held the bone, as the animal-people did that fateful night; but, like the animals, they always guessed wrong. laughingly war eagle said: "now go to your beds and come to see me to-morrow night. ho!" how the otter skin became great "medicine" it was rather late when we left war eagle's lodge after having learned why the indians never kill the mice-people; and the milky way was white and plain, dimming the stars with its mist. the children all stopped to say good night to little sees-in-the-dark, a brand-new baby sister of bluebird's; then they all went to bed. the next day the boys played at war, just as white boys do; and the girls played with dolls dressed in buckskin clothes, until it grew tiresome, when they visited relatives until it came time for us all to go to their grandfather's lodge. he was smoking when we entered, but soon laid aside the pipe and said: "you know that the otter skin is big medicine, no doubt. you have noticed that our warriors wear it sometimes and you know that we all think it very lucky to wear the skin of the otter. but you don't know how it came to be great; so i shall tell you. "one time, long before my grandfather was born, a young-man of our tribe was unlucky in everything. no woman wanted to marry him, because he couldn't kill enough meat to keep her in food and clothes. whenever he went hunting, his bow always broke or he would lose his lance. if these things didn't happen, his horse would fall and hurt him. everybody talked about him and his bad luck, and although he was fine-looking, he had no close friends, because of his ill fortune. he tried to dream and get his medicine but no dream would come. he grew sour and people were sorry for him all the time. finally his name was changed to 'the unlucky-one,' which sounds bad to the ear. he used to wander about alone a good deal, and one morning he saw an old woman gathering wood by the side of a river. the unlucky-one was about to pass the old woman when she stopped him and asked: "'why are you so sad in your handsome face? why is that sorry look in your fine eyes?' "'because,' replied the young-man, 'i am the unlucky-one. everything goes wrong with me, always. i don't want to live any longer, for my heart is growing wicked.' "'come with me,' said the old woman, and he followed her until she told him to sit down. then she said: 'listen to me. first you must learn a song to sing, and this is it.' then she sang a queer song over and over again until the young-man had learned it well. "'now do what i tell you, and your heart shall be glad some day.' she drew from her robe a pair of moccasins and a small sack of dried meat. 'here,' she said, 'put these moccasins on your feet and take this sack of meat for food, for you must travel far. go on down this river until you come to a great beaver village. their lodges will be large and fine-looking and you will know the village by the great size of the lodges. when you get to the place, you must stand still for a long time, and then sing the song i taught you. when you have finished the singing, a great white beaver, chief of all the beavers in the world, will come to you. he is wise and can tell you what to do to change your luck. after that i cannot help you; but do what the white beaver tells you, without asking why. now go, and be brave!' "the young-man started at once. long his steps were, for he was young and strong. far he travelled down the river--saw many beaver villages, too, but he did not stop, because the lodges were not big, as the old woman told him they would be in the right village. his feet grew tired for he travelled day and night without resting, but his heart was brave and he believed what the old woman had told him. "it was late on the third day when he came to a mighty beaver village and here the lodges were greater than any he had ever seen before. in the centre of the camp was a monstrous lodge built of great sticks and towering above the rest. all about, the ground was neat and clean and bare as your hand. the unlucky-one knew this was the white beaver's lodge--knew that at last he had found the chief of all the beavers in the world; so he stood still for a long time, and then sang that song. "soon a great white beaver--white as the snows of winter--came to him and asked: 'why do you sing that song, my brother? what do you want of me? i have never heard a man sing that song before. you must be in trouble.' "'i am the unlucky-one,' the young-man replied. 'i can do nothing well. i can find no woman who will marry me. in the hunt my bow will often break or my lance is poor. my medicine is bad and i cannot dream. the people do not love me, and they pity me as they do a sick child.' "'i am sorry for you,' said the white beaver--chief of all the beavers in the world--'but you must find my brother the coyote, who knows where old-man's lodge is. the coyote will do your bidding if you sing that song when you see him. take this stick with you, because you will have a long journey, and with the stick you may cross any river and not drown, if you keep it always in your hand. that is all i can do for you, myself.' "on down the river the unlucky-one travelled and the sun was low in the west on the fourth day, when he saw the coyote on a hillside near by. after looking at coyote for a long time, the young-man commenced to sing the song the old woman had taught him. when he had finished the singing, the coyote came up close and asked: "'what is the matter? why do you sing that song? i never heard a man sing it before. what is it you want of me?' "then the unlucky-one told the coyote what he had told the white beaver, and showed the stick the beaver-chief had given him, to prove it. "'i am hungry, too,' said the unlucky-one, 'for i have eaten all the dried meat the old woman gave me.' "'wait here,' said the coyote, 'my brother the wolf has just killed a fat doe, and perhaps he will give me a little of the meat when i tell him about you and your troubles.' "away went the coyote to beg for meat, and while he was gone the young-man bathed his tired feet in a cool creek. soon the coyote came back with meat, and young-man built a fire and ate some of it, even before it was warm, for he was starving. when he had finished the coyote said: "'now i shall take you to old-man's lodge, come.' "they started, even though it was getting dark. long they travelled without stopping--over plains and mountains--through great forests and across rivers, until they came to a cave in the rough rocks on the side of a mighty mountain. "'in there,' said the coyote, 'you will find old-man and he can tell you what you want to know.' "the unlucky-one stood before the black hole in the rocks for a long time, because he was afraid; but when he turned to speak to the coyote he found himself to be alone. the coyote had gone about his own business--had silently slipped away in the night. "slowly and carefully the young-man began to creep into the cave, feeling his way in the darkness. his heart was beating like a tom-tom at a dance. finally he saw a fire away back in the cave. "the shadows danced about the stone sides of the cave as men say the ghosts do; and they frightened him. but looking, he saw a man sitting on the far side of the fire. the man's hair was like the snow and very long. his face was wrinkled with the seams left by many years of life and he was naked in the firelight that played about him. "slowly the young-man stood upon his feet and began to walk toward the fire with great fear in his heart. when he had reached the place where the firelight fell upon him, the old-man looked up and said: "'how, young-man, i am old-man. why did you come here? what is it you want?' "then the unlucky-one told old-man just what he had told the old woman and the white beaver and the coyote, and showed the stick the beaver had given him, to prove it. "'smoke,' said old-man, and passed the pipe to his visitor. after they had smoked old-man said: "'i will tell you what to do. on the top of this great mountain there live many ghost-people and their chief is a great owl. this owl is the only one who knows how you can change your luck, and he will tell you if you are not afraid. take this arrow and go among those people, without fear. show them you are unarmed as soon as they see you. now go!' "out into the night went the unlucky-one and on up the mountain. the way was rough and the wind blew from the north, chilling his limbs and stinging his face, but on he went toward the mountain-top, where the storm-clouds sleep and the winter always stays. drifts of snow were piled all about, and the wind gathered it up and hurled it at the young man as though it were angry at him. the clouds waked and gathered around him, making the night darker and the world lonelier than before, but on the very top of the mountain he stopped and tried to look through the clouds. then he heard strange singing all about him; but for a long time there was no singer in sight. finally the clouds parted and he saw a great circle of ghost-people with large and ugly heads. they were seated on the icy ground and on the drifts of snow and on the rocks, singing a warlike song that made the heart of the young-man stand still, in dread. in the centre of the circle there sat a mighty owl--their chief. ho!--when the ghost-people saw the unlucky-one they rushed at him with many lances and would have killed him but the owl-chief cried, 'stop!' "the young-man folded his arms and said: 'i am unarmed--come and see how a blackfoot dies. i am not afraid of you.' "'ho!' said the owl-chief, 'we kill no unarmed man. sit down, my son, and tell me what you want. why do you come here? you must be in trouble. you must smoke with me.' "the unlucky-one told the owl-chief just what he had told the old woman and the beaver and the coyote and old-man, and showed the stick that the white beaver had given him and the arrow that old-man had given to him to prove it. "'good,' said the owl-chief, 'i can help you, but first you must help yourself. take this bow. it is a medicine-bow; then you will have a bow that will not break and an arrow that is good and straight. now go down this mountain until you come to a river. it will be dark when you reach this river, but you will know the way. there will be a great cottonwood-tree on the bank of the stream where you first come to the water. at this tree, you must turn down the stream and keep on travelling without rest, until you hear a splashing in the water near you. when you hear the splashing, you must shoot this arrow at the sound. shoot quickly, for if you do not you can never have any good luck. if you do as i have told you the splasher will be killed and you must then take his hide and wear it always. the skin that the splasher wears will make you a lucky man. it will make anybody lucky and you may tell your people that it is so. "'now go, for it is nearly day and we must sleep.' "the young-man took his bow and arrow and the stick the white beaver had given him and started on his journey. all the day he travelled, and far into the night. at last he came to a river and on the bank he saw the great cottonwood-tree, just as the ghost owl had told him. at the tree the young-man turned down the stream and in the dark easily found his way along the bank. very soon he heard a great splashing in the water near him, and--zipp--he let the arrow go at the sound--then all was still again. he stood and looked and listened, but for a long time could see nothing--hear nothing. "then the moon came out from under a cloud and just where her light struck the river, he saw some animal floating--dead. with the magic stick the young-man walked out on the water, seized the animal by the legs and drew it ashore. it was an otter, and the young-man took his hide, right there. "a wolf waited in the brush for the body of the otter, and the young-man gave it to him willingly, because he remembered the meat the wolf had given the coyote. as soon as the young-man had skinned the otter he threw the hide over his shoulder and started for his own country with a light heart, but at the first good place he made a camp, and slept. that night he dreamed and all was well with him. "after days of travel he found his tribe again, and told what had happened. he became a great hunter and a great chief among us. he married the most beautiful woman in the tribe and was good to her always. they had many children, and we remember his name as one that was great in war. that is all--ho!" old-man steals the sun's leggings firelight--what a charm it adds to story-telling. how its moods seem to keep pace with situations pictured by the oracle, offering shadows when dread is abroad, and light when a pleasing climax is reached; for interest undoubtedly tends the blaze, while sympathy contributes or withholds fuel, according to its dictates. the lodge was alight when i approached and i could hear the children singing in a happy mood, but upon entering, the singing ceased and embarrassed smiles on the young faces greeted me; nor could i coax a continuation of the song. seated beside war eagle was a very old indian whose name was red robe, and as soon as i was seated, the host explained that he was an honored guest; that he was a sioux and a friend of long standing. then war eagle lighted the pipe, passing it to the distinguished friend, who in turn passed it to me, after first offering it to the sun, the father, and the earth, the mother of all that is. in a lodge of the blackfeet the pipe must never be passed across the doorway. to do so would insult the host and bring bad luck to all who assembled. therefore if there be a large number of guests ranged about the lodge, the pipe is passed first to the left from guest to guest until it reaches the door, when it goes back, unsmoked, to the host, to be refilled ere it is passed to those on his right hand. briefly war eagle explained my presence to red robe and said: "once the moon made the sun a pair of leggings. such beautiful work had never been seen before. they were worked with the colored quills of the porcupine and were covered with strange signs, which none but the sun and the moon could read. no man ever saw such leggings as they were, and it took the moon many snows to make them. yes, they were wonderful leggings and the sun always wore them on fine days, for they were bright to look upon. "every night when the sun went to sleep in his lodge away in the west, he used the leggings for a pillow, because there was a thief in the world, even then. that thief and rascal was old-man, and of course the sun knew all about him. that is why he always put his fine leggings under his head when he slept. when he worked he almost always wore them, as i have told you, so that there was no danger of losing them in the daytime; but the sun was careful of his leggings when night came and he slept. "you wouldn't think that a person would be so foolish as to steal from the sun, but one night old-man--who is the only person who ever knew just where the sun's lodge was--crept near enough to look in, and saw the leggings under the sun's head. "we have all travelled a great deal but no man ever found the sun's lodge. no man knows in what country it is. of course we know it is located somewhere west of here, for we see him going that way every afternoon, but old-man knew everything--except that he could not fool the sun. "yes--old-man looked into the lodge of the sun and saw the leggings there--saw the sun, too, and the sun was asleep. he made up his mind that he would steal the leggings so he crept through the door of the lodge. there was no one at home but the sun, for the moon has work to do at night just as the children, the stars, do, so he thought he could slip the leggings from under the sleeper's head and get away. "he got down on his hands and knees to walk like the bear-people and crept into the lodge, but in the black darkness he put his knee upon a dry stick near the sun's bed. the stick snapped under his weight with so great a noise that the sun turned over and snorted, scaring old-man so badly that he couldn't move for a minute. his heart was not strong--wickedness makes every heart weaker--and after making sure that the sun had not seen him, he crept silently out of the lodge and ran away. "on the top of a hill old-man stopped to look and listen, but all was still; so he sat down and thought. "'i'll get them to-morrow night when he sleeps again'; he said to himself. 'i need those leggings myself, and i'm going to get them, because they will make me handsome as the sun.' "he watched the moon come home to camp and saw the sun go to work, but he did not go very far away because he wanted to be near the lodge when night came again. "it was not long to wait, for all the old-man had to do was to make mischief, and only those who have work to do measure time. he was close to the lodge when the moon came out, and there he waited until the sun went inside. from the bushes old-man saw the sun take off his leggings and his eyes glittered with greed as he saw their owner fold them and put them under his head as he had always done. then he waited a while before creeping closer. little by little the old rascal crawled toward the lodge, till finally his head was inside the door. then he waited a long, long time, even after the sun was snoring. "the strange noises of the night bothered him, for he knew he was doing wrong, and when a loon cried on a lake near by, he shivered as with cold, but finally crept to the sleeper's side. cautiously his fingers felt about the precious leggings until he knew just how they could best be removed without waking the sun. his breath was short and his heart was beating as a war-drum beats, in the black dark of the lodge. sweat--cold sweat, that great fear always brings to the weak-hearted--was dripping from his body, and once he thought that he would wait for another night, but greed whispered again, and listening to its voice, he stole the leggings from under the sun's head. "carefully he crept out of the lodge, looking over his shoulder as he went through the door. then he ran away as fast as he could go. over hills and valleys, across rivers and creeks, toward the east. he wasted much breath laughing at his smartness as he ran, and soon he grew tired. "'ho!' he said to himself, 'i am far enough now and i shall sleep. it's easy to steal from the sun--just as easy as stealing from the bear or the beaver.' "he folded the leggings and put them under his head as the sun had done, and went to sleep. he had a dream and it waked him with a start. bad deeds bring bad dreams to us all. old-man sat up and there was the sun looking right in his face and laughing. he was frightened and ran away, leaving the leggings behind him. "laughingly the sun put on the leggings and went on toward the west, for he is always busy. he thought he would see old-man no more, but it takes more than one lesson to teach a fool to be wise, and old-man hid in the timber until the sun had travelled out of sight. then he ran westward and hid himself near the sun's lodge again, intending to wait for the night and steal the leggings a second time. "he was much afraid this time, but as soon as the sun was asleep he crept to the lodge and peeked inside. here he stopped and looked about, for he was afraid the sun would hear his heart beating. finally he started toward the sun's bed and just then a great white owl flew from off the lodge poles, and this scared him more, for that is very bad luck and he knew it; but he kept on creeping until he could almost touch the sun. "all about the lodge were beautiful linings, tanned and painted by the moon, and the queer signs on them made the old coward tremble. he heard a night-bird call outside and he thought it would surely wake the sun; so he hastened to the bed and with cunning fingers stole the leggings, as he had done the night before, without waking the great sleeper. then he crept out of the lodge, talking bravely to himself as cowards do when they are afraid. "'now,' he said to himself, 'i shall run faster and farther than before. i shall not stop running while the night lasts, and i shall stay in the mountains all the time when the sun is at work in the daytime!' "away he went--running as the buffalo runs--straight ahead, looking at nothing, hearing nothing, stopping at nothing. when day began to break old-man was far from the sun's lodge and he hid himself in a deep gulch among some bushes that grew there. he listened a long time before he dared to go to sleep, but finally he did. he was tired from his great run and slept soundly and for a long time, but when he opened his eyes--there was the sun looking straight at him, and this time he was scowling. old-man started to run away but the sun grabbed him and threw him down upon his back. my! but the sun was angry, and he said: "'old-man, you are a clever thief but a mighty fool as well, for you steal from me and expect to hide away. twice you have stolen the leggings my wife made for me, and twice i have found you easily. don't you know that the whole world is my lodge and that you can never get outside of it, if you run your foolish legs off? don't you know that i light all of my lodge every day and search it carefully? don't you know that nothing can hide from me and live? i shall not harm you this time, but i warn you now, that if you ever steal from me again, i will hurt you badly. now go, and don't let me catch you stealing again!' "away went old-man, and on toward the west went the busy sun. that is all. "now go to bed; for i would talk of other things with my friend, who knows of war as i do. ho!" old-man and his conscience not so many miles away from the village, the great mountain range so divides the streams that are born there, that their waters are offered as tribute to the atlantic, pacific, and arctic oceans. in this wonderful range the indians believe the winds are made, and that they battle for supremacy over gunsight pass. i have heard an old story, too, that is said to have been generally believed by the blackfeet, in which a monster bull-elk that lives in gunsight pass lords it over the winds. this elk creates the north wind by "flapping" one of his ears, and the south wind by the same use of his other. i am inclined to believe that the winds are made in that pass, myself, for there they are seldom at rest, especially at this season of the year. to-night the wind was blowing from the north, and filmy white clouds were driven across the face of the nearly full moon, momentarily veiling her light. lodge poles creaked and strained at every heavy gust, and sparks from the fires inside the lodges sped down the wind, to fade and die. in his lodge war eagle waited for us, and when we entered he greeted us warmly, but failed to mention the gale. "i have been waiting," he said. "you are late and the story i shall tell you is longer than many of the others." without further delay the story-telling commenced. "once old-man came upon a lodge in the forest. it was a fine one, and painted with strange signs. smoke was curling from the top, and thus he knew that the person who lived there was at home. without calling or speaking, he entered the lodge and saw a man sitting by the fire smoking his pipe. the man didn't speak, nor did he offer his pipe to old-man, as our people do when they are glad to see visitors. he didn't even look at his guest, but old-man has no good manners at all. he couldn't see that he wasn't wanted, as he looked about the man's lodge and made himself at home. the linings were beautiful and were painted with fine skill. the lodge was clean and the fire was bright, but there was no woman about. "leaning against a fine back-rest, old-man filled his own pipe and lighted it with a coal from the man's fire. then he began to smoke and look around, wondering why the man acted so queerly. he saw a star that shone down through the smoke-hole, and the tops of several trees that were near the lodge. then he saw a woman--way up in a tree top and right over the lodge. she looked young and beautiful and tall. "'whose woman is that up there in the tree top?' asked old-man. "'she's your woman if you can catch her and will marry her,' growled the man; 'but you will have to live here and help me make a living.' "'i'll try to catch her, and if i do i will marry her and stay here, for i am a great hunter and can easily kill what meat we want,' said old-man. "he went out of the lodge and climbed the tree after the woman. she screamed, but he caught her and held her, although she scratched him badly. he carried her into the lodge and there renewed his promise to stay there always. the man married them, and they were happy for four days, but on the fifth morning old-man was gone--gone with all the dried meat in the lodge--the thief. "when they were sure that the rascal had run away the woman began to cry, but not so the man. he got his bow and arrows and left the lodge in anger. there was snow on the ground and the man took the track of old-man, intending to catch and kill him. "the track was fresh and the man started on a run, for he was a good hunter and as fast as a deer. of course he gained on old-man, who was a much slower traveller; and the sun was not very high when the old thief stopped on a hilltop to look back. he saw the man coming fast. "'this will never do,' he said to himself. 'that queer person will catch me. i know what i shall do; i shall turn myself into a dead bull-elk and lie down. then he will pass me and i can go where i please.' "he took off his moccasins and said to them: 'moccasins, go on toward the west. keep going and making plain tracks in the snow toward the big-water where the sun sleeps. the queer-one will follow you, and when you pass out of the snowy country, you can lose him. go quickly for he is close upon us.' "the moccasins ran away as old-man wanted them to, and they made plain tracks in the snow leading away toward the big-water. old-man turned into a dead bull-elk and stretched himself near the tracks the moccasins had made. "up the hill came the man, his breath short from running. he saw the dead elk, and thought it might be old-man playing a trick. he was about to shoot an arrow into the dead elk to make sure; but just as he was about to let the arrow go, he saw the tracks the moccasins had made. of course he thought the moccasins were on old-man's feet, and that the carcass was really that of a dead elk. he was badly fooled and took the tracks again. on and on he went, following the moccasins over hills and rivers. faster than before went the man, and still faster travelled the empty moccasins, the trail growing dimmer and dimmer as the daylight faded. all day long, and all of the night the man followed the tracks without rest or food, and just at daybreak he came to the shore of the big-water. there, right by the water's edge, stood the empty moccasins, side by side. "the man turned and looked back. his eyes were red and his legs were trembling. 'caw--caw, caw,' he heard a crow say. right over his head he saw the black bird and knew him, too. "'ho! old-man, you were in that dead bull-elk. you fooled me, and now you are a crow. you think you will escape me, do you? well, you will not; for i, too, know magic, and am wise.' "with a stick the man drew a circle in the sand. then he stood within the ring and sang a song. old-man was worried and watched the strange doings from the air overhead. inside the circle the man began to whirl about so rapidly that he faded from sight, and from the centre of the circle there came an eagle. straight at the crow flew the eagle, and away toward the mountains sped the crow, in fright. "the crow knew that the eagle would catch him, so that as soon as he reached the trees on the mountains he turned himself into a wren and sought the small bushes under the tall trees. the eagle saw the change, and at once began turning over and over in the air. when he had reached the ground, instead of an eagle a sparrow-hawk chased the wren. now the chase was fast indeed, for no place could the wren find in which to hide from the sparrow-hawk. through the brush, into trees, among the weeds and grass, flew the wren with the hawk close behind. once the sparrow-hawk picked a feather from the wren's tail--so close was he to his victim. it was nearly over with the wren, when he suddenly came to a park along a river's side. in this park were a hundred lodges of our people, and before a fine lodge there sat the daughter of the chief. it was growing dark and chilly, but still she sat there looking at the river. the sparrow-hawk was striking at the wren with his beak and talons, when the wren saw the young-woman and flew straight to her. so swift he flew that the young-woman didn't see him at all, but she felt something strike her hand, and when she looked she saw a bone ring on her finger. this frightened her, and she ran inside the lodge, where the fire kept the shadows from coming. old-man had changed into the ring, of course, and the sparrow-hawk didn't dare to go into the lodge; so he stopped outside and listened. this is what he heard old-man say: "'don't be frightened, young-woman, i am neither a wren nor a ring. i am old-man and that sparrow-hawk has chased me all the day and for nothing. i have never done him harm, and he bothers me without reason.' "'liar--forked-tongue,' cried the sparrow-hawk. 'believe him not, young-woman. he has done wrong. he is wicked and i am not a sparrow-hawk, but conscience. like an arrow i travel, straight and fast. when he lies or steals from his friends i follow him. i talk all the time and he hears me, but lies to himself, and says he does not hear. you know who i am, young-woman, i am what talks inside a person.' "old-man heard what the sparrow-hawk said, and he was ashamed for once in his life. he crawled out of the lodge. into the shadows he ran away--away into the night, and the darkness--away from himself! "you see," said war eagle, as he reached for his pipe, "old-man knew that he had done wrong, and his heart troubled him, just as yours will bother you if you do not listen to the voice that speaks within yourselves. whenever that voice says a thing is wicked, it is wicked--no matter who says it is not. yes--it is very hard for a man to hide from himself. ho!" old-man's treachery the next afternoon muskrat and fine bow went hunting. they hid themselves in some brush which grew beside an old game trail that followed the river, and there waited for a chance deer. chickadees hopped and called, "chick-a-de-de-de" in the willows and wild-rose bushes that grew near their hiding-place; and the gentle little birds with their pretty coats were often within a few inches of the hands of the young hunters. in perfect silence they watched and admired these little friends, while glance or smile conveyed their appreciation of the bird-visits to each other. the wind was coming down the stream, and therefore the eyes of the boys seldom left the trail in that direction; for from that quarter an approaching deer would be unwarned by the ever-busy breeze. a rabbit came hopping down the game trail in believed perfect security, passing so close to fine bow that he could not resist the desire to strike at him with an arrow. both boys were obliged to cover their mouths with their open hands to keep from laughing aloud at the surprise and speed shown by the frightened bunny, as he scurried around a bend in the trail, with his white, pudgy tail bobbing rapidly. they had scarcely regained their composure and silence when, "snap!" went a dry stick. the sharp sound sent a thrill through the hearts of the boys, and instantly they became rigidly watchful. not a leaf could move on the ground now--not a bush might bend or a bird pass and escape being seen by the four sharp eyes that peered from the brush in the direction indicated by the sound of the breaking stick. two hearts beat loudly as fine bow fitted his arrow to the bowstring. tense and expectant they waited--yes, it was a deer--a buck, too, and he was coming down the trail, alert and watchful--down the trail that he had often travelled and knew so well. yes, he had followed his mother along that trail when he was but a spotted fawn--now he wore antlers, and was master of his own ways. on he came--nearly to the brush that hid the hunters, when, throwing his beautiful head high in the air, he stopped, turning his side a trifle. zipp--went the arrow and, kicking out behind, away went the buck, crashing through willows and alders that grew in his way, until he was out of sight. then all was still, save the chick-a-de-de-de, chick-a-de-de-de, that came constantly from the bushes about them. out from the cover came the hunters, and with ready bow they followed along the trail. yes--there was blood on a log, and more on the dead leaves. the arrow had found its mark and they must go slowly in their trailing, lest they lose the meat. for two hours they followed the wounded animal, and at last came upon him in a willow thicket--sick unto death, for the arrow was deep in his paunch. his sufferings were ended by another arrow, and the chase was done. with their knives the boys dressed the buck, and then went back to the camp to tell the women where the meat could be found--just as the men do. it was their first deer; and pride shone in their faces as they told their grandfather that night in the lodge. "that is good," war eagle replied, as the boys finished telling of their success. "that is good, if your mother needed the meat, but it is wrong to kill when you have plenty, lest manitou be angry. there is always enough, but none to waste, and the hunter who kills more than he needs is wicked. to-night i shall tell you what happened to old-man when he did that. yes, and he got into trouble over it. "one day in the fall when the leaves were yellow, and the deer-people were dressed in their blue robes--when the geese and duck-people were travelling to the country where water does not freeze, and where flowers never die, old-man was travelling on the plains. "near sundown he saw two buffalo-bulls feeding on a steep hillside; but he had no bow and arrow with him. he was hungry, and began to think of some way to kill one of the bulls for meat. very soon he thought out a plan, for he is cunning always. "he ran around the hill out of sight of the bulls, and there made two men out of grass and sage-brush. they were dummies, of course, but he made them to look just like real men, and then armed each with a wooden knife of great length. then he set them in the position of fighting; made them look as though they were about to fight each other with the knives. when he had them both fixed to suit, he ran back to the place where the buffalo were calling: "'ho! brothers, wait for me--do not run away. there are two fine men on the other side of this hill, and they are quarrelling. they will surely fight unless we stop them. it all started over you two bulls, too. one of the men says you are fat and fine, and the other claims you are poor and skinny. don't let our brothers fight over such a foolish thing as that. it would be wicked. now i can decide it, if you will let me feel all over you to see if you are fat or poor. then i will go back to the men and settle the trouble by telling them the truth. stand still and let me feel your sides--quick, lest the fight begin while i am away.' "'all right,' said the bulls, 'but don't you tickle us.' then old-man walked up close and commenced to feel about the bulls' sides; but his heart was bad. from his robe he slipped his great knife, and slyly felt about till he found the spot where the heart beats, and then stabbed the knife into the place, clear up to the hilt. "both of the bulls died right away, and old-man laughed at the trick he had played upon them. then he gave a knife to both of his hands, and said: "'get to work, both of you! skin these bulls while i sit here and boss you.' "both hands commenced to skin the buffalo, but the right hand was much the swifter worker. it gained upon the left hand rapidly, and this made the left hand angry. finally the left hand called the right hand 'dog-face.' that is the very worst thing you can call a person in our language, you know, and of course it made the right hand angry. so crazy and angry was the right hand that it stabbed the left hand, and then they began to fight in earnest. "both cut and slashed till blood covered the animals they were skinning. all this fighting hurt old-man badly, of course, and he commenced to cry, as women do sometimes. this stopped the fight; but still old-man cried, till, drying his tears, he saw a red fox sitting near the bulls, watching him. 'hi, there, you--go away from there! if you want meat you go and kill it, as i did.' "red fox laughed--'ha!--ha!--ha!--foolish old-man--ha!--ha!' then he ran away and told the other foxes and the wolves and the coyotes about old-man's meat. told them that his own hands couldn't get along with themselves and that it would be easy to steal it from him. "they all followed the red fox back to the place where old-man was, and there they ate all of the meat--every bit, and polished the bones. "old-man couldn't stop them, because he was hurt, you see; but it all came about through lying and killing more meat than he needed. yes--he lied and that is bad, but his hands got to quarrelling between themselves, and family quarrels are always bad. do not lie; do not quarrel. it is bad. ho!" why the night-hawk's wings are beautiful i was awakened by the voice of the camp-crier, and although it was yet dark i listened to his message. the camp was to move. all were to go to the mouth of the maria's--"the river that scolds at the other"--the indians call this stream, that disturbs the waters of the missouri with its swifter flood. on through the camp the crier rode, and behind him the lodge-fires glowed in answer to his call. the village was awake, and soon the thunder of hundreds of hoofs told me that the pony-bands were being driven into camp, where the faithful were being roped for the journey. fires flickered in the now fading darkness, and down came the lodges as though wizard hands had touched them. before the sun had come to light the world, we were on our way to "the river that scolds at the other." not a cloud was in the sky, and the wind was still. the sun came and touched the plains and hilltops with the light that makes all wild things glad. here and there a jack-rabbit scurried away, often followed by a pack of dogs, and sometimes, though not often, they were overtaken and devoured on the spot. bands of graceful antelope bounded out of our way, stopping on a knoll to watch the strange procession with wondering eyes, and once we saw a dust-cloud raised by a moving herd of buffalo, in the distance. so the day wore on, the scene constantly changing as we travelled. wolves and coyotes looked at us from almost every knoll and hilltop; and sage-hens sneaked to cover among the patches of sage-brush, scarcely ten feet away from our ponies. toward sundown we reached a grove of cottonwoods near the mouth of the maria's, and in an incredibly short space of time the lodges took form. soon, from out the tops of a hundred camps, smoke was curling just as though the lodges had been there always, and would forever remain. as soon as supper was over i found the children, and together we sought war eagle's lodge. he was in a happy mood and insisted upon smoking two pipes before commencing his story-telling. at last he said: "to-night i shall tell you why the nighthawk wears fine clothes. my grandfather told me about it when i was young. i am sure you have seen the night-hawk sailing over you, dipping and making that strange noise. of course there is a reason for it. "old-man was travelling one day in the springtime; but the weather was fine for that time of year. he stopped often and spoke to the bird-people and to the animal-people, for he was in good humor that day. he talked pleasantly with the trees, and his heart grew tender. that is, he had good thoughts; and of course they made him happy. finally he felt tired and sat down to rest on a big, round stone--the kind of stone our white friend there calls a bowlder. here he rested for a while, but the stone was cold, and he felt it through his robe; so he said: "'stone, you seem cold to-day. you may have my robe. i have hundreds of robes in my camp, and i don't need this one at all.' that was a lie he told about having so many robes. all he had was the one he wore. "he spread his robe over the stone, and then started down the hill, naked, for it was really a fine day. but storms hide in the mountains, and are never far away when it is springtime. soon it began to snow--then the wind blew from the north with a good strength behind it. old-man said: "'well, i guess i do need that robe myself, after all. that stone never did anything for me anyhow. nobody is ever good to a stone. i'll just go back and get my robe.' "back he went and found the stone. then he pulled the robe away, and wrapped it about himself. ho! but that made the stone angry--ho! old-man started to run down the hill, and the stone ran after him. ho! it was a funny race they made, over the grass, over smaller stones, and over logs that lay in the way, but old-man managed to keep ahead until he stubbed his toe on a big sage-brush, and fell--swow! "'now i have you!' cried the stone--'now i'll kill you, too! now i will teach you to give presents and then take them away,' and the stone rolled right on top of old-man, and sat on his back. "it was a big stone, you see, and old-man couldn't move it at all. he tried to throw off the stone but failed. he squirmed and twisted--no use--the stone held him fast. he called the stone some names that are not good; but that never helps any. at last he began to call: "'help!--help!--help!' but nobody heard him except the night-hawk, and he told the old-man that he would help him all he could; so he flew away up in the air--so far that he looked like a black speck. then he came down straight and struck that rock an awful blow--'swow!'--and broke it in two pieces. indeed he did. the blow was so great that it spoiled the night-hawk's bill, forever--made it queer in shape, and jammed his head, so that it is queer, too. but he broke the rock, and old-man stood upon his feet. "'thank you, brother night-hawk,' said old-man, 'now i will do something for you. i am going to make you different from other birds--make you so people will always notice you.' "you know that when you break a rock the powdered stone is white, like snow; and there is always some of the white powder whenever you break a rock, by pounding it. well, old-man took some of the fine powdered stone and shook it on the night-hawk's wings in spots and stripes--made the great white stripes you have seen on his wings, and told him that no other bird could have such marks on his clothes. "all the night-hawk's children dress the same way now; and they always will as long as there are night-hawks. of course their clothes make them proud; and that is why they keep at flying over people's heads--soaring and dipping and turning all the time, to show off their pretty wings. "that is all for to-night. muskrat, tell your father i would run buffalo with him tomorrow--ho!" why the mountain-lion is long and lean have you ever seen the plains in the morning--a june morning, when the spurred lark soars and sings--when the plover calls, and the curlew pipes his shriller notes to the rising sun? then is there music, indeed, for no bird outsings the spurred lark; and thanks to old-man he is not wanting in numbers, either. the plains are wonderful then--more wonderful than they are at this season of the year; but at all times they beckon and hold one as in a spell, especially when they are backed or bordered by a snow-capped mountain range. looking toward the east they are boundless, but on their western edge superb mountains rear themselves. all over this vast country the indians roamed, following the great buffalo herds as did the wolves, and making their living with the bow and lance, since the horse came to them. in the very old days the "piskun" was used, and buffalo were enticed to follow a fantastically dressed man toward a cliff, far enough to get the herd moving in that direction, when the "buffalo-man" gained cover, and hidden indians raised from their hiding places behind the animals, and drove them over the cliff, where they were killed in large numbers. not until cortez came with his cavalry from spain, were there horses on this continent, and then generations passed ere the plains tribes possessed this valuable animal, that so materially changed their lives. dogs dragged the indian's travois or packed his household goods in the days before the horse came, and for hundreds--perhaps thousands of years, these people had no other means of transporting their goods and chattels. as the indian is slow to forget or change the ways of his father, we should pause before we brand him as wholly improvident, i think. he has always been a family-man, has the indian, and small children had to be carried, as well as his camp equipage. wolf-dogs had to be fed, too, in some way, thus adding to his burden; for it took a great many to make it possible for him to travel at all. when the night came and we visited war eagle, we found he had other company--so we waited until their visit was ended before settling ourselves to hear the story that he might tell us. "the crows have stolen some of our best horses," said war eagle, as soon as the other guests had gone. "that is all right--we shall get them back, and more, too. the crows have only borrowed those horses and will pay for their use with others of their own. to-night i shall tell you why the mountain lion is so long and thin and why he wears hair that looks singed. i shall also tell you why that person's nose is black, because it is part of the story. "a long time ago the mountain-lion was a short, thick-set person. i am sure you didn't guess that. he was always a great thief like old-man, but once he went too far, as you shall see. "one day old-man was on a hilltop, and saw smoke curling up through the trees, away off on the far side of a gulch. 'ho!' he said, 'i wonder who builds fires except me. i guess i will go and find out.' "he crossed the gulch and crept carefully toward the smoke. when he got quite near where the fire was, he stopped and listened. he heard some loud laughing but could not see who it was that felt so glad and gay. finally he crawled closer and peeked through the brush toward the fire. then he saw some squirrel-people, and they were playing some sort of game. they were running and laughing, and having a big time, too. what do you think they were doing? they were running about the fire--all chasing one squirrel. as soon as the squirrel was caught, they would bury him in the ashes near the fire until he cried; then they would dig him out in a hurry. then another squirrel would take the lead and run until he was caught, as the other had been. in turn the captive would submit to being buried, and so on--while the racing and laughing continued. they never left the buried one in the ashes after he cried, but always kept their promise and dug him out, right away. "'say, let me play, won't you?' asked old-man. but the squirrel-people all ran away, and he had a hard time getting them to return to the fire. "'you can't play this game,' replied the chief-squirrel, after they had returned to the fire. "'yes, i can,' declared old-man, 'and you may bury me first, but be sure to dig me out when i cry, and not let me burn, for those ashes are hot near the fire.' "'all right,' said the chief-squirrel, 'we will let you play. lie down,'--and old-man did lie down near the fire. then the squirrels began to laugh and bury old-man in the ashes, as they did their own kind. in no time at all old-man cried: 'ouch!--you are burning me--quick!--dig me out.' "true to their promise, the squirrel-people dug old-man out of the ashes, and laughed at him because he cried so quickly. "'now, it is my turn to cover the captive,' said old-man, 'and as there are so many of you, i have a scheme that will make the game funnier and shorter. all of you lie down at once in a row. then i will cover you all at one time. when you cry--i will dig you out right away and the game will be over.' "they didn't know old-man very well; so they said, 'all right,' and then they all laid down in a row about the fire. "old-man buried them all in the ashes--then he threw some more wood on the fire and went away and left them. every squirrel there was in the world was buried in the ashes except one woman squirrel, and she told old-man she couldn't play and had to go home. if she hadn't gone, there might not be any squirrels in this world right now. yes, it is lucky that she went home. "for a minute or so old-man watched the fire as it grew hotter, and then went down to a creek where willows grew and made himself a great plate by weaving them together. when he had finished making the plate, he returned to the fire, and it had burned low again. he laughed at his wicked work, and a raven, flying over just then, called him 'forked-tongue,' or liar, but he didn't mind that at all. old-man cut a long stick and began to dig out the squirrel-people. one by one he fished them out of the hot ashes; and they were roasted fine and were ready to eat. as he fished them out he counted them, and laid them on the willow plate he had made. when he had dug out the last one, he took the plate to the creek and there sat down to eat the squirrels, for he was hungry, as usual. old-man is a big eater, but he couldn't eat all of the squirrels at once, and while eating he fell asleep with the great plate in his lap. "nobody knows how long it was that he slept, but when he waked his plate of squirrels was gone--gone completely. he looked behind him; he looked about him; but the plate was surely gone. ho! but he was angry. he stamped about in the brush and called aloud to those who might hear him; but nobody answered, and then he started to look for the thief. old-man has sharp eyes, and he found the trail in the grass where somebody had passed while he slept. 'ho!' he said, 'the mountain-lion has stolen my squirrels. i see his footprints; see where he has mashed the grass as he walked with those soft feet of his; but i shall find him, for i made him and know all his ways.' "old-man got down on his hands and knees to walk as the bear-people do, just as he did that night in the sun's lodge, and followed the trail of the mountain-lion over the hills and through the swamps. at last he came to a place where the grass was all bent down, and there he found his willow plate, but it was empty. that was the place where the mountain-lion had stopped to eat the rest of the squirrels, you know; but he didn't stay there long because he expected that old-man would try to follow him. "the mountain-lion had eaten so much that he was sleepy and, after travelling a while after he had eaten the squirrels, he thought he would rest. he hadn't intended to go to sleep; but he crawled upon a big stone near the foot of a hill and sat down where he could see a long way. here his eyes began to wink, and his head began to nod, and finally he slept. "without stopping once, old-man kept on the trail. that is what counts--sticking right to the thing you are doing--and just before sundown old-man saw the sleeping lion. carefully, lest he wake the sleeper, old-man crept close, being particular not to move a stone or break a twig; for the mountain-lion is much faster than men are, you see; and if old-man had wakened the lion, he would never have caught him again, perhaps. little by little he crept to the stone where the mountain-lion was dreaming, and at last grabbed him by the tail. it wasn't much of a tail then, but enough for old-man to hold to. ho! the lion was scared and begged hard, saying: "'spare me, old-man. you were full and i was hungry. i had to have something to eat; had to get my living. please let me go and do not hurt me.' ho! old-man was angry--more angry than he was when he waked and found that he had been robbed, because he had travelled so far on his hands and knees. "'i'll show you. i'll teach you. i'll fix you, right now. steal from me, will you? steal from the man that made you, you night-prowling rascal!' "old-man put his foot behind the mountain-lion's head, and, still holding the tail, pulled hard and long, stretching the lion out to great length. he squalled and cried, but old-man kept pulling until he nearly broke the mountain-lion in two pieces--until he couldn't stretch him any more. then old-man put his foot on the mountain-lion's back, and, still holding the tail, stretched that out until the tail was nearly as long as the body. "'there, you thief--now you are too long and lean to get fat, and you shall always look just like that. your children shall all grow to look the same way, just to pay you for your stealing from the man that made you. come on with me'; and he dragged the poor lion back to the place where the fire was, and there rolled him in the hot ashes, singeing his robe till it looked a great deal like burnt hair. then old-man stuck the lion's nose against the burnt logs and blackened it some--that is why his face looks as it does to-day. "the mountain-lion was lame and sore, but old-man scolded him some more and told him that it would take lots more food to keep him after that, and that he would have to work harder to get his living, to pay for what he had done. then he said, 'go now, and remember all the mountain-lions that ever live shall look just as you do.' and they do, too! "that is the story--that is why the mountain-lion is so long and lean, but he is no bigger thief than old-man, nor does he tell any more lies. ho!" the fire-leggings there had been a sudden change in the weather. a cold rain was falling, and the night comes early when the clouds hang low. the children loved a bright fire, and to-night war eagle's lodge was light as day. away off on the plains a wolf was howling, and the rain pattered upon the lodge as though it never intended to quit. it was a splendid night for story-telling, and war eagle filled and lighted the great stone pipe, while the children made themselves comfortable about the fire. a spark sprang from the burning sticks, and fell upon fine bow's bare leg. they all laughed heartily at the boy's antics to rid himself of the burning coal; and as soon as the laughing ceased war eagle laid aside the pipe. an indian's pipe is large to look at, but holds little tobacco. "see your shadows on the lodge wall?" asked the old warrior. the children said they saw them, and he continued: "some day i will tell you a story about them, and how they drew the arrows of our enemies, but to-night i am going to tell you of the great fire-leggings. "it was long before there were men and women on the world, but my grandfather told me what i shall now tell you. "the gray light that hides the night-stars was creeping through the forests, and the wind the sun sends to warn the people of his coming was among the fir tops. flowers, on slender stems, bent their heads out of respect for the herald-wind's master, and from the dead top of a pine-tree the yellowhammer beat upon his drum and called 'the sun is awake--all hail the sun!' "then the bush-birds began to sing the song of the morning, and from alders the robins joined, until all live things were awakened by the great music. where the tall ferns grew, the doe waked her fawns, and taught them to do homage to the great light. in the creeks, where the water was still and clear, and where throughout the day, like a delicate damaskeen, the shadows of leaves that overhang would lie, the speckled trout broke the surface of the pool in his gladness of the coming day. pine-squirrels chattered gayly, and loudly proclaimed what the wind had told; and all the shadows were preparing for a great journey to the sand hills, where the ghost-people dwell. "under a great spruce-tree--where the ground was soft and dry, old-man slept. the joy that thrilled creation disturbed him not, although the sun was near. the bird-people looked at the sleeper in wonder, but the pine squirrel climbed the great spruce-tree with a pine-cone in his mouth. quickly he ran out on the limb that spread over old-man, and dropped the cone on the sleeper's face. then he scolded old-man, saying: 'get up--get up--lazy one--lazy one--get up--get up.' "rubbing his eyes in anger, old-man sat up and saw the sun coming--his hunting leggings slipping through the thickets--setting them afire, till all the deer and elk ran out and sought new places to hide. "'ho, sun!' called old-man, 'those are mighty leggings you wear. no wonder you are a great hunter. your leggings set fire to all the thickets, and by the light you can easily see the deer and elk; they cannot hide. ho! give them to me and i shall then be the great hunter and never be hungry.' "'good,' said the sun, 'take them, and let me see you wear my leggings.' "old-man was glad in his heart, for he was lazy, and now he thought he could kill the game without much work, and that he could be a great hunter--as great as the sun. he put on the leggings and at once began to hunt the thickets, for he was hungry. very soon the leggings began to burn his legs. the faster he travelled the hotter they grew, until in pain he cried out to the sun to come and take back his leggings; but the sun would not hear him. on and on old-man ran. faster and faster he flew through the country, setting fire to the brush and grass as he passed. finally he came to a great river, and jumped in. sizzzzzzz--the water said, when old-man's legs touched it. it cried out, as it does when it is sprinkled upon hot stones in the sweat-lodge, for the leggings were very hot. but standing in the cool water old-man took off the leggings and threw them out upon the shore, where the sun found them later in the day. "the sun's clothes were too big for old-man, and his work too great. "we should never ask to do the things which manitou did not intend us to do. if we keep this always in mind we shall never get into trouble. "be yourselves always. that is what manitou intended. never blame the wolf for what he does. he was made to do such things. now i want you to go to your fathers' lodges and sleep. to-morrow night i will tell you why there are so many snakes in the world. ho!" the moon and the great snake the rain had passed; the moon looked down from a clear sky, and the bushes and dead grass smelled wet, after the heavy storm. a cottontail ran into a clump of wild-rose bushes near war eagle's lodge, and some dogs were close behind the frightened animal, as he gained cover. little buffalo calf threw a stone into the bushes, scaring the rabbit from his hiding-place, and away went bunny, followed by the yelping pack. we stood and listened until the noise of the chase died away, and then went into the lodge, where we were greeted, as usual, by war eagle. to-night he smoked; but with greater ceremony, and i suspected that it had something to do with the forthcoming story. finally he said: "you have seen many snakes, i suppose?" "yes," replied the children, "we have seen a great many. in the summer we see them every day." "well," continued the story-teller, "once there was only one snake on the whole world, and he was a big one, i tell you. he was pretty to look at, and was painted with all the colors we know. this snake was proud of his clothes and had a wicked heart. most snakes are wicked, because they are his relations. "now, i have not told you all about it yet, nor will i tell you to-night, but the moon is the sun's wife, and some day i shall tell you that story, but to-night i am telling you about the snakes. "you know that the sun goes early to bed, and that the moon most always leaves before he gets to the lodge. sometimes this is not so, but that is part of another story. "this big snake used to crawl up a high hill and watch the moon in the sky. he was in love with her, and she knew it; but she paid no attention to him. she liked his looks, for his clothes were fine, and he was always slick and smooth. this went on for a long time, but she never talked to him at all. the snake thought maybe the hill wasn't high enough, so he found a higher one, and watched the moon pass, from the top. every night he climbed this high hill and motioned to her. she began to pay more attention to the big snake, and one morning early, she loafed at her work a little, and spoke to him. he was flattered, and so was she, because he said many nice things to her, but she went on to the sun's lodge, and left the snake. "the next morning very early she saw the snake again, and this time she stopped a long time--so long that the sun had started out from the lodge before she reached home. he wondered what kept her so long, and became suspicious of the snake. he made up his mind to watch, and try to catch them together. so every morning the sun left the lodge a little earlier than before; and one morning, just as he climbed a mountain, he saw the big snake talking to the moon. that made him angry, and you can't blame him, because his wife was spending her time loafing with a snake. "she ran away; ran to the sun's lodge and left the snake on the hill. in no time the sun had grabbed him. my, the sun was angry! the big snake begged, and promised never to speak to the moon again, but the sun had him; and he smashed him into thousands of little pieces, all of different colors from the different parts of his painted body. the little pieces each turned into a little snake, just as you see them now, but they were all too small for the moon to notice after that. that is how so many snakes came into the world; and that is why they are all small, nowadays. "our people do not like the snake-people very well, but we know that they were made to do something on this world, and that they do it, or they wouldn't live here. "that was a short story, but to-morrow night i will tell you why the deer-people have no gall on their livers; and why the antelope-people do not wear dew-claws, for you should know that there are no other animals with cloven hoofs that are like them in this. "i am tired to-night, and i will ask that you go to your lodges, that i may sleep, for i am getting old. ho!" why the deer has no gall bright and early the next morning the children were playing on the bank of "the river that scolds the other," when fine bow said: "let us find a deer's foot, and the foot of an antelope and look at them, for to-night grandfather will tell us why the deer has the dew-claws, and why the antelope has none." "yes, and let us ask mother if the deer has no gall on its liver. maybe she can show both the liver of a deer and that of an antelope; then we can see for ourselves," said bluebird. so they began to look about where the hides had been grained for tanning; and sure enough, there were the feet of both the antelope and the deer. on the deer's feet, or legs, they found the dew-claws, but on the antelope there were none. this made them all anxious to know why these animals, so nearly alike, should differ in this way. bluebird's mother passed the children on her way to the river for water, and the little girl asked: "say, mother, does the deer have gall on his liver?" "no, my child, but the antelope does; and your grandfather will tell you why if you ask him." that night in the lodge war eagle placed before his grandchildren the leg of a deer and the leg of an antelope, as well as the liver of a deer and the liver of an antelope. "see for yourselves that this thing is true, before i tell you why it is so, and how it happened." "we see," they replied, "and to-day we found that these strange things are true, but we don't know why, grandfather." "of course you don't know why. nobody knows that until he is told, and now i shall tell you, so you will always know, and tell your children, that they, too, may know. "it was long, long ago, of course. all these things happened long ago when the world was young, as you are now. it was on a summer morning, and the deer was travelling across the plains country to reach the mountains on the far-off side, where he had relatives. he grew thirsty, for it was very warm, and stopped to drink from a water-hole on the plains. when he had finished drinking he looked up, and there was his own cousin, the antelope, drinking near him. "'good morning, cousin,' said the deer. 'it is a warm morning and water tastes good, doesn't it?' "'yes,' replied the antelope, 'it is warm to-day, but i can beat you running, just the same.' "'ha-ha!' laughed the deer--'you beat me running? why, you can't run half as fast as i can, but if you want to run a race let us bet something. what shall it be?' "'i will bet you my gall-sack,' replied the antelope. "'good,' said the deer, 'but let us run toward that range of mountains, for i am going that way, anyhow, to see my relations.' "'all right,' said the antelope. 'all ready, and here we go.' "away they ran toward the far-off range. all the way the antelope was far ahead of the deer; and just at the foot of the mountains he stopped to wait for him to catch up. "both were out of breath from running, but both declared they had done their best, and the deer, being beaten, gave the antelope his sack of gall. "'this ground is too flat for me,' said the deer. 'come up the hillside where the gulches cut the country, and rocks are in our way, and i will show you how to run. i can't run on flat ground. it's too easy for me.' another race with you on your own ground, and i think i can beat you there, too.' "together they climbed the hill until they reached a rough country, when the deer said: "'this is my kind of country. let us run a race here. whoever gets ahead and stays there, must keep on running until the other calls on him to stop.' "'that suits me,' replied the antelope, 'but what shall we bet this time? i don't want to waste my breath for nothing. i'll tell you--let us bet our dew-claws.' "'good. i'll bet you my dew-claws against your own, that i can beat you again. are you all ready?--go!' "away they went over logs, over stones and across great gulches that cut the hills in two. on and on they ran, with the deer far ahead of the antelope. both were getting tired, when the antelope called: "'hi, there--you! stop, you can beat me. i give up.' "so the deer stopped and waited until the antelope came up to him, and they both laughed over the fun, but the antelope had to give the deer his dew-claws, and now he goes without himself. the deer wears dew-claws and always will, because of that race, but on his liver there is no gall, while the antelope carries a gall-sack like the other animals with cloven hoofs. "that is all of that story, but it is too late to tell you another to-night. if you will come to-morrow evening, i will tell you of some trouble that old-man got into once. he deserved it, for he was wicked, as you shall see. ho!" why the indians whip the buffalo-berries from the bushes the indian believes that all things live again; that all were created by one and the same power; that nothing was created in vain; and that in the life beyond the grave he will know all things that he knew here. in that other world he expects to make his living easier, and not suffer from hunger or cold; therefore, all things that die must go to his heaven, in order that he may be supplied with the necessities of life. the sun is not the indian's god, but a personification of the deity; his greatest manifestation; his light. the indian believes that to each of his creations god gave some peculiar power, and that the possessors of these special favors are his lieutenants and keepers of the several special attributes; such as wisdom, cunning, speed, and the knowledge of healing wounds. these wonderful gifts, he knew, were bestowed as favors by a common god, and therefore he revered these powers, and, without jealousy, paid tribute thereto. the bear was great in war, because before the horse came, he would sometimes charge the camps and kill or wound many people. although many arrows were sent into his huge carcass, he seldom died. hence the indian was sure that the bear could heal his wounds. that the bear possessed a great knowledge of roots and berries, the indian knew, for he often saw him digging the one and stripping the others from the bushes. the buffalo, the beaver, the wolf, and the eagle--each possessed strange powers that commanded the indian's admiration and respect, as did many other things in creation. if about to go to war, the indian did not ask his god for aid--oh, no. he realized that god made his enemy, too; and that if he desired that enemy's destruction, it would be accomplished without man's aid. so the indian sang his song to the bear, prayed to the bear, and thus invoked aid from a brute, and not his god, when he sought to destroy his fellows. whenever the indian addressed the great god, his prayer was for life, and life alone. he is the most religious man i have ever known, as well as the most superstitious; and there are stories dealing with his religious faith that are startling, indeed. "it is the wrong time of year to talk about berries," said war eagle, that night in the lodge, "but i shall tell you why your mothers whip the buffalo-berries from the bushes. old-man was the one who started it, and our people have followed his example ever since. ho! old-man made a fool of himself that day. "it was the time when buffalo-berries are red and ripe. all of the bushes along the rivers were loaded with them, and our people were about to gather what they needed, when old-man changed things, as far as the gathering was concerned. "he was travelling along a river, and hungry, as he always was. standing on the bank of that river, he saw great clusters of red, ripe buffalo-berries in the water. they were larger than any berries he had ever seen, and he said: "'i guess i will get those berries. they look fine, and i need them. besides, some of the people will see them and get them, if i don't.' "he jumped into the water; looked for the berries; but they were not there. for a time old-man stood in the river and looked for the berries, but they were gone. "after a while he climbed out on the bank again, and when the water got smooth once more there were the berries--the same berries, in the same spot in the water. "'ho!--that is a funny thing. i wonder where they hid that time. i must have those berries!' he said to himself. "in he went again--splashing the water like a grizzly bear. he looked about him and the berries were gone again. the water was rippling about him, but there were no berries at all. he felt on the bottom of the river but they were not there. "'well,' he said, 'i will climb out and watch to see where they come from; then i shall grab them when i hit the water next time.' "he did that; but he couldn't tell where the berries came from. as soon as the water settled and became smooth--there were the berries--the same as before. ho!--old-man was wild; he was angry, i tell you. and in he went flat on his stomach! he made an awful splash and mussed the water greatly; but there were no berries. "'i know what i shall do. i will stay right here and wait for those berries; that is what i shall do'; and he did. "he thought maybe somebody was looking at him and would laugh, so he glanced along the bank. and there, right over the water, he saw the same bunch of berries on some tall bushes. don't you see? old-man saw the shadow of the berry-bunch; not the berries. he saw the red shadow-berries on the water; that was all, and he was such a fool he didn't know they were not real. "well, now he was angry in truth. now he was ready for war. he climbed out on the bank again and cut a club. then he went at the buffalo-berry bushes and pounded them till all of the red berries fell upon the ground--till the branches were bare of berries. "'there,' he said, 'that's what you get for making a fool of the man who made you. you shall be beaten every year as long as you live, to pay for what you have done; you and your children, too.' "that is how it all came about, and that is why your mothers whip the buffalo-berry bushes and then pick the berries from the ground. ho!" old-man and the fox i am sure that the plains indian never made nor used the stone arrow-head. i have heard white men say that they had seen indians use them; but i have never found an indian that ever used them himself, or knew of their having been used by his people. thirty years ago i knew indians, intimately, who were nearly a hundred years old, who told me that the stone arrow-head had never been in use in their day, nor had their fathers used them in their own time. indians find these arrow-points just as they find the stone mauls and hammers, which i have seen them use thousands of times, but they do not make them any more than they make the stone mauls and hammers. in the old days, both the head of the lance and the point of the arrow were of bone; even knives were of bone, but some other people surely made the arrow-points that are scattered throughout the united states and europe, i am told. one night i asked war eagle if he had ever known the use, by indians, of the stone arrow-head, and he said he had not. he told me that just across the canadian line there was a small lake, surrounded by trees, wherein there was an island covered with long reeds and grass. all about the edge of this island were willows that grew nearly to the water, but intervening there was a narrow beach of stones. here, he said, the stone arrow-heads had been made by little ghost-people who lived there, and he assured me that he had often seen these strange little beings when he was a small boy. whenever his people were camped by this lake the old folks waked the children at daybreak to see the inhabitants of this strange island; and always when a noise was made, or the sun came up, the little people hid away. often he had seen their heads above the grass and tiny willows, and his grandfather had told him that all the stone arrow-heads had been made on that island, and in war had been shot all over the world, by magic bows. "no," he said, "i shall not lie to you, my friend. i never saw those little people shoot an arrow, but there are so many arrows there, and so many pieces of broken ones, that it proves that my grandfather was right in what he told me. besides, nobody could ever sleep on that island." i have heard a legend wherein old-man, in the beginning, killed an animal for the people to eat, and then instructed them to use the ribs of the dead brute to make knives and arrow-points. i have seen lance-heads, made from shank bones, that were so highly polished that they resembled pearl, and i have in my possession bone arrow-points such as were used long ago. indians do not readily forget their tribal history, and i have photographed a war-bonnet, made of twisted buffalo hair, that was manufactured before the present owner's people had, or ever saw, the horse. the owner of this bonnet has told me that the stone arrow-head was never used by indians, and that he knew that ghost-people made and used them when the world was young. the bow of the plains indian was from thirty-six to forty-four inches long, and made from the wood of the choke-cherry tree. sometimes bows were made from the service (or sarvice) berry bush, and this bush furnished the best material for arrows. i have seen hickory bows among the plains indians, too, and these were longer and always straight, instead of being fashioned like cupid's weapon. these hickory bows came from the east, of course, and through trading, reached the plains country. i have also seen bows covered with the skins of the bull-snake, or wound with sinew, and bows have been made from the horns of the elk, in the early days, after a long course of preparation. before lewis and clark crossed this vast country, the blackfeet had traded with the hudson bay company, and steel knives and lance-heads, bearing the names of english makers, still remain to testify to the relations existing, in those days, between those famous traders and men of the piegan, blood, and blackfoot tribes, although it took many years for traders on our own side of the line to gain their friendship. indeed, trappers and traders blamed the hudson bay company for the feeling of hatred held by the three tribes of blackfeet for the "americans"; and there is no doubt that they were right to some extent, although the killing of the blackfoot warrior by captain lewis in 1805 may have been largely to blame for the trouble. certain it is that for many years after the killing, the blackfeet kept traders and trappers on the dodge unless they were hudson bay men, and in 1810 drove the "american" trappers and traders from their fort at three-forks. it was early when we gathered in war eagle's lodge, the children and i, but the story-telling began at once. "now i shall tell you a story that will show you how little old-man cared for the welfare of others," said war eagle. "it happened in the fall, this thing i shall tell you, and the day was warm and bright. old-man and his brother the red fox were travelling together for company. they were on a hillside when old-man said: 'i am hungry. can you not kill a rabbit or something for us to eat? the way is long, and i am getting old, you know. you are swift of foot and cunning, and there are rabbits among these rocks.' "'ever since morning came i have watched for food, but the moon must be wrong or something, for i see nothing that is good to eat,' replied the fox. 'besides that, my medicine is bad and my heart is weak. you are great, and i have heard you can do most anything. many snows have known your footprints, and the snows make us all wise. i think you are the one to help, not i.' "'listen, brother,' said old-man, 'i have neither bow nor lance--nothing to use in hunting. your weapons are ever with you--your great nose and your sharp teeth. just as we came up this hill i saw two great buffalo-bulls. you were not looking, but i saw them, and if you will do as i want you to we shall have plenty of meat. this is my scheme; i shall pull out all of your hair, leaving your body white and smooth, like that of the fish. i shall leave only the white hair that grows on the tip of your tail, and that will make you funny to look at. then you are to go before the bulls and commence to dance and act foolish. of course the bulls will laugh at you, and as soon as they get to laughing you must act sillier than ever. that will make them laugh so hard that they will fall down and laugh on the ground. when they fall, i shall come upon them with my knife and kill them. will you do as i suggest, brother, or will you starve?' "'what! pull out my hair? i shall freeze with no hair on my body, old-man. no--i will not suffer you to pull my hair out when the winter is so near,' cried the fox. "'ho! it is vanity, my brother, not fear of freezing. if you will do this we shall have meat for the winter, and a fire to keep us warm. see, the wind is in the south and warm. there is no danger of freezing. come, let me do it,' replied old-man. "'well--if you are sure that i won't freeze, all right,' said the fox, 'but i'll bet i'll be sorry.' "so old-man pulled out all of the fox's hair, leaving only the white tip that grew near the end of his tail. poor little red fox shivered in the warm breeze that old-man told about, and kept telling old-man that the hair-pulling hurt badly. finally old-man finished the job and laughed at the fox, saying: 'why, you make me laugh, too. now go and dance before the bulls, and i shall watch and be ready for my part of the scheme.' "around the hill went the poor red fox and found the bulls. then he began to dance before them as old-man had told him. the bulls took one look at the hairless fox and began to laugh. my! how they did laugh, and then the red fox stood upon his hind legs and danced some more; acted sillier, as old-man had told him. louder and louder laughed the bulls, until they fell to the ground with their breath short from the laughing. the red fox kept at his antics lest the bulls get up before old-man reached them; but soon he saw him coming, with a knife in his hand. "running up to the bulls, old-man plunged his knife into their hearts, and they died. into the ground ran their blood, and then old-man laughed and said: 'ho, i am the smart one. i am the real hunter. i depend on my head for meat--ha!--ha!-ha!' "then old-man began to dress and skin the bulls, and he worked hard and long. in fact it was nearly night when he got the work all done. "poor little red fox had stood there all the time, and old-man never noticed that the wind had changed and was coming from the north. yes, poor red fox stood there and spoke no word; said nothing at all, even when old-man had finished. "'hi, there, you! what's the matter with you? are you sorry that we have meat? say, answer me!' "but the red fox was frozen stiff--was dead. yes, the north wind had killed him while old-man worked at the skinning. the fox had been caught by the north wind naked, and was dead. old-man built a fire and warmed his hands; that was all he cared for the red fox, and that is all he cared for anybody. he might have known that no person could stand the north wind without a robe; but as long as he was warm himself--that was all he wanted. "that is all of that story. to-morrow night i shall tell you why the birch-tree wears those slashes in its bark. that was some of old-man's work, too. ho!" why the birch-tree wears the slashes in its bark the white man has never understood the indian, and the example set the western tribes of the plains by our white brethren has not been such as to inspire the red man with either confidence or respect for our laws or our religion. the fighting trapper, the border bandit, the horse-thief and rustler, in whose stomach legitimately acquired beef would cause colic--were the indians' first acquaintances who wore a white skin, and he did not know that they were not of the best type. being outlaws in every sense, these men sought shelter from the indian in the wilderness; and he learned of their ways about his lodge-fire, or in battle, often provoked by the white ruffian in the hope of gain. they lied to the indian--these first white acquaintances, and in after-years, the great government of the united states lied and lied again, until he has come to believe that there is no truth in the white man's heart. and i don't blame him. the indian is a charitable man. i don't believe he ever refused food and shelter or abused a visitor. he has never been a bigot, and concedes to every other man the right to his own beliefs. further than that, the indian believes that every man's religion and belief is right and proper for that man's self. it was blowing a gale and snow was being driven in fine flakes across the plains when we went to the lodge for a story. every minute the weather was growing colder, and an early fall storm of severity was upon us. the wind seemed to add to the good nature of our host as he filled and passed me the pipe. "this is the night i was to tell you about the birch-tree, and the wind will help to make you understand," said war eagle after we had finished smoking. "of course," he continued, "this all happened in the summer-time when the weather was warm, very warm. sometimes, you know, there are great winds in the summer, too. "it was a hot day, and old-man was trying to sleep, but the heat made him sick. he wandered to a hilltop for air; but there was no air. then he went down to the river and found no relief. he travelled to the timberlands, and there the heat was great, although he found plenty of shade. the travelling made him warmer, of course, but he wouldn't stay still. "by and by he called to the winds to blow, and they commenced. first they didn't blow very hard, because they were afraid they might make old-man angry, but he kept crying: "'blow harder--harder--harder! blow worse than ever you blew before, and send this heat away from the world.' "so, of course, the winds did blow harder--harder than they ever had blown before. "'bend and break, fir-tree!' cried old-man, and the fir-tree did bend and break. 'bend and break, pine-tree!' and the pine-tree did bend and break. 'bend and break, spruce-tree!' and the spruce-tree did bend and break. 'bend and break, o birch-tree!' and the birch-tree did bend, but it wouldn't break--no, sir!--it wouldn't break! "'ho! birch-tree, won't you mind me? bend and break! i tell you,' but all the birch-tree would do was to bend. "it bent to the ground; it bent double to please old-man, but it would not break. "'blow harder, wind!' cried old-man, 'blow harder and break the birch-tree.' the wind tried to blow harder, but it couldn't, and that made the thing worse, because old-man was so angry he went crazy. 'break! i tell you--break!' screamed old-man to the birch-tree. "'i won't break,' replied the birch; 'i shall never break for any wind. i will bend, but i shall never, never break.' "'you won't, hey?' cried old-man, and he rushed at the birch-tree with his hunting-knife. he grabbed the top of the birch because it was touching the ground, and began slashing the bark of the birch-tree with the knife. all up and down the trunk of the tree old-man slashed, until the birch was covered with the knife slashes. "'there! that is for not minding me. that will do you good! as long as time lasts you shall always look like that, birch-tree; always be marked as one who will not mind its maker. yes, and all the birch-trees in the world shall have the same marks forever.' they do, too. you have seen them and have wondered why the birch-tree is so queerly marked. now you know. "that is all--ho!" mistakes of old-man all night the storm raged, and in the morning the plains were white with snow. the sun came and the light was blinding, but the hunters were abroad early, as usual. that day the children came to my camp, and i told them several stories that appeal to white children. they were deeply interested, and asked many questions. not until the hunters returned did my visitors leave. that night war eagle told us of the mistakes of old-man. he said: "old-man made a great many mistakes in making things in the world, but he worked until he had everything good. i told you at the beginning that old-man made mistakes, but i didn't tell you what they were, so now i shall tell you. "one of the things he did that was wrong, was to make the big-horn to live on the plains. yes, he made him on the plains and turned him loose, to make his living there. of course the big-horn couldn't run on the plains, and old-man wondered what was wrong. finally, he said: 'come here, big-horn!' and the big-horn came to him. old-man stuck his arm through the circle his horns made, and dragged the big-horn far up into the mountains. there he set him free again, and sat down to watch him. ho! it made old-man dizzy to watch the big-horn run about on the ragged cliffs. he saw at once that this was the country the big-horn liked, and he left him there. yes, he left him there forever, and there he stays, seldom coming down to the lower country. "while old-man was waiting to see what the big-horn would do in the high mountains, he made an antelope and set him free with the big-horn. ho! but the antelope stumbled and fell down among the rocks. he couldn't man called to the antelope to come back to him, and the antelope did come to him. then he called to the big-horn, and said: "'you are all right, i guess, but this one isn't, and i'll have to take him somewhere else.' "he dragged the antelope down to the prairie country, and set him free there. then he watched him a minute; that was as long as the antelope was in sight, for he was afraid old-man might take him back to the mountains. "he said: 'i guess that fellow was made for the plains, all right, so i'll leave him there'; and he did. that is why the antelope always stays on the plains, even to-day. he likes it better. "that wasn't a very long story; sometime when you get older i will tell you some different stories, but that will be all for this time, i guess. ho!" how the man found his mate each tribe has its own stories. most of them deal with the same subjects, differing only in immaterial particulars. instead of squirrels in the timber, the blackfeet are sure they were prairie-dogs that old-man roasted that time when he made the mountain-lion long and lean. the chippewas and crees insist that they were squirrels that were cooked and eaten, but one tribe is essentially a forest-people and the other lives on the plains--hence the difference. some tribes will not wear the feathers of the owl, nor will they have anything to do with that bird, while others use his feathers freely. the forest indian wears the soft-soled moccasin, while his brother of the plains covers the bottoms of his footwear with rawhide, because of the cactus and prickly-pear, most likely. the door of the lodge of the forest indian reaches to the ground, but the plains indian makes his lodge skin to reach all about the circle at the bottom, because of the wind. one night in war eagle's lodge, other-person asked: "why don't the bear have a tail, grandfather?" war eagle laughed and said: "our people do not know why, but we believe he was made that way at the beginning, although i have heard men of other tribes say that the bear lost his tail while fishing. "i don't know how true it is, but i have been told that a long time ago the bear was fishing in the winter, and the fox asked him if he had any luck. "'no,' replied the bear, 'i can't catch a fish.' "'well,' said the fox, 'if you will stick your long tail down through this hole in the ice, and sit very still, i am sure you will catch a fish.' "so the bear stuck his tail through the hole in the ice, and the fox told him to sit still, till he called him; then the fox went off, pretending to hunt along the bank. it was mighty cold weather, and the water froze all about the bear's tail, yet he sat still, waiting for the fox to call him. yes, the bear sat so still and so long that his tail was frozen in the ice, but he didn't know it. when the fox thought it was time, he called: "'hey, bear, come here quick--quick! i have a rabbit in this hole, and i want you to help me dig him out.' ho! the bear tried to get up, but he couldn't. "'hey, bear, come here--there are two rabbits in this hole,' called the fox. "the bear pulled so hard to get away from the ice, that he broke his tail off short to his body. then the fox ran away laughing at the bear. "i hardly believe that story, but once i heard an old man who visited my father from the country far east of here, tell it. i remembered it. but i can't say that i know it is true, as i can the others. "when i told you the story of how old-man made the world over, after the water had made its war upon it, i told you how the first man and woman were made. there is another story of how the first man found his wife, and i will tell you that. "after old-man had made a man to look like himself, he left him to live with the wolves, and went away. the man had a hard time of it, with no clothes to keep him warm, and no wife to help him, so he went out looking for old-man. "it took the man a long time to find old-man's lodge, but as soon as he got there he went right in and said: "'old-man, you have made me and left me to live with the wolf-people. i don't like them at all. they give me scraps of meat to eat and won't build a fire. they have wives, but i don't want a wolf-woman. i think you should take better care of me.' "'well,' replied old-man, 'i was just waiting for you to come to see me. i have things fixed for you. you go down this river until you come to a steep hillside. there you will see a lodge. then i will leave you to do the rest. go!' "the man started and travelled all that day. when night came he camped and ate some berries that grew near the river. the next morning he started down the river again, looking for the steep hillside and the lodge. just before sundown, the man saw a fine lodge near a steep hillside, and he knew that was the lodge he was looking for; so he crossed the river and went into the lodge. "sitting by the fire inside, was a woman. she was dressed in buckskin clothes, and was cooking some meat that smelled good to the man, but when she saw him without any clothes, she pushed him out of the lodge, and dropped the door. "things didn't look very good to that man, i tell you, but to get even with the woman, he went up on the steep hillside and commenced to roll big rocks down upon her lodge. he kept this up until one of the largest rocks knocked down the lodge, and the woman ran out, crying. "when the man heard the woman crying, it made him sorry and he ran down the hill to her. she sat down on the ground, and the man ran to where she was and said: "'i am sorry i made you cry, woman. i will help you fix your lodge. i will stay with you, if you will only let me.' "that pleased the woman, and she showed the man how to fix up the lodge and gather some wood for the fire. then she let him come inside and eat. finally, she made him some clothes, and they got along very well, after that. "that is how the man found his wife--ho!" dreams as soon as manhood is attained, the young indian must secure his "charm," or "medicine." after a sweat-bath, he retires to some lonely spot, and there, for four days and nights, if necessary, he remains in solitude. during this time he eats nothing; drinks nothing; but spends his time invoking the great mystery for the boon of a long life. in this state of mind, he at last sleeps, perhaps dreams. if a dream does not come to him, he abandons the task for a time, and later on will take another sweat-bath and try again. sometimes dangerous cliffs, or other equally uncomfortable places, are selected for dreaming, because the surrounding terrors impress themselves upon the mind, and even in slumber add to the vividness of dreams. at last the dream comes, and in it some bird or animal appears as a helper to the dreamer, in trouble. then he seeks that bird or animal; kills a specimen; and if a bird, he stuffs its skin with moss and forever keeps it near him. if an animal, instead of a bird, appears in the dream, the indian takes his hide, claws, or teeth; and throughout his life never leaves it behind him, unless in another dream a greater charm is offered. if this happens, he discards the old "medicine" for the new; but such cases are rare. sometimes the indian will deck his "medicine-bundle" with fanciful trinkets and quill-work at other times the "bundle" is kept forever out of the sight of all uninterested persons, and is altogether unadorned. but "medicine" is necessary; without it, the indian is afraid of his shadow. an old chief, who had been in many battles, once told me his great dream, withholding the name of the animal or bird that appeared therein and became his "medicine." he said that when he was a boy of twelve years, his father, who was chief of his tribe, told him that it was time that he tried to dream. after his sweat-bath, the boy followed his father without speaking, because the postulant must not converse or associate with other humans between the taking of the bath and the finished attempt to dream. on and on into the dark forest the father led, followed by the naked boy, till at last the father stopped on a high hill, at the foot of a giant pine-tree. by signs the father told the boy to climb the tree and to get into an eagle's nest that was on the topmost boughs. then the old man went away, in order that the boy might reach the nest without coming too close to his human conductor. obediently the boy climbed the tree and sat upon the eagle's nest on the top. "i could see very far from that nest," he told me. "the day was warm and i hoped to dream that night, but the wind rocked the tree top, and the darkness made me so much afraid that i did not sleep. "on the fourth night there came a terrible thunder-storm, with lightning and much wind. the great pine groaned and shook until i was sure it must fall. all about it, equally strong trees went down with loud crashings, and in the dark there were many awful sounds--sounds that i sometimes hear yet. rain came, and i grew cold and more afraid. i had eaten nothing, of course, and i was weak--so weak and tired, that at last i slept, in the nest. i dreamed; yes, it was a wonderful dream that came to me, and it has most all come to pass. part is yet to come. but come it surely will. "first i saw my own people in three wars. then i saw the buffalo disappear in a hole in the ground, followed by many of my people. then i saw the whole world at war, and many flags of white men were in this land of ours. it was a terrible war, and the fighting and the blood made me sick in my dream. then, last of all, i saw a 'person' coming--coming across what seemed the plains. there were deep shadows all about him as he approached. this 'person' kept beckoning me to come to him, and at last i did go to him. "'do you know who i am,' he asked me. "'no, "person," i do not know you. who are you, and where is your country?' "'if you will listen to me, boy, you shall be a great chief and your people shall love you. if you do not listen, then i shall turn against you. my name is "reason."' "as the 'person' spoke this last, he struck the ground with a stick he carried, and the blow set the grass afire. i have always tried to know that 'person.' i think i know him wherever he may be, and in any camp. he has helped me all my life, and i shall never turn against him--never." that was the old chief's dream and now a word about the sweat-bath. a small lodge is made of willows, by bending them and sticking the ends in the ground. a completed sweat-lodge is shaped like an inverted bowl, and in the centre is a small hole in the ground. the lodge is covered with robes, bark, and dirt, or anything that will make it reasonably tight. then a fire is built outside and near the sweat-lodge in which stones are heated. when the stones are ready, the bather crawls inside the sweat-lodge, and an assistant rolls the hot stones from the fire, and into the lodge. they are then rolled into the hole in the lodge and sprinkled with water. one cannot imagine a hotter vapor bath than this system produces, and when the bather has satisfied himself inside, he darts from the sweat-lodge into the river, winter or summer. this treatment killed thousands of indians when the smallpox was brought to them from saint louis, in the early days. that night in the lodge war eagle told a queer yarn. i shall modify it somewhat, but in our own sacred history there is a similar tale, well known to all. he said: "once, a long time ago, two 'thunders' were travelling in the air. they came over a village of our people, and there stopped to look about. "in this village there was one fine, painted lodge, and in it there was an old man, an aged woman, and a beautiful young woman with wonderful hair. of course the 'thunders' could look through the lodge skin and see all that was inside. one of them said to the other: 'let us marry that young woman, and never tell her about it.' "'all right,' replied the other 'thunder.' 'i am willing, for she is the finest young woman in all the village. she is good in her heart, and she is honest.' "so they married her, without telling her about it, and she became the mother of twin boys. when these boys were born, they sat up and told their mother and the other people that they were not people, but were 'thunders,' and that they would grow up quickly. "'when we shall have been on earth a while, we shall marry, and stay until we each have four sons of our own, then we shall go away and again become "thunders,"' they said. "it all came to pass, just as they said it would. when they had married good women and each had four sons, they told the people one day that it was time for them to go away forever. "there was much sorrow among the people, for the twins were good men and taught many good things which we have never forgotten, but everybody knew it had to be as they said. while they lived with us, these twins could heal the sick and tell just what was going to happen on earth. "one day at noon the twins dressed themselves in their finest clothes and went out to a park in the forest. all the people followed them and saw them lie down on the ground in the park. the people stayed in the timber that grew about the edge of the park, and watched them until clouds and mists gathered about and hid them from view. "it thundered loudly and the winds blew; trees fell down; and when the mists and clouds cleared away, they were gone--gone forever. but the people have never forgotten them, and my grandfather, who is in the ground near rocker, was a descendant from one of the sons of the 'thunders.' ho!" retrospection it was evening in the bad-lands, and the red sun had slipped behind the far-off hills. the sundown breeze bent the grasses in the coulees and curled tiny dust-clouds on the barren knolls. down in a gulch a clear, cool creek dallied its way toward the missouri, where its water, bitter as gall, would be lost in the great stream. here, where nature forbids man to work his will, and where the she wolf dens and kills to feed her litter, an aged indian stood near the scattered bones of two great buffalo-bulls. time had bleached the skulls and whitened the old warrior's hair, but in the solitude he spoke to the bones as to a boyhood friend: "ho! buffalo, the years are long since you died, and your tribe, like mine, was even then shrinking fast, but you did not know it; would not believe it; though the signs did not lie. my father and his father knew your people, and when one night you went away, we thought you did but hide and would soon come back. the snows have come and gone many times since then, and still your people stay away. the young-men say that the great herds have gone to the sand hills, and that my father still has meat. they have told me that the white man, in his greed, has killed--and not for meat--all the buffalo that our people knew. they have said that the great herds that made the ground tremble as they ran were slain in a few short years by those who needed not. can this be true, when ever since there was a world, our people killed your kind, and still left herds that grew in numbers until they often blocked the rivers when they passed? our people killed your kind that they themselves might live, but never did they go to war against you. tell me, do your people hide, or are the young-men speaking truth, and have your people gone with mine to sand hill shadows to come back no more?" "ho! red man--my people all have gone. the young-men tell the truth and all my tribe have gone to feed among the shadow-hills, and your father still has meat. my people suffer from his arrows and his lance, yet there the herds increase as they did here, until the white man came and made his war upon us without cause or need. i was one of the last to die, and with my brother here fled to this forbidding country that i might hide; but one day when the snow was on the world, a white murderer followed on our trail, and with his noisy weapon sent our spirits to join the great shadow-herds. meat? no, he took no meat, but from our quivering flesh he tore away the robes that napa gave to make us warm, and left us for the wolves. that night they came, and quarrelling, fighting, snapping 'mong themselves, left but our bones to greet the morning sun. these bones the coyotes and the weaker ones did drag and scrape, and scrape again, until the last of flesh or muscle disappeared. then the winds came and sang--and all was done." proofreading team note: project gutenberg also has an html version of this file which includes the original frontispiece and cover illustrations. see 13833-h.htm or 13833-h.zip: (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/8/3/13833/13833-h/13833-h.htm) or (http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/1/3/8/3/13833/13833-h.zip) transcriber's note: many blackfeet names and words in the printed book from which this e-text is taken had vowels with breves or macrons over them, diacritical marks that cannot be reproduced in this e-text. the first time such a word appears within a story the marks are represented using [=x] for a vowel with a macron and [)x] for a vowel with a breve (example: m[=a]-m[)i]n´). subsequent appearances of the word do not have the vowels so marked. blackfeet indian stories by george bird grinnell author of _blackfeet lodge tales_, _trails of the pathfinders_, etc. 1915 [illustration: cold maker] to the reader those who wish to know something about how the people lived who told these stories will find their ways of life described in the last chapter of this book. the blackfeet were hunters, travelling from place to place on foot. they used implements of stone, wood, or bone, wore clothing made of skins, and lived in tents covered by hides. dogs, their only tame animals, were used as beasts of burden to carry small packs and drag light loads. the stories here told come down to us from very ancient times. grandfathers have told them to their grandchildren, and these again to their grandchildren, and so from mouth to mouth, through many generations, they have reached our time. contents two fast runners the wolf man kut-o-yis´, the blood boy the dog and the root digger the camp of the ghosts the buffalo stone how the thunder pipe came cold maker's medicine the all comrades societies the bulls society the other societies the first medicine lodge the buffalo-painted lodges mika´pi--red old man red robe's dream the blackfeet creation old man stories the wonderful bird the rabbits' medicine the lost elk meat the rolling rock bear and bullberries the theft from the sun the smart woman chief bobcat and birch tree the red-eyed duck the ancient blackfeet two fast runners once, a long time ago, the antelope and the deer happened to meet on the prairie. they spoke together, giving each other the news, each telling what he had seen and done. after they had talked for a time the antelope told the deer how fast he could run, and the deer said that he could run fast too, and before long each began to say that he could run faster than the other. so they agreed that they would have a race to decide which could run the faster, and on this race they bet their galls. when they started, the antelope ran ahead of the deer from the very start and won the race and so took the deer's gall. but the deer began to grumble and said, "well, it is true that out here on the prairie you have beaten me, but this is not where i live. i only come out here once in a while to feed or to cross the prairie when i am going somewhere. it would be fairer if we had a race in the timber. that is my home, and there i can run faster than you. i am sure of it." the antelope felt so glad and proud that he had beaten the deer in the race that he was sure that wherever they might run he could beat him, so he said, "all right, i will run you a race in the timber. i have beaten you out here on the flat and i can beat you there." on this race they bet their dew-claws. they started and ran this race through the thick timber, among the bushes, and over fallen logs, and this time the antelope ran slowly, for he was afraid of hitting himself against the trees or of falling over the logs. you see, he was not used to this kind of travelling. so the deer easily beat him and took his dew-claws. since that time the deer has had no gall and the antelope no dew-claws. the wolf man a long time ago there was a man who had two wives. they were not good women; they did not look after their home nor try to keep things comfortable there. if the man brought in plenty of buffalo cow skins they did not tan them well, and often when he came home at night, hungry and tired after his hunting, he had no food, for these women would be away from the lodge, visiting their relations and having a good time. the man thought that if he moved away from the big camp and lived alone where there were no other people perhaps he might teach these women to become good; so he moved his lodge far off on the prairie and camped at the foot of a high butte. every evening about sundown the man used to climb up to the top of this butte and sit there and look all over the country to see where the buffalo were feeding and whether any enemies were moving about. on top of the hill there was a buffalo skull, on which he used to sit. one day one of the women said to the other, "it is very lonely here; we have no one to talk with or to visit." "let us kill our husband," said the other: "then we can go back to our relations and have a good time." early next morning the man set out to hunt, and as soon as he was out of sight his wives went up on top of the butte where he used to sit. there they dug a deep hole and covered it over with light sticks and grass and earth, so that it looked like the other soil near by, and placed the buffalo skull on the sticks which covered the hole. in the afternoon, as they watched for their returning husband, they saw him come over the hill loaded down with meat that he had killed. when he threw down his load outside the lodge, they hurried to cook something for him. after he had eaten he went up on the butte and sat down on the skull. the slender sticks broke and he fell into the hole. his wives were watching him, and when they saw him disappear, they took down the lodge and packed their dogs and set out to go to the main camp. as they drew near it, so that people could hear them, they began to cry and mourn. soon some people came to meet them and said, "what is this? why are you mourning? where is your husband?" "ah," they replied, "he is dead. five days ago he went out to hunt and he did not come back. what shall we do? we have lost him who cared for us"; and they cried and mourned again. now, when the man fell into the pit he was hurt, for the hole was deep. after a time he tried to climb out, but he was so badly bruised that he could not do so. he sat there and waited, thinking that here he must surely die of hunger. but travelling over the prairie was a wolf that climbed up on the butte and came to the hole and, looking in, saw the man and pitied him. "ah-h-w-o-o-o! ah-h-w-o-o-o-o!" he howled, and when the other wolves heard him they all came running to see what was the matter. following the big wolves came also many coyotes, badgers, and kit-foxes. they did not know what had happened, but they thought perhaps there was food here. to the others the wolf said, "here in this hole is what i have found. here is a man who has fallen in. let us dig him out and we will have him for our brother." all the wolves thought that this talk was good, and they began to dig, and before very long they had dug a hole down almost to the bottom of the pit. then the wolf who had found the man said, "hold on; wait a little; i want to say a few words." all the animals stopped digging and began to listen, and the wolf said, "we will all have this man for our brother; but i found him, and so i think he ought to live with us big wolves." all the others thought that this was good, and the wolf that had found the man went into the hole that had been dug, and tearing down the rest of the earth, dragged out the poor man, who was now almost dead, for he had neither eaten nor drunk anything since he fell in the hole. they gave the man a kidney to eat, and when he was able to walk the big wolves took him to their home. here there was a very old blind wolf who had great power and could do wonderful things. he cured the man and made his head and his hands look like those of a wolf. the rest of his body was not changed. in those days the people used to make holes in the walls of the fence about the enclosure into which they led the buffalo. they set snares over these holes, and when wolves and other animals crept through them so as to get into the pen and feed on the meat they were caught by the neck and killed, and the people used their skins for clothing. one night all the wolves went down to the pen to get meat, and when they had come close to it, the man-wolf said to his brothers, "stop here for a little while and i will go down and fix the places so that you will not be caught." he went down to the pen and sprung all the snares, and then went back and called the wolves and the others--the coyotes, badgers, and kit-foxes--and they all went into the pen and feasted and took meat to carry home to their families. in the morning the people found the meat gone and all their snares sprung, and they were surprised and wondered how this could have happened. for many nights the nooses were pulled tight and the meat taken; but once when the wolves went there to eat they found only the meat of a lean and sickly bull. then the man-wolf was angry, and he cried out like a wolf, "bad-food-you-give-us-o-o-o! bad-food-you-give-us-o-o-o-o!" when the people heard this they said to one another, "ah, it is a man-wolf who has done all this. we must catch him." so they took down to the piskun[1] pemmican and nice back fat and placed it there, and many of them hid close by. after dark the wolves came, as was their custom, and when the man-wolf saw the good food, he ran to it and began to eat. then the people rushed upon him from every side and caught him with ropes, and tied him and took him to a lodge, and when they had brought him inside to the light of the fire, at once they knew who it was. they said, "why, this is the man who was lost." [footnote 1: a pen or enclosure, usually--among the blackfeet--at the foot of a cliff, over which the buffalo were induced to jump. pronounced p[)i]´sk[)u]n.] "no," said the man, "i was not lost. my wives tried to kill me. they dug a deep hole and i fell into it, and i was hurt so badly i could not get out; but the wolves took pity on me and helped me or i would have died there." when the people heard this they were angry, and they told the man to do something to punish these women. "you say well," he replied; "i give those women to the punishing society. they know what to do." after that night the two women were never seen again. kut-o-yis´, the blood boy as the children whose ancestors came from europe have stories about the heroes who killed wicked and cruel monsters--like jack the giant killer, for example--so the indian children hear stories about persons who had magic power and who went about the world destroying those who treated cruelly or killed the indians of the camps. such a hero was k[)u]t-o-y[)i]s´, and this is how he came to be alive and to travel about from place to place, helping the people and destroying their enemies. it was long, long ago, down where two medicine and badger rivers come together, that an old man lived with his wife and three daughters. one day there came to his camp a young man, good-looking, a good hunter, and brave. he stayed in the camp for some time, and whenever he went hunting he killed game and brought in great loads of meat. all this time the old man was watching him, for he said in his heart, "this seems a good young man and a good hunter. perhaps i will give him my daughters for wives, and then he will stay here and help me always." after a time the old man decided to do this, and he gave the young man his daughters; and because these three were his only children he gave his son-in-law his dogs and all his property, and for himself and his wife he kept only a little lodge. the young man's wives tanned plenty of cow skins and made a big fine lodge, and in this the son-in-law lived with his wives. for some time after this the son-in-law was very good and kind to the old people. when he killed any animal he gave them part of the meat, and gave them skins which his mother-in-law tanned for robes or for clothing. as time went on the son-in-law began to grow stingy, and pretty soon he gave nothing to his father-in-law's lodge, but kept everything for his own. now, the son-in-law was a person of much mysterious power, and he kept the buffalo hidden under a big log-jam in the river. whenever he needed food and wished to kill anything, he would take his father-in-law with him to help. he would send the old man out to stamp on the log-jam and frighten the buffalo, and when they ran out from under it the young man would shoot one or two with his arrows, never killing more than he needed. but often he gave the old people nothing at all to eat. they were hungry all the time, and at length they began to grow thin and weak. one morning early the young man asked his father-in-law to come and hunt with him. they went to the log-jam and the old man drove out the buffalo and his son-in-law killed a fat buffalo cow. then he said to his father-in-law, "hurry back now to the camp and tell your daughters to come and carry home the meat, and then you can have something to eat." the old man set out for the camp, thinking, as he walked along, "now, at last, my son-in-law has taken pity on me; he will give me some of this meat." when he returned with his daughters they skinned the cow and cut it up and, carrying it, went home. the young man had his wives leave the meat at his own lodge and told his father-in-law to go home. he did not give him even a little piece of the meat. the two older daughters gave their parents nothing to eat, but sometimes the youngest one had pity on them and took a piece of meat and, when she could, threw it into the lodge to the old people. the son-in-law had told his wives not to give the old people anything to eat. except for the good heart of the youngest daughter they would have died of hunger. another day the son-in-law rose early in the morning and went over to the old man's lodge and kicked against the poles, calling to him, "get up now and help me; i want you to go and stamp on the log-jam to drive out the buffalo." when the old man moved his feet on the jam and a buffalo ran out, the son-in-law was not ready for it, and it passed by him before he shot the arrow; so he only wounded it. it ran away, but at last it fell down and died. the old man followed close after it, and as he ran along he came to a place where a great clot of blood had fallen from the buffalo's wound. when he came to where this clot of blood was lying on the ground, he stumbled and fell and spilled his arrows out of his quiver, and while he was picking them up he picked up also the clot of blood and hid it in his quiver. "what are you picking up?" called the son-in-law. "nothing," replied the old man. "i fell down and spilled my arrows, and i am putting them back." "ah, old man," said the son-in-law, "you are lazy and useless. you no longer help me. go back now to the camp and tell your daughters to come down here and help carry in this meat." the old man went to the camp and told his daughters of the meat that their husband had killed, and they went down to the killing ground. then he went to his own lodge and said to his wife, "hurry, now, put the stone kettle on the fire. i have brought home something from the killing." "ah," said the old woman, "has our son-in-law been generous and given us something nice to eat?" "no," replied the old man, "but hurry and put the kettle on the fire." after a time the water began to boil and the old man turned his quiver upside down over the pot, and immediately there came from it a sound of a child crying, as if it were being hurt. the old people both looked in the kettle and there they saw a little boy, and they quickly took him out of the water. they were surprised and did not know where the child had come from. the old woman wrapped the child up and wound a line about its wrappings to keep them in place, making a lashing for the child. then they talked about it, wondering what should be done with it. they thought that if their son-in-law knew it was a boy he would kill it; so they determined to tell their daughters that the baby was a girl, for then their son-in-law would think that he was going to have another wife. so he would be glad. they called the child kut-o-yis´--clot of blood. the son-in-law and his wives came home, bringing the meat, and after a little time they heard the child in the next lodge crying. the son-in-law said to his youngest wife, "go over to your mother's and see whether that baby is a boy or a girl. if it is a boy, tell your parents to kill it." soon the young woman came back and said to her husband, "it is a girl baby. you are to have another wife." the son-in-law did not know whether to believe this, and sent his oldest wife to ask the same question. when she came back and told him the same thing he believed that it was really a girl. then he was glad, for he said to himself, "now, when this child has grown up, i shall have another wife." he said to his youngest wife, "take some back fat and pemmican over to your mother; she must be well fed now that she has to nurse this child." on the fourth day after he had been born the child spoke and said to his mother, "hold me in turn to each one of these lodge poles, and when i come to the last one i shall fall out of my lashings and be grown up." the old woman did as he had said, and as she held him to one pole after another he could be seen to grow; and finally when he was held to the last pole he was a man. after kut-o-yis´ had looked about the lodge he put his eye to a hole in the lodge-covering and looked out. then he turned around and said to the old people, "how is it that in this lodge there is nothing to eat? over by the other lodge i see plenty of food hanging up." "hush," said the old woman, raising her hand, "you will be heard. our son-in-law lives over there. he does not give us anything at all to eat." "well," said the young man, "where is your piskun--where do you kill buffalo?" "it is down by the river," the old woman answered. "we pound on it and the buffalo run out." for some time they talked together and the old man told kut-o-yis´ how his son-in-law had abused him. he said to the young man, "he has taken from me my bow and my arrows and has taken even my dogs; and now for many days we have had nothing to eat, except sometimes a small piece of meat that our daughter throws to us." "father," said kut-o-yis´, "have you no arrows?" "no, my son," replied the old man, "but i still have four stone arrow points." "go out then," said kut-o-yis´, "and get some wood. we will make a bow and some arrows, and in the morning we will go down to where the buffalo are and kill something to eat." early in the morning kut-o-yis´ pushed the old man and said, "come, get up now, and we will go down and kill, when the buffalo come out." it was still very early in the morning. when they reached the river the old man said, "this is the place to stand and shoot. i will go down and drive them out." he went down and stamped on the log-jam, and presently a fat cow ran out and kut-o-yis´ killed it. now, after these two had gone to the river the son-in-law arose and went over to the old man's lodge, and knocked on the poles and called to the old man to get up and help him kill. the old woman called out to the son-in-law, saying, "your father-in-law has already gone down to the piskun." this made the son-in-law angry, and he began to talk badly to the old woman and to threaten to harm her. presently he went on down to the log-jam, and as he got near the place he saw the old man at work there, bending over, skinning a buffalo; for kut-o-yis´, when he had seen the son-in-law coming, had lain down on the ground and hidden himself behind the carcass. when the son-in-law had come pretty close to where the buffalo lay he said to his father-in-law, "old man, stand up and look all about you. look carefully and well, for it will be the last time that you will ever see anything"; and while the son-in-law said this he took an arrow from his quiver. kut-o-yis´ spoke to the old man from his hiding-place and said, "tell your son-in-law that he must take his last look, for that you are going to kill him now." the old man said this as he had been told. "ah," said the son-in-law, "you talk back to me. that makes me still angrier at you." he put an arrow on the string and shot at the old man, but did not hit him. kut-o-yis´ said to the old man, "pick up that arrow and shoot it back at him"; and the old man did so. now, they shot at each other four times, and then the old man said to kut-o-yis´, "i am afraid now; get up and help me. if you do not, i think he will kill me." then kut-o-yis´ rose to his feet and said to the son-in-law, "here, what are you doing? i think you have been treating this old man badly for a long time. why do you do it?" "oh no," said the son-in-law, and he smiled at kut-o-yis´ in a friendly way, for he was afraid of him. "oh no; no one thinks more of this old man than i do. i have always been very good to him." "no," said kut-o-yis´. "you are saying what is not true, and i am going to kill you now." kut-o-yis´ shot the son-in-law four times and he fell down and died. then the young man told his father to go and bring down to him the daughters who had acted badly toward him. the old man did so and kut-o-yis´ punished them. then he went up to the lodges and said to the youngest woman, "did you love your husband?" "yes," said the girl, "i loved him." so kut-o-yis´ punished her too, but not so badly as he had the other daughters, because she had been kind to her parents. to the old people he said, "go over now to that lodge and live there. there is plenty of food, and when that is gone i will kill more. as for me, i shall make a journey. tell me where there are any people. in what direction shall i go to find a camp?" "well," said the old man, "up here on two medicine lodge creek there are some people--up where the piskun is, you know." kut-o-yis´ followed up the stream to where the piskun was and there found many lodges of people. in the centre of the camp was a big lodge, and painted on it the figure of a bear. he did not go to this lodge, but went into a small lodge where two old women lived. when he had sat down they put food before him--lean dried meat and some belly fat. "how is this, grandmothers?" he said. "here is a camp with plenty of fat meat and back fat hanging up to dry; why do you not give me some of that?" "hush; be careful," said the old women. "in that big lodge over there lives a big bear and his wives and children. he takes all the best food and leaves us nothing. he is the chief of this place." early in the morning kut-o-yis´ said to the old women, "harness up your dogs to the travois now and go over to the piskun, and i will kill some fat meat for you." when they got there, he killed a fat cow and helped the old women to cut it up, and they took it to the lodge. one of those old women said, "ah me, the bears will be sure to come." "why do you say that?" he asked. they said to him, "we shall be sorry to lose this back fat." "do not fear," he said. "no one shall take this back fat from you. now, take all those best pieces and hang them up, so that those who live in the bear lodge may see them." they did so. pretty soon the old bear chief said to one of his children, "by this time i think the people have finished killing. go out now and look about; see where the nicest pieces are, and bring in some nice back fat." one of the young bears went out of the lodge and stood up and looked about, and when it saw this meat hanging by the old women's lodge close by, it went over toward it. "ah," said the old women, "there are those bears." "do not be afraid," said kut-o-yis´. the young bear went over to where the meat was hanging and stood up and began to pull it down. kut-o-yis´ went out of the lodge and said, "wait; wait! what are you doing, taking the old women's meat?" the young bear answered, "my father told me that i should go out and get this meat and bring it home to him." kut-o-yis´ hit the young bear over the head with a stick and it ran home crying. when it had reached the lodge it told what had happened and the father bear said, "i will go over there myself; perhaps this person will hit me over the head." when the old women saw the father and mother bear and all their relations coming they were afraid, but kut-o-yis´ jumped out of the lodge and killed the bears one after another; all except one little she-bear, a very small one, which got away. "well," said kut-o-yis´, "you may go and breed more bears." he told the old women to move over to the bear-painted lodge and after this to live in it. it was theirs. to the old women kut-o-yis´ then said, "now, grandmothers, where are there any more people? i want to travel about and see them." the old women said, "at the point of rocks--on sun river--there is a camp. there is a piskun there." so kut-o-yis´ set off for that place, and when he came to the camp he went into an old woman's lodge. the old woman gave him something to eat--a dish of bad food. "why is this, grandmother?" asked kut-o-yis´. "have you no food better than this to give to a visitor? down there i see a piskun; you must kill plenty of buffalo and must have good food." "speak lower," said the old woman, "or you may be heard. we have no good food because there is a great snake here who is the chief of the camp. he takes all the best pieces. he lives over there in that snake-painted lodge." the next morning when the buffalo were led in, kut-o-yis´ killed one, and they took the back fat and carried it to their lodge. then kut-o-yis´ said, "i think i will visit that snake person." he went over and went into the lodge, and there he saw many women that the snake person had taken to be his wives. the women were cooking some service berries. kut-o-yis´ picked up the dish and ate the berries and threw the dish away. then he went up to the big snake, who was lying there asleep, and pricked him with his knife, saying, "here, get up; i have come to visit you. let us smoke together." then the snake was angry and he raised up his head and began to rattle, and kut-o-yis´ cut off his head and cut him in pieces. he cut off the heads of all the snake's wives and children; all except one little female snake which got away by crawling into a crack in the rocks. "oh, well," said kut-o-yis´, "you can go and breed snakes so there will be more. the people will not be afraid of little snakes." kut-o-yis´ said to the old woman, "now, grandmother, go into this snake lodge and take it for your own and everything that is in it." then he said to them, "where are there some more people?" they told him there were some camps down the river and some up in the mountains, but they said, "do not go up there. it is bad because there lives [=a]i-s[=i]n´-o-k[=o]-k[=i]--wind sucker. he will kill you." kut-o-yis´ was glad to know that there was such a person, and he went to the mountains. when he reached the place where wind sucker lived, he looked into his mouth and saw there many dead people. some were skeletons and some had only just died. he went in, and there he saw a fearful sight. the ground was white as snow with the bones of those who had died. there were bodies with flesh on them; some who had died not long before and some who were still living. as he looked about, he saw hanging down above him a great thing that seemed to move--to grow a little larger and then to grow a little smaller. kut-o-yis´ spoke to one of the people who was alive and asked, "what is that hanging down above us?" the person answered him, "that is wind sucker's heart." then kut-o-yis´ spoke to all the living and said to them, "you who still draw a little breath try to move your heads in time to the song that i shall sing; and you who are still able to move stand up on your feet and dance. take courage now; we are going to dance to the ghosts." then kut-o-yis´ tied his knife, point upward, to the top of his head and began to dance, singing the ghost song, and all the others danced with him; and as he danced up and down he kept springing higher and higher into the air, and the point of his knife cut wind sucker's heart and killed him. then kut-o-yis´, with his knife, cut a hole between wind sucker's ribs, and he and all those who were able to move crawled out through the hole. he said to those who could still walk that they should go and tell their people to come here, to get the ones still alive but unable to travel. to some of these people that he had freed he said, "where are there any other people? i want to visit all the people." "there is a camp to the westward, up the river," they replied; "but you must not take the left-hand trail going up because on that trail lives a woman who invites men to wrestle with her and then kills them. avoid her." now, really, this was what kut-o-yis´ was looking for. this was what he was doing in the world, trying to kill off all the bad things. he asked these people just where this woman lived and how it was best for him to go so that he should not meet her. he did this because he did not wish the people to know that he was going where she was. he started, and after he had travelled some time he saw a woman standing not far from the trail. she called to him, saying, "come here, young man, come here; i want to wrestle with you." "no," he replied, "i am in a hurry; i cannot stop." the woman called again, "no, no; do not go on; come now and wrestle once with me." after she had called him the fourth time, kut-o-yis´ went to her. now on the ground where this woman wrestled with people she had placed many sharp, broken flint-stones, partly hiding them by the grass. the two seized each other and began to wrestle over these sharp stones, but kut-o-yis´ looked at the ground and did not step on them. he watched his chance and gave the woman a quick wrench, and threw her down on a large sharp flint which cut her in two; and the parts of her body fell asunder. kut-o-yis´ then went on, and after a time came to where a woman had made a place for sliding downhill. at the far end of it she had fixed a rope which, when she raised it, would trip people up, and when they were tripped they fell over a high cliff into a deep water, where a great fish ate them. when this woman saw kut-o-yis´ coming she cried out to him, "come over here, young man, and slide with me." "no," he replied, "i am in a hurry; i cannot wait." she kept calling to him, and when she had called him the fourth time he went over where he was to slide with her. "this sliding," said the woman, "is very good fun." "ah, yes," said kut-o-yis´, "i will look at it." as he went near the place he looked carefully and saw the hidden rope. he began to slide, and holding his knife in his hand, when he reached the rope he cut it just as the woman raised it and pulled on it, and the woman fell over backward into the water and was eaten up by the big fish. from here he went on again, and after a time he came to a big camp. a man-eater was the chief of this place. before kut-o-yis´ went to the chief's lodge he looked about and saw a little girl and called her to him and said, "child, i am going into that lodge, to let that man-eater kill and eat me. therefore, be on the watch, and if you can get hold of one of my bones take it out and call all the dogs to you, and when they have come to you throw down the bone and say, 'kut-o-yis´, the dogs are eating your bones.'" then kut-o-yis´ entered the lodge, and when the man-eater saw him he called out, "oki, oki!" (welcome, welcome!) and seemed glad to see him, for he was a fat young man. the man-eater took a knife and walked up to kut-o-yis´ and cut his throat and put him into a great stone pot to cook. when the meat was cooked he pulled the kettle from the fire and ate the body, limb by limb, until it was all eaten. after that the little girl who was watching came into the lodge and said, "pity me, man-eater, my mother is hungry and asks you for those bones." the old man gathered them together and handed them to her, and she took them out of the lodge. when she had gone a little way, she called all the dogs to her and threw down the bones to the dogs, crying out, "look out, kut-o-yis´, the dogs are eating you," and when she said that, kut-o-yis´ arose from the pile of bones. again he went into the lodge, and when the man-eater saw him he cried out, "how, how, how! the fat young man has survived!" and he seemed surprised. again he took his knife and cut the throat of kut-o-yis´ and threw him into the kettle. again when the meat was cooked he ate it, and when the little girl asked for the bones again he gave them to her. she took them out and threw them to the dogs, crying, "kut-o-yis´, the dogs are eating you," and again kut-o-yis´ arose from the bones. when the man-eater had cooked him four times kut-o-yis´ again went into the lodge, and seizing the man-eater, he threw him into the boiling kettle, and his wives and all his children, and boiled them to death. the man-eater was the seventh and last of the bad things to be destroyed by kut-o-yis´. the dog and the root digger this happened long ago. in those days the people were hungry. no buffalo could be found, no antelope were seen on the prairie. grass grew in the trails where the elk and the deer used to travel. there was not even a rabbit in the brush. then the people prayed, "oh, napi, help us now or we must die. the buffalo and the deer are gone. it is useless to kindle the morning fires; our arrows are useless to us; our knives remain in their sheaths." then napi set out to find where the game was, and with him went a young man, the son of a chief. for many days they travelled over the prairies. they could see no game; roots and berries were their only food. one day they climbed to the crest of a high ridge, and as they looked off over the country they saw far away by a stream a lonely lodge. "who can it be?" asked the young man. "who camps there alone, far from friends?" "that," said napi, "is he who has hidden all the animals from the people. he has a wife and a little son." then they went down near to the lodge and napi told the young man what to do. napi changed himself into a little dog, and he said, "this is i." the young man changed himself into a root digger and he said, "this is i." pretty soon the little boy, who was playing about near the lodge, found the dog and carried it to his father, saying, "see what a pretty little dog i have found." the father said, "that is not a dog; throw it away!" the little boy cried, but his father made him take the dog out of the lodge. then the boy found the root digger, and again picking up the dog, he carried both into the lodge, saying, "look, mother; see what a pretty root digger i have found." "throw them away," said his father; "throw them both away. that is not a root digger; that is not a dog." "i want that root digger," said the woman. "let our son have the little dog." "let it be so, then," replied the husband; "but remember that if trouble comes, it is you who have brought it on yourself and on our son." soon after this the woman and her son went off to pick berries, and when they were out of sight the man went out and killed a buffalo cow and brought the meat into the lodge and covered it up. he took the bones and the skin and threw them in the water. when his wife came back he gave her some of the meat to roast, and while they were eating, the little boy fed the dog three times, and when he offered it more the father took the meat away. in the night, when all were sleeping, napi and the young man arose in their right shapes and ate some of the meat. "you were right," said the young man. "this is surely the person who has hidden the buffalo." "wait," said napi; and when they had finished eating they changed themselves again into the root digger and the dog. next morning the wife and the little boy went out to dig roots, and the woman took the root digger with her, while the dog followed the little boy. as they travelled along looking for roots, they passed near a cave, and at its mouth stood a buffalo cow. the dog ran into the cave, and the root digger, slipping from the woman's hand, followed, gliding along over the ground like a snake. in this cave were found all the buffalo and the other game. they began to drive them out, and soon the prairie was covered with buffalo, antelope, and deer. never before were so many seen. soon the man came running up, and he said to his wife, "who is driving out my animals?" the woman replied, "the dog and the root digger are in there now." "did i not tell you," said her husband, "that those were not what they looked like. see now the trouble that you have brought upon us!" he put an arrow on his string and waited for them to come out, but they were cunning, and when the last animal, a big bull, was starting out the stick grasped him by the long hair under the neck and coiled up in it, and the dog held on by the hair underneath until they were far out on the prairie, when they changed into their true shapes and drove the buffalo toward the camp. when the people saw the buffalo coming they led a big band of them to the piskun, but just as the leaders were about to jump over the cliff a raven came and flapped its wings in front of them and croaked, and they turned off and ran down another way. every time a herd of buffalo was brought near to the piskun this raven frightened them away. then napi knew that the raven was the person who had kept the buffalo hidden. napi went down to the river and changed himself into a beaver and lay stretched out on a sandbar, as if dead. the raven was very hungry and flew down and began to pick at the beaver. then napi caught it by the legs and ran with it to the camp, and all the chiefs were called together to decide what should be done with the bird. some said, "let us kill it," but napi said, "no, i will punish it," and he tied it up over the lodge, right in the smoke hole. as the days went by the raven grew thin and weak and its eyes were blinded by the thick smoke, and it cried continually to napi asking him to pity it. one day napi untied the bird and told it to take its right shape, and then said, "why have you tried to fool napi? look at me. i cannot die. look at me. of all peoples and tribes i am the chief. i cannot die. i made the mountains; they are standing yet. i made the prairies and the rocks; you see them yet. "go home now to your wife and your child, and when you are hungry hunt like any one else. if you do not, you shall die." the camp of the ghosts there was once a man who loved his wife dearly. after they had been married for a time they had a little boy. some time after that the woman grew sick and did not get well. she was sick for a long time. the young man loved his wife so much that he did not wish to take a second woman. the woman grew worse and worse. doctoring did not seem to do her any good. at last she died. for a few days after this, the man used to take his baby on his back and travel out away from the camp, walking over the hills, crying and mourning. he felt badly, and he did not know what to do. after a time he said to the little child, "my little boy, you will have to go and live with your grandmother. i shall go away and try to find your mother and bring her back." he took the baby to his mother's lodge and asked her to take care of it and left it with her. then he started away, not knowing where he was going nor what he should do. when he left the camp, he travelled toward the sand hills. on the fourth night of his journeying he had a dream. he dreamed that he went into a little lodge in which was an old woman. this old woman said to him, "why are you here, my son?" the young man replied, "i am mourning day and night, crying all the while. my little son, who is the only one left me, also mourns." "well," asked the old woman, "for whom are you mourning?" the young man answered, "i am mourning for my wife. she died some time ago. i am looking for her." "oh, i saw her," said the old woman; "she passed this way. i myself have no great power to help you, but over by that far butte beyond, lives another old woman. go to her and she will give you power to continue your journey. you could not reach the place you are seeking without help. beyond the next butte from her lodge you will find the camp of the ghosts." the next morning the young man awoke and went on toward the next butte. it took him a long summer's day to get there, but he found there no lodge, so he lay down and slept. again he dreamed. in his dream he saw a little lodge, and saw an old woman come to the door and heard her call to him. he went into the lodge, and she spoke to him. "my son, you are very unhappy. i know why you have come this way. you are looking for your wife who is now in the ghost country. it is a very hard thing for you to get there. you may not be able to get your wife back, but i have great power and i will do for you all that i can. if you act as i advise, you may succeed." other wise words she spoke to him, telling him what he should do; also she gave him a bundle of mysterious things which would help him on his journey. she went on to say, "you stay here for a time and i will go over there to the ghosts' camp and try to bring back some of your relations who are there. if it is possible for me to bring them back, you may return there with them, but on the way you must shut your eyes. if you should open them and look about you, you would die. then you would never come back. when you come to the camp you will pass by a big lodge and they will ask you, 'where are you going and who told you to come here?' you must answer, 'my grandmother, who is standing out here with me, told me to come.' they will try to scare you; they will make fearful noises and you will see strange and terrible things, but do not be afraid." the old woman went away, and after a time came back with one of the man's relations. he went with this relation to the ghosts' camp. when they came to the large lodge some one called out and asked the man what he was doing there, and he answered as the old woman had told him. as he passed on through the camp the ghosts tried to frighten him with many fearful sights and sounds, but he kept up a strong heart. presently he came to another lodge, and the man who owned it came out and spoke to him, asking where he was going. the young man said, "i am looking for my dead wife. i mourn for her so much that i cannot rest. my little boy too keeps crying for his mother. they have offered to give me other wives, but i do not want them. i want the one for whom i am searching." the ghost said, "it is a fearful thing that you have come here; it is very likely that you will never go away. never before has there been a person here." the ghost asked him to come into his lodge, and he entered. this chief ghost said to him, "you shall stay here for four nights and you shall see your wife, but you must be very careful or you will never go back. you will die here in this very place." then the chief ghost walked out of the lodge and shouted out for a feast, inviting the man's father-in-law and other relations who were in the camp to come and eat, saying, "your son-in-law invites you to a feast," as if he meant that the son-in-law had died and become a ghost and arrived at the camp of the ghosts. now when these invited ghosts had reached the lodge they did not like to go in. they said to each other, "there is a person here"; it seemed as if they did not like the smell of a human being. the chief ghost burned sweet pine on the fire, which took away this smell, and then the ghosts came in and sat down. the chief ghost said to them, "now pity this son-in-law of yours. he is looking for his wife. neither the great distance that he has come nor the fearful sights that he has seen here have weakened his heart. you can see how tender-hearted he is. he not only mourns because he has lost his wife, but he mourns because his little boy is now alone, with no mother; so pity him and give him back his wife." the ghosts talked among themselves, and one of them said to the man, "yes; you shall stay here for four nights, and then we will give you a medicine pipe--the worm pipe--and we will give you back your wife and you may return to your home." now, after the third night the chief ghost called together all the people, and they came, and with them came the man's wife. one of the ghosts was beating a drum, and following him was another who carried the worm pipe, which they gave to him. then the chief ghost said, "now be very careful; to-morrow you and your wife will start on your journey homeward. your wife will carry the medicine pipe and for four days some of your relations will go along with you. during this time you must keep your eyes shut; do not open them, or you will return here and be a ghost forever. your wife is not now a person. but in the middle of the fourth day you will be told to look, and when you have opened your eyes you will see that your wife has become a person, and that your ghost relations have disappeared." before the man went away his father-in-law spoke to him and said, "when you get near home you must not go at once into the camp. let some of your relations know that you have come, and ask them to build a sweat-house for you. go into that sweat-house and wash your body thoroughly, leaving no part of it, however small, uncleansed. if you fail in this, you will die. there is something about the ghosts that it is difficult to remove. it can only be removed by a thorough sweat. take care now that you do what i tell you. do not whip your wife, nor strike her with a knife, nor hit her with fire. if you do, she will vanish before your eyes and return here." they left the ghost country to go home, and on the fourth day the wife said to her husband, "open your eyes." he looked about him and saw that those who had been with them had disappeared, and he found that they were standing in front of the old woman's lodge by the butte. she came out of her lodge and said to them, "stop; give me back those mysterious medicines of mine, whose power helped you to do what you wished." the man returned them to her, and then once more became really a living person. when they drew near to the camp the woman went on ahead and sat down on a butte. then some curious persons came out to see who this might be. as they approached the woman called out to them, "do not come any nearer. go and tell my mother and my relations to put up a lodge for us a little way from the camp, and near by it build a sweat-house." when this had been done the man and his wife went in and took a thorough sweat, and then they went into the lodge and burned sweet grass and purified their clothing and the worm pipe. then their relations and friends came in to see them. the man told them where he had been and how he had managed to get his wife back, and that the pipe hanging over the doorway was a medicine pipe--the worm pipe--presented to him by his ghost father-in-law. that is how the people came to possess the worm pipe. that pipe belongs to the band of piegans known as the worm people. not long after this, once in the night, this man told his wife to do something, and when she did not begin at once he picked up a brand from the fire and raised it--not that he intended to strike her with it, but he made as if he would--when all at once she vanished and was never seen again. the buffalo stone a small stone, which is often a fossil shell, or sometimes only a queer shaped piece of flint, is called by the blackfeet i-n[)i]s´k[)i]m, the buffalo stone. this stone has great power, and gives its owner good luck in bringing the buffalo close, so that they may be killed. the stone is found on the prairie, and any one who finds one is thought to be very lucky. sometimes a man who is going along on the prairie will hear a queer faint chirp, such as a little bird might make. he knows this sound is made by a buffalo stone. he stops and searches for it on the ground, and if he cannot find it, marks the place and comes back next day to look for it again. if it is found, he and all his family are glad. the blackfeet tell a story about how the first buffalo stone was found. long ago, one winter, the buffalo disappeared. the snow was deep, so deep that the people could not move in search of the buffalo; so the hunters went as far as they could up and down the river-bottoms and in the ravines, and killed deer and elk and other small game, and when these were all killed or driven away the people began to starve. one day a young married man killed a prairie rabbit. he ran home as fast as he could, and told one of his wives to hurry and get a skin of water to cook it. she started down to the river for water, and as she was going along she heard a beautiful song. she looked all about, but could see no one who was singing. the song seemed to come from a big cotton-wood tree near the trail leading down to the water. as she looked closely at this tree she saw a queer stone jammed in a fork where the tree was split, and with it a few hairs from a buffalo which had rubbed against the tree. the woman was frightened and dared not pass the tree. soon the singing stopped and the i-nis´kim said to the woman, "take me to your lodge, and when it is dark call in the people and teach them the song you have just heard. pray, too, that you may not starve, and that the buffalo may come back. do this, and when day comes your hearts will be glad." the woman went on and got the water, and when she came back she took the stone and gave it to her husband, telling him about the song and what the stone had said. as soon as it was dark, the man called the chiefs and old men to his lodge, and his wife taught them the song that she had heard. they prayed too, as the stone had said should be done. before long they heard far off a noise coming. it was the tramp of a great herd of buffalo. then they knew that the stone was powerful, and since that time the people have taken care of it and have prayed to it. how the thunder pipe came you have heard the thunder, for he is everywhere. he roars in the mountains, and far out on the prairie is heard his crashing. he strikes the high rocks, and they fall to pieces; a tree, and it is broken in slivers; the people, and they die. he is bad. he does not like the high cliff, the standing tree, or living man. he likes to strike and crush them to the ground. of all things he is the most powerful. he cannot be resisted. but i have not told you the worst thing about him. sometimes he takes away women. long ago, almost in the beginning, a man and his wife were sitting in their lodge when thunder came and struck them. the man was not killed. at first he lay as if dead, but after a time he lived again, and, standing up, looked about him. he did not see his wife. "oh," he thought, "she has gone to get wood or water," and he sat down again. but when night came he went out of the lodge and asked the people about her. no one had seen her. he looked all through the camp, but could not find her. then he knew that the thunder had taken her away, and he went out on the hills and mourned. all night he sat there, trying to think what he might do to get back his wife. when morning came he rose and wandered away, and whenever he met any of the animals he asked if they could tell him where the thunder lived. the animals laughed, and most of them would not answer. the wolf said to him, "do you think that we would look for the home of the only one we fear? he is our only danger. from all other enemies we can run away, but from him no one can run. he strikes and there we lie. turn back; go home. do not look for the place of that dreadful one." the man kept on and travelled a long distance. at last, after many days, he came to a lodge--a strange lodge, for it was made of stone. just like any other lodge it looked, only it was made of stone. this was the home of the raven chief. the man entered. "welcome, friend," said the chief of the ravens; "sit down there," and he pointed to a place. soon food was placed before the poor man. when he had finished eating, the raven chief asked, "why have you come here?" "thunder has stolen my wife," the man answered. "i am looking for his dwelling-place that i may find her." "are you brave enough to enter the lodge of that dreadful person?" asked the raven. "he lives near here. his lodge is of stone like this one, and hanging in it are eyes--the eyes of those he has killed or taken away. he has taken out their eyes and hung them in his lodge. now, then! dare you enter there?" "no," answered the man, "i am afraid. who could look at such dreadful things and live?" "no man can," said the raven; "there is only one old thunder fears; there is but one he cannot kill. it is we. it is the ravens. now i will give you some medicine, and he shall not harm you. you shall enter there and try to find among those eyes your wife's, and if you find them tell the thunder why you came and make him give them to you. here, now, is a raven's wing. point this at him and he will be afraid and start back; but if that should fail, take this arrow. its shaft is made of elk horn. take this, i say, and shoot it through the lodge." "why make a fool of me?" the poor man asked. "my heart is sad. i am crying." he covered his head with his robe and wept. "oh," said the raven, "you do not believe me. come outside, come outside, and i will make you believe." when they stood outside the raven asked, "is the home of your people far?" "a great distance," said the man. "can you tell how many days you have travelled?" "no," he replied, "my heart was sad; i did not count the days. since i left, the berries have grown and ripened." "can you see your camp from here?" asked the raven. the man did not answer. then the raven rubbed some medicine on his eyes and said, "look!" the man looked and saw the camp. it was near. he saw the people; he saw the smoke rising from the lodges; he saw the painting on some of the lodges. "now you will believe," said the raven. "take, then, the arrow and the wing, and go and get your wife." the man took these things and went to the thunder's lodge. he entered and sat down by the doorway. the thunder sat at the back of the lodge and looked at him with awful eyes. the man looked above and saw hanging there many pairs of eyes. among them were those of his wife. "why have you come?" said the thunder in a dreadful voice. "i seek my wife," said the man, "whom you have stolen. there hang her eyes." "no man may enter my lodge and live," said the thunder, and he rose to strike him. then the man pointed the raven wing at the thunder, and he fell back on his bed and shivered; but soon he recovered and rose again, and then the man fitted the elk-horn arrow to his bow and shot it through the lodge of stone. right through that stone it pierced a hole and let the sunlight in. "wait," said the thunder; "stop. you are the stronger, you have the greater medicine. you shall have your wife. take down her eyes." the man cut the string that held the eyes, and his wife stood beside him. "now," said the thunder, "you know me. i have great power. in summer i live here; but when winter comes i go far south. i go south with the birds. here is my pipe. it has strong power. take it and keep it. after this, when first i come in the spring you shall fill this pipe and light it, and you shall smoke it and pray to me; you and the people. i bring the rain which makes the berries large and ripe. i bring the rain which makes all things grow, and for this you shall pray to me; you and all the people." thus the people got their first medicine pipe. it was long ago. cold maker's medicine the last lodge had been set up in the blackfeet winter camp. evening was closing over the travel-tired people. the sun had dropped beyond the hills not far away. women were bringing water from the river at the edge of the great circle. men gathered in quiet groups, weary after the long march of the day. children called sleepily to each other, and the dogs sniffed about in well-fed content. lone feather wrapped his robe more closely around him and walked slowly from his lodge door and from the camp, off toward the north. he was thinking of many things, and hardly noticed where he was going. presently as he walked, he heard the sound of persons talking. he stopped to listen. the sound came from a lodge made of stone, close by the river. quietly he went toward the lodge and saw a thin blue line of smoke coming from the top. as he approached, an old woman, bent with age and crippled, came from the lodge door and looked at him. "will you come into my lodge?" she said, greeting him. lone feather looked at her for a moment in silence. she spoke again. he could not understand her speech, for she belonged to another tribe. by signs she made him know that she wished him to come into her lodge and rest. lone feather entered. far back from the door crouched two big grizzly bears. she made signs to show that the bears were friendly, and lone feather sat down near the door. she stirred the fire, and as she put on fresh wood the sparks flew up toward the smoke hole, which was opened only a little way. by signs she told him she would go out and open the smoke hole wider, so that the fire might burn more brightly. she was gone for some time, and lone feather sat looking into the fire, still thinking of many things, when the air became thick with smoke. he looked up and saw that the smoke hole was closed. he sprang up and went to the door, but the door covering was down. he raised it, and as he put his head out the old woman hit him with a large stone club and he was dead. before his spirit started for the sand hills he saw that with a large knife she cut up his body and put the pieces into a pot. soon they were well cooked and the old woman and the two bears feasted on his flesh. they threw his bones out of the door, where they fell among many others like them. the ground was strewn with the bones of the persons she had trapped and killed. day by day other persons disappeared from the winter camp, and more and more bones whitened on the ground outside the stone lodge on the river bank. as cold maker was bringing the snow to the blackfeet winter camp, he passed the sand hills. lone feather and other ghosts from the blackfeet tribe were telling each other how the old woman had sent them there. cold maker heard their stories and he was angry. when he reached the camp he went to the lodge of broken bow--a brave young man, but very poor. he shivered when cold maker entered his lodge and drew his ragged robe about him. they were close friends. "would you like to have a new robe?" asked cold maker. "yes," said broken bow. "come with me. you may kill two grizzly bears," said cold maker. "my bow is broken. i cannot," said broken bow sadly. "i will help you. bring only a knife." together they went from the lodges toward the north. the sun was already hidden behind the nearby hills. after they had travelled some distance they heard the sound of voices. they listened. two bears were complaining that they wanted meat. a woman told them they must wait. the men saw the line of thin blue smoke rising from the top of the lodge of stone. all about whitening bones covered the ground. they went nearer. soon an old woman, bent with age and crippled, came from the door and smiled as she saw the two persons coming. "come in and rest," she said. broken bow did not understand her language, but cold maker, who understands all tribes, said, "we are cold. will you let us sit by your fire?" the old woman smiled again. "you are welcome," she said; "come in. do not fear my bears. they are friendly. they will not harm you." the two friends entered the lodge, where a smouldering fire sent a feeble smoke up to the smoke hole, that was partly open. she put fresh wood on the fire and said, "i will open the smoke hole wider," and went out, dropping the door covering as she went. then she closed the smoke hole. the smoke began to fill the top of the lodge. it settled lower and lower. broken bow was afraid. "give me your pipe," said cold maker. broken bow filled his pipe and, handed it to him. he lighted it by a brand from the fire, and sent great puffs of smoke curling upward. this smoke met the other smoke and stopped it. it could not descend any lower. broken bow saw the wonderful medicine of his friend. he was no longer afraid, but wondered what cold maker would do next. the grizzly bears growled low. the old woman outside called to them, "friends, is it smoking in there now?" "not a bit," replied cold maker. "we are very comfortable." she waited. they did not come out. she stood near the door. her stone club was ready. she grew impatient. she wondered what had gone wrong with her plans. the two friends were silent. she looked at the smoke hole, but it was closed securely. she lifted the door covering to see if the friends within had died. they sat perfectly still. she entered to look more closely, and as soon as she was fairly inside cold maker and broken bow rushed out and dropped the door covering. before she could move they piled great heaps of stone in the door-way. the bears growled. she called for help. cold maker and broken bow went on down the river. then cold maker took from a little sack a few white eagle-down feathers. he blew them from him. at once a fierce storm blew across the valley. the bitter cold froze the water, but only in this one place. it dammed the stream with fast forming ice. the water rose higher and higher. it spread out over the banks. cold maker and broken bow went far off on the hills and watched it. little by little it rose. it reached the stone lodge. the bears roared. the woman screamed. the water reached the top and covered the lodge from sight. all sound ceased. a moment more, and the water was quiet. once more cold maker blew from him a few white eagle-down feathers. the storm subsided. it became warm again. the ice melted. the water retreated to its channel. cold maker and broken bow went to the stone lodge. the woman was lying beside the pot. the grizzly bears were close to the stones which blocked the door-way. cold maker said, "here is your new robe," and broken bow took from the bears their thick, warm skins. on his way home cold maker again passed the sand hills. entering the country was an old woman bent with age and crippled. he hurried on. the all comrades societies in the blackfeet tribe was an association known as the all comrades. this was made up of a dozen secret societies graded according to age, the members of the younger societies passing, after a few years, into the older ones. this association was in part benevolent and helpful and in part to encourage bravery in war, but its main purpose was to see that the orders of the chiefs were carried out, and to punish offences against the tribe at large. there are stories which explain how these societies came to be instituted, and this one tells how the society of bulls began. the bulls society it was long, long ago, very far back, that this happened. in those days the people used to kill the buffalo by driving them over a steep place near the river, down which they fell into a great pen built at the foot of the cliff, where the buffalo that had not been killed by the fall were shot with arrows by the men. then the people went into the pen and skinned the buffalo and cut them up and carried the meat away to their camp. this pen they called piskun. in those days the people had built a great piskun with high, strong walls. no buffalo could jump over it; not even if a great crowd of them ran against it, could they push it down. the young men kept going out, as they always did, to try to bring the buffalo to the edge of the cliff, but somehow they would not jump over into the piskun. when they had come almost to the edge, they would turn off to one side or the other and run down the sloping hills and away over the prairie. so the people could get no food, and they began to be hungry, and at last to starve. early one morning a young woman, the daughter of a brave man, was going from her lodge down to the stream to get water, and as she went along she saw a herd of buffalo feeding on the prairie, close to the edge of the cliff above the great piskun. "oh," she called out, "if you will only jump off into the piskun i will marry one of you." she did not mean this, but said it just in fun, and as soon as she had said it, she wondered greatly when she saw the buffalo come jumping over the edge, falling down the cliff. a moment later a big bull jumped high over the wall of the piskun and came toward her, and now truly she was frightened. "come," he said, taking hold of her arm. "no, no," she answered, trying to pull herself away. "but you said if the buffalo would only jump over, you would marry one of them. look, the piskun is full." she did not answer, and without saying anything more he led her up over the bluff and out on the prairie. after the people had finished killing the buffalo and cutting up the meat, they missed this young woman. no one knew where she had gone, and her relations were frightened and very sad because they could not find her. so her father took his bow and quiver and put them on his back and said, "i will go and find her"; and he climbed the bluff and set out over the prairie. he travelled some distance, but saw nothing of his daughter. the sun was hot, and at length he came to a buffalo wallow in which some water was standing, and drank and sat down to rest. a little way off on the prairie he saw a herd of buffalo. as the man sat there by the wallow, trying to think what he might do to find his daughter, a magpie came up and alighted on the ground near him. the man spoke to it, saying, "m[)a]m-[=i]-[)a]t´s[=i]-k[)i]m[)i]--magpie--you are a beautiful bird; help me, for i am very unhappy. as you travel about over the prairie, look everywhere, and if you see my daughter say to her, 'your father is waiting by the wallow.'" soon the magpie flew away, and as he passed near the herd of buffalo he saw the young woman there, and alighting on the ground near her, he began to pick at things, turning his head this way and that, and seeming to look for food. when he was close to the girl he said to her, "your father is waiting by the wallow." "sh-h-h! sh-h-h!" replied the girl in a whisper, looking about her very much frightened, for her bull husband was sleeping close by. "do not speak so loud. go back and tell him to wait." "your daughter is over there with the buffalo. she says 'wait,'" said the magpie when he had flown back to the poor father. after a little time the bull awoke and said to his wife, "go and bring me some water." then the woman was glad, and she took a horn from her husband's head and went to the wallow for water. "oh, why did you come?" she said to her father. "they will surely kill you." "i came to take my daughter back to my lodge. come, let us go." "no," said the girl, "not now. they will surely chase us and kill us. wait until he sleeps again and i will try to get away." then she filled the horn with water and went back to the buffalo. her husband drank a swallow of the water, and when he took the horn it made a noise. "ah," he said, as he looked about, "a person is somewhere close by." "no one," replied the girl, but her heart stood still. the bull drank again. then he stood up on his feet and moaned and grunted, "m-m-ah-oo! bu-u-u!" fearful was the sound. up rose the other bulls, raised their tails in the air, tossed their heads and bellowed back to him. then they pawed the earth, thrust their horns into it, rushed here and there, and presently, coming to the wallow, found there the poor man. they rushed over him, trampling him with their great hoofs, thrust their horns into his body and tore him to pieces, and trampled him again. soon not even a piece of his body could be seen--only the wet earth cut up by their hoofs. then his daughter mourned in sorrow. "_oh! ah! ni-nah-ah! oh! ah! ni-nah-ah!_"--ah, my father, my father. "ah," said her bull husband; "now you understand how it is that we feel. you mourn for your father; but we have seen our fathers, mothers, and many of our relations fall over the high cliffs, to be killed for food by your people. but now i will pity you, i will give you one chance. if you can bring your father to life, you and he may go back to your camp." then said the woman, "ah, magpie, pity me, help me; for now i need help. look in the trampled mud of the wallow and see if you can find even a little piece of my father's body and bring it to me." swiftly the magpie flew to the wallow, and alighting there, walked all about, looking in every hole and even tearing up the mud with his sharp beak. presently he uncovered something white, and as he picked the mud from about it, he saw it was a bone, and pulling hard, he dragged it from the mud--the joint of a man's backbone. then gladly he flew back with it to the woman. the girl put the bone on the ground and covered it with her robe and began to sing. after she had sung she took the robe away, and there under it lay her father's body, as if he had just died. once again she covered the body with the robe and sang, and this time when she took the robe away the body was breathing. a third time she covered the body with the robe and sang, and when she again took away the robe, the body moved its arms and legs a little. a fourth time she covered it and sang, and when she took away the robe her father stood up. the buffalo were surprised and the magpie was glad, and flew about making a great noise. "now this day we have seen a strange thing," said her bull husband. "the people's medicine is strong. he whom we trampled to death, whom our hoofs cut to pieces and mixed all up with the soil, is alive again. now you shall go to your home, but before you go we will teach you our dance and our song. do not forget them." the buffalo showed the man and his daughter their dance and taught them the songs, and then the bull said to them, "now you are to go back to your home, but do not forget what you have seen. teach the people this dance and these songs, and while they are dancing it let them wear a bull's head and a robe. those who are to be of the bulls society shall wear them." when the poor man returned with his daughter, all the people were glad. then after a time he called a council of the chiefs and told them the things that had happened. the chiefs chose certain young men to be bulls, and the man taught them the dance and the song, and told them everything that they should do. so began the bull society. the other societies for a long time the buffalo had not been seen. every one was hungry, for the hunters could find no food for the people. a certain man, who had two wives, a daughter, and two sons, as he saw what a hard time they were having, said, "i shall not stop here to die. to-morrow we will move toward the mountains, where we may kill elk and deer and sheep and antelope, or, if not these, at least we shall find beaver and birds, and can get them. in this way we shall have food to eat and shall live." next morning they caught their dogs and harnessed them to the travois and took their loads on their backs and set out. it was still winter, and they travelled slowly. besides, they were weak from hunger and could go only a short distance in a day. the fourth night came, and they sat in their lodge, tired and hungry. no one spoke, for people who are hungry do not care to talk. suddenly, outside, the dogs began to bark, and soon the door was pushed aside and a young man entered. "welcome," said the man, and he motioned to a place where the stranger should sit. now during this day there had been blowing a warm wind which had melted the snow, so that the prairie was covered with water, yet this young man's moccasins and leggings were dry. they saw this, and were frightened. they sat there for a long time, saying nothing. then the young man spoke and asked, "why is this? why do you not give me food?" "ah," replied the father, "you see here people who are truly poor. we have no food. for many days the buffalo did not come in sight, and we looked for deer and other animals, which people eat, and when these had all been killed we began to starve. then i said, 'we will not stay here to die from hunger,' and we set out for the mountains. this is the fourth night of our travels." "ah," said the young man, "then your travels are ended. you need go no farther. close by here is our piskun. many buffalo have been run in, and our parfleches are filled with dried meat. wait a little; i will go and bring you some," and he went out. as soon as he had gone they began to talk about this strange person. they were afraid of him and did not know what to do. the children began to cry, and the women tried to quiet them. presently the young man came back, bringing some meat. "there is food," said he, as he put it down by the woman. "now to-morrow move your camp over to our lodges. do not fear anything. no matter what strange things you may see, do not fear. all will be your friends. yet about one thing i must warn you. in this you should be careful. if you should find an arrow lying about anywhere, in the piskun or outside, do not touch it, neither you nor your wives nor your children." when he had said this he went out. the father took his pipe and filled it, and smoked and prayed to all the powers, saying, "hear now, sun; listen, above people; listen, underwater people; now you have taken pity; now you have given us food. we are going to those mysterious ones who walk through water with dry moccasins. protect us among these to-be-feared people. let us live. man, woman, and child, give us long life." now from the fire again arose the smell of roasting meat. the children ate and played. those who so long had been silent now talked and laughed. early in the morning, as soon as the sun had risen, they took down their lodge and packed their dogs and started for the camp of the stranger. when they had come to where they could see it, they found it a wonderful place. there around the piskun, and stretching far up and down the valley, were pitched the lodges of the meat eaters. they could not see them all, but near by they saw the lodges of the bear band, the fox band, and the raven band. the father of the young man who had visited them and given them meat was the chief of the wolf band, and by that band they pitched their lodge. truly that was a happy place. food was plenty. all day long people were shouting out for feasts, and everywhere was heard the sound of drumming and singing and dancing. the newly come people went to the piskun for meat, and there one of the children saw an arrow lying on the ground. it was a beautiful arrow, the stone point long, slender, and sharp, the shaft round and straight. the boy remembered what had been said and he looked around fearfully, but everywhere the people were busy. no one was looking. he picked up the arrow and put it under his robe. then there rose a terrible sound. all the animals howled and growled and rushed toward him, but the chief wolf got to him first, and holding up his hand said, "wait. he is young and not yet of good sense. we will let him go this time." they did nothing to him. when night came some one shouted out, calling people to a feast and saying, "listen, listen, wolf, you are to eat; enter with your friend." "we are invited," said the chief wolf to his new friend, and together they went to the lodge from which the call came. within the lodge the fire burned brightly, and seated around it were many men, the old and wise of the raven band. on the lodge lining, hanging behind the seats, were the paintings of many great deeds. food was placed before the guests--pemican and berries and dried back fat--and after they had eaten the pipe was lighted and passed around the circle. then the raven chief spoke and said, "now, wolf, i am going to give our new friend a present. what do you think of that?" "it shall be as you say," replied the wolf; "our new friend will be glad." from a long parfleche sack the raven chief took a slender stick, beautifully ornamented with many-colored feathers. to the end of the stick was tied the skin of a raven--head, wings, feet, and tail. "we," said the raven chief, "are those who carry the raven (m[)a]s-to-p[=a]h´-t[)a]-k[=i]ks). of all the fliers, of all the birds, what one is so smart as the raven? none. the raven's eyes are sharp, his wings are strong. he is a great hunter and never hungry. far off on the prairie he sees his food, or if it is deep hidden in the forest it does not escape him. this is our song and our dance." when he had finished singing and dancing he placed the stick in the sack and gave it to the man and said, "take it with you, and when you have returned to your people you shall say, 'now there are already the bulls, and he who is the raven chief said, "there shall be more. there shall be the all friends ([=i]k[)u]n-[)u]h´-k[=a]h-ts[)i]), so that the people may live, and of the all friends shall be the raven bearers."' you shall call a council of the chiefs and wise old men, and they shall choose the persons who are to belong to the society. teach them the song and the dance, and give them the medicine. it shall be theirs forever." soon they heard another person shouting out the feast call, and, going, they entered the lodge of the chief of the kit-foxes (s[)i]n´-o-pah). here, too, old men had gathered. after they had eaten of the food set before them, the chief said, "those among whom you have just come are generous. they do not look carefully at the things they have, but give to the stranger and pity the poor. the kit-fox is a little animal, but what one is smarter? none. his hair is like the dead grass of the prairie; his eyes are keen; his feet make no noise when he walks; his brain is cunning. his ears receive the far-off sound. here is our medicine. take it." he gave the man the stick. it was long, crooked at one end, wound with fur, and tied here and there with eagle feathers. at the end was a kit-fox skin. again the chief spoke and said, "listen to our song. do not forget it, and the dance, too, you must remember. when you reach home teach them to the people." he sang and danced. then presently his guests departed. again they heard the feast shout, and he who called was the chief of the bear society. after they had eaten and smoked the chief said, "what is your opinion, friend wolf? shall we give our new friend a present?" "it shall be as you say," replied the wolf. "it is yours to give." then spoke the bear, saying, "there are many animals and some of them are powerful; but the bear is the strongest and greatest of all. he fears nothing and is always ready to fight." then he put on a necklace of bear claws, a band of bear fur about his head, and a belt of bear fur, and sang and danced. when he had finished he gave the things he had worn to the man and said, "teach the people our song and our dance, and give them this medicine. it is powerful." it was very late. the seven stars had come to the middle of the night, yet again they heard the feast shout from the far end of the camp. in this lodge the men were painted with streaks of red, and their hair was all pushed to one side. after the feast the chief said, "we are different from all others here. we are called the braves (m[)u]t´-s[)i]ks). we know not fear; we are death. even if our enemies are as many as the grass we do not turn away, but fight and conquer. bows are good weapons, lances are better; but our weapon is the knife." then the chief sang and danced, and afterward he gave the wolf chief's friend the medicine. it was a long knife and many scalps were tied on the handle. "this," said he, "is for the all friends." to one more lodge they were called that night and the lodge owner taught the man his song and dance, and gave him his medicine. then the wolf chief and his friend went home and slept. early next day the blackfeet women began to take down the lodge and to get ready to move their camp. many women came and made them presents of food, dried meat, pemican, and berries. they were given so much that they could not take it all with them. it was long before they joined the main camp, for it had moved south, looking for buffalo. when they reached the camp, as soon as the lodge was pitched, the man called all the chiefs to come and feast with him, and told them what he had seen, and showed them the different medicines. then the chiefs chose certain young men to belong to the different societies, and this man taught them the songs and dances, and gave its medicine to each society. the first medicine lodge the chief god of the blackfeet is the sun. he made the world and rules it, and to him the people pray. one of his names is napi--old man; but there is another napi who is very different from the sun, and instead of being great, wise, and wonderful, is foolish, mean, and contemptible. we shall hear about him further on. every year in summer, about the time the berries ripen, the blackfeet used to hold the great festival and sacrifice which we call the ceremony of the medicine lodge. this was a time of happy meetings, of feasting, of giving presents; but besides this rejoicing, those men who wished to have good-luck in whatever they might undertake tried to prove their prayers sincere by sacrificing their bodies, torturing themselves in ways that caused great suffering. in ancient times, as we are told in books of history, things like that used to happen among many peoples all over the world. it was the law that the building of the medicine lodge must always be pledged by a good woman. if a woman had a son or a husband away at war and feared that he was in danger, or if she had a child that was sick and might die, she might pray for the safety of the one she loved, and promise that if he returned or recovered she would build a medicine lodge. this pledge was made in a loud voice, publicly, in open air, so that all might know the promise had been made. at the time appointed all the tribe came together and pitched their lodges in a great circle, and within this circle the medicine lodge was built. the ceremony lasted for four days and four nights, during which time the woman who had promised to make the medicine lodge neither ate nor drank, except once in sacrifice. different stories are told of how the first medicine lodge came to be built. this is one of those stories: in the earliest times there was a man who had a very beautiful daughter. many young men wished to marry her, but whenever she was asked she shook her head and said she did not wish to marry. "why is this?" said her father. "some of these young men are rich, handsome, and brave." "why should i marry?" replied the girl. "my father and mother take care of me. our lodge is good; the parfleches are never empty; there are plenty of tanned robes and soft furs for winter. why trouble me, then?" soon after, the raven bearers held a dance. they all painted themselves nicely and wore their finest ornaments and each one tried to dance the best. afterward some of them asked for this girl, but she said, "no." after that the bulls, the kit-foxes, and others of the all comrades held their dances, and many men who were rich and some great warriors asked this man for his daughter, but to every one she said, "no." then her father was angry, and he said, "why is this? all the best men have asked for you, and still you say 'no.'" then the girl said, "father, listen to me. that above person, the sun, said to me, 'do not marry any of these men, for you belong to me. listen to what i say, and you shall be happy and live to a great age.' and again he said to me, 'take heed, you must not marry; you are mine.'" "ah!" replied her father; "it must always be as he says"; and they spoke no more about it. there was a poor young man. he was very poor. his father, his mother, and all his relations were dead. he had no lodge, no wife to tan his robes or make his moccasins. his clothes were always old and worn. he had no home. to-day he stopped in one lodge; then to-morrow he ate and slept in another. thus he lived. he had a good face, but on his cheek was a bad scar. after they had held those dances, some of the young men met this poor scarface, and they laughed at him and said, "why do not you ask that girl to marry you? you are so rich and handsome." scarface did not laugh. he looked at them and said, "i will do as you say; i will go and ask her." all the young men thought this was funny; they laughed a good deal at scarface as he was walking away. scarface went down by the river and waited there, near the place where the women went to get water. by and by the girl came there. scarface spoke to her, and said, "girl, stop; i want to speak with you. i do not wish to do anything secretly, but i speak to you here openly, where the sun looks down and all may see." "speak, then," said the girl. "i have seen the days," said scarface. "i have seen how you have refused all those men, who are young and rich and brave. to-day some of these young men laughed and said to me, 'why do not you ask her?' i am poor. i have no lodge, no food, no clothes, no robes. i have no relations. all of them have died. yet now to-day i say to you, take pity. be my wife." the girl hid her face in her robe and brushed the ground with the point of her moccasin, back and forth, back and forth, for she was thinking. after a time she spoke and said, "it is true i have refused all those rich young men; yet now a poor one asks me, and i am glad. i will be your wife, and my people will be glad. you are poor, but that does not matter. my father will give you dogs; my mother will make us a lodge; my relations will give us robes and furs; you will no longer be poor." then the young man was glad, and he started forward to kiss her, but she put out her hand and held him back, and said, "wait; the sun has spoken to me. he said i may not marry; that i belong to him; that if i listen to him i shall live to great age. so now i say, go to the sun; say to him, 'she whom you spoke with has listened to your words; she has never done wrong, but now she wants to marry. i want her for my wife.' ask him to take that scar from your face; that will be his sign, and i shall know he is pleased. but if he refuses, or if you cannot find his lodge, then do not return to me." "oh!" cried scarface; "at first your words were good. i was glad. but now it is dark. my heart is dead. where is that far-off lodge? where is the trail that no one yet has travelled?" "take courage, take courage," said the girl softly, and she went on to her lodge. scarface was very unhappy. he did not know what to do. he sat down and covered his face with his robe, and tried to think. at length he stood up and went to an old woman who had been kind to him, and said to her, "pity me. i am very poor. i am going away, on a long journey. make me some moccasins." "where are you going--far from the camp?" asked the old woman. "i do not know where i am going," he replied; "i am in trouble, but i cannot talk about it." this old woman had a kind heart. she made him moccasins--seven pairs; and gave him also a sack of food--pemican, dried meat, and back fat. all alone, and with a sad heart, scarface climbed the bluff that overlooked the valley, and when he had reached the top, turned to look back at the camp. he wondered if he should ever see it again; if he should return to the girl and to the people. "pity me, o sun!" he prayed; and turning away, he set off to look for the trail to the sun's lodge. for many days he went on. he crossed great prairies and followed up timbered rivers, and crossed the mountains. every day his sack of food grew lighter, but as he went along he looked for berries and roots, and sometimes he killed an animal. these things gave him food. one night he came to the home of a wolf. "hah!" said the wolf; "what are you doing so far from your home?" "i am looking for the place where the sun lives," replied scarface. "i have been sent to speak with him." "i have travelled over much country," said the wolf; "i know all the prairies, the valleys, and the mountains; but i have never seen the sun's home. but wait a moment. i know a person who is very wise, and who may be able to tell you the road. ask the bear." the next day scarface went on again, stopping now and then to rest and to pick berries, and when night came he was at the bear's lodge. "where is your home?" asked the bear. "why are you travelling so far alone?" "ah," replied the man, "i have come to you for help. pity me. because of what that girl said to me, i am looking for the sun. i wish to ask him for her." "i do not know where he lives," said the bear. "i have travelled by many rivers and i know the mountains, yet i have not seen his lodge. farther on there is some one--that striped face--who knows a great deal; ask him." when the young man got there, the badger was in his hole. but scarface called to him, "oh, cunning striped face! i wish to speak with you." the badger put his head out of the hole and said, "what do you want, my brother?" "i wish to find the sun's home," said scarface. "i wish to speak with him." "i do not know where he lives," answered the badger. "i never travel very far. over there in the timber is the wolverene. he is always travelling about, and knows many things. perhaps he can tell you." scarface went over to the forest and looked all about for the wolverene, but could not see him; so he sat down on a log to rest. "alas, alas!" he cried; "wolverene, take pity on me. my food is gone, my moccasins are worn out; i fear i shall die." some one close to him said, "what is it, my brother?" and looking around, he saw the wolverene sitting there. "she whom i wish to marry belongs to the sun," said scarface; "i am trying to find where he lives, so that i may ask him for her." "ah," said the wolverene, "i know where he lives. it is nearly night now, but to-morrow i will show you the trail to the big water. he lives on the other side of it." early in the morning they set out, and the wolverene showed scarface the trail, and he followed it until he came to the water's edge. when he looked out over it, his heart almost stopped. never before had any one seen such a great water. the other side could not be seen and there was no end to it. scarface sat down on the shore. this seemed the end. his food was gone; his moccasins were worn out; he had no longer strength, no longer courage; his heart was sick. "i cannot cross this great water," he said. "i cannot return to the people. here by this water i shall die." yet, even as he thought this, helpers were near. two swans came swimming up to the shore and said to him, "why have you come here? what are you doing? it is very far to the place where your people live." "i have come here to die," replied scarface. "far away in my country is a beautiful girl. i want to marry her, but she belongs to the sun; so i set out to find him and ask him for her. i have travelled many days. my food is gone. i cannot go back; i cannot cross this great water; so i must die." "no," said the swans; "it shall not be so. across this water is the home of that above person. get on our backs, and we will take you there." scarface stood up. now he felt strong and full of courage. he waded out into the water and lay down on the swans' backs, and they swam away. it was a fearful journey, for that water was deep and black, and in it live strange people and great animals which might reach up and seize a person and pull him down under the water; yet the swans carried scarface safely to the other side. there was seen a broad, hard trail leading back from the water's edge. "there," said the swans; "you are now close to the sun's lodge. follow that trail, and soon you will see it." scarface started to walk along the trail, and after he had gone a little way he came to some beautiful things lying in the trail. there was a war shirt, a shield, a bow, and a quiver of arrows. he had never seen such fine weapons. he looked at them, but he did not touch them, and at last walked around them and went on. a little farther along he met a young man, a very handsome person. his hair was long; his clothing was made of strange skins, and his moccasins were sewed with bright feathers. the young man spoke to him and asked, "did you see some weapons lying in the trail?" "yes," replied scarface, "i saw them." "did you touch them?" said the young man. "no," said scarface; "i supposed some one had left them there, and i did not touch them." "you do not meddle with the property of others," said the young man. "what is your name, and where are you going?" scarface told him. then said the young man, "my name is early riser (the morning star). the sun is my father. come, i will take you to our lodge. my father is not at home now, but he will return at night." at length they came to the lodge. it was large and handsome, and on it were painted strange medicine animals. on a tripod behind the lodge were the sun's weapons and his war clothing. scarface was ashamed to go into the lodge, but morning star said, "friend, do not be afraid; we are glad you have come." when they went in a woman was sitting there, the moon, the sun's wife and the mother of morning star. she spoke to scarface kindly and gave him food to eat, and when he had eaten she asked, "why have you come so far from your people?" so scarface told her about the beautiful girl that he wished to marry and said, "she belongs to the sun. i have come to ask him for her." when it was almost night, and time for the sun to come home, the moon hid scarface under a pile of robes. as soon as the sun got to the doorway he said, "a strange person is here." "yes, father," said morning star, "a young man has come to see you. he is a good young man, for he found some of my things in the trail and did not touch them." scarface came out from under the robes and the sun entered the lodge and sat down. he spoke to scarface and said, "i am glad you have come to our lodge. stay with us as long as you like. sometimes my son is lonely. be his friend." the next day the two young men were talking about going hunting and the moon spoke to scarface and said, "go with my son where you like, but do not hunt near that big water. do not let him go there. that is the home of great birds with long, sharp bills. they kill people. i have had many sons, but these birds have killed them all. only morning star is left." scarface stayed a long time in the sun's lodge, and every day went hunting with morning star. one day they came near the water and saw the big birds. "come on," said morning star, "let us go and kill those birds." "no, no," said scarface, "we must not go there. those are terrible birds; they will kill us." morning star would not listen. he ran toward the water and scarface ran after him, for he knew that he must kill the birds and save the boy's life. he ran ahead of morning star and met the birds, which were coming to fight, and killed every one of them with his spear; not one was left. the young men cut off the heads of the birds and carried them home, and when morning star's mother heard what they had done, and they showed her the birds' heads, she was glad. she cried over the two young men and called scarface "my son," and when the sun came home at night she told him about it, and he too was glad. "my son," he said to scarface, "i will not forget what you have this day done for me. tell me now what i can do for you; what is your trouble?" "alas, alas!" replied scarface, "pity me. i came here to ask you for that girl. i want to marry her. i asked her and she was glad, but she says that she belongs to you, and that you told her not to marry." "what you say is true," replied the sun. "i have seen the days and all that she has done. now i give her to you. she is yours. i am glad that she has been wise, and i know that she has never done wrong. the sun takes care of good women; they shall live a long time, and so shall their husbands and children. "now, soon you will go home. i wish to tell you something and you must be wise and listen. i am the only chief; everything is mine; i made the earth, the mountains, the prairies, the rivers, and the forests; i made the people and all the animals. this is why i say that i alone am chief. i can never die. it is true the winter makes me old and weak, but every summer i grow young again. "what one of all the animals is the smartest?" the sun went on. "it is the raven, for he always finds food; he is never hungry. which one of all the animals is the most to be reverenced? it is the buffalo; of all the animals i like him best. he is for the people; he is your food and your shelter. what part of his body is sacred? it is the tongue; that belongs to me. what else is sacred? berries. they too are mine. come with me now and see the world." the sun took scarface to the edge of the sky and they looked down and saw the world. it is flat and round, and all around the edge it goes straight down. then said the sun, "if any man is sick or in danger his wife may promise to build me a lodge if he recovers. if the woman is good, then i shall be pleased and help the man; but if she is not good, or if she lies, then i shall be angry. you shall build the lodge like the world, round, with walls, but first you must build a sweat-lodge of one hundred sticks. it shall be arched like the sky, and one-half of it shall be painted red for me, the other half you shall paint black for the night." he told scarface all about making the medicine lodge, and when he had finished speaking, he rubbed some medicine on the young man's face and the scar that had been there disappeared. he gave him two raven feathers, saying: "these are a sign for the girl that i give her to you. they must always be worn by the husband of the woman who builds a medicine lodge." now scarface was ready to return home. the sun and morning star gave him many good presents; the moon cried and kissed him and was sorry to see him go. then the sun showed him the short trail. it was the wolf road--the milky way. he followed it and soon reached the ground. * * * * * it was a very hot day. all the lodge skins were raised and the people sat in the shade. there was a chief, a very generous man, who all day long was calling out for feasts, and people kept coming to his lodge to eat and smoke with him. early in the morning this chief saw sitting on a butte near by a person close-wrapped in his robe. all day long this person sat there and did not move. when it was almost night the chief said, "that person has sat there all day in the strong heat, and he has not eaten nor drunk. perhaps he is a stranger. go and ask him to come to my lodge." some young men ran up to the person and said to him, "why have you sat here all day in the great heat? come to the shade of the lodges. the chief asks you to eat with him." the person rose and threw off his robe and the young men were surprised. he wore fine clothing; his bow, shield, and other weapons were of strange make; but they knew his face, although the scar was gone, and they ran ahead, shouting, "the scarface poor young man has come. he is poor no longer. the scar on his face is gone." all the people hurried out to see him and to ask him questions. "where did you get all these fine things?" he did not answer. there in the crowd stood that young woman, and, taking the two raven feathers from his head, he gave them to her and said, "the trail was long and i nearly died, but by those helpers i found his lodge. he is glad. he sends these feathers to you. they are the sign." great was her gladness then. they were married and made the first medicine lodge, as the sun had said. the sun was glad. he gave them great age. they were never sick. when they were very old, one morning their children called to them, "awake, rise and eat." they did not move. in the night, together, in sleep, without pain, their shadows had departed to the sandhills. the buffalo-painted lodges the old lodges of the piegans were made of buffalo skin and were painted with pictures of different kinds--birds, or animals, or trees, or mountains. it is believed that in most cases the first painter of any lodge was taught how he should paint it in a dream, but this was not always the case. two of the most important lodges in the blackfeet camp are known as the [=i]n[)i]s´k[)i]m lodges. both are painted with figures of buffalo, one with black buffalo, and the other with yellow buffalo. certain of the inis´kim are kept in these lodges and can be kept in no others. this story tells how these two lodges came to be made. the painters were told what to do long, long ago, "in about the second generation after the first people." in those days the old piegans lived in the north, close to the red deer river. the camp moved, and the lodges were pitched on the river. one day two old men who were close friends had gone out from the camp to find some straight cherry shoots with which to make arrows. after they had gathered their shafts, they sat down on a high bank by the river and began to peel the bark from the shoots. the river was high. one of these men was named weasel heart and the other fisher. as they sat there, weasel heart chanced to look down into the water and saw something. he said to his comrade, "friend, do you not see something down there where the water goes around?" fisher said, "no; i see nothing except buffalo," for he was looking across the river to the other side, and not down into the water. "no," said weasel heart; "i do not mean over there on the prairie. look down into that deep hole in the river, and you will see a lodge there." fisher looked as he had been told, and saw the lodge. weasel heart said, "there is a lodge painted with black buffalo." as he spoke thus, fisher said, "i see another lodge, standing in front of it." weasel heart saw that lodge too--the yellow-painted-buffalo lodge. the two men wondered at this and could not understand how it could be, but they were both men of strong hearts, and presently weasel heart said, "friend, i shall go down to enter that lodge. do you sit here and tell me when i get to the place." then weasel heart went up the river and found a drift-log to support him and pushed it out into the water, and floated down toward the cut bank. when he had reached the place where the lodge stood fisher told him, and he let go the log and dived down into the water and entered the lodge. in it he found two persons who owned the lodge, a man and his wife. the man said to him, "you are welcome," and weasel heart sat down. then spoke the owner of the lodge saying, "my son, this is my lodge, and i give it to you. look well at it inside and outside; and make your lodge like this. if you do that, it may be a help to you." fisher sat a long time waiting for his friend, but at last he looked down the stream and saw a man on the shore walking toward him. he came along the bank until he had reached his friend. it was weasel heart. fisher said to him, "i have been waiting a long time, and i was afraid that something bad had happened to you." weasel heart asked him, "did you see me?" "i saw you," said fisher, "when you went into that lodge. did you, when you came out of the lodge, see there in the water another lodge painted with yellow buffalo? is it still there?" weasel heart said, "i saw it; it is there. go you into the water as i did." then fisher went up the stream as his friend had gone and entered the water at the same place and swam down as weasel heart had done, and when weasel heart showed him the place he dived down and disappeared as weasel heart had disappeared. he entered the yellow-painted-buffalo lodge, and his friend saw him go into it. in the lodge were two persons, a man and his wife. the man said to him, "you are welcome; sit there." he spoke further, saying, "my son, you have seen this lodge of mine; i give it to you. look carefully at it, inside and outside, and fix up your lodge in that way. it may be a help to you hereafter." then fisher went out. weasel heart waited for his friend as long as fisher had waited for him, and when fisher came out of the water it was at the place where weasel heart had come out. then the two friends went home to the camp. when the two had come to a hill near the camp they met a young man, and by him sent word that the people should make a sweat-house for them. after the sweat-house had been made, word was sent to them, and they entered the camp and went into the sweat-house and took a sweat, and all the time while they were sweating, sand was falling from their bodies. some time after that the people moved camp and went out and killed buffalo, and these two men made two lodges, and painted them just as the lodges were painted that they had seen in the river. these two men had strong power which came to them from the under-water people. once the people wished to cross the river, but the stream was deep and it was always hard for them to get across. often the dogs and the travois were swept away and the people lost many of their things. at this time the tribe wished to cross, and fisher and weasel heart said to each other, "the people want to cross the river, but it is high and they cannot do so. let us try to make a crossing, so that it will be easier for them." so weasel heart alone crossed the river and sat on the bank on the other side, and fisher sat opposite to him on the bank where the camp was. then fisher said to the people, "pack up your things now and get ready to cross. i will make a place where you can cross easily." weasel heart and fisher filled their pipes and smoked, and then each started to cross the river. as each stepped into the water, the river began to go down and the crossing grew more and more shallow. the people with all their dogs followed close behind fisher, as he had told them to do. fisher and weasel heart met in the middle of the river, and when they met they stepped to one side up the stream and let the people pass them. ever since that day this has been a shallow crossing. these lodges came from the under-water people--s[=u]´y[=e]-t[)u]p´p[)i]. they were those who had owned them and who had been kind to weasel heart and fisher. mika´pi--red old man in montana, running into the missouri river from the south, is a little stream that the blackfeet call "it fell on them." once, long, long ago, while a number of women were digging in a bank near this stream for the red earth that they used as paint, the bank gave way and fell on them, burying and killing them. the white people call this armell's creek. it was on this stream near the mountains that the piegans were camped when m[=i]ka´pi went to war. this was long ago. early in the morning a herd of buffalo had been seen feeding on the slopes of the mountains, and some hunters went out to kill them. travelling carefully up the ravines, and keeping out of sight of the herd, they came close to them, near enough to shoot their arrows, and they began to kill fat cows. but while they were doing this a war party of snakes that had been hidden on the mountainside attacked them, and the piegans began to run back toward their camp. one of them, called fox eye, was a brave man, and shouted to the others to stop and wait, saying, "let us fight these people; the snakes are not brave; we can drive them back." but the other piegans would not listen to him; they made excuses, saying, "we have no shields; our war medicine is not here; there are many of them; why should we stop here to die?" they ran on to the camp, but fox eye would not run. hiding behind a rock he prepared to fight, but as he was looking for some enemy to shoot at, holding his arrow on the string, a snake had crept up on the bank above him; the piegan heard the twang of the bowstring, and the long, fine arrow passed through his body. his bow and arrow dropped from his hands, and he fell forward, dead. now, too late, the warriors came rushing out from the piegan camp to help him, but the snakes scalped their enemy, scattered up the mountain, and soon were hidden in the timber. fox eye had two wives, and their father and mother and all their near relations were dead. all fox eye's relations had died. so it happened that these poor widows had no one to help them--no one to take vengeance for the killing of their husband. all day long, and often far into the night, these two sat on a near-by hill and wailed, and their mourning was sad. there was a young man named mika´pi. every morning when he awoke he heard the mourning of these poor widows, and all through the day he could not forget their sorrow. he pitied them. one day he sent his mother to them, to tell them that he wished to speak with them. when they had come to the lodge they entered and sat down close by the doorway and covered their heads. "listen!" said mika´pi. "for days and nights i have heard your mourning, and i too have mourned. your husband was my close friend, and now he is dead, and no relations are left to avenge him. so now i say to you, i will take the load from your hearts; i will go to war and kill enemies and take scalps, and when i return they shall be yours. i will wipe away your tears, and we shall be glad that fox eye is avenged." when the people heard that mika´pi was going to war many young men wished to join him, but he refused. "i shall go alone," he said. so when he had taken a medicine sweat and had asked a priest to pray for him in his absence, he left the camp one evening, just as it was growing dark. it is only the foolish warrior who travels in the day. the wise one knows that war-parties may be out, or that some camp watcher sitting on a hill may see him far off and may try to kill him. mika´pi was not one of these foolish persons. he was brave and cautious, and he had powerful helpers. some have said that he was helped by the ghosts. when he started to war against the snakes he travelled in low places, and at sunrise he climbed some hill near by and looked carefully over the country in all directions, and during all the long day he lay there and watched, sleeping often, but only for a short time. when mika´pi had come to the great place of falling water,[a] it began to rain hard, and, looking about for a place to sleep, he saw a hole in the rocks and crept in and lay down at the farther end. the rain did not stop, and when it grew dark he could not travel because of the darkness and the storm, so he lay down to sleep again; but before he had fallen asleep he heard something at the mouth of the cave, and then something creeping toward him. then soon something touched his breast, and he put out his hand and felt a person. then he sat up. [footnote a: the great falls of the missouri.] mika´pi stretched out his hand and put its palm on the person's breast and moved his hand quickly from side to side, and then touched the person with the point of his finger, which in sign language means, "who are you?" the stranger took mika´pi's hand and made him feel of his own right hand. the thumb and fingers were closed except the forefinger, which was extended. when mika´pi's hand was on the stranger's hand the person moved his hand forward with a zigzag motion, meaning snake. mika´pi was glad. here had come to him one of the tribe he was seeking, yet he thought it better to wait for a time before fighting him; so when, in signs, the snake asked mika´pi who he was he replied, by making the sign for paddling a canoe, that he was a river person, for he knew that the snakes and the river people, or pend d'oreilles, were at peace. then the two lay down for the night, but mika´pi did not sleep. through the long night he watched for the first light, so that he might kill his enemy; and just at daybreak mika´pi, without noise, strung his bow, fitted an arrow to the string, and sent the thin shaft through his enemy's heart. the snake half rose up and fell back dead. mika´pi scalped him, took his bow and arrows and his bundle of moccasins, and went out of the cave and looked all about. daylight had come, but no one was in sight. perhaps, like himself, the snake had gone to war alone. mika´pi did not forget to be careful because he had been fortunate. he travelled only a little way, and then hid himself and waited for night before going on. after drinking from the river he ate and, climbing up on a high rock wall, he slept. he dreamed that he fought with strange people and was wounded. he felt blood trickling from his wounds, and when he awoke he knew that he had been warned to turn back. other signs were bad. he saw an eagle rising carrying a snake, which dropped from its claws. the setting sun too was painted, a sure warning that danger was near. in spite of all these things mika´pi determined to go on. he thought of the poor widows mourning; he thought of welcome of the people if he should return with scalps; he thought also of two young sisters whom he wished to marry. if he could return with proof of brave deeds, they would think well of him. mika´pi travelled onward. * * * * * the sun had already disappeared behind the sharp pointed dark peaks of the mountains. it was nearly night. as the light grew dim, the far stretching prairie began to be hidden. by a stream in a valley where grew large and small trees were the lodges of a great camp. for a long distance up and down the river rose the smokes of many fires. on a hill overlooking the valley sat a person alone. his robe was drawn close about him, and he sat there without moving, looking down on the valley and out on the prairie above it. perhaps he was watching for enemies; perhaps he was praying. creeping through the grass behind this person, something was slowly drawing near to him. there was no noise, the watcher heard nothing; still he sat there, looking out over the prairie, and turning his head neither to the right nor the left. this thing behind him kept creeping closer, and presently it was so near it could touch the man. perhaps then there was some little rustle of the grass, and the watcher turned his head. it was too late. a strong arm around his neck bent his head back, a hand covered his mouth, a long stone knife was thrust into his breast, and he died in silence. the fading light had kept people in the camp from seeing what had happened. the man who had used the knife scalped his enemy, and slowly, hidden by the grass, crept down the hill that he had just ascended, and when he reached the cover of a low place mika´pi rose to his feet and crept away. he had another snake scalp tied to his belt. his heart was glad, but he was not satisfied. several nights had passed since the signs warned him to turn back, but notwithstanding the warnings, he had succeeded. perhaps his success had made him too confident. he longed for more of it. "one more scalp i shall take," he said, "and then i will return to the people." he climbed far up the mountainside and hid among the pines and slept, but when day came he awoke and crept out to a point where he could see the camp. he saw the smoke rising as the women kindled their morning fires; he saw the people going about through the camp, and then presently he saw many people rush up on the hill where he had left the dead enemy. he could not hear their angry cries, nor their mournful wailings, but he knew how badly they felt, and he sung a song, for he was happy. once more the sun had disappeared behind the mountains, and as darkness grew mika´pi came down from where he had been hiding and carefully approached the camp. now was a time of danger. now watchers might be hidden anywhere, looking for the approach of enemies, ready to raise a cry to warn the camp. each bush or clump of rye grass or willow thicket might hide an enemy. very slowly, looking and listening, mika´pi crept around the outskirts of the camp. he made no noise, he did not show himself. presently he heard some one clear his throat and then a cough, and a little bush moved. here was a watcher. could he kill him and get away? he sat and waited to see what would happen, for he knew where his enemy was, but the enemy knew nothing of him. the great moon rose over the eastern prairie and climbed high and began to travel across the sky. seven persons swung around and pointed downward. it was about the middle of the night. at length the person in the bush grew tired of watching; he thought no enemy could be near and he rose and stretched out his arms and yawned, but even as he stood an arrow pierced him through, beneath the arms. he gave a loud cry and tried to run, but another arrow struck him, and he fell. and now from out the camp rushed the warriors toward the sound, but even as they came mika´pi had taken the scalp from his enemy and started to run away into the darkness. the moon was bright, and close behind him were the snakes. he heard arrows flying by him, and presently one passed through his arm. he pulled it out and threw it from him. another struck his leg, and he fell, and a great shout arose from the snakes. now their enemy was down and revenge for the two lives lately taken was certain. but mika´pi's helpers were not far off. it was at the very verge of a high cut wall overhanging the river that mika´pi fell, and even as the snakes shouted he rolled over the brink into the dark rushing water below. the snakes ran along the edge of the river, looking into the water, with bent bows watching for the enemy's head or body to appear, but they saw nothing. carefully they looked along the shores and sandbars; they did not find him. mika´pi had sunk deep in the water. the swift current carried him along, and when he rose to the surface he was beyond his enemies. for some time he floated on, but the arrow in his leg pained him and at last he crept out on a sandbar. he managed to draw the arrow from his leg, and finding at the edge of the bar a dry log, he rolled it into the water, and keeping his hands on it, drifted down the river with the current. cold and stiff from his wounds, he crept out on the bank and lay down in the warm sunshine. soon he fell asleep. when he awoke the sun was in the middle of the sky. his leg and arm were swollen and pained him, yet he started to go home, and for a time struggled onward; but at last, tired and discouraged, he sat down. "ah," he said to himself, "true were the signs! how crazy i was to go against them! now my bravery has been useless, for here i must stop and die. the widows will still mourn, and who will care for my father and mother in their old age? pity me now, o sun; help me, o great above person! give me life!" something was coming through the brush near him, breaking the sticks as it walked. was it the snakes following his trail? mika´pi strung his bow and drew his arrows from the quiver. he waited. no, it was not a snake; it was a bear, a big grizzly bear, standing there looking down at mika´pi. "what is my brother doing here?" said the bear. "why does he pray for life?" "look at my leg," said mika´pi; "swollen and sore. see my wounded arm; i can hardly hold the bow. far away is the home of my people, and my strength is gone. surely here i must die, for i cannot walk, and i have no food." "take courage, my brother," said the bear. "keep up a strong heart, for i will help you, and you shall have life." when he had said this he lifted mika´pi in his arms and took him to a place where there was thick mud, and there he took great handfuls of the mud and plastered it on the wounds, and while he was putting on the mud he sang a medicine song. then he carried mika´pi to a place where there were many service berries, and he broke off great branches of the fruit and gave them to him, saying, "eat; my brother, eat." he kept breaking off branches full of large, ripe berries until mika´pi was full and could eat no more. then said the bear, "now lie down on my back and hold tight by my hair and we will go on"; and when mika´pi had got on his back and was ready the bear started. all through the night he travelled on without stopping, and when morning came they rested for a time and ate more berries, and again the bear put mud upon the man's wounds. in this way they travelled on, until, on the fourth day, they had come close to the lodges of the piegans and the people saw them coming, and wondered. "get off now, my brother, get off," said the bear. "there is the camp of your people. i shall leave you"; and at once he turned and went off up the mountain. all the people came out to meet mika´pi, and they carried him to his father's lodge. he untied the scalps from his belt and gave them to the poor widows, saying, "these are the scalps of your enemies; i wipe away your tears." then every one rejoiced. all mika´pi's women relations went through the camp, shouting out his name and singing songs about him, and all prepared to dance the dance of triumph and rejoicing. first came the widows. they carried the scalps tied on poles, and their faces were painted black. then came the medicine men, with their medicine pipes unwrapped, and then the bands of the all friends dressed in their war costumes; then came the old men; and, last of all, the women and children. they went all through the village, stopping here and there to dance, and mika´pi sat outside the lodge and saw all the people dance by him. he forgot his pain and was happy, and although he could not dance, he sung with them. soon they made the medicine lodge, and first of all the warriors, mika´pi was chosen to cut the rawhide to bind the poles, and as he cut the strips he related the coups he had counted. he told of the enemies he had killed, and all the people shouted his name and the drummers struck the drum. the father of those two sisters gave them to him. he was glad to have such a son-in-law. long lived mika´pi. of all the great chiefs who have lived and died he was the greatest. he did many other great things. it must be true, as the old men have said, that he was helped by the ghosts, for no one can do such things without help from those fearful and terrible persons. red robe's dream long, long ago, red robe and talking rock were young men in the blackfeet camp. in their childhood days and early youth their life had been hard. talking rock was an orphan without a single relation and red robe had only his old grandmother. this old woman, by hard work and sacrifice, had managed to rear the boys. she tanned robes for the hunters, made them moccasins worked with porcupine quills, and did everything she could to get a little food or worn out robes and hide, from which she made clothes for her boys. they never had new, brightly painted calf robes, like other children. they went barefoot in summer, and in winter their toes often showed through the worn out skin of their moccasins. they had no flesh. their ribs could be counted beneath the skin; their cheeks were hollow; they looked always hungry. when they grew to be twelve or fifteen years old they began to do better, for now they could do more and more for themselves. they herded horses and performed small services for the wealthy men; then, too, they hunted and killed a little meat. now, for their work, three or four dogs were given them, so with the two the old woman owned, they were able to pack their small lodge and other possessions when the camp moved, instead of carrying everything on their backs. now they began to do their best to make life easier for the good old woman who had worked so hard to keep them from starving and freezing. time passed. the boys grew old enough to go out and fast. they had their dreams. each found his secret helper of mysterious power, and each became a warrior. still they were very poor, compared with other young men of their age. they had bows, but only a few arrows. they were not able to pay some great medicine man to make shields for them. as yet they went to war only as servants. about this time red robe fell in love. in the camp was a beautiful girl named m[=a]-m[)i]n´--the wing--whom all the young men wished to marry, but perhaps red robe loved her more than all the rest. her father was a rich old medicine man who never invited any except chiefs and great warriors to feast with him, and red robe seldom entered his lodge. he used to dress as well as he could, to braid his hair carefully, to paint his face nicely, and to stand for a long time near the lodge looking entreatingly at her as she came and went about her work, or fleshed a robe under the shelter of some travois over which a hide was spread. then whenever they met, he thought the look she gave him in passing was friendly--perhaps more than that. wherever ma-min´ went her mother or some woman of the family went with her, so red robe could never speak to her, but he was often near by. one day, when she was gathering wood for the lodge, and her companion was out of sight behind some willow bushes some distance away, red robe had a chance to tell ma-min´ what was in his heart. he walked up to her and took her hands in his, and she did not try to draw them away. he said to her, "i love you; i cannot remember a time when i saw you that my heart did not beat faster. i am poor, very poor, and it is useless to ask your father to let me marry you, for he will not consent; but there is another way, and if you love me, you will do what i ask. let us go from here--far away. we will find some tribe that will be kind to us, and even if we fail in that we can live in some way. now, if you love me, and i hope you do, you will come." "ai," replied ma-min´, "i do love you; only you. all the other young men pass before me as shadows. i scarcely see them, but i cannot do what you ask. i cannot go away and leave my mother to mourn; she who loves me so well. let us wait a little. go to war. do something great and brave. then perhaps you will not uselessly ask my father to give me to you." in vain red robe tried to persuade the girl to do as he wished. she was kind; she threw her arms about him and kissed him and cried, but she would not run away to leave her mother to sorrow, to be beaten by her father, who would blame the poor woman for all the disgrace; and so, too soon, they parted, for they heard her companion coming--the sound of her heavy footsteps. three bulls, chief of the camp, was a great man. he had a fierce temper, and when he spoke, people hurried to do what he ordered, for they feared him. he never talked loud nor called any one by an ill name. when any one displeased him or refused to do what he said he just smiled and then killed the person. he was brave. in battle with enemies he was the equal of twenty men, rushing here, there, into the thickest of the fights, and killing--always with that silent, terrible smile on his face. because he was such a great warrior, and also because he was generous, helping the poor, feasting any who came to his lodge, he was the head chief of the blackfeet. three bulls had several wives and many children, some of them grown and married. gray hairs were now many in his head. his face wrinkles showed that old age was not far distant. no one supposed that he would ever take another wife; so when the news spread through the camp that he had asked the old medicine man for his daughter ma-min´, every one was surprised. when red robe heard the news his heart nearly broke. the old medicine man agreed to let the chief have the girl. he dared not refuse, nor did he wish to, for many good presents were to be given him in three days' time. when that was done, he told his daughter, she would be taken to the chief's lodge; let her prepare for the change. that day red robe had planned to start with a party to war; but when he heard this news he asked his friend talking rock to take word to the leader that he had changed his mind and would not go. he asked his friend to stay with him, instead of joining the war party, and talking rock agreed to do so. out in front of the camp was a large spring, and to that place red robe went and stood leaning against a large stone and looking sadly down into the blue water. soon, as he had thought, ma-min´ came to the spring for a skin of water. he took her hands, as he had done before, and began to beg her to go away with him that very night, before it was too late. the girl cried bitterly, but at first she did not speak. the two were standing in plain sight of the camp and the people in it, and some one went to the chief's lodge and told him what was taking place. "go to the spring," said the chief, "and tell that young man to let the girl go; she is to be my wife." the person did as he was told, but the two young people paid no attention to him. they did not care what any one said, nor if the whole camp saw them there together. all they could think about was this terrible thing, which would make them unhappy so long as they lived. red robe kept asking the girl to go, and at last she consented to do as he wished. they had their arms about each other, not thinking of the crowd that was watching them, and were quickly planning for their meeting and for their going away that night, when three bulls quietly walked up to them and stabbed the young man with a flint-pointed lance. red robe sank down dying at the young girl's feet, and she, looking down for an instant at her lover, turned and ran to her father's lodge. "bring wood," the chief called out; "let every one bring some wood; all you have at your lodges. those who have none, let them go quickly and bring some from the timber." all the people hurried to obey. what three bulls ordered was soon done, for the people feared him, and soon a great pile of wood was heaped beside the dead man. the chief lifted the slender young form, placed it on the pile of wood, and told a woman to bring coals and set fire to the pile. when this had been done, all left the place except three bulls, who stayed there, tending the fire and poking it here and there, until it was burnt out and no wood or trace of a human body was left. nothing remained except the little pile of ashes. these he scattered. still he was not satisfied. his medicine was strong; perhaps his dream had warned him. now he ordered that the lodges be taken down, that everything be packed up, and that the trail of the moving camp should pass over the heap of ashes. some time before this, after red robe had made his long fasting, and his dream had come to him and he had returned to his grandmother's lodge, he had told his true friend something of what had been said to him by his dream. "if i should die," he said, "and you are near, do not desert me. go to the place where i fell, and if my body should have been destroyed look carefully around the place. if you can find even a shred of my flesh or a bit of my bone, it will be well. so said my dream. here are four arrows, which the dream told me to make. if you can find a bit of my body, flesh or bone, or even hair, cover it with a robe, and standing over it, shoot three arrows one after another up into the air, crying, as each one leaves the bow, 'look out!' when you fit the fourth arrow on the bowstring and shoot it upward, cry, 'look out, red robe, the arrow will strike you!' and as you say this, turn and run away from the place, not looking back as you go. if you do this, my friend, just as i have told you, i shall live again." as the camp moved, three bulls stood and watched it filing over the place of the fire, and saw the ashes scattered by the trailing ends of lodge poles and travois, and by the feet of hundreds of people and dogs. still he was not satisfied, and for a long time after the last of the people had passed he remained there. then he went on across the flat and up and over a ridge, but presently he returned, once, twice, four times, to the crest of the hill and looked back at the place where the camp had been; but at last he felt sure that no one remained at the place, and went on. yet talking rock was there. he had been hidden in the brush all the time, watching the chief. even after three bulls had passed over the ridge, he remained crouched in the bushes, and saw him come back again and again to peer over its crest. still further on there was another higher ridge, and when the young man saw three bulls climb that and disappear on the trail of the camp, he came forth. going to the place where his friend had lain, talking rock sat down and mourned, wailing long and loud. back on the hills the wolves and coyotes heard him and they too became sorrowful, adding their cries to his. the young man had little faith in the power of the four arrows that he kept so carefully wrapped in a separate bundle in his quiver. he looked at the place where red robe's body had been burnt. it was like any other place on the great trail that had been made, dust and grass blades mingled together, and scratches made by the dragging poles. it did not seem possible that anything of his friend's body remained; yet he must search, and breaking a green willow twig he began carefully to work over the dust, stopping his crying, for the tears blinded his eyes so that he could not see. all the long morning and far into the afternoon, talking rock swept the dust this way and that, turning it over and over, in a circle that grew always wider, and just as he was about to give up the search, he found a bit of charred and blackened bone. was this a part of his friend's frame? was it not more likely a bit of bone of buffalo or elk, which some dog had carried from one of the fireplaces of the camp and dropped here? now for the test. talking rock covered the bit of bone with his robe as he had been told to do. he even raised the robe along its middle, making it look as if it really covered a person lying there. then he shot three of the arrows up in the air, each time crying, "look out." then with a hand that trembled a little, he drew the fourth arrow from the quiver, shot it and cried, "look out, red robe, the arrow will strike you"; and, turning, ran from the place with all his speed. how he wanted to look back! how he longed to see if his friend was really rising from that bit of blackened bone! but talking rock was strong-hearted. he controlled his desires. on and on he ran, and then--behind him the light tread of running feet, a firm hand gripped his shoulder, and a loved voice said, "why so fast, my friend?" and stopping and turning, talking rock found himself face to face with red robe. he could not believe what he saw, and had to pinch himself and to hold his friend hard in his arms to believe that all this was real. the camp had not moved far, and the lodges were pitched on the next stream to the south. soon after dark, the two friends entered it and went to their lodge. the poor old grandmother could not believe her eyes when she saw the young man she had reared and loved so dearly; but when he spoke she knew that it was he, and running over to him she held him in her arms and kissed him, crying from joy. after a little time, the young man said to her, "grandmother, go to the chief's lodge and say to him that i, red robe, need some dried meat." the old woman hesitated at this strange request, but red robe said: "go, do not fear him; three bulls is now the one to know fear." when the old woman entered the great lodge and in reply to the chief's look said, "red robe sent me here. he wants some dried meat," only three bulls of all who were in the lodge, showed no surprise. "it is what i expected," he said; "in spite of all my care he lives again, and i can do nothing." turning to his wives he said, "give her meat." "did you see ma-min´?" asked red robe, when his grandmother had returned with the meat and had told him what the chief had said. "no, she was not in the lodge, but two women were approaching as i left it. i think they were the girl and her mother." "go back once more," said the young man, "and tell three bulls to send me that young woman." but now the poor old grandmother was afraid. "i dare not tell him that," she exclaimed. "he would kill me, and you. his anger would be fearful." "do not fear," said red robe, "do not fear, my mother, his anger and his power are no longer to be feared. he is as feeble and as helpless as one of those old bulls one sees on the sunny side of the coulée, spending his last days before the wolves pull him down." the old woman went to the lodge and told the chief what red robe further wished. ma-min´ was there, her head covered with her robe, crying quietly, and three bulls told her to arise and go with the messenger. timidly at first, and then with steps that broke into a run, ma-min´ hurried toward the lodge of her sweetheart and entered it. with a cry of joy she threw herself into his arms, and talking rock went out and left them alone. great now was the happiness of these young people. long was their life, full of plenty and of great honor. red robe became a chief, respected and loved by all the people. ma-min´ bore him many children, who grew up to be the support of their old age. the blackfeet creation the blackfeet believe that the sun made the earth--that he is the creator. one of the names by which they call the sun is napi--old man. this is how they tell of the creation: in the beginning there was water everywhere; nothing else was to be seen. there was something floating on the water, and on this raft were old man and all the animals. old man wished to make land, and he told the beaver to dive down to the bottom of the water and to try to bring up a little mud. the beaver dived and was under water for a long time, but he could not reach the bottom. then the loon tried, and after him the otter, but the water was too deep for them. at last the muskrat was sent down, and he was gone for a long time; so long that they thought he must be drowned, but at last he came up and floated almost dead on the water, and when they pulled him up on the raft and looked at his paws, they found a little mud in them. when old man had dried this mud, he scattered it over the water and land was formed. this is the story told by the blackfeet. it is very much like one told by some eastern indians, who are related to the blackfeet. after the land had been made, old man travelled about on it, making things and fixing up the earth so as to suit him. first, he marked out places where he wished the rivers to run, sometimes making them run smoothly, and again, in some places, putting falls on them. he made the mountains and the prairie, the timber and the small trees and bushes, and sometimes he carried along with him a lot of rocks, from which he built some of the mountains--as the sweet grass hills--which stand out on the prairie by themselves. old man caused grass to grow on the plains, so that the animals might have something to feed on. he marked off certain pieces of land, where he caused different kinds of roots and berries to grow--a place for camas; and one for wild carrots; one for wild turnips, sweet root and bitter root; one for service berries, bullberries, cherries, plums, and rosebuds. he made all kinds of animals that travel on the ground. when he made the big-horn with its great horns, he put it out on the prairie. it did not seem to travel easily there; it was awkward and could not go fast, so he took it by one of its horns and led it up into the rough hills and among the rocks, and let it go there, and it skipped about among the cliffs and easily went up fearful places. so old man said to the big-horn, "this is the place for you; this is what you are fitted for; the rough country and the mountains." while he was in the mountains he made the antelope, and turned it loose to see how it travelled. the antelope ran so fast that it fell over some rocks and hurt itself. he saw that this would not do, and took the antelope down on the prairie and set it free there, and it ran away fast and gracefully, and he said to it, "this is the place that suits you." at last, one day, old man decided that he would make a woman and a child, and he modelled some clay in human shape, and after he had made these shapes and put them on the ground, he said to the clay, "you shall be people." he spread his robe over the clay figures and went away. the next morning he went back to the place and lifted up the robe, and saw that the clay shapes had changed a little. when he looked at them the next morning, they had changed still more; and when on the fourth day he went to the place and took off the covering, he said to the images, "stand up and walk," and they did so. they walked down to the river with him who had made them, and he told them his name. as they were standing there looking at the water as it flowed by, the woman asked old man, saying, "how is it; shall we live always? will there be no end to us?" old man said, "i have not thought of that. we must decide it. i will take this buffalo chip and throw it in the river. if it floats, people will become alive again four days after they have died; they will die for four days only. but if it sinks, there will be an end to them." he threw the chip into the river, and it floated. the woman turned and picked up a stone and said, "no, i will throw this stone in the river. if it floats, we shall live always; if it sinks, people must die, so that their friends who are left alive may always remember them." the woman threw the stone in the water, and it sank. "well," said old man, "you have chosen; there will be an end to them." not many nights after that the woman's child died, and she cried a great deal for it. she said to old man, "let us change this. the law that you first made, let that be the law." he said, "not so; what is made law must be law. we will undo nothing that we have done. the child is dead, but it cannot be changed. people will have to die." these first people did not have hands like a person; they had hands like a bear with long claws. they were poor and naked and did not know how to get a living. old man showed them the roots and the berries, and showed them how to gather these, and told them how at certain times of the year they should peel the bark off some trees and eat it; that the little animals that live in the ground--rats, squirrels, skunks, and beavers--were good to eat. he also taught them something about the roots that were good for medicine to cure sickness. in those days there were buffalo, and these black animals were armed, for they had long horns. once, as the people were moving about, the buffalo saw them and rushed upon them and hooked them and killed them, and then ate them. one day, as the creator was travelling about, he came upon some of his children that he had made lying there dead, torn to pieces and partly eaten by the buffalo. when he saw this, he felt badly. he said, "i have not made these people right. i will change this; from now on the people shall eat the buffalo." he went to some of the people who were still alive, and said to them, "how is it that you people do nothing to these animals that are killing you?" the people replied, "what can we do? these animals are armed and can kill us, and we have no way to kill them." the creator said, "that is not hard. i will make you something that will kill these animals." he went out and cut some straight service-berry shoots, and brought them in, and peeled the bark from them. he took a larger piece of wood and flattened it, and tied a string to it, and made a bow. now he was the master of all birds and he went out and caught one, and took feathers from its wings and tied them to the shaft of wood. he tied four feathers along the shaft and tried the arrow at a mark and found that it did not fly well. he took off these feathers and put on three, and when he again tried it at the mark he found that it went straight. he picked up some hard stones, and broke sharp pieces from them. when he tried them he found that the black flint stones made the best arrow points. he showed them how to use these things. then he spoke to the people, and said, "the next time you go out, take these things with you, and use them as i tell you. do not run from these animals. when they rush at you, and have come pretty close, shoot the arrows at them as i have taught you, and you will see that they will run from you or will run around you in a circle." he also broke off pieces of stone, and fixed them in a handle, and told them that when they killed the buffalo they should cut up the flesh with these stone knives. one day after this, some people went on a little hill to look about, and the buffalo saw them and called out to each other, "ah, there is some more of our food," and rushed upon them. the people did not run. they began to shoot at the buffalo with the bows and arrows that had been given them, and the buffalo began to fall. they say that when the first buffalo hit with an arrow felt it prick him, he called out to his fellows, "oh, my friends, a great fly is biting me." with the flint knives that had been given them they cut up the bodies of the dead buffalo. about this time old man came up and said to them, "it is not healthful to eat raw flesh. i will show you something better than that." he gathered soft, dry rotten wood and made punk of it, and took a piece of wood and drilled a hole in it with an arrow point, and gave them a pointed piece of hard wood, and showed them how to make a fire with fire sticks, and to cook the flesh of animals. after this the people found a certain sort of stone in the land, and took another harder stone, and worked one upon the other and hollowed out the softer one, so as to make of it a kettle. it is told also that the creator made people and animals at another place, and in another way. at the porcupine mountains he made other earthen images of people, and blew breath on the images, and they became people. they were men and women. after a time they asked him, "what are we to eat?" then he took more earth and made many images in the form of buffalo, and when he had blown on them they stood up, and he made signs to them and they started to run. he said to the people, "there is your food." "well, now," they replied; "we have those animals, how are we to kill them?" "i will show you," he said. he took them to the edge of a cliff and showed them how to heap up piles of stone, running back from the cliff like this [illustration: two lines of diverging dots in a narrow < shape], with the point of the v toward the cliff. he said to the people, "now, do you hide behind these piles of stones, and when i lead the buffalo this way, as they get opposite to you, stand up." then he went on toward a herd of buffalo and began to call them, and the buffalo started toward him and followed him, until they were inside the arms of the v. then he ran to one side and hid, and as the people rose up the buffalo ran on in a straight line and jumped over the cliff and some of them were killed by the fall. "there," he said, "go and take the flesh of those animals." then the people tried to do so. they tried to tear the limbs apart, but they could not. they tried to bite pieces out of the bodies, but they could not do that. old man went to the edge of the cliff and broke some pieces of stone with sharp edges, and showed them how to cut the flesh with these. of the buffalo that went over the cliff, some were not dead, but were hurt, so they could not run away. the people cut strips of green hide and tied stones in the middle, and with these hammers broke in the skulls of the buffalo and killed them. when they had taken the skins from these animals, they set up poles and put the hides over them, and so made a shelter to sleep under. in later times the creator marked off a piece of land for the five tribes, blackfeet, bloods, piegans, gros ventres, and sarsis, and said to these tribes, "when people come to cross this line at the border of your land, take your bows and arrows, your lances and your war clubs and give them battle, and keep them out. if they gain a footing here, trouble for you will follow." old man stories under the name na´pi, old man, have been confused two wholly different persons talked of by the blackfeet. the sun, the creator of the universe, giver of light, heat, and life, and reverenced by every one, is often called old man, but there is another personality who bears the same name, but who is very different in his character. this last na´pi is a mixture of wisdom and foolishness; he is malicious, selfish, childish, and weak. he delights in tormenting people. yet the mean things he does are so foolish that he is constantly getting himself into scrapes, and is often obliged to ask the animals to help him out of his troubles. his bad deeds almost always bring their own punishment. interpreters commonly translate this word na´pi as old man, but it is also the term for white man; and the cheyenne and arapahoe tribes tell just such stories about a similar person whom they also call "white man." tribes of dakota stock tell of a similar person whom they call "the spider." the stories about this old man are told by the blackfeet for entertainment rather than with any serious purpose, and when that part of the story is reached where old man is in some difficulty which he cannot get out of, the man who is telling the story, and those who are listening to it, laugh delightedly. some stories of this kind are these: the wonderful bird one day, as old man was walking about among the trees, he saw something that seemed very queer. a little bird was sitting on the branch of a tree. every little while it would make a strange noise, and every time it made this noise its eyes flew out of its head and fastened on a branch of the tree. then after a little while the bird would make another sort of noise and its eyes would go back to their places in its head. old man called out to the bird, "little brother, teach me how to do that." "if i show you how," the bird answered, "you must not send your eyes out of your head more than four times in a day. if you do, you will be sorry." "it shall be as you say, little brother. it is for you to give, and i will listen to what you say." when the bird had taught old man how to do this, he was glad. he began to do it, and did it four times right away. then he said, "why did that bird tell me to do this only four times? he has no sense. i will do it again." so once more he made his eyes go out, but now when he called to them they would not come back. he shouted out to the bird, "little brother, come here, and help me to get back my eyes." the little bird did not answer him; it had flown away. now old man felt all over the branches of the tree with his hands, but he could not find his eyes. so he went away and wandered over the prairie for a long time, crying and calling to the animals to help him. as he was blind, he could find nothing to eat, and he began to be very hungry. a wolf teased him a great deal and had much fun. it had found a dead buffalo, and taking a piece of the meat, it would hold the meat close to old man's face. then old man would say, "i smell something dead, i wish i could find it; i am almost starved." he felt all around for it. once when the wolf was doing this, old man caught him, and plucking out one of the wolf's eyes, he put it in his own head. then he could see, and was able to find his own eyes, but never again could he do the trick the little bird had taught him. the rabbits' medicine once, when old man was travelling about, he heard some singing that sounded very queer. he had never before heard anything like it, and looked all about to see where it came from. after a time he saw that the cottontail rabbits were singing and making medicine. they had built a fire, and raked out some hot ashes, and they would lie down in these ashes and sing, while one of the others covered them up. they could stay there only for a short time, though, for the ashes were hot. "little brothers," said old man, "here is something wonderful--that you can lie in those hot ashes and coals without burning. i ask you to teach me how to do this." "we will show you how to do it, old man," said the rabbits. "you must sing our song, and stay in the ashes only a short time." they taught old man their song, and he began to sing and lay down, and they covered him with coals and ashes, and the hot ashes did not burn him. "that is good," he said. "you have strong medicine. now, so that i may know it all, do you lie down and let me cover you up." all the rabbits lay down in the ashes, and old man covered them up, and then he pulled the whole fire over them. one old rabbit got out, and old man was just about to put her back when she said, "pity me; my children need me." "it is good," replied old man. "you may go, so that there will be more rabbits; but these i will roast, and have a feast." he put more wood on the fire, and when the rabbits were cooked he got some red willow brush and put the rabbits on it to cool. the grease from their bodies soaked into the branches, so that even to-day if red willow is held over a fire one may see the grease on the bark. ever since that time, too, the rabbits have a burnt place on the back, where the one that got away was singed. old man sat down by the fire, waiting for the rabbits to get cool, when a coyote came along, limping. he went on three legs. "pity me, old man," he said. "you have plenty of cooked rabbits, give me one of them." "go away," said old man, very cross; "if you are too lazy to catch food, i will not give you any." "but my leg is broken," said the coyote; "i cannot run. i cannot catch anything, and i am starving. give me half a rabbit." "i don't care what happens to you," said old man; "i worked hard to catch and cook these rabbits, and i shall not give any of them away. i'll tell you what i will do, though; i will run a race with you out to that far butte on the prairie, and if you beat me you can have a rabbit." "good," said the coyote, and they started. old man ran very fast, and the coyote limped along behind him, but pretty close, until they got near the butte. then the coyote turned around and ran back very fast, for he was not lame at all. it took old man a long time to get back, and just before he reached the fire, the coyote finished eating the last rabbit and ran away. the lost elk meat old man had been a long time without food and was very hungry. he was trying to think how he could get something to eat, when he saw a band of elk come up on a ridge. he went over to them and spoke to them and said, "brothers, i am lonely because i have no one to follow me." "go ahead, old man," said the elk; "we will follow you." old man led them about for a long time, and when it was dark he came near a high, steep cut bank. he ran around to one side, where the hill sloped, and then went back right under the steep cliff and called out, "come on, that is a nice jump. you will laugh." so all the elk jumped off and were killed, except one cow. "they have all jumped but you," said old man. "come on, you will like it." "take pity on me," said the cow. "i am very heavy, and i am afraid to jump." "go away, then," said old man; "go and live. then some day there will be plenty of elk again." old man built a fire and cooked some of the meat, and then he skinned all the elk, and cut up the meat and hung it up to dry. the tongues he hung on a pole. the next day he started off and was gone all day, and at night, as he was coming home, he was very hungry. he was thinking to himself that he would have some roasted ribs and a tongue and other good things; but when he reached the place, the meat was all gone; the wolves had eaten it. "it was lucky i hung up those tongues," said old man, "or i should not have had anything to eat." but when he took down the tongues they were all hollow. the mice had eaten out the meat, leaving only the skins. the rolling rock once when old man was travelling about and felt tired, he sat down on a rock to rest. after he was rested he started on his way, and because the sun was hot he threw his robe over the rock and said to it, "here, i give you my robe because you are poor and have let me rest on you. keep it always." he had not gone far when it began to rain, and meeting a coyote, he said to him, "little brother, run back to that rock and ask him to lend me his robe. we will cover ourselves with it and keep dry." the coyote ran back to the rock, but presently returned without the robe. "where is the robe?" asked old man. "why," said the coyote, "the rock said that you had given him the robe and he was going to keep it." this made old man angry, and he went back to the rock and snatched the robe off it, saying, "i was only going to borrow this robe until the rain was over, but now that you have acted so mean about it, i will keep it. you don't need a robe, anyhow. you have been out in the rain and snow all your life, and it will not hurt you to live so always." when he had said this he put the robe about his shoulders, and with the coyote he went off into a ravine and they sat down there. the rain was falling and they covered themselves with the robe, and were warm and dry. pretty soon they heard a loud, rumbling noise, and old man said to the coyote, "little brother, go up on the hill and see what that noise is." the coyote went off, but presently he came back, running as hard as he could, saying, "run, run, the big rock is coming." they both started, and ran away as fast as they could. the coyote tried to creep into a badger-hole, but it was too small for him and he stuck fast, and before he could get out the rock rolled over him and crushed his hips. old man was frightened, and as he ran he threw away his robe and everything that he had on, so that he might run faster. the rock was gaining on him all the time. not far away on the prairie a band of buffalo bulls were feeding, and old man cried out to them, saying, "oh, my brothers, help me, help me; stop that rock." the bulls ran and tried to stop it, butting against it, but it crushed their heads. some deer and antelope tried to help old man, but they too were killed. other animals came to help him, but could not stop the rock; it was now close to old man, so close that it began to hit his heels. he was just going to give up when he saw circling over his head a flock of night-hawks. "oh, my little brothers," he cried, "help me; i am almost dead." the bull bats flew down one after another against the rock, and every time one of them hit it he chipped off a piece, and at last one hit it fair in the middle and broke it into two pieces. then old man was glad. he went to where there was a nest of night-hawks and pulled their mouths out wide and pinched off their bills, to make them pretty and queer looking. that is the reason they look so to-day. bear and bullberries scattered over the prairie in northern montana, close to the mountains, are many great rocks--boulders which thousands of years ago, when the great ice-sheet covered northern north america, were carried from the mountains out over the prairie by the ice and left there when it melted. around most of these great boulders the buffalo used to walk from time to time, rubbing against the rough surface of the rock to scratch themselves, as a cow rubs itself against a post or as a horse rolls on the ground--for the pleasant feeling that the rubbing of the skin gives it. as the buffalo walked around these boulders their hoofs loosened the soil, and this loosened soil--the dust--was blown away by the constant winds of summer. so, around most of these boulders, much of the soil is gone, leaving a deep trench, at the bottom of which are stones and gravel, too large to be moved by the wind. this story explains how these rocks came to be like that: once old man was crossing a river and the stream was deep, so that he was carried away by the current, and lost his bow and arrows and other weapons. when he got to the shore he began to look about for something to use in making a bow and arrows, for he was hungry and wanted to kill some food. he took the first wood he could find and made a bow and arrows and a handle for his knife. when he had finished these things he started on his way. presently, as he looked over a hill he saw down below him a bear digging roots. old man thought he would have some fun with the bear, and he called out aloud, "he has no tail." then he dodged back out of sight. the bear looked all about, but saw no one, and again began to dig roots. then old man again peeped over the hill and saw the bear at work, and again called out, "he has no tail." this time the bear looked up more quickly, but old man dodged down, and the bear did not see him, and pretty soon went on with his digging. four times old man did this, calling the bear names, but the fourth time the bear was on the watch and saw old man, and started after him. old man ran away as hard as he could, but the bear followed fast. presently, old man tried to shoot the bear with his arrows, but they were made of bad wood and would not fly well, and if they hit the bear, they just broke off. all his weapons failed him, and now the bear was close to him. just in front was a great rock, and when old man came to that, he dodged behind it and ran around to the other side, and the bear followed him. they kept running around the rock for a long time and wore a deep trail about it, and because old man could turn more quickly, he kept just ahead of the bear. old man kept calling to the animals to help him, but no one came. he was almost out of breath, and the bear was close to him, when old man saw lying on the ground a bull's horn. he picked it up and held it on his head and turned around and bellowed loudly, and the bear was frightened and turned around and ran away as hard as he could. then old man leaned up against the rock, and breathed hard for a long time, but at last he got his wind back. he said to the rock, "this is the way you rocks shall always be after this, with a big hole all around you." by this time he was pretty tired and thirsty, and he thought he would go down to the river and drink. when he got to the edge of the water he got down on his knees to drink, and there before him in the water he saw bullberries, great bunches of them. he said to himself, "i will dive in and get those bull-berries"; and he took off his moccasins and clothing and dived in, but he could not find the bullberries, and presently he came up. he looked into the water again, and again saw the bullberries. he said to himself, "those bullberries must be very deep down." he went along the shore looking for a heavy stone that would take him down into the deep water where the bullberries were, and when he found one he tied the stone to his neck and again dived in. this time he sank to the bottom, for the stone carried him down. he felt about with his hands trying to reach the bullberries, but could feel nothing and began to drown. he tried to get free from the stone, but that was hard to do; yet at last he broke the string and came to the top of the water. he was almost dead, and it took him a long time to get to the shore, and when he got there he crawled up on to the bank and lay down to rest and get his breath. as he lay there on his back, he saw above him the thick growing bullberries whose reflections he had seen in the water. he said to himself, "and i was almost drowned for these." then he took a stick and with it began to beat the bullberry bushes. he said to the bushes, "after this, the people shall beat you in this way when they want to gather berries." the blackfeet women, when gathering bullberries, spread robes under the bushes and beat the branches with sticks, knocking off the berries, which fall on the robes. the theft from the sun one time when old man was on a journey, he came to the sun's lodge, and went in and sat down, and the sun asked him to stay with him for a time. old man was glad to do so. one day the meat was all gone, and the sun said, "well, old man, what do you say if we go out and kill some deer?" "i like what you say," said old man. "deer meat is good." the sun took down a bag, that was hanging from a lodge pole and took from it a handsome pair of leggings, embroidered with porcupine quills and pretty feathers. "these are my hunting leggings," said the sun; "they have great power. when i want to kill deer, all i have to do is to put them on and walk around a patch of brush, and the leggings set it on fire and drive out the deer, so that i can shoot them." "well, well," exclaimed old man, "how wonderful that is!" he began to think, "i wish i had such a pair of leggings as that"; and after he had thought about it some more, he made up his mind that he would have those leggings, if he had to steal them. they went out to hunt, and when they came to a patch of brush, the sun set it on fire with his hunting leggings. a number of deer ran out, and each shot one. that night when they were going to bed the sun pulled off his leggings, and laid them aside. old man saw where he had put them, and in the middle of the night, after every one was asleep, he took the leggings and went away. he travelled a long time, until he had gone far and was tired; then making a pillow of the leggings he lay down and slept. after a while he heard some one speaking and woke up and saw that it was day. some one was talking to him. the sun was saying, "old man, why are my leggings under your head?" old man looked about him and saw that he was in the sun's lodge. he thought he must have wandered around and got lost and returned there. again the sun spoke, and asked, "what are you doing with my leggings?" "oh," replied old man, "i could not find anything for a pillow, so i put these leggings under my head." when night came and all had gone to bed, again old man stole the leggings and ran off. this time he did not walk at all. he kept running until it was almost morning, and then lay down and slept. when morning came he found himself still in the sun's lodge. you see what a fool he was; he did not know that the whole world is the sun's lodge. he did not know that, no matter how far he ran, he could not get out of the sun's sight. this time the sun said, "old man, since you like my leggings so much, i give them to you. keep them." then old man was glad and he went away. one day his food was all gone, and he put on the hunting leggings and went out and set fire to a piece of brush. he was just going to kill some deer that were running out, when he saw that the fire was getting close to him. he ran away as fast as he could, but the fire gained on him and began to burn his legs. his leggings were all on fire. he came to a river and jumped in and pulled off the leggings as soon as he could. they were burnt to pieces. perhaps the sun did this because old man tried to steal his leggings. the smart woman chief long ago, they tell me, men and women did not know each other. women were put in one place and men in another. they were not together; they were apart. he who made us made women first. he did not make them very well. that is why they are not so strong as men. the men he made better; so that they were strong. the women were the smartest. they knew the most. they were the first to make piskuns, and to know how to tan hides and to make moccasins. at that time men wore moccasins made from the shank of the buffalo's leg, and robes made of wolfskin. this was all their clothing. one day when old man was travelling about, he came to a camp of men, and stayed there with them for a long time. it was after this that he discovered there were such beings as women. one time, as he was travelling along, he saw two women driving some buffalo over a cliff. when old man got near them, the women were very much frightened. they did not know what kind of animal it was that was coming. too much scared to run away, they lay down to hide. when old man came up to them he thought they were dead, and said, "here are two women who are dead. it is not good for them to lie out here on the prairie. i must take them to a certain place." he looked them all over to see what had killed them, but could find no wound. he picked up one of the women and carried her along with him in his arms. she was wondering how she could get away. she let her arms swing loose as if she were dead, and at every step old man took the arm swung and hit him in the nose, and pretty soon his nose began to bleed and to hurt, and at length he put the woman down on the ground and went back to get the other woman; but while he was gone she had run away, and when he came back to get the first one she was gone too; so he lost them both. this made him angry, and he said to himself, "if these two women will lie there again, i will get both of them." in this way women found out that there were men. one day old man stood on a hill and looked over toward the piskun at woman's falls, where the women had driven a band of buffalo over the cliff, and afterward were cutting up the meat. the chief of the women called him down to the camp, and sent word by him to the men, asking if they wanted to get wives. old man brought back word that they did, and the chief woman sent a message, calling all the men to a feast in her lodge to be married. the woman asked old man, "how many chiefs are there in that tribe?" he answered, "there are four chiefs. but the real chief of all that tribe you will know when you see him by this--he is finely dressed and wears a robe trimmed, and painted red, and carries a lance with a bone head on each end." old man wanted to marry the chief of the women, and intended to dress in this way, and that is why he told her that. old man had no moccasins; his were all worn out. the women gave him some for himself, and also some to take back to give to the men, and he went back to the men's camp. when he reached it, word went out that he had returned, and all the men said to each other, "he has got back; old man has come again." he gave the men the message that the woman had sent, and soon the men started for the woman's camp to get married. when they came near it, they went up on a bluff and stood there, looking down on the camp. old man had dressed himself finely, and had put on a trimmed robe painted red, and in his hand held a lance with a bone head on each end. when the women saw that the men had come they got ready to go and select their husbands. the chief of the women said, "i am the chief. i will go first and take the man i like. the rest wait here." the woman chief started up the hill to choose the chief of the men for her husband. she had been making dried meat, and her hands, arms, and clothing were covered with blood and grease. she was dirty, and old man did not know her. the woman went up to old man to choose him, but he turned his back on her and would not go with her. she went back to her camp and told the women that she had been refused because her clothes were dirty. she said, "now, i am going to put on my nice clothes and choose a man. all of you can go up and take men, but let no one take that man with the red robe and the double-headed lance." after she was nicely dressed the chief woman again went up on the hill. now, old man knew who she was, and he kept getting in front of her and trying hard to have her take him, but she would not notice him and took another man, the one standing next to old man. then the other women began to come, and they kept coming up and choosing men, but no one took old man, and at last all the men were taken and he was left standing there alone. this made him so angry that he wanted to do something, and he went down to the woman's piskun and began to break down its walls, so the chief of the women turned him into a pine-tree. bobcat and birch tree once old man was travelling over the prairie, when he saw far off a fire burning, and as he drew near it he saw many prairie-dogs sitting in a circle around the fire. there were so many of them that there was no place for any one to sit down. old man stood there behind the circle, and presently he began to cry, and then he said to the prairie-dogs, "let me, too, sit by that fire." the prairie-dogs said, "all right, old man, don't cry; come and sit by the fire." they moved aside so as to make a place for him, and old man sat down and looked on at what they were doing. he saw that they were playing a game, and this was the way they did it: they put one prairie-dog in the fire and covered him up with hot ashes, and then, after he had been there a little while, he would say, "_sk, sk_," and they pushed the ashes off him and pulled him out. old man said, "little brothers, teach me how to do that." the prairie-dogs told him what to do, and put him in the fire and covered him up with the ashes, and after a little time he said, "_sk, sk_," like a prairie-dog, and they pulled him out again. then he did it to the prairie-dogs. at first he put them in one at a time, but there were many of them, and soon he got tired and said, "i will put you all in at once." they said, "very well, old man," and all got in the ashes, but just as old man was about to cover them up one of them, a female, said, "do not cover me up, for i fear the heat will hurt me." old man said, "very well; if you do not wish to be covered up, you may sit over by the fire and watch the rest." then he covered over all the others. at length the prairie-dogs said, "_sk, sk_," but old man did not sweep off the ashes and pull them out of the fire. he let them stay there and die. the she one that was looking on ran to a hole, and as she went down in it, said, "_sk, sk_." old man chased her, but he got to the hole too late to catch her. "oh, well, you can go," he said; "there will be more prairie-dogs by and by." when the prairie-dogs were roasted, old man cut some red willow twigs to place them on, and then sat down and began to eat. he ate until he was full, and then felt sleepy. he said to his nose, "i am going to sleep now; watch out, and in case any bad thing comes about, wake me up." then old man slept. pretty soon his nose snored, and old man woke up and said, "what is it?" the nose said, "a raven is flying by, over there." old man said, "that is nothing," and went to sleep again. soon his nose snored again, and old man said, "what is it now?" the nose said, "there is a coyote over there, coming this way." old man said, "a coyote is nothing," and again went to sleep. presently his nose snored again, but old man did not wake up. again it snored, and called out, "wake up, a bobcat is coming." old man paid no attention; he slept on. the bobcat crept up to the fire and ate all the roasted prairie-dogs, and then went off and lay down on the flat rock and went to sleep. all this time the nose kept trying to awaken old man, and at last he awoke, and the nose said, "a bobcat is over there on that flat rock. he has eaten all your food." then old man was so angry that he called out loud. the tracks of the bobcat were all greasy from the food it had been eating, and old man followed these tracks. he went softly over to where the bobcat was sleeping, and seized it before it could wake up to bite or scratch him. the bobcat cried out, "wait, let me speak a word or two," but old man would not listen. "i will teach you to steal my food," he said. he pulled off the lynx's tail, pounded his head against the rock so as to make his face flat, pulled him out long so as to make him small-bellied, and then threw him into the brush. as he went sneaking away, old man said, "there, that is the way you bobcats shall always be." it is for this reason that the lynxes to-day look like that. old man went to the fire, and looked at the red willow sticks where the roasted prairie-dogs had been, and when he saw them, and thought how his food was all gone, it made him angry at his nose. he said, "you fool, why did you not wake me?" he took the willow sticks and thrust them in the coals, and when they had caught fire he burnt his nose. this hurt, and he ran up on a hill and held his nose to the wind, and called to the wind to blow hard and cool him. a hard wind came, so hard that it blew him off the hill and away down to birch creek. as he was flying along he caught at the weeds and brush to stop himself, but nothing was strong enough to hold him. at last he grasped a birch tree. he held fast, and it did not give way. although the wind whipped him about, this way and that, and tumbled him up and down, the tree held him. he kept calling to the wind to blow more softly, and at last it listened to him and went down. then he said, "this is a beautiful tree. it has saved me from being blown away and knocked all to pieces. i will make it pretty, and it shall always be like that." so he gashed the bark across with his stone knife, as you see the marks to-day. the red-eyed duck once, long ago, old man was travelling north along a river. he carried a great pack on his back. after a time he came to a place where the river spread out and the water was quiet, and here many ducks were swimming about. old man did not look at the ducks, and kept travelling along; but presently some of the ducks saw him and looked at him and said to each other, "who is that going along there with a pack on his back?" one duck said to the others, "that must be old man." the duck that knew him called out, saying, "hi, old man, where are you going?" "i am going on farther," replied old man, "i have been sent for." "what have you got in your pack?" said the duck. "those are my songs," answered old man. "some people have asked me to come and sing for them." "stop for a while and sing for us," said the duck, "and we can have a dance." "no," said old man, "i am in a hurry; i cannot stop now." the duck kept persuading him to stop, and when it had asked him the fourth time, old man stopped and said to the ducks, "well, i will stop for a little while and sing for you, and you can dance." so the ducks all came out on the bank and stood in a circle, and old man began to sing. he sang one song, and then said, "now, this next song is a medicine song, and while you dance you must keep your eyes shut. no one must look. if any one opens his eyes and looks, his eyes will turn red." the ducks closed their eyes and old man began to sing, and they danced around; but old man took a stick, and every time one of them passed him, he knocked it on the head and threw it into the circle. presently one of the littlest ducks while dancing could not feel any one on either side of him, and he opened his eyes and looked, and saw what old man was doing. he cried out to the rest, "run, run, old man is killing us"; and all the other ducks flew away, but ever since that time that little duck's eyes have been red. it is the horned grebe. old man took the ducks and went off a little way and built a fire and hung some of the ducks up in front of it to roast, and after the fire was burning well, he swept away the ashes and buried some of the ducks in the ground and again swept back the fire over them. then he lay down to wait for the birds to cook, and while they were cooking he fell asleep. while he slept a coyote came sneaking along and saw old man sleeping there, and the ducks roasting by the fire. very quietly he crept up to the fire and took the ducks one by one and ate them. not one was left. pretty soon he found those that were roasting under the fire, and dug them out, and opening them, ate the meat from the inside of the skin and filled each one with ashes and buried them all again. then he went away. pretty soon old man woke up and saw that his ducks were gone, and when he saw the tracks about the fire, he knew that the coyote had taken them. "it was lucky," said old man, "that i put some of those to roast under the fire." he dug them up from under the ashes, but when he took a big bite from one, his mouth and face were full of ashes. the ancient blackfeet long, long ago, before our fathers or grandfathers were born, before the white people knew anything about the western half of north america, the indians who told these stories lived on the western plains. to the west of their home rose high mountains, black with pine-trees on their lower slopes and capped with snow, but their tents were pitched on the rolling prairie. for a little while in spring this prairie was green and dotted with flowers, but for most of the year it stretched away brown and bare, north, east, and south, farther than one could see. on these plains were many kinds of wild animals. sometimes the prairie was crowded with herds of black buffalo running in fear; or, again, the herds, unfrightened, fed scattered out; so that the hills far and near were dotted with their dark forms. among the buffalo were yellow and white antelope--many of them--graceful and swift of foot. feeding on the high prairie or going down into the wooded river valleys to drink were herds of elk, while the willow thickets, the brushy ravines, and the lower timbered foot-hills sheltered deer. the naked bad lands, the rocky slopes of the mountains, and the tall buttes that often rise above the level prairie were the refuge of the mountain sheep, which in those days, like all the other grass eaters of the region, grazed on the prairie and sought the more broken, higher country only when alarmed or when they wished to rest. these were the animals which the blackfeet killed for food before the white men came, and of these the buffalo was the chief. buffalo, more than any other animals, could be captured in numbers, and the blackfeet, like the other indians of the plains, had devised a method for taking them, so that when the buffalo were near the blackfeet never suffered from hunger. yet sometimes it happened that the buffalo went away, and that the lonely far travelling scouts sent out by the tribe could not find them. then the people had to turn to the smaller animals--the elk, deer, antelope, and wild sheep. in those old days, before they had horses, they did not make long marches when they moved. their only domestic animal was the dog, which was used chiefly as a beast of burden, either carrying loads on its back or hauling a travois, formed by two long sticks crossing above the shoulders and dragging on the ground behind. behind the dog these two sticks were united by a little platform, on which was lashed some small burden--sometimes a little baby. in those days, when the people moved from one place to another, all who were large enough to walk and strong enough to carry a burden on the shoulders, were laden. usually men, women, and children alike bore loads suited to their strength. yet sometimes the men carried no loads at all, for if journeying through a country where they feared that some enemy might attack them, the men must be ready to fight and to defend their wives and children. a man cannot fight well if he is carrying a burden; he cannot use his arms readily, nor run about lightly--forward to attack, backward in retreat. if he is not free to fight well, his family will be in danger. white men who have seen indians journeying in this way, and who have not understood why some women carried heavy loads and the men carried nothing, have said that indian men were idle and lazy, and forced their women to do all the work. those who wrote those things were mistaken in what they said. they did not understand what they saw. the truth is that these men were prepared for danger of attacks by enemies, and were ready to do their best to save their families from harm. carrying on their backs all their property, except the little which the dogs might pack, it is evident that the indians in those days could not make long journeys. in those days they had no buckets of wood or tin in which to carry water. instead, they used a vessel like a bag or sack, made from the soft membrane of one of the stomachs of the buffalo. this, after it had been cleansed and all the openings from it save one had been tied up, the women filled at the stream with a spoon made of buffalo horn or with a larger ladle of the horn of the wild sheep. because this water-skin was soft and flexible, it could not stand on the ground, and they hung it up, sometimes on the limb of a tree, more often on one of the poles of the lodge, or sometimes on a tripod--three sticks coming together at the top and standing spread out at the ground. most of the meat cooked for the family was roasted, yet much of it was boiled, sometimes in a bowl of stone, sometimes in a kettle made of a fresh hide or of the paunch of the buffalo. sometimes these skin or paunch kettles were supported at the sides by stakes stuck in the ground, and sometimes a hole dug in the ground was lined with the hide, which was so arranged as to be water-tight. they were not, as may be imagined, put over a fire, but when filled with cold water this water was heated in quite another way. near by a fire was built, in which were thrown large stones, and on top of the stones more wood was piled; so that after a time, when the wood had burnt down, the stones were very hot--sometimes red hot. with two rather short-handled forked sticks, the women took from the fire one of the hot stones, and put it in the water in the hide kettle, and as it cooled, took it out and put in another hot stone. thus the water was soon heated, and boiled and cooked whatever was in the kettle. to be sure, there were some ashes and a little dirt in the soup, but that was not regarded as important. this was long before the indians knew of matches, or even of flint and steel. in those days to make a fire was not easy and it took a long time. by his knees or feet a man held in position on the ground a piece of soft, dry wood in which two or three little hollows had been dug out, and taking another slender stick of hard wood, and pressing the point in one of the little hollows in the stick of soft wood, he twirled the stick rapidly between the palms of his hands, so fast and so long that presently the dust ground from the softer stick, falling to one side in a little pile, began to smoke, and at last a faint spark was seen at the top of the pile, which began to glow, and, spreading, became constantly larger. he, or his companion, for often two men twirled the stick, one relieving the other, caught this spark in a bit of tinder--perhaps some dry punk or a little fine grass--and by blowing coaxed it into flame, and there was the fire. this fire making was hard work, and the people tried to escape this work by keeping a spark of fire always alive. to do this, men sometimes carried, by a thong slung over the shoulder, the hollow tip of a buffalo horn, the opening of which was closed by a wooden plug. when going on a journey, the man lighted a piece of punk, and, placing it in this horn, plugged up the open end, so that no air could get into the horn. there the punk smouldered for a long time, and neither went out nor was wholly consumed. once in a while during the day the man looked at this punk, and, if he saw that it was almost consumed, he lighted another piece and put it in the horn and replaced the plug. so at night when he reached camp the fire was still in his horn, and he could readily kindle a blaze, and from this blaze other fires were kindled. often, if the camp was large, the first young men who reached it gathered wood and perhaps kindled four fires, and after the women had reached the camp, unpacked their dogs, and put up their lodges, each woman would go to one of these fires to get a brand or some coals with which to start her own lodge fire. in warm weather men and boys wore little clothing. they went almost naked; yet in cold weather each man or woman was most of the time wrapped in a warm robe of tanned buffalo skin. even the little children wore robes, the smallest ones those taken from the little buffalo calves. all their clothing, like their beds and their homes, was made of the skins of animals. shirts, women's dresses, leggings, and moccasins were made from the tanned skins of buffalo, deer, antelope, and mountain sheep. often the moccasins were made from the smoked skin cut from the top of an old lodge, for this skin had been smoked so much that it never dried hard and stiff, after it had been wet. the moccasins had a stiff sole of buffalo rawhide; and in the bottom of this sole were cut one or two holes, in order that the water might run out if a man had to wade through a stream. the homes of these indians were lodges--tents made of tanned buffalo skin supported on a cone of long, straight, slender poles. at the top where the poles crossed was an opening for the smoke from the fire built in the centre of the circular lodge floor, while about the fire, and close under the lodge covering, were the beds where the people slept or ate during the day. these homes were warm and comfortable. the border of the lodge covering did not come down quite to the ground, but inside the lodge poles, and tied to them, was a long wide strip of tanned buffalo skin four or five feet high, and long enough to reach around the inside of the lodge, almost from one side of the door to the other. this strip of tanned skin--made up of several pieces--was so wide that one edge rested on the floor, and reached inward under the beds and seats. through the open space between the lodge covering and the lodge lining, fresh air kept passing into the lodge close to the ground and up over the lining and down toward the centre of the lodge, and so furnished draught for the fire. the lodge lining kept this cold air from blowing directly on the occupants of the lodge who sat around the fire. often the lodge lining was finely painted with pictures of animals, people, and figures of mysterious beings of which one might not speak. the seats and beds in this home were covered with soft tanned buffalo robes, and at the head and foot of each bed was an inclined back-rest of straight willow twigs, strung together on long lines of sinew and supported in an inclined position by a tripod. buffalo robes often hung over these back-rests. in the spaces between the back-rests, which though they came together at the top were separated at the ground, were kept many of the possessions of the family; the pipe, sacks of tobacco, of paint, "possible sacks"--parfleches for clothing or food, and many smaller articles. the outside of the lodge was often painted with mysterious figures which the lodge owner believed to have power to bring good luck to him and to his family. sometimes these figures represented animals--buffalo, deer, and elk--or rocks, mountains, trees, or the puff-balls that grow on the prairie. sometimes a procession of ravens, marching one after the other, was painted around the circumference of the lodge. the painting might show the tracks of animals, or a number of water animals, apparently chasing each other around the lodge. on either side of the smoke hole at the top were two flaps, or wings, each one supported by a single pole. these were to regulate the draught of the fire in case of a change of wind, and the poles were moved from side to side, changing as the direction of the wind changed. on such wings were often painted groups of white disks which represented some group of stars. at the back of the lodge, high up, just below the place where the lodge poles cross, was often a large round disk representing the sun, and above that a cross, which was the sign of the butterfly, the power that they believe brings sleep. from the ends of the wings, or tied to the tips of the poles which supported them, hung buffalo tails, and sometimes running down from one of these poles to the ground near the door was a string of the sheaths of buffalo hooflets, which rattled as it swung to and fro in the breeze. their arms were the bow and arrow, a short spear or lance, with a head of sharpened stone or bone, stone hammers with wooden handles, and knives made of bone or stone, and if of stone, lashed by rawhide or sinew to a split wooden handle. the hammers were of two sorts: one quite heavy, almost like a sledge-hammer or maul, and with a short handle; the other much lighter, and with a longer, more limber handle. this last was used by men in war as a mace or war club, while the heavier hammer was used by women as an axe to break up fallen trees for firewood; as a hammer to drive tent-pins into the ground, to kill disabled animals, or to break up heavy bones for the marrow they contained. these mauls and hammers were usually made by choosing an oval stone and pecking a groove about its shortest diameter. the handles were made by green sticks fitted as closely as possible into the groove, brought together and lashed in position by sinew, the whole being then covered with wet rawhide tightly fitted and sewed. as the rawhide dried, it shrunk and strongly bound together the parts of the weapon. the blackfeet bow was about four feet long. its string was of twisted sinew and it was backed with sinew. this gave the bow great power, so that the arrow went with much force. the arrows were straight shoots of the service berry or cherry, and the manufacture of arrows was the chief employment of many of the men of middle life. each arrow by the same maker was precisely like every other arrow he made. each arrowmaker tried hard to make good arrows. it was a fine thing to be known as a maker of good arrows. the shoots for the arrow shafts were brought into the lodge, peeled, smoothed roughly, tied up in bundles, and hung up to dry. after they were dried, the bundles were taken down and each shaft was smoothed and reduced to a proper thickness by the use of a grooved piece of sand-stone, which acted on the arrow like sandpaper. after they were of the right thickness, they were straightened by bending with the hands, and sometimes with the teeth, and were then passed through a circular hole drilled in a rib, or in a mountain sheep's horn, which acted in part as a gauge of the size and also as a smoother, for if in passing through the hole the arrow fitted tightly, the shaft received a good polish. the three grooves which always were found in the blackfeet arrows were made by pushing the shaft through a round hole drilled in a rib, which, however, had one or more projections left on the inside. these projections pressed into the soft wood and made the grooves, which were in every arrow. the feathers were three in number. they were put on with a glue, made by boiling scraps of dried rawhide, and were held in place by wrappings of sinew. the heads of the arrows were made of stone or bone or horn. the flint points were often highly worked and very beautiful, being broken from larger flints by sharp blows of a stone hammer, and after they had been shaped the edges were worked sharp by flaking with an implement of bone or horn. the points made of horn or bone were ground sharp by rubbing on a stone. a notch was cut in the end of the arrow shaft and the shank of the arrow point set in that. the arrow heads were firmly fixed to the shaft by glue and by sinew wrapping. although the blackfeet lived almost altogether on the flesh of birds or animals, yet they had some vegetable food. this was chiefly berries--of which in summer the women collected great quantities and dried them for winter use--and roots, the gathering of which at the proper season of the year occupied much of the time of women and young girls. these roots were unearthed by a long, sharp-pointed stick, called a root digger. some of the roots were eaten as soon as collected, while others were dried and stored for use in winter. after they reached the plains, the main food of the blackfeet was the buffalo, which they killed in large numbers when everything went right. many of the streams in the blackfeet country run through wide, deep valleys bordered on either side by cliffs, or broken precipices, falling sharply from the high prairie above. long ago the blackfeet must have learned that it was possible to make the buffalo jump over these cliffs, and that in the fall on the rocks below numbers would be killed or crippled. no doubt after this had been practised for a time, there came to some one the idea of building at the foot of such a cliff where the buffalo were run over, a fence which would form a corral or pound, and which would hold all the buffalo that were jumped over the cliff. this corral they called piskun. it is often said that the buffalo were driven over these precipices, but this is true only in part. like most wild animals, buffalo are inquisitive. it was not difficult to excite their curiosity, and when they saw something they did not recognize, they were anxious to find out what it was. when run into the piskun, the buffalo were really drawn by curiosity almost to the jumping point, and between two long diverging lines of people, who kept hidden until after the buffalo had passed them, and then rose and showed themselves and tried to frighten the animals. now, to be sure, for the short distance that remained between the place where they were alarmed and the place where they jumped, the buffalo were driven. any attempt on the open prairie to drive buffalo in one direction or another would be certain to fail. the animals would go where they wished to. they would not be driven, though often they might be led. to the people the capture of food was the most important thing in life, and they put forth every effort to accomplish it. for this reason it came about that the effort to capture buffalo was preceded usually by religious ceremonies, in which many prayers were offered to the powers of the earth, the sky, and the waters, many sacrifices made, and sacred objects, like the buffalo stone, were displayed. when the day for the hunt came, the man who was to bring the buffalo left the camp early in the morning, climbed the rocky bluffs to the high prairie, and journeyed toward some near-by herd of buffalo, that had been located the day before by himself or by other young men. he approached the buffalo as nearly as he could without frightening them, and then, attracting the attention of some of the animals by uttering certain calls, tossed into the air his buffalo robe or some smaller object. as soon as the buffalo began to look at him, he retreated slowly in the direction of the piskun, but continued to call and to attract their attention by showing himself and then disappearing. soon, some of the buffalo began to walk toward him, and others began to look and to follow those that had first started, so that before long the whole herd of fifty or a hundred animals might be walking or sometimes trotting after him. the more rapidly the buffalo came on, the faster the man ran--and sometimes it was a hard matter for him to keep ahead of the herd--until he had got far within the wings and near to the cliff. if there seemed danger that he would be overtaken, he watched his chance and either at some low place quickly dodged out of the line in which the buffalo were running, or hid behind one of the piles of stones of which the wings were formed, or, if he had time, slipped over the rocky wall at the valley's edge, so as to get out of the way of the approaching herd. as soon as the buffalo had come well within the diverging lines of people who were hidden behind the piles of stones called wings, those whom the buffalo passed rose up from their places of concealment, and by yells and shouts and the waving of their robes frightened the buffalo, so that they quite forgot their curiosity in the terror that now replaced it. when the leaders reached the brink of the cliff, they could not stop. they were pushed over by those behind, and most of the buffalo jumped over the cliff. many were crippled or injured by the fall, and all were kept within the fence of the piskun below. about this fence the people were collected. the buffalo raced round and round within the pen, the young and weak being injured or killed in the crowding, while above the fence men were shooting them with arrows until presently all in the pen were dead, or so hurt that the women could go into the pen and kill them. the people entered and took the flesh and hides. deer, elk, and antelope were shot with arrows, and antelope were often captured in pitfalls roofed with slender poles and covered with grass and earth. such pitfalls were dug in a region where antelope were plenty, and a long > shaped pair of wings, made of poles or bushes or even rock piles, led to the pit. the antelope is very inquisitive and was easily led within the chute and there frightened, as were the buffalo, by people who had been concealed and who rose up and showed themselves after the antelope had passed. this was done more in order to secure antelope skins for clothing than their flesh for food. fish and reptiles were not eaten by the blackfeet, nor were dogs, although dogs, wolves, and coyotes are eaten by many tribes of plains indians. most small animals, and practically all birds, were eaten in case of need. in summer, when the wildfowl which bred on so many of the lakes in the blackfeet country lost their flight-feathers, during the moult, and again in the late summer, when the young ducks and geese were almost fullgrown but could not yet fly, the indians often went in large parties to the shallow lakes which here and there dotted the prairie, and, driving the birds to shore, killed them in large numbers. earlier in the season, when the fowl had begun to lay their eggs, these were collected in great quantities for food. sometimes they were roasted in the hot ashes, but a more common way was to dig a deep, narrow hole in the ground in which the eggs were to be cooked. several little platforms of small sticks or twigs were built in this hole, one above another, and on these platforms they put the eggs. another much smaller hole was dug to one side of the large hole, slanting down into it. the large hole was partly filled with water, and was then roofed over by small sticks on which was placed grass covered with earth. stones were heated in a fire built near at hand, and then were rolled down the side hole into the larger hole, heating the water, which at last boiled and steamed, the steam cooking the eggs. when the americans first met them on the prairie, the blackfeet were known as great warriors. but up to the time when they got from the hudson bay traders better weapons than they had before known, whether these were metal knives, steel arrow points, or guns, it is probable that they did not do much fighting. there seems to have been no reason why they should have fought, unless they quarrelled about small matters with other tribes. it became quite different when the indians procured better arms and, above all, when they got horses--a means of swiftly getting about over the country, something that all people wanted to have and which all were so eager to obtain that they would go into danger for them. in the old days of stone arrow heads, when they had to travel on foot and to carry heavy loads on their backs, the whole thought and effort of the tribe must have been devoted to the work of procuring a supply of food. the tribal and family life of the people was simple and friendly. the man and his wives loved each other and loved their children. relationship counted for much in an indian camp, and cousins of remote degree were called brother and sister. children were not punished; they were trained by persuasion and advice. they were told by older people how they ought to act in order to make their lives happy and successful and to be well thought of by their fellows. young people had much respect for their elders, listened to what they said, and strove more or less successfully to follow their teachings. the blackfeet were very religious. they feared many natural powers and influences whose workings they did not understand, and they were constantly praying to the sun--regarded as the ruler of the universe--as well as to those other powers which they believe live in the stars, the earth, the mountains, the animals, and the trees. the blackfoot was constantly afraid that some evil thing might happen to him, and he therefore prayed to all the powers for help--for good fortune in his undertakings, for health, plenty, and long life for himself and all his family. among these tribes there are a number of secret societies known as the all comrades or all friends--groups of men of different ages, which have been alluded to in the stories. originally there were about twelve of these societies, but a number have been abandoned of recent years. the tribe was divided into a number of clans, all the members of which were believed to be related, and in old times no member of a clan was permitted to marry another member of the clan. relations might not marry. in olden times, when large numbers of people were together, the lodges of the camp were pitched in a great circle, the opening toward the southeast. in this circle each clan camped in its own particular place with relation to the other clans. within the circle was often a smaller circle of lodges, each occupied by one or more of the societies of the all comrades. sometimes it happened that great numbers of the blackfeet came together, perhaps even all of the three tribes, blackfeet, bloods, and piegans. when this was the case, each tribe camped by itself with its own circle, no matter how near it might be to one or other of the tribal circles. we read of some tribes of indians which believed that after death the spirits of the departed went to a happy hunting ground where game was always plenty and life was full of joy. the blackfeet knew no such place as this. when they died their spirits were believed to go to a barren, sandy region south of the saskatchewan, which they called the sand hills. here, as shadows, the ghosts lived a life much like their existence before death, but all was unreal--unsubstantial. riding on shadow horses they hunted shadow buffalo. they lived in shadow camps and when they moved shadow dogs hauled their travois. there are stories which tell that living people have seen these hunters, their houses, and their implements of the camp, but when the people got close they found that what they thought they had seen was something different. it reminds us a little of the old ballad of alice brand, where urgan tells of the things seen in fairy-land: "and gayly shines the fairy-land- but all is glistening show, like the idle gleam that december's beam can dart on ice and snow. "and fading, like that varied gleam, is our inconstant shape, who now like knight and lady seem, and now like dwarf and ape." books have been written about the blackfeet indians which tell much more about how they lived than can be given here. transcriber's note: variations in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained except in obvious cases of typographical error: line 1399: misererable --> miserable line 3571: teriffic --> terrific line 3736: only only --> only italic printed text has been formatted as _text_. fraktur printed text has been formatted as =text=. with the indians in the rockies [illustration: the shale began sliding under my feet (page 51)] with the indians in the rockies by james willard schultz with illustrations by george varian =london= constable & co. limited boston and new york houghton mifflin company 1912 copyright, 1912, by james willard schultz all rights reserved this book is affectionately dedicated to my wife celia hawkins schultz whose good comradeship and sympathy have been my greatest help in writing the tale preface when in the seventies i turned my back on civilization and joined the trappers and traders of the northwest, thomas fox became my friend. we were together in the indian camps and trading posts often for months at a time; he loved to recount his adventures in still earlier days, and thus it was that i learned the facts of his life. the stories that he told by the evening camp-fire and before the comfortable fireplaces of our various posts, on long winter days, were impressed upon my memory, but to make sure of them i frequently took notes of the more important points. as time passed, i realized more and more how unusual and interesting his adventures were, and i urged him to write an account of them. he began with enthusiasm, but soon tired of the unaccustomed work. later, however, after the buffalo had been exterminated and we were settled on a cattle-ranch, where the life was of a deadly monotony compared with that which we had led, i induced him to take up the narrative once more. some parts of it he wrote with infinite detail; other parts consisted only of dates and a few sentences. he was destined never to finish the task. an old bullet wound in his lung had always kept him in poor health, and when, in the winter of 1885, he contracted pneumonia, the end was quick. his last request was that i would put his notes in shape for publication. this i have done to the best of my ability in my own old age; how well i have done it is for the reader to judge. brave, honest old ah-ta-to-yi (the fox), as the blackfeet and frontiers-men loved to call him! we buried him on a high bluff overlooking the valley of the two medicine river, and close up to the foothills of the rockies, the "backbone-of-the-world" that he loved so well. after we had filled in the grave and the others had gone, pitamakan and i sat by the new-made mound until the setting sun and the increasing cold warned us also to descend into the valley. the old chief was crying as we mounted our horses. "although of white skin," he faltered, "the man who lies there was my brother. i doubt not that i shall soon meet him in the sand-hills." ah-pun-i lodge, february, 1912. illustrations the shale began sliding under my feet (page 51) _frontispiece_ it toppled over with a crash and lay still 14 again and again it rose 76 pitamakan fiercely striking a blow 128 the avalanche burst into the flat 200 i grabbed them up and followed him 210 _reproduced from drawings by george varian, by permission of the youth's companion._ with the indians in the rockies chapter i my father kept a little firearm shop in st. louis. over it was the sign:--- david fox & co. wholesale & retail guns & ammunition. fine rifles & fowling pieces made to order. "co." on the sign stood for my uncle, wesley fox, who was a silent partner in the business. longer than i could remember, he had been an employee of the american fur company away up the missouri river. it was a great event in the quiet life of our little family of three when he came, as he did every two or three years, to pay us a short visit. he no sooner set foot in the house than my mother began to cook bread, cakes, puddings and pies. i have seen him make what he called a delicious breakfast on nothing but buttered toast and coffee. that was because he did not get any bread where he lived except on christmas day. every pound of freight that went up the river above fort union in the company's keel-boats and bateaux was for the indian trade, and there was no room for such luxuries as flour. while uncle wesley was with us, mother always let me put away my books, and not say any lessons to her, and i went with him everywhere in the town. that is what st. louis was in those days--just a good-sized town. i liked best to go with him to the levee and see the trappers and traders coming in, their bateaux loaded down with beaver and other fur pelts. nearly all these men wore buckskin clothes and moccasins, and fur caps of their own make. they all had long hair and big whiskers and mustaches that looked as if they had been trimmed with a butcher-knife. every time my uncle wesley came out of the far west he brought me a bow and arrows in a fine case and quiver; or a stone-headed war-club; real weapons that had killed buffalo and been in battles between the tribes. and once he brought me a sioux scalp, the heavy braided hair all of four feet in length. when i asked him where he got it he laughed a little and said, "oh, i got it up there near fort union." but i had seen my mother shake her head at him, and by that i knew that i was not to be told more. i guessed, though, that he had taken that scalp himself, and long afterward i found out that i had guessed right. one night i heard the family talking about me. i had been sent to bed and was supposed to be asleep, but as the door to my room was open and i was lying wide awake, i couldn't help hearing. my mother was taking uncle wesley to task. "you know that the presents you bring him only add to his interest in trapping and trading," she said, "and as it is, we don't succeed very well in interesting him in his studies, and in the life we have planned for him." "you know how our hearts are set on his going to princeton," said my father, in his always low, gentle voice, "and then becoming such a preacher as his grandfather was before him. you must help us, wesley. show the boy the dark side of the plains life, the hardships and dangers of it." in our little sitting-room there was a picture of grandfather fox, a tall, dark man with a long wig. he wore a long-tailed coat with a tremendous collar, knee-breeches, black stockings, and shoes with enormous buckles. i thought that i should not like to be a preacher if that was the way i must dress. and thinking that, i lost the rest of what they were saying and fell asleep. uncle wesley stayed with us only a few days that spring. he intended to remain a month, but one morning pierre chouteau, the head of the great fur company, came to our house and had a long talk with him, with the result that he left for fort union the very next day, to take the place of some one who had died there. so i went back to my studies, and my parents kept me closer at home than ever. i was allowed to go out on real play spells only for two hours on saturday afternoons. there were very few american boys in the town in those days. most of my playmates were french creoles, who spoke very little english, or none at all, so naturally i learned their patois. that knowledge was very useful to me in after days. i am going to pass over what i have to say now as quickly as possible, for even after all these years, and old as i am, the thought of it still hurts. in february of the following winter my father fell ill of smallpox and died. then my mother and i took it, and my mother died also. i did not know anything about her death until many days after she was buried, and then i wanted to die, too. i felt that there was nothing in the world for me, until one day pierre chouteau himself came for me in his grand carriage, took me to his house, and kept me there until may, when my uncle arrived again in st. louis. uncle wesley put on what we call "a bold front" when he came to me, but for all that i could see that he was very sad. we had just one talk about my future. "i should like to carry out your father's and mother's plans for you, tom," he said. "the only way to do it, so far as i can see, is to send you to cynthia mayhew, in hartford, connecticut. she loved your mother,--they were just like sisters,--and i know that she would be glad to take care of you and see to your education." i broke out crying, and said that if he sent me away from him i should die. how could he be so cruel as to send me far away among strangers? and then i cried all the harder, although i was ashamed of myself for doing so. uncle wesley almost broke down himself. he gulped hard two or three times, and his voice wasn't steady as he took me on his lap and felt of my spindling legs and arms. "poor boy! you are weak," he said. "weak in body and low in mind. well, we'll say no more about this matter of your education now. i'll take you up the river with me for a year, or until you get good and strong. but we'll pack your study books along, and a good part of your mother's library, and you'll have to dig into them every evening after we get settled. now that's fair, isn't it?" it was more than fair. my fondest dream was to be realized. i was actually to see the country and the indians and the great herds of buffalo. there was nothing in st. louis now to keep my uncle or make his stay there a pleasure. as quickly as possible he disposed of the little shop and its contents, and deposited the entire proceeds with the company for me "for a rainy day," as he said. on april 10, 1856, we left st. louis on the chippewa, a fine new boat that the company had just bought. i was thirteen years old, and that was my first steamboat ride. as the stern-wheel craft swung out from the levee and steamed rapidly--as it seemed to me--up-stream, the novel experience gave me the keenest pleasure. i fairly hugged myself as i remembered that by the channel of the river it was more than two thousand miles to our destination. we no sooner left the mississippi and turned into the more muddy waters of the missouri than i earnestly begged my uncle to get his rifle out of the cabin and load it, so as to be ready to shoot buffalo. i was terribly disappointed when he told me that many days must pass before we should see any of the animals. but to please me he brought the rifle to the cabin deck and fired a couple of shots at the sawyers in the river. again he loaded the piece, and told me to shoot at one. "even boys must know how to shoot where we are going," he said. "now take a fine sight at the end of that little sawyer and let's see how near it you can place a bullet." i did as i was told and fired, after a long, wabbly aim; the water splashed just over the tip of the log, and a number of passengers clapped their hands and praised me. that shot began my training in shooting. every day after that, until we got to the game country, i spent an hour shooting at different objects in the water and on the banks. one morning i fired at one of a pair of wild geese. the bird gave a flap or two of its great wings, its head dropped, and it floated inertly with the current. "i killed it!" i shouted. "i killed it! wasn't that a fine shot, uncle?" he was silent a moment, and then said gravely:-"it was a thoughtless boy's shot. and i hope it will be the only one. a true hunter never takes the life of god's creatures needlessly." that was all he said, but the reproof was enough. i took it to heart, and all my life i have not only profited by it, but preached to others against the wanton taking of life. after passing st. charles, missouri, the ranches of the settlers were farther and farther apart, and in a few days we saw the last of them and were in the wild country. game now became more and more frequent, especially white-tail deer, of which we soon had some for the table. the boat was always tied to an island or to the shore at sundown, and during the short remainder of daylight we would all scatter in the near timber to hunt. a number of wild turkeys were killed, which made us some fine feasts. on these occasions, however, i was only a follower of the hunters. my red-letter day was yet to come. at fort pierre we saw a great number of sioux indians. formerly a company post, it had been sold to the united states, and was now occupied by several companies of soldiers. two days after leaving the fort, we sighted the first of the buffalo herds, a small band of bulls that splashed out of the river not far ahead of the boat, and took to the hills. about four o'clock that afternoon, the port engine breaking down, we had to make a long stop for repairs. as soon as we swung into the bank and learned that the boat would be tied there for the night, my uncle got out his rifle, and we went hunting. the timber bordering the river was half a mile wide, with an undergrowth of willowand rose-brush so thick that we never could have penetrated it but for the game trails crossing it in every direction. from the looks of them, i thought that thousands of animals must be living there. the trails were worn deep by their sharp hoofs. in places the earth was moist but hard, and there the tracks were plainly outlined. my uncle pointed out the difference in them--how the tracks of the deer differed from those of elk, and how these differed again from the tracks of the buffalo. i was taught, too, that wolf tracks were longer than those of the mountain-lion, which were nearly circular. finally, i was asked to prove my knowledge. "what made those tracks?" i was asked. i hesitated a moment, and replied that i thought buffalo had made them. "right," said my uncle. "they seem very fresh; we will follow them." the myriad tracks of different game, the mystery of the deep woods, the thought that hostile indians might be there hunting us, all combined to excite me. my heart thumped rapidly and i found it difficult to breathe. i was afraid, and kept looking intently in all directions--even behind me, for i expected every moment to see something come charging through the brush, either to rend us with sharp claws or to stick our bodies full of arrows. but nothing could have induced me to admit that i felt so; gritting my teeth, i followed on uncertain legs, close at uncle wesley's heels. so close was i that when he suddenly stopped, i bumped into him, and then gave a little squeal of fright, for i thought that he had discovered something to justify my fears. "_sh-h-h-h!_" he cautioned, and reaching back and drawing me to his side, he pointed significantly ahead. we were only a few yards from the outer edge of the timber; a hundred yards farther on were three buffalo bulls, standing motionless on the open, sparsely grassed bottom-land. how big they were! how majestic and yet uncouth they loomed before me! they had apparently no necks at all. forgetting entirely our purpose in coming there, i stared at them with intense interest, until my uncle passed me the rifle and whispered, "take that farthest one. he is young and in good condition. aim low, close behind his shoulder." my hands closed on the long-barreled, heavy weapon. heretofore my boy strength had been sorely taxed to shoot with it, but now, in my tense excitement, it fairly leaped to my shoulder, and i was able to hold it steady. i pulled the trigger. _bang!_ a thick cloud of powder smoke drifted into my face, and then passed on, and i saw two of the bulls running across the bottom; the other was swaying, staggering round and round, with blood streaming from its mouth. before i could reload, it toppled over with a crash and lay still. [illustration: it toppled over with a crash and lay still] i stood staring at the animal like one in a dream; it was hard to realize that i had actually killed it. uncle wesley broke my trance by praising the shot i had made, and added that the animal was in fine condition and would weigh all of a ton. he had me lie down on it, my feet even with its fore feet, and i found that i could not reach the top of its withers, or rather, its hump: its height had been more than six feet. i now got my first lesson in skinning and butchering one of these great animals. without axe or windlass, or any of the other things regarded as indispensable by farmers and by professional butchers, the old-time plainsmen made a quick and neat job of this work with only a common butcher-knife. first, my uncle doubled up the bull's fore legs and straightened back the hind ones. then, little by little, he twisted the great head sharply back beside the body, at the same time heaving up the back, and in a moment or two the animal lay prone on its belly, propped up in that position by the head. if the skin had been wanted, the rolling-up of the animal would have been reversed, and it would have lain on its back, legs up, and as in the other way, propped in position by the bent-back head. after making an incision along the back from head to tail, he skinned both sides down to the ground, and even under the body, by propping the head one way and then another, and slanting the carcass so that there was knife room beneath. at last the body lay free, back up, on the clean, spread-out skin. the choicest part of it was the so-called "hump," or in frontier language, the "boss ribs." these dorsal ribs rose gradually from the centre of the back to a length of twenty inches and more just above the point of the shoulders, and were deeply covered with rich tenderloin. it took but a moment to get the set off. uncle wesley cut an incision along each side at the base of them; then he unjointed a hind leg at the gambrel-joint, and with that for a club he hit the tips of the ribs a few blows, causing them to snap off from the back-bone like so many pipe-stems, and the whole hump lay free on the hide. next, he removed the legs with a few deft cuts of the knife, and laid them out on the clean grass; unjointed the backbone at the third rib and removed the after part; severed the neck from the big ribs, cut them apart at the brisket, and smashed one side of them free from the backbone with the leg club, and there we had the great animal divided in eight parts. lastly, he removed the tongue through an incision in the lower jaw. "there," said he, when it was all done, "now you know how to butcher. let's hurry to the boat and get the roustabouts to carry in the meat." from this point on, there were days at a time when we saw no indians, and the various kinds of game animals were more and more plentiful and tame. at last, several days after passing fort clarke, we came to the american fur company's greater post, fort union, situated on the north bank of the river about five miles above the mouth of the yellowstone. it was begun in 1829, under the direction of the factor, kenneth mckenzie, and finished in 1832. a stockade of logs ten or twelve feet long, set up on end, side by side, protected the buildings, and this, in turn, was commanded by two-storied bastions, in which cannon were mounted at the northeast and southwest corners. when we approached the place, a flag was run up on the staff of the fort, cannon boomed a welcome, and a great crowd of indians and company men, headed by the factor, gathered at the shore to greet us. my uncle and i were escorted to the two-story house which formed the rear of the fort, and in which were the quarters of the factor and clerks. i learned afterward that distinguished guests had been housed there: george catlin, the painter and philanthropist, in 1832; maximilian, prince of neuwied, in 1833; and audubon, the great naturalist, in 1843. all of them published extremely interesting accounts of what they saw and did in the upper missouri country, which i commend to the reader, maximilian's "travels in north america" especially; for i went up the river from fort union just as he did, and there had been practically no change in the conditions of the country from his time to mine. maximilian gives a wonderfully accurate and vivid description of the remarkable scenery of the missouri, without question the most strangely picturesque river in america, and probably in the world. my uncle wesley was a valued clerk of the american fur company. he was sent from one to another of their far western forts, as occasion for his services arose, and frequently he was in full charge of a post for months at a time, while the factor went on a trip to the states. when we arrived in fort union he was told that he must go on to fort benton, where the factor needed his help. at that time, since the company's steamboats went no farther than fort union, all the goods for the posts beyond were sent in keel-boats, or bateaux. it was not until the summer of 1860 that the extreme upper river was found to be navigable, and on july 2 of that year the chippewa and the key west arrived at fort benton. a keel-boat was lying at fort union when we arrived there; it was waiting for part of the chippewa's cargo of ammunition, guns, and various trade goods, mostly tobacco, red and blue cloth, brass wire for jewelry, chinese vermilion, and small trinkets. these were soon transferred, and we resumed our voyage, uncle wesley in charge of the boat and crew. the minnie was sixty feet long, ten feet wide, and was decked over. the crew consisted of thirty french-canadian cordelliers, or towmen, a cook, a steersman and two bowmen, and a hunter with his horse. in a very small cabin aft there were two bunks. forward there was a mast and sail for use when the wind was favorable--which was seldom. there was a big sweep oar on each side, and a number of poles were scattered along the deck to be used as occasion required. in the bow there was a four-pound howitzer, loaded with plenty of powder, and a couple of quarts of trade balls, in case of an attack by indians, which was not at all improbable. by the channel it was called eight hundred miles from fort union to fort benton, where we hoped to arrive in two months. after the first day's experience, i thought that we should be fortunate if we reached the place in two years. from morning until night the cordelliers toiled as i had never seen men toil before. it was a painful sight, those thirty men tugging on the long tow-rope as they floundered through water often waist-deep; through quicksand or mud so tenacious that the more unfortunate were dragged out of it gasping for breath and smeared with the stuff from head to foot. they frequently lost their footing on steep places and rolled down into deep water; banks of earth caved upon them; they were scratched and torn by rose-brush and bull-berry thorns; they were obliged to cut trails along the top of the banks in places, and to clear a way for the boat through dense masses of sawyers and driftwood. a day or two after leaving fort union we narrowly escaped losing the boat, and the lives of all of us who were on it, in the treacherous swirling current. at the time the cordelliers were walking easily along a sandy shore under a high bank. ahead of them, at the edge of the water, lay a dead buffalo bull, its rump partly eaten by the prowling animals. when the lead-man was within a few feet of it a big grizzly sprang toward him from the other side of the carcass, where it had lain asleep. the men dropped the rope and with loud cries sprang into the water, since they could not climb the bank. the boat at once turned broadside to the swift current, drifted against two sawyers, and began to turn turtle. the lower rail was already under water, and the horse had lost its footing and tumbled overboard, where it hung strangling, when by the greatest good fortune first one and then the other of the sawyers snapped under the strain, and the boat righted and swung in to the bank. we now had time to see what was going on above. the bear was just leaving the opposite shore and making for the timber; the men, dripping from their hasty bath, were gathered in a close group near the carcass, and were talking and gesticulating as only frenchmen can. we suspected that something was wrong, and while the bowmen made the boat fast, the rest of us hurried up the shore. the group parted at our approach and disclosed one of their number--the lead-man on the rope--lying moaning on the sand. the bear had overtaken and mauled him terribly, and then, frightened probably by the loud cries of so many men, it took to the river and swam away. we got the wounded man aboard at once, and my uncle set his arm and made him as comfortable as possible. the hunter had saved his horse by cutting its rope and swimming with it to a landing far down stream. as soon as the tow-line was recovered we went on, thankful that the accident had been no worse. yet through it all they were cheerful and happy, and at the evening camp-fire my uncle was frequently obliged to speak harshly to keep them from shouting their voyageur songs, that might have brought some prowling war party of indians down on us. the food of these men was meat--nothing but meat, washed down with a little tea. sometimes they managed to dig a few _pommes blanches_, white, edible roots that were very palatable when roasted in the coals. uncle wesley and i had a box of hard crackers and a few pounds of flour and sugar. when they were gone, he told me, we should have no more until we sat down to our christmas dinner. that did not worry me; i thought that if big, strong men could live on meat, a boy could, too. the river wound like a snake through the great valley. there were long points only a mile or two across by land, but many times that distance round by the channel. sometimes when we came to such a place uncle wesley and i would hunt across the bottom and then wait for the boat. on these trips i killed my first deer and elk and antelope--not to mention several more buffalo. but uncle wesley was always uneasy when away from the boat; he was responsible for it and its cargo, which was worth more than a hundred thousand dollars in furs. should anything happen to it while he was away from it, even for an hour's hunt, his hope of eventually becoming a member of the great company would have to be given up. finally, after minute instructions in the proper handling of the rifle, i was allowed to accompany the hunter on his daily quests for meat. baptiste rondin was a dreamy, gentle little creole from louisiana. he came from a good family, had not been taught to work, and had hated books, so he told me. so when misfortune came to his family, and he had to do something, he chose the position he now held in preference to others with more pay which the chouteaus had offered him. when we started out in the morning, i would climb up behind him on the gentle old horse, and we would ride for miles up one side or the other of the river. we always saw various kinds of game soon after leaving the boat, but never attempted to kill any until some was found convenient to the shore of the river, where the boat could land and the meat easily be taken aboard. besides looking for game, we examined every dusty trail, every mudflat and sandbar, and constantly scanned the bottoms and the hills for signs of indians. they were the great terror of the cordelliers; often a boat's crew was surprised and killed, or the cargo was destroyed. we tied up one night four or five miles below the mouth of the musselshell river, which my uncle wesley said lewis and clark had so named on account of the quantities of fossil shells that are found there. early the next morning baptiste saddled the old horse, and we started out to hunt at the same time that the cordelliers hauled the rope tight and began their weary tramp. we came to the lower edge of the big bottom at the mouth of the musselshell. opposite the mouth there was a heavily timbered island. one small band of antelope was the only game in sight between us and the musselshell. on the other side of it, at the upper end of the bottom and close to the missouri, there were a couple of hundred buffalo, some feeding, some lying down. they were so far away that we rode boldly through the tall sage-brush to the little river, and across it to the outer edge of the strip of timber. there baptiste told me to remain with the horse while he crept out to the herd and made a killing. i did not like being left alone. there were many fresh grizzly tracks on the river sands just behind me, and i was afraid of the terrible animals, so afraid that i did not dare to dismount and gather some strawberries which showed in the grass at the horse's feet. the passing minutes seemed hours. the tall sage-brush out ahead had swallowed baptiste. by rising in the stirrups i could just see the backs of some of the distant buffalo. a sudden splash in the river made my heart flutter, and i quickly turned to see what had caused it. here and there between the trees and brush its glistening surface was in plain view, and through one opening i saw something more terrible than a whole band of grizzlies: an indian crossing toward me. i saw his face, painted red with blue bars across the cheeks; i noted that he wore leather clothing; that a shield hung suspended from his left arm; that in his right hand he grasped a bow and a few arrows. all this i noted in an instant of time; and then nearer to me, and more to the right, a stick snapped, and i turned my head to see another indian in the act of letting an arrow fly at me. i yelled and gave the horse such a thump with the stock of my rifle that he made a long, quick leap. that was a lucky thing for me. the arrow aimed at my body cut through my coat sleeve and gashed my left arm just above the elbow. i yelled frantically for baptiste and urged the horse on through the sage-brush. i looked back, and saw that indians all up and down the stream were leaving the timber and running toward me. i looked ahead and saw the smoke of baptiste's gun, heard the report, saw the buffalo bunch up and then scurry westward for the nearest hills. the thought came to me that i could pick the hunter up, and that the old horse would easily carry us beyond the possibility of an attack by indians afoot. that hope was shattered a moment later. the buffalo suddenly circled and came back into the bottom, and i saw that they had been turned by some indians at the edge of the hills. indians were strung out clear across the flat, were leaping through the sage-brush toward us, and shouting their dreadful war-cry; they were hemming us in on the south, and the great river cut off our retreat to the north. i urged the old horse on, determined to reach baptiste and die by his side, but the indians who had appeared on the hills were now quite near him. i saw him raise his rifle and fire at the one in the lead, then turn and run a few steps and spring from the high cut-bank into the river. but just before jumping he paused, and raising a hand, motioned to me to turn back. to turn back! accustomed to obeying him, i sawed on the bridle and the horse stopped. i looked over my shoulder, and saw that the nearest of the indians were not three hundred yards from me. in my distress i cried, "what shall i do? oh, what shall i--what can i do to escape?" chapter ii i do not know why i cried out. of course there was no one to answer, to advise, or assist me. i have often noticed that in times of stress men shout the questions that they ask themselves. why had baptiste motioned me to go back, when by doing so i must run right into the indians? i must have misunderstood his signal. clearly, my only chance of escape was the same as his, and that was by the river. pummeling the old horse with rifle-stock and heels, i headed him for the stream. not straight toward it, where the bank was apparently very high, but obliquely, toward a point not far above the mouth of the musselshell. there the bank was certainly not high, for the tips of water-willows peeped above it. in a few moments i was close enough to look over it. between the narrow strip of willows and the edge of the water there was an oozy mudflat, fifty yards wide, impassable for man or horse. i looked back at the enemy, and saw that when i had turned downstream, those toward the upper end of the bottom had given up the chase, while the rest had turned with me and run faster than ever. thus there was a wide gap between the two parties, and i circled toward it, as my last chance. first up the river for several hundred yards, then straight south, away from it. both parties immediately perceived my intention, and spurted to close the gap. harder and harder i thumped the horse, although by this time he had waked up, and was entering into the spirit of the flight. the distance between the two parties of indians was now not more than three hundred yards, and i was more than that from the point for which we all were heading; but to offset this i was covering the ground much faster than they were. the indians were now yelling frightfully, to encourage one another to greater speed. i could see their painted faces, and a little later their fierce eyes. the gap was very small now; they began shooting, and several pieces of lead ripped by me with the sound of tearing paper. i did not try to use my rifle. in that first experience there was no anger in my heart against the enemy, nothing but fear of them. i felt, rather than saw, that they would be unable to head me off, if only by a narrow margin, and i bent low over the horse to make myself as small a target as possible. more guns boomed close on each side of me. arrows whizzed, too, and the shaft of one struck my rifle-stock, glanced from it, and cut the skin on the back of my hand. that was when i passed right between the two parties. in a dazed way, i kept urging the horse on, until presently it dawned on me that i was past the danger point. having looked back to make sure of this, i changed my course, crossed the musselshell, and went on down the bottom, and then along the shore of the river several miles, until i came to the boat. when the cordelliers saw me returning in such haste, they knew that something was wrong. they ceased towing, and let the boat drift in to the bank, in such a position that i rode right on the deck. i was still so frightened that it was difficult for me to talk, but my uncle, guessing the parts of the story which i omitted, ordered all the men aboard. in a few minutes we were at the other shore of the river. the cordelliers objected to going on with the tow-line, but my uncle was firm that they should start without delay, and they did. the steersman, an old and tried employee, was sent ahead of them to scout, and uncle wesley took his place at the sweep. the howitzer was freshly primed, and one of the men instructed to stand by, ready to aim and fire it. i was anxious about baptiste, and although my uncle told me not to worry, i doubted if we should ever see him again. in a couple of hours we arrived off the island opposite the mouth of the musselshell, and lo! baptiste came out of the brush at the lower end of it, and signaled us to take him aboard. that was done with the skiff. as soon as he came on deck he ran to me, in his impetuous french way, gave me a hug and a thump on the back, and exclaimed, "it is my brave boy! and he is safe! one little wound in the hand? that is nothing. now, tell me how you made the escape." but at this moment my uncle came to consult the hunter, and my story was deferred. i learned from baptiste later that the indians were crees, probably on their way south, to raid the crow horse herds. by this time we had passed the island. baptiste was just asking us to note how high the cut-bank was from which he had jumped into the stream, when the whole party of indians rose out of the sage-brush at the edge of it, and with much yelling, fired their guns at us. as the distance was three or four hundred yards, only a few of their balls struck anywhere near the boat. uncle wesley himself sprang to the howitzer, swung it round, tilted up the barrel, and fired it. some of the balls dropped into the water near the far shore, several spatted little puffs of dust out of the dry cut-bank, and others must have passed right among the war party. anyway, the indians all ducked down and ran back from the bluff. we saw no more of them. ever since leaving the mouth of the yellowstone we had been passing through the extraordinary formation of the bad lands. from this point onward the scenery became more and more wonderful. boy that i was, i was so deeply impressed with the strange grandeur of it all that the sensations i experienced were at times actually oppressive. at every turn there was something to astonish the eye. there were gleaming white and gray turreted castles, perched high above the stream; cities of clustering domes and towers and minarets, all wrought by the elements from sandstones of varying hardness, but all so apparently real as to suggest that men and women in mediã¦val dress might pass out of the gates in the walls at any moment. we arrived at fort benton just ninety days after leaving fort union. the flag was raised and cannon fired in our honor, and more than five thousand blackfeet, headed by the factor, alexander culbertson, and the employees of the fort, crowded to the river-bank to give us welcome. i was astonished to see so many indians. i noticed that they were tall, fine-looking men and women; that they wore beautiful garments of tanned skins; that their hair was done up in long, neat braids; that many of the leading men shook hands with my uncle, and seemed glad to meet him. my uncle introduced me to that great man, the factor, who patted me kindly on the shoulder. with him we went into the fort, where, just as we passed through the big gate, a tall, handsome indian woman, wearing a neat calico dress, a plaid shawl, and beautifully embroidered moccasins, came running to us, threw her arms round my uncle, and kissed him. i must have looked as surprised as i felt, especially when i noted that he was very glad to meet her. having spoken a few words to her, which i couldn't understand, he turned to me. "thomas," he said, "this is your aunt. i hope that you and she will become great friends." i was now more surprised than ever, but tried not to show it as i answered, "yes, sir." at that the woman gave a smile that was pleasant to see, and the next instant she had me in her arms and was kissing me, smoothing my hair, and talking blackfoot to me in her strangely clear and pleasant voice. my uncle interpreted. "she says that she wants to be your mother now; that she wants you to love her, to come to her for everything you need." i do not know just what it was,--her voice, her appearance, the motherly feeling of her arms round me,--but there was something about this indian woman that made my heart go straight out to her. i gave her hand a squeeze, while tears came to my eyes as i snuggled up close to her. right willingly i went with her and uncle wesley to the room in the far end of the long adobe building forming the east side of the fort, which he said was to be our home for a long time to come. it was the kind of room that gave one a restful feeling at sight. opposite the doorway was a big fireplace of stone and adobe, with hooks above the mantel for rifles and powder-horns and ball-pouches. two windows on the courtyard side afforded plenty of light. there were a strong table and comfortable chairs, all home-made. a settee covered with buffalo-robes was placed before the fire. a curtained set of shelves in the corner contained the dishes and cooking-utensils. the north end of the room was partitioned off for a sleeping-place. my bed, i was told, would be the buffalo-robe couch under the window at the right of the door. the next day my uncle took me all round the fort and made me known to the different employees--clerks and tailors, carpenters and blacksmiths, and the men of the trade-room. the fort was a large one, about three hundred feet square, all of adobe. entering the front gate, you saw that three long buildings, of which the easterly one was two stories high, formed three sides of the quadrangle, and that a high wall containing the gate formed the fourth, or south side, facing the river. the outer walls of the buildings were thus the defensive walls of the fort. they were protected against assault by two-storied bastions, with cannon at the southeast and northwest corners. all the tribes of the northwest together could not have taken the place by assault without the loss of thousands of their force, and they knew it. before night the keel-boat was unloaded, and our trunks were brought in and unpacked. my mother's little library and my school-books filled a new set of shelves, and that evening i began, under my uncle's direction, a course of study and reading, preparatory to going east to school in the following year. no boy ever had a happier time than i had in that fort so far beyond the borders of civilization. day in and day out there was always something worth while going on. hundreds, and often thousands, of indians came in to trade, and i found endless pleasure in mingling with them and learned their language and customs. in this i was encouraged by tsistsaki (little bird woman), my uncle's wife. she had no children, and all her natural mother love was given to me. in her way of thinking, nothing that i did could be wrong, and the best of everything was not good enough for me. the beautifully embroidered buckskin suits and moccasins she made for me fairly dazzled the eye with their blaze of color. these were not for everyday wear, but i took every possible occasion for putting them on, and strutted around, the envy of all the indian boys in the country. the winter passed all too quickly. with the approach of spring my uncle began to plan for my long trip to st. louis, and thence to the home of my mother's connecticut friend, where i was to prepare for princeton. i said nothing to him, but i had many talks with my aunt-mother, tsistsaki; and one night we poured out such a torrent of reasons why i should not go, ending our pleadings with tears, that he gave in to us, and agreed that i should grow up in the fur trade. a frequent visitor in our cozy room in the fort was a nephew of tsistsaki, a boy several years older than i. we liked each other at sight, and every time we met we became firmer friends than ever. "friend" means much more to indians--at least, to the blackfeet--than it does to white people. once friends, indians are always friends. they almost never quarrel. so it came to be with pitamakan (eagle running) and myself. my uncle wesley was as much pleased as his wife. one day he said to me, "pitamakan is an honest, good-hearted boy, and brave, too. he gets all that from his father, who is one of the very best and most trustworthy indians in all this country, and from his mother, who is a woman of fine character. see to it that you keep his friendship." except, of course, baptiste rondin, the hunter of the fort, pitamakan was almost the only one with whom i was allowed to go after the buffalo and the other game which swarmed on the plains near by. what with my daily studies, occasional hunts, and the constant pleasure i had in the life of the fort, time fairly flew; no day was too long. and yet, for four years, i never once went more than five miles from the fort. during this time my one great desire was to go on a trip into the rocky mountains. clearly visible from the high plains to the north and south of the river, their pine-clad slopes and sharp, bare peaks always seemed to draw me to explore their almost unknown fastnesses. in the fall of 1860 there came an opportunity for me to do this. the small robes band of the blackfeet, of which pitamakan's father, white wolf (mah-kwiâ´-yi ksik-si-num), was chief, outfitted at the fort for an expedition to trap beaver along the foot of the great mountains, and, much to my surprise and delight, i was permitted to accompany them. at this time there were ninety lodges--about six hundred people--of the small robes (i-nuk-siks) band of the blackfeet. they had several thousand horses, and when the moving camp was strung out on the plain, the picturesque riders, the pack-animals laden with queerly shaped, painted rawhide and leather pouches and sacks, made a pageant of moving color that was very impressive. our first camp after leaving the fort was on the teton river. a couch was made up for me in white wolf's lodge. the lodge of the plains indians was the most comfortable portable shelter ever devised by man. one of average size was made of sixteen large cow buffalo-hides, tanned into soft leather, cut to shape, and sewed together with sinew thread. this cone-shaped "lodge skin" was stretched over tough, slender poles of mountain-pine, and the lower edge, or skirt, was pegged so that it was at least four inches above the ground. within, a leather lining, firmly weighted to the ground by the couches and household impedimenta of the occupants, extended upward for five or six feet, where it was tied to a rope that was fastened to the poles clear round. there was a space as wide as the thickness of the poles between the "skin" and the lining, so that the cold, outside air rushing up through it created a draft for the fire, and carried the smoke out of the open space at the top. this lining, of course, prevented the cold air from coming into the lower part of the lodge, so that even in the coldest weather a small fire was enough for comfort. traveling leisurely up the teton river, we came in three or four days to the foot of the great range. there we went into camp for several weeks, long enough for the hunters to trap most of the beavers, not only on the main stream, but on all its little tributaries. pitamakan and i had twelve traps, and were partners in the pursuit of the animals. from the teton we moved northward to back-fat creek, now dupuyer creek. from there we went to the two medicine waters, and then on to the cut-bank river. the trapping area of this stream was small. on the first day of our camp there pitamakan and i foolishly went hunting, with the result that when, on the next day, we began looking for a place to set our traps, we found that all the beaver-ponds and bank-workings had been occupied by the other trappers. it was late in the afternoon, after we had followed up the south fork to a tremendous walled caã±on, where it was impossible for the beavers to make dams and homes, that we made this discovery. our disappointment was keen, for from cut-bank the camp was to return to fort benton, and we had only thirty-seven of the fifty beaver pelts that we had planned to take home with us. we were sitting on a well-worn trail that stretched along the mountainside above the caã±on, when pitamakan suddenly exclaimed:-"listen to me! we will get the rest of the beaver! you see this trail? well, it crosses this backbone of the world, and is made by the other-side people,--the kootenays and the flatheads,--so that they can come over to our plains and steal our buffalo. you can see that it has not been used this summer. it will not be used at all now, since winter is so near. now, down on the other side there are many streams in the great forest, and no doubt there are beavers in them. we will go over there to-morrow, and in a few days' trapping we will catch enough to make up the number we set out to get." this plan seemed good to me, and i said so at once. we left the traps on the trail and started to camp, to prepare for an early start in the morning. we decided to say nothing to any one of our intentions, to white wolf least of all, lest he should forbid our going. at dusk we picketed near camp two horses that we selected for the trip, and during the evening we refilled our powder-horns and ball-pouches to the neck. rising the next morning before any of the others were awake, and each taking a heavy buffalo-robe from our bedding, we quietly left the lodge, saddled and mounted our horses, and rode away. some dried meat and buffalo back fat taken from the lodge furnished us a substantial breakfast. the trail was plain and easy to follow. we picked up the traps, and mounting steadily, arrived at the extreme summit of the great range not long after midday. from where we stood, the trail ran slightly downward, along a narrow divide, across to the next mountain. the south side of the divide was a sheer drop of several thousand feet. the top was a narrow, jagged knife of rock, along which a man could not have passed on foot. on the north side the sharp reef dropped almost precipitously to a narrow and exceedingly steep slope of fine shale rock, which terminated at the edge of a precipice of fearful depth. it was along this shale slope that the trail ran, but there were no signs of it now, for the tracks of the last horses that passed had been filled. even while we stood there, small particles of shale were constantly rolling and tinkling down it and off into abysmal space. shuddering, i proposed that we turn back, but pitamakan made light of the danger. "i have been here before, and know what to do," he said. "i can make it so that we can safely cross it." with a long, thin and narrow slab of rock he began gouging a trail out of the steep slide. the small and the large pieces of detritus which he dislodged rattled off the edge of the cliff, but strain my ears as i might, i could not hear them strike bottom. it was fully a hundred yards across this dangerous place, but pitamakan soon made his way along it, and back to me. his path seemed more fit for coyotes than for horses, but he insisted that it was wide enough, and started leading his animal out on it. there was nothing for me to do but to follow with mine. when part way across, my horse's hind feet broke down the little path, and he went with the sliding shale for several feet, all the time madly pawing to get back on the sound portion on which i stood. when i tried to help him by pulling on the lead-rope, the shale began sliding under my feet. at that, pitamakan, starting to run with his horse, shouted to me to do the same. for the rest of the way across, the strain on me and my animal was killing. we tore out all trace of the path in our efforts to keep from going down and off the slide. wherever we put down our feet the shale started slipping, and the struggle to climb faster than it slipped exhausted our strength. when finally we did reach the firm rock where my companion stood waiting, we were utterly fatigued and dripping with sweat. pitamakan's face was ashy gray from the strain of watching my struggles. he drew me to him, and i could feel him trembling, while he said, in a choking voice, "oh, i thought you would never get here, and i just had to stand and look, unable to help you in any way! i didn't know. i should have made a wider, firmer path." we sat down, and he told me about this pass: that after the winter snows came neither man nor horse could cross it, since the least movement would start the snow sliding. three blackfeet had once lost their lives there. in that manner, the avalanche which they loosened had swept them with it over the cliff, to the horror of their comrades who stood looking on. upon our return, he said, he would make a safe path there, if it took him all day to finish the task. soon we went on, turned the shoulder of the twin mountain, and felt that we had come into another world. near by there were some tremendous peaks, some of them covered with great fields of ice, which i learned later were true glaciers. in other ways, too, this west side was different from the east side of the rockies. as far as we could see there were no plains, only one great, dark, evergreen forest that covered the slopes of the mountains and filled the endless valleys. here, too, the air was different; it was damp and heavy, and odorous of plants that grow in moist climates. working our way from ledge to ledge down the mountain, we came, toward sunset, to what my friend called the salt springs. farther west than this point he had never been. early the next morning we pushed on, for we were anxious to reach the low valleys where the beavers were to be found. still following the trail, we struck, about mid-afternoon, a large stream bordered with alder, cottonwood, and willow, the bark of which is the beaver's favorite food. there were some signs of the animals here, but as we expected to find them more plentiful farther down, we kept on until nearly sundown, when we came to a fine grass meadow bordering the now larger river. here was feed for the horses; in a pond at the upper end of the meadow there were five beaver lodges. "here is the place for us," said pitamakan. "let us hurry and picket the horses, and kill a deer; night is at hand." we started to ride into the timber to unsaddle, when we heard a heavy trampling and crackling of sticks off to the left of the beaver-pond, and so sat still, rifles ready, expecting to see a band of elk come into the open. a moment later thirty or forty indians, men, women, and children, rode into the meadow. perceiving us, the men whipped up their horses and came racing our way. "they are kootenays! it is useless to fire at them, or to run!" pitamakan exclaimed. "i do not think they will harm us. anyhow, look brave; pretend that you are not afraid." the men who surrounded us were tall and powerfully built. for what seemed to me an endless time, they sat silently staring, and noting every detail of our outfit. there was something ominous in their behavior; there came to me an almost uncontrollable impulse to make a move of some kind. it was their leader who broke the suspense. "_in-is-saht!_" (dismount!) he commanded, in blackfoot, and we reluctantly obeyed. at that they all got off their horses, and then at word from the chief, each crowding and pushing to be first, they stripped us of everything we had. one man got my rifle; another the ammunition; another snatched off my belt, with its knife, and the little pouch containing flint, steel, and punk, while the chief and another, who seemed to be a great warrior, seized the ropes of our horses. and there we were, stripped of everything that we possessed except the clothes we stood in. at that the chief broke out laughing, and so did the rest. finally, commanding silence, he said to us, in very poor blackfoot:-"as you are only boys, we will not kill you. return to your chief, and tell him that we keep our beaver for ourselves, just as the plains people keep the buffalo for themselves. now go." there was nothing to do but obey him, and we started. one man followed us a few steps, and struck pitamakan several blows across the back with his whip. at that my friend broke out crying; not because of the pain, but because of the terrible humiliation. to be struck by any one was the greatest of all insults; and my friend was powerless to resent it. looking back, we saw the kootenays move on through the meadow and disappear in the timber. completely dazed by our great misfortune, we mechanically took our back trail, and seldom speaking, walked on and on. when night came, rain began to fall and the wind rose to a gale in the treetops. at that pitamakan shook his head, and said, dejectedly, "at this season rain down here means snow up on top. we must make strong medicine if we are ever to see our people again." hungry and without food or weapons for killing any game, wet and without shelter or any means of building a fire, we certainly were in a terrible plight. worse still, if it was snowing on the summit, if winter had really set in, we must inevitably perish. i remembered hearing the old trappers say that winter often began in october in the rocky mountains; and this day was well on in november! "pitamakan! we are not going to survive this!" i cried. for answer, he began singing the coyote song, the blackfoot hunter's prayer for good luck. it sounded weird and melancholy enough there in the darkening forest. chapter iii "there! something tells me that will bring us good luck," said pitamakan, when he had finished the medicine song. "first of all, we must find shelter from the rain. let us hurry and search for it up there along the foot of the cliffs." leaving the trail, we pushed our way up the steep slope of the valley, through underbrush that dropped a shower of water on us at the slightest touch. there were only a few hundred yards between us and the foot of the big wall which shot high above the tops of the pines, but by the time we arrived there night had fairly come. at this point a huge pile of boulders formed the upper edge of the slope, and for a moment we stood undecided which way to turn. "toward home, of course!" pitamakan exclaimed, and led the way along the edge of the boulders, and finally to the cliff. there in front of us was a small, jagged aperture, and stooping down, we tried to see what it was like inside. the darkness, however, was impenetrable. i could hear my companion sniffing; soon he asked, "do you smell anything?" but i could detect no odor other than that of the dank forest floor, and said so. "well, i think that i smell bear!" he whispered, and we both leaped back, and then stealthily drew away from the place. but the rain was falling now in a heavy downpour; the rising wind lashed it in our faces and made the forest writhe and creak and snap. every few moments some old dead pine went down with a crash. it was a terrible night. "we can't go on!" said pitamakan. "perhaps i was mistaken. bears do not lie down for their winter sleep until the snow has covered up their food. we must go back and take our chance of one being there in that hole." we felt our way along the foot of the cliff until we came to the place. there we knelt down, hand in hand, sniffed once more, and exclaimed, "_kyaiyo!_" (bear!) "but not strong; only a little odor, as if one had been here last winter," pitamakan added. "the scent of one sticks in a place a long time." although i was shivering so much from the cold and wet that my teeth rattled, i managed to say, "come on! we've got to go in there." crawling inch by inch, feeling of the ground ahead, and often stopping to sniff the air and listen, we made our cautious way inside, and presently came to a fluffy heap of dried grass, small twigs and leaves that rustled at our touch. "ah, we survive, brother!" pitamakan exclaimed, in a cheerful voice. "the bear has been here and made himself a bed for the winter; they always do that in the month of falling leaves. he isn't here now, though, and if he does come we will yell loud and scare him away." feeling round now to learn the size of the place, we found that it was small and low, and sloped to the height of a couple of feet at the back. having finished the examination, we burrowed down into the grass and leaves, snuggled close together, and covered ourselves as well as we could. little by little we stopped shivering, and after a while felt comfortably warm, although wet. we fell to talking then of our misfortune, and planning various ways to get out of the bad fix we were in. pitamakan was all for following the kootenays, stealing into their camp at night, and trying to recover not only our horses, but, if possible, our rifles also. i made the objection that even if we got a whole night's start of the kootenays, they, knowing the trails better than we did, would overtake us before we could ride to the summit. we finally agreed to follow the trail of our enemies and have a look at their camp; we might find some way of getting back what they had taken. we really slept well. in the morning i awoke first, and looking out, saw nothing but thick, falling snow. i nudged my companion, and together we crept to the mouth of the cave. the snow was more than a foot deep in front of us, and falling so fast that only the nearest of the big pines below could be seen. the weather was not cold, certainly not much below freezing, but it caused our damp clothing to feel like ice against the skin. we crept back into our nest, shivering again. "with this snow on the ground, it would be useless to try to take anything from the kootenays," i said. "true enough. they could follow our tracks and easily overtake us," pitamakan agreed. as he said no more for a long time, and would not even answer when i asked a question, i, too, became silent. but not for long; so many fears and doubts were oppressing me that i had to speak. "we had better start on, then, and try to cross the summit." pitamakan shook his head slowly. "neither we nor any one else will cross the summit until summer comes again. this is winter. see, the snow is almost to our knees out there; up on top it is over our heads." "then we must die right here!" i exclaimed. for answer, my partner began the coyote prayer song, and kept singing it over and over, except when he would break out into prayers to the sun, and to old man--the world-maker--to give us help. there in the low little cave his song sounded muffled and hollow enough. had i not been watching his face, i must have soon begged him to stop, it was so mournful and depressing. but his face kept brightening and brightening until he actually smiled; and finally he turned to me and said, "do not worry, brother. take courage. they have put new thoughts into me." i asked what the thoughts were, and he replied by asking what we most needed. "food, of course," i said. "i am weak from hunger." "i thought you would say that!" he exclaimed. "it is always food with white people. get up in the morning and eat a big meal; at midday, another; at sunset, another. if even one of these is missed, they say they are starving. no, brother, we do not most need food. we could go without it half a moon and more, and the long fast would only do us good." i did not believe that. it was the common belief in those times that a person could live for only a few days without food. "no, it is not food; it is fire that we most need," pitamakan continued. "were we to go out in that snow and get wet and then have no means of drying and warming ourselves, we should die." "well, then, we must just lie here and wait for the snow to melt away," i said, "for without flint and steel we can have no fire." "then we will lie here until next summer. this country is different from ours of the plains. there the snow comes and goes many times during the winter; here it only gets deeper and deeper, until the sun beats cold-maker, and comes north again." i believed that to be true, for i remembered that my uncle had told me once that there were no chinook winds on the west side of the range. so i proposed what had been on my mind for some time: that we go to the camp of the kootenays and beg them to give us shelter. "if they didn't kill us, they would only beat us and drive us away. no, we cannot go to them," said pitamakan decidedly. "now don't look so sad; we shall have fire." he must have read my thoughts, for he added, "i see that you don't believe that i can make fire. listen! before you white people came with your flints and steels, we had it. old man himself taught us how to make it. i have never seen it made in the old way because my people got the new way before i was born. but i have often heard the older ones tell how it used to be made, and i believe that i can do it myself. it is easy. you take a small, dry, hard stick like an arrow-shaft, and twirl it between the palms of your hands, or with a bowstring, while the point rests in a hole in a piece of dry wood, with fine shreds of birch bark in it. the twirling stick heats these and sets them on fire." although i did not understand this explanation very well, i yet had some faith that pitamakan could make the fire. he added that he would not try it until the weather cleared, and we could go round in the timber without getting wet except from the knees down. we lay there in the bear's bed all that day. at sunset the snow ceased falling, but when the clouds disappeared, the weather turned much colder, and it was well for us that the heat of our bodies had pretty thoroughly dried our clothing. as it was, we shivered all through the night, and were very miserable. out in the darkness we heard some animal scraping through the snow, and feared that it might be the bear come to get into its bed. we had talked about that. if it was a black bear, we were safe enough, because they are the most cowardly of all animals, and even when wounded, will not attack a man. but what if it were a big grizzly! we both knew tales enough of their ferocity. only that summer a woman, picking berries, had been killed by one. so when we heard those soft footsteps we yelled; stopped and listened, and yelled again, and again, until we were hoarse. then we listened. all was still. whatever had roused us was gone, but fear that a grizzly would come shuffling in kept us awake. day came long before the sun rose above the tremendous peaks that separated us from the plains. much as we ached to crawl out of the cave and run and jump, we lay still until the sun had warmed the air a bit. the night before i had been ravenously hungry; but now my hunger had largely passed, and pitamakan said that i would soon forget all about food. "but we can't live all winter without eating!" i objected. "of course not," he replied. "as soon as we have fire, we will go hunting and kill game. then we will make us a comfortable lodge. oh, we're going to be very comfortable here before many days pass." "but the kootenays!" i objected. "they will come again and drive us on, or kill us!" "just now they are moving out of the mountains as fast as they can go, and will not return until summer comes again." when we finally crawled out after our long rest, we saw that a bear really had been near us in the night. it had come walking along the slope, close to the foot of the cliff, until right in front of the cave, and then, startled, no doubt, by our yells, had gone leaping straight down into the timber. the short impressions of its claws in the snow proved it to have been a black bear. we were glad of that; another night, fear, at least, would not prevent us from sleeping. both of us were clothed for summer hunting, i in buckskin trousers and flannel shirt, with no underclothing or socks. pitamakan wore buffalo cow-leather leggings, breech-clout, and, fortunately, a shirt like mine that his aunt had given him. neither of us had coat or waistcoat, but in place of them, capotes, hooded coats reaching to our knees, made of white blanket by the tailor at the fort. the snow looked very cold to step into with only thin buckskin moccasins on our feet, and i said so. "we will remedy that," said pitamakan. he pulled off his capote, tore a couple of strips from the skirt of it, and then did the same with mine. with these we wrapped our feet, pulled our moccasins on over them, and felt that our toes were frost-proof. the snow was knee-deep. stepping into it bravely, we made our way down the slope and into the timber. there it was not so deep, for a part of the fall had lodged in the thick branches of the pines. we came upon the tracks of deer and elk, and presently saw a fine white-tail buck staring curiously at us. the sight of his rounded, fat body brought the hungry feeling back to me, and i expressed it with a plaintive "_hai-yah!_" of longing. pitamakan understood. "never mind," he said, as the animal broke away, waving its broad flag as if in derision. "never mind. we will be eating fat ribs to-morrow, perhaps; surely on the next day." that talk seemed so big to me that i said nothing, asked no question, as we went on down the hill. before reaching the river we saw several more deer, a lone bull moose and a number of elk; the valley was full of game, driven from the high mountains by the storm. the river was not frozen, nor was there any snow on the low, wet, rocky bars to hinder our search for a knife. that was what we were to look for, just as both pitamakan's and my own ancestors had searched, in prehistoric times, for sharp-edged tools in glacial drift and river wash. i was to look for flint and "looks-like-ice rock," as the blackfeet call obsidian. as i had never seen any obsidian, except in the form of very small, shiny arrow-points, it was not strange that pitamakan found a nodule of it on a bar that i had carefully gone over. it was somewhat the shape of a football, rusty black, and coated with splotches of stuff that looked like whitewash. i could not believe that it was what we sought until he cracked it open and i saw the glittering fragments. pitamakan had never seen any flint or obsidian flaked and chipped into arrow-points and knives, but he had often heard the old people tell how it was done, and now he tried to profit by the information. with a small stone for a hammer, he gently tapped one of the fragments, and succeeded in splintering it into several thin, sharp-edged flakes. carefully taking up all the fragments and putting them at the foot of a tree for future use, we went in search of material for the rest of the fire-making implements. we knew from the start that finding them would not be easy, for before the snow came, rain had thoroughly soaked the forest, and what we needed was bone-dry wood. we had hunted for an hour or more, when a half-dozen ruffed grouse flushed from under the top of a fallen tree and flew up into the branches of a big fir, where they sat and craned their necks. back came my hungry feeling; here was a chance to allay it. "come on, let's get some stones and try to kill those birds!" i cried. away we went to the shore of the river, gathered a lot of stones in the skirts of our capotes, and hurried back to the tree. the birds were still there, and we began throwing at the one lowest down. we watched the course of each whizzing stone with intense eagerness, groaning, "_ai-ya!_" when it went wide of the mark. unlike white boys, indian youths are very inexpert at throwing stones, for the reason that they constantly carry a better weapon, the bow, and begin at a very early age to hunt small game with it. i could cast the stones much more accurately than pitamakan, and soon he handed what he had left to me. although i made some near shots, and sent the stones clattering against the branches and zipping through the twigs, the bird never once moved, except to flutter a wing when a missile actually grazed it or struck the limb close to its feet. with the last stone of the lot i hit a grouse, and as it started fluttering down we made a rush for the foot of the tree, whooping wildly over our success, and frightening the rest of the covey so that they flew away. the wounded bird lodged for a moment in a lower branch, toppled out of that into another, fluttered from that down into clear space. pitamakan sprang to catch it, and grasped only the air; for the bird righted itself, sailed away and alighted in the snow, fifty yards distant. we ran after it as fast as we could. it was hurt. we could see that it had difficulty in holding up its head, and that its mouth was open. we felt certain of our meat. but no! up it got when we were about to make our pounce, and half fluttered and half sailed another fifty yards or so. again and again it rose, we hot after it, and finally it crossed the river. but that did not daunt us. the stream was wide there, running in a still sweep over a long bar; and we crossed, and in our hurry, splashed ourselves until we were wet above the waist. then, after all, the grouse rose long before we came anywhere near it, and this time flew on and on until lost to sight! our disappointment was too keen to be put into words. dripping wet and as miserable a pair of boys as ever were, we stood there in the cold snow and looked sadly at each other. "oh, well, come on," said pitamakan. "what is done is done. we will now get the wood we want and make a fire to dry ourselves." he led off, walked to a half-fallen fir, and from the under side broke off just what we were looking for--a hard, dry spike about twice the diameter of a lead-pencil and a foot or more in length. that did seem to be good luck, and our spirits rose. we went out to the shore of the river, where i was set to rounding off the base of the spike and sharpening the point, first by rubbing it on a coarse-grained rock, and then smoothing it with a flake of obsidian. i ruined the edge of the first piece by handling it too vigorously; the brittle stone had to be forced slowly and diagonally along the place to be cut. [illustration: again and again it rose] pitamakan, meanwhile, was hunting a suitable piece of wood for the drill to work in. hard wood, he had heard the old people say, was necessary for this, and here the only growth of the kind was birch. by the time i got the drill shaped, he had found none that was dry, and i was glad to help in the search, for i was nearly frozen from standing still so long in my wet clothes. up and down the river we went, and back into the forest, examining every birch that appeared to be dead. every one that we found was rotten, or only half dry. it was by the merest chance that we found the very thing: a beaver-cutting of birch, cast by the spring freshet under a projecting ledge of rock, where it was protected from the rains. it was almost a foot in diameter and several feet long. we rubbed a coarse stone against the centre of it until the place was flat and a couple of inches wide, and in that started a small hole with the obsidian. this was slow work, for the glasslike substance constantly broke under the pressure needed to make it cut into the wood. it was late in the day when the gouging was finished, and we prepared to put our tools to the test. this was an occasion for prayer. pitamakan so earnestly entreated his gods to pity us, to make our work successful, and thus save our lives, that, unsympathetic as i was with his beliefs, i could not help being moved. i wanted to be stoical; to keep up a brave appearance to the last; but this pathetic prayer to heathen gods, coming as it did when i was weak from hunger and exposure, was too much. to this day i remember the exact words of it, too long to repeat here. i can translate only the closing sentence: "also, have pity on us because of our dear people on the other side of the range, who are even now weeping in their lodges because we do not return to them." when he had finished the prayer, pitamakan took the drill in the palms of his hands and set the point of it in the small, rough hole in the birch. we had already gathered some dry birch bark, and i held some of it, shredded into a fluffy mass, close round the drill and the pole. "now, fire come!" pitamakan exclaimed, and began to twirl the drill between his hands, at the same time pressing it firmly down in the hole. but no smoke came. what was the reason? he stopped and raised the drill; we felt of it and the hole; both were very hot, and i suggested that we take turns drilling, changing about in the least possible time. we tried it, and oh, how anxiously we watched for success, drilling and drilling for our very lives, drilling turn about until our muscles were so strained that we could not give the stick another twirl! then we dropped back and stared at each other. our experiment had failed. night was coming on. our wet clothing was beginning to freeze, and there was the river between us and the shelter of our cave. the outlook seemed hopeless, and i said so. pitamakan said nothing; his eyes had a strange, vacant expression. "we can do nothing," i repeated. "right here we have to die." still he did not answer, or even look at me, and i said to myself, "he has gone mad!" chapter iv "if they will not do," pitamakan muttered, rising stiffly, while the ice on his leggings crackled, "why, i'll cut off a braid of my hair." i was now sure that our troubles had weakened his mind; no indian in his right senses would think of cutting off his hair. "pitamakan! what is the trouble with you?" i asked, looking up anxiously at him. "why, nothing is the matter," he replied. "nothing is the matter. we must now try to work the drill with a bow. if our moccasin strings are too rotten to bear the strain, i'll have to make a bow cord by cutting off some of my hair and braiding it." it was a great relief to know that he was sane enough, but i had little faith in this new plan, and followed listlessly as he went here and there, testing the branches of willow and birch. finally, he got from the river shore one stone that was large and smooth, and another that had a sharp edge. then, scraping the snow away from the base of a birch shoot a couple of inches in diameter, he laid the smooth stone at its base. next he bade me bend the shoot close down on the smooth stone, while with the sharp edge of the other he hit the strained wood fibre a few blows. in this way he easily severed the stem. cutting off the top of the sapling in the same manner, he had a bow about three feet in length; a rough, clumsy piece of wood, it is true, but resilient. as my moccasin strings were buckskin and much stronger than pitamakan's cow-leather ones, we used one of mine for the bowstring. we now carried the base stick and drill back from the creek into the thick timber, gathered a large bunch of birch bark and a pile of fine and coarse twigs, and made ready for this last attempt to save ourselves. we hesitated to begin; uncertainty as to the result was better than sure knowledge of failure, but while we waited we began to freeze. it was a solemn and anxious moment when pitamakan set the point of the drill in the hole, made one turn of the bowstring round its centre, and held it in place by pressing down with the palm of his left hand on the tip. with his right hand he grasped the bow, and waiting until i had the shredded bark in place round the hole, he once more started the coyote prayer song and began sawing the bow forth and back, precisely the motion of a cross-cut saw biting into a standing tree. the wrap of the string caused the drill to twirl with amazing rapidity, and at the third or fourth saw he gave a howl of pain and dropped the outfit. i had no need to ask why. the drill tip had burned his hand; when he held it out a blister was already puffing up. we changed places, and i gathered the skirt of my capote in a bunch to protect my hand. i began to work the bow, faster and faster, until the drill moaned intermittently, like a miniature buzz-saw. in a moment or two i thought that i saw a very faint streak of smoke stealing up between my companion's fingers. he was singing again, and did not hear my exclamation as i made sure that my eyes had not deceived me. smoke actually was rising. i sawed harder and harder; more and more smoke arose, but there was no flame. "why not?" i cried. "oh, why don't you burn?" pitamakan's eyes were glaring anxiously, greedily at the blue curling vapor. i continued to saw with all possible rapidity, but still there was no flame; instead, the smoke began to diminish in volume. a chill ran through me as i saw it fail. i was on the point of giving up, of dropping the bow and saying that this was the end of our trail, when the cause of the failure was made plain to me. pitamakan was pressing the shredded bark too tight round the drill and into the hole; there could be no fire where there was no air. "raise your fingers!" i shouted. "loosen up the bark!" i had to repeat what i said before he understood and did as he was told. instantly the bark burst into flame. "fire! fire! fire!" i cried, as i hastily snatched out the drill. "_i-puh-kwã­-is! i-puh-kwã­-is!_" (it burns! it burns!) pitamakan shouted. he held a big wad of bark to the tiny flame, and when it ignited, carried the blazing, sputtering mass to the pile of fuel that we had gathered and thrust it under the fine twigs. these began to crackle and snap, and we soon had a roaring fire. pitamakan raised his hands to the sky and reverently gave thanks to his gods; i silently thanked my own for the mercy extended to us. from death, at least by freezing, we were saved! the sun was setting. in the gathering dusk we collected a huge pile of dead wood, every piece in the vicinity that we had strength to lift and carry, some of them fallen saplings twenty and thirty feet long. i was for putting a pile of them on the fire and having a big blaze. i did throw on three or four large chunks, but pitamakan promptly lifted them off. "that is the way of white people!" he said. "they waste wood and stand, half freezing, away back from the big blaze. now we will have this in the way we lone people do it, and so will we get dry and warm." while i broke off boughs of feathery balsam fir and brought in huge armfuls of them, he set up the frame of a small shelter close to the fire. first, he placed a triangle of heavy sticks, so that the stubs of branches at their tops interlocked, and then he laid up numerous sticks side by side, and all slanting together at the top, so as to fill two sides of the triangle. these we shingled with the fir boughs, layer after layer, to a thickness of several feet. with the boughs, also, we made a soft bed within. we now had a fairly comfortable shelter. in shape it was roughly like the half of a hollow cone, and the open part faced the fire. creeping into it, we sat on the bed, close to the little blaze. some cold air filtered through the bough thatching and chilled our backs. pitamakan pulled off his capote and told me to do the same. spreading them out, he fastened them to the sticks of the slanting roof and shut off the draft. the heat radiating from the fire struck them, and reflecting, warmed our backs. the ice dropped from our clothes and they began to steam; we were actually comfortable. but now that the anxieties and excitement of the day were over, and i had time to think about other things than fire, back came my hunger with greater insistence than ever. i could not believe it possible for us to go without eating as long as pitamakan said his people were able to fast. worse still, i saw no possible way for us to get food. when i said as much to pitamakan, he laughed. "take courage; don't be an afraid person," he said. "say to yourself, 'i am not hungry,' and keep saying it, and soon it will be the truth to you. but we will not fast very long. why, if it were necessary, i would get meat for us this very night." i stared at him. the expression of his eyes was sane enough. i fancied that there was even a twinkle of amusement in them. if he was making a joke, although a sorry one, i could stand it; but if he really meant what he said, then there could be no doubt but that his mind wandered. "lie down and sleep," i said. "you have worked harder than i, and sleep will do you good. i will keep the fire going." at that he laughed, a clear, low laugh of amusement that was good to hear. "oh, i meant what i said. i am not crazy. now think hard. is there any possible way for us to get food this night?" "of course there isn't," i replied, after a moment's reflection. "don't joke about the bad fix we are in; that may make it all the worse for us." he looked at me pityingly. "ah, you are no different from the rest of the whites. true, they are far wiser than we lone people. but take away from them the things their powerful medicine has taught them how to make, guns and powder and ball, fire steels and sticks, knives and clothes and blankets of hair, take from them these things and they perish. yes, they die where we should live, and live comfortably." i felt that there was much truth in what he said. i doubted if any of the company's men, even the most experienced of them, would have been able to make a fire had they been stripped of everything that they possessed. but his other statement, that if necessary he could get food for us at once. "where could you find something for us to eat now?" i asked. "out there anywhere," he replied, with a wave of the hand. "haven't you noticed the trails of the rabbits, hard-packed little paths in the snow, where they travel round through the brush? yes, of course you have. well, after the middle of the night, when the moon rises and gives some light, i could go out there and set some snares in those paths, using our moccasin strings for loops, and in a short time we would have a rabbit; maybe two or three of them." how easy a thing seems, once you know how to do it! i realized instantly that the plan was perfectly feasible, and wondered at my own dullness in not having thought of it. i had been sitting up stiffly enough before the fire, anxiety over our situation keeping my nerves all a-quiver. now a pleasant sense of security came to me. i felt only tired and sleepy, and dropped back on the boughs. "pitamakan, you are very wise," i said, and in a moment was sound asleep. if he answered i never heard him. every time the fire died down the cold awoke one or both of us to put on fresh fuel; and then we slept again, and under the circumstances, passed a very restful night. soon after daylight snow began to fall again, not so heavily as in the previous storm, but with a steadiness that promised a long period of bad weather. we did not mind going out into it, now that we could come back to a fire at any time and dry ourselves. before setting forth, however, we spent some time in making two rude willow arrows. we mashed off the proper lengths with our "anvil" and cutting-stone, smoothed the ends by burning them, and then scraped the shafts and notched them with our obsidian knives. i proposed that we sharpen the points, but pitamakan said no; that blunt ones were better for bird shooting, because they smashed the wing bones. pitamakan had worked somewhat on the bow during the evening, scraping it thinner and drying it before the fire, so that now it had more spring; enough to get us meat, he thought. the great difficulty would be to shoot the unfeathered, clumsy arrows true to the mark. burying some coals deep in the ashes to make sure that they would be alive upon our return, we started out. close to camp, pitamakan set two rabbit snares, using a part of our moccasin strings for the purpose. his manner of doing this was simple. he bent a small, springy sapling over the rabbit path, and stuck the tip of it under a low branch of another tree. next he tied the buckskin string to the sapling, so that the noose end of it hung cross-wise in the rabbit path, a couple of inches above the surface of it. then he stuck several feathery balsam tips on each side of the path, to hide the sides of the noose and prevent its being blown out of place by the wind. when a passing rabbit felt the loop tighten on its neck, its struggles would release the tip of the spring-pole from under the bough, and it would be jerked up in the air and strangled. from camp, we went down the valley, looking for grouse in all the thickest clumps of young pines. several rabbits jumped up ahead of us, snow-white, big-footed and black-eyed. pitamakan let fly an arrow at one of them, but it fell short of the mark. there were game trails everywhere. the falling snow was fast filling them, so that we could not distinguish new tracks from old; but after traveling a half-mile or so, we began to see the animals themselves, elk and deer, singly, and in little bands. as we approached a tangle of red willows, a bull, a cow, and a calf moose rose from the beds they had made in them. the cow and calf trotted away, but the bull, his hair all bristling forward, walked a few steps toward us, shaking his big, broad-horned head. the old trappers' tales of their ferocity at this time of year came to my mind, and i began to look for a tree to climb; there was none near by. all had such a large circumference that i could not reach halfway round them. "let's run!" i whispered. "stand still!" pitamakan answered. "if you run, he will come after us." the bull was not more than fifty yards from us. in the dim light of the forest his eyes, wicked little pig-like eyes, glowed with a greenish fire. the very shape of him was terrifying, more like a creature of bad dreams than an actual inhabitant of the earth. his long head had a thick, drooping upper lip; a tassel of black hair swung from his lower jaw; at the withers he stood all of six feet high, and sloped back to insignificant hind quarters; his long hair was rusty gray, shading into black. all this i took in at a glance. the bull again shook his head at us and advanced another step or two. "if he starts again, run for a tree," pitamakan said. that was a trying moment. we were certainly much afraid of him, and so would the best of the company men have been had they stood there weaponless in knee-deep snow. once more he tossed his enormous horns; but just as he started to advance, a stick snapped in the direction in which the cow and calf had gone. at that he half turned and looked back, then trotted away in their trail. the instant he disappeared we started the other way, and never stopped until we came to our shelter. it was well for us that we did return just then. the falling snow was wetting the ash-heap, and the water would soon have soaked through to the buried coals. we dug them up and started another fire, and sat before it for some time before venturing out again. this experience taught us, when leaving camp thereafter, to cover the coal-heap with a roof of wood or bark. "well, come on! let's go up the valley this time, and see what will happen to us there," said pitamakan, when we had rested. not three hundred yards above camp we came to a fresh bear trail, so fresh that only a very thin coating of snow had fallen since the passing of the animal. it led us to the river, when we saw that it continued on the other side up to the timber, straight toward the cave that had sheltered us. the tracks, plainly outlined in the sand at the edge of the water, were those of a black bear. "that is he, the one that gathered the leaves and stuff we slept in, and he's going there now!" pitamakan exclaimed. "if we only had his carcass, how much more comfortable we could be!" i said. "the hide would be warm and soft to lie on, and the fat meat would last us a long time." "if he goes into the cave to stay, we'll get him," said pitamakan. "if we can't make bows and arrows to kill him, we will take strong, heavy clubs and pound him on the head." we went up the valley. trailing along behind my companion, i thought over his proposal to club the bear to death. a month, even a few days back, such a plan would have seemed foolish; but i was fast learning that necessity, starvation, will cause a man to take chances against the greatest odds. and the more i thought about it, the more i felt like facing that bear. i was about to propose that we go after it at once, when, with a whirr of wings that startled us, a large covey of blue grouse burst from a thicket close by, and alighted here and there in the pines and firs. we moved on a few steps, and stopped within short bow-shot of one. it did not seem to be alarmed at our approach, and pitamakan took his time to fit one of the clumsy arrows and fire it. _zip!_ the shaft passed a foot from its body, struck a limb above and dropped down into the snow. but the grouse never moved. anxiously i watched the fitting and aiming of the other arrow. _zip!_ i could not help letting out a loud yell when it hit fair and the bird came fluttering and tumbling down. i ran forward and fell on it the instant it struck the snow, and grasped its plump body with tense hands. "meat! see! we have meat!" i cried, holding up the fine cock. "be still! you have already scared all the other birds out of this tree!" said pitamakan. it was true. there had been three more in that fir, and now, because of my shouts, they were gone. pitamakan looked at me reproachfully as he started to pick up the fallen arrows. right there i learned a lesson in self-restraint that i never forgot. we knew that there were more grouse in near-by trees, but they sat so still and were so much the color of their surroundings that we were some time in discovering any of them. they generally chose a big limb to light on, close to the bole of the tree. finally our hungry eyes spied three in the next tree, and pitamakan began shooting at the lower one, while i recovered the arrows for him. luck was against us. it was nothing, but miss, miss, miss, and as one by one the arrows grazed the birds, they hurtled away through the forest and out of sight. we were more fortunate a little farther on, for we got two birds from a small fir. then we hurried to camp with our prizes. i was for roasting the three of them at once, and eating a big feast; but pitamakan declared that he would not have any such doings. "we'll eat one now," he said, "one in the evening, and the other in the morning." we were so hungry that we could not wait to cook the first bird thoroughly. dividing it, we half roasted the portions over the coals, and ate the partly raw flesh. although far from enough, that was the best meal i ever had. and it was not so small, either; the blue grouse is a large and heavy bird, next to the sage-hen the largest of our grouse. after eating, we went out and "rustled" a good pile of fuel. as night came on, we sat down before the blaze in a cheerful mood, and straightway began to make plans for the future, which now seemed less dark than at the beginning of the day. "with a better bow and better arrows, it is certain that we can kill enough grouse to keep us alive," i said. "not unless we have snowshoes to travel on," pitamakan objected. "in a few days the snow will be so deep that we can no longer wade in it." "we can make them of wood," i suggested, remembering the tale of a company man. "but we couldn't travel about barefooted. our moccasins will last only a day or two longer. one of mine, you see, is already ripping along the sole. brother, if we are ever to see green grass and our people again, these things must we have besides food--thread and needles, skins for moccasins, clothing and bedding, and a warm lodge. the weather is going to be terribly cold before long." at that my heart went away down. i had thought only of food, forgetting that other things were just as necessary. the list of them staggered me--thread and needles, moccasins, and all the rest! "well, then, we must die," i exclaimed, "for we can never get all those things!" "we can and we will," said pitamakan, cheerfully, "and the beginning of it all will be a better bow and some real arrows, arrows with ice-rock or flint points. we will try to make some to-morrow. hah! listen!" i barely heard the plaintive squall, but he recognized it. "come on, it's a rabbit in one of the snares!" he cried, and out we ran into the brush. he was right. a rabbit, still kicking and struggling for breath, was hanging in the farther snare. resetting the trap, we ran, happy and laughing, back to the fire with the prize. after all, we ate two grouse, instead of one, that evening, burying them under the fire, and this time letting them roast long enough so that the meat parted easily from the bones. chapter v "my grandfather told me that this is one way that it was done," said pitamakan, as taking a flake of obsidian in the palm of his left hand, he tapped it with an angular stone held in his right hand. "the other way was to heat the ice-rock in the fire, and then with a grass stem place a very small drop of water on the part to be chipped off." we had been out after flints, and finding none, had brought back the pieces of obsidian that we had placed at the foot of the tree. earlier in the morning, on visiting the snares, we had found a rabbit in each. they hung now in a tree near by, and it was good to see them there; the rabbit remaining from our first catch had been broiled for our breakfast. following my partner's example, i, too, tried to work a piece of the obsidian into an arrow-point. the result was that we spoiled much of the none too plentiful material. it would not chip where we wanted it to, and if we hit it too hard a blow it splintered. deciding now to try the fire-and-water method, we made for the purpose a pair of pincers of a green willow fork, and melted a handful of snow in a saucer-shaped fragment of rock. i was to do the heating of the obsidian and pitamakan was to do the flaking. he chose a piece about an inch and a half long, a quarter of an inch thick, and nearly triangular in shape. one edge was as sharp as a razor; the other two were almost square-faced. according to his directions, i took the fragment in the pincers by the sharp edge, so as to leave the rest free to be worked upon. gradually exposing it to the heat, i held it for a moment over some coals freshly raked from the fire, and then held it before him, while with the end of a pine needle he laid a tiny drop of water near the lower corner, about a quarter of an inch back from the squared edge. there was a faint hiss of steam, but no apparent change in the surface of the rock. we tried it again, dropping the water in the same place. _pip!_ a small scale half the size of the little finger nail snapped off and left a little trough in the square edge. we both gave cries of delight; it seemed that we had hit on the right way to do the work. a little more experimenting showed that the piece should be held slanting downward in the direction in which the flaking was to be done, for the cold water caused the rock to scale in the direction in which the drop ran. in the course of two hours the rough piece of obsidian was chipped down to a small arrow-point--one that pitamakan's grandfather would have scorned, no doubt, but a real treasure to us. we worked all that day making the points; when evening came we had five that were really serviceable. at sundown, the weather having cleared, we went to look at the rabbit-snares. as neither had been sprung, we moved them to a fresh place. this last storm had added a good deal to the depth of the snow; it was so much now above our knees that walking in it was hard work. we had now before us a task almost as difficult as making the points; that is, to find suitable material for our bows and arrows. we found none that evening, but the next morning, after visiting the snares and taking one rabbit, we stumbled on a clump of service-berry treelets, next to ash the favorite bow-wood of the blackfeet. back to the camp we went, got our "anvil" and hacking-stones, and cut two straight, limbless stems, between two and three inches in diameter. next we had a long hunt through the willows for straight arrow-shafts, found them, and got some coarse pieces of sandstone from the river to use as files. two days more were needed for making the bows and the arrow-shafts. the bows were worked down to the right size and shape only by the hardest kind of sandstone-rubbing, and by scraping and cutting with obsidian knives. but we did not dare to dry them quickly in the fire for fear of making the wood brittle, and they had not the strength of a really good weapon. we made a good job of the arrows, slitting the tips, inserting the points, and fastening them in place with rabbit-sinew wrappings. for the shafts, the grouse wings provided feathering, which was also fastened in place with the sinew. fortunately for us, the rabbit-snares kept us well supplied with meat, although we were growing tired of the diet. only one thing caused us anxiety now--the cords for our bows. we had to use for the purpose our moccasin strings, which were not only large and uneven, but weak. pitamakan spoke of cutting off a braid of his hair for a cord, but on the morning after the weapons were finished, he said that in the night his dream had warned him not to do this. that settled it. on this morning we went early to the snares and found a rabbit hanging in each. taking the nooses along with the game to camp, we slowly dried them before the fire, for they must now serve as bowstrings. after they were dry we tested one of them, and it broke. we knotted it together and twisted it with the other to make a cord for pitamakan's bow. that left me without one, and unable to string my bow until some large animal was killed that would furnish sinew for the purpose. i was by no means sure that the twisted and doubled cord was strong enough. "you'd better try it before we start out," i suggested. "no, we mustn't strain it any more than we can help," pitamakan replied; and with that he led off down the valley. although the sun shone brightly, this was the coldest day that we had yet had. had we not worn rabbit-skins, with fur side in, for socks, we could not have gone far from the fire. the trees were popping with frost, a sign that the temperature was close to zero. soon after leaving camp we struck a perfect network of game tracks, some of which afforded good walking--when they went our way. for there was no main trail parallel to the river, such as the buffalo and other game always made along the streams on the east side of the rockies. on the west side of course there were no buffalo, and probably never had been any; and to judge from the signs, the other animals wandered aimlessly in every direction. we went ahead slowly and noiselessly, for we hoped to see some of the game lying down, and to get a close shot before we were discovered. presently a covey of ruffed grouse, flying up out of the snow into the pines, afforded easy shots; but we dared not risk our arrows for fear of shattering the points against the solid wood. we determined thereafter always to carry a couple of blunt ones for bird shooting. soon after passing the grouse, i caught a glimpse of some black thing that bobbed through the snow into a balsam thicket. we went over there and came to the trail of a fisher, the largest member of the weasel family. as i had often seen the large, glossy black pelts of these animals brought into the fort by indians and company trappers, i was anxious to get a close view of one alive. i looked for it farther along in the snow; but pitamakan, who was gazing up into the trees, all at once grasped my arm and pointed at a small red-furred creature that, running to the end of a long bough, leaped into the next tree. "huh! only a squirrel!" i said. but i had barely spoken when, hot after it, jumped the fisher, the most beautiful, agile animal that i had ever seen. it was considerably larger than a house cat. we ran, or rather waddled, as fast as we could to the foot of the fir, barely in time to see the fisher spring into the next tree, still in pursuit of the squirrel. the latter, making a circle in the branches, leaped back into the tree over our heads. the fisher was gaining on it, and was only a few feet behind its prey when, seeing us, it instantly whipped round and went out of that tree into the one beyond, and from that to another, and another, until it was finally lost to sight. "oh, if we could only have got it!" i cried. "never mind, there are plenty of them here, and we'll get some before the winter is over," said my companion. although i had my doubts about that, i made no remark. pitamakan was promising lot of things that seemed impossible,--needles and thread, for instance. "let's go on," i said. "it is too cold for us to stand still." we came now to the red willow thicket where the bull moose had frightened us. there a barely perceptible trough in the new-fallen snow marked where he and his family had wandered round and retreated, quartering down the valley. "they are not far away, but i think we had better not hunt them until we have two bows," pitamakan remarked. just below the red willows we saw our first deer, a large, white-tail doe, walking toward the river, and stopping here and there to snip off tender tips of willow and birch. we stood motionless while she passed through the open timber and into a fir thicket. "she is going to lie down in there. come on," said pitamakan. he started toward the river and i followed, although i wondered why he didn't go straight to the deer trail. finally i asked him the reason, and right there i got a very important lesson in still-hunting. "all the animals of the forest lie down facing their back trail," he explained. "sometimes they do more than that; they make a circle, and coming round, lie down where they can watch their trail. if an enemy comes along on it, they lie close to the ground, ears flattened back, until he passes on; then they get up slowly and sneak quietly out of hearing, and then run far and fast. remember this: never follow a trail more than just enough to keep the direction the animal is traveling. keep looking ahead, and when you see a likely place for the animal to be lying, a rise of ground, a side hill, or a thicket, make a circle, and approach it from the further side. if the animal hasn't stopped, you will come to its trail; but if you find no trail, go ahead slowly, a step at a time." there was sound sense in what he told me, and i said so; but feeling that we were losing time, i added, "let's hurry on now." "it is because there is no hurry that i have explained this to you here," he replied. "this is a time for waiting instead of hurrying. you should always give the animal plenty of chance to lie down and get sleepy." the day was too cold, however, for longer waiting. we went on to the river, and were surprised to find that it was frozen over, except for long, narrow open places over the rapids. as there was no snow on the new-formed ice, walking on it was a great relief to our tired legs. a couple of hundred yards down stream we came to the fir thicket, and walked past it. since no fresh deer track was to be found coming from the place, we knew that the doe was somewhere in it. back we turned, and leaving the river, began to work our way in among the snow-laden trees, which stood so close together that we could see no more than twenty or thirty feet ahead. i kept well back from pitamakan, in order to give him every possible chance. it was an anxious moment. killing that deer meant supplying so many of our needs! we had sneaked into the thicket for perhaps fifty yards when, for all his care, pitamakan grazed with his shoulder a snow-laden branch of balsam, and down came the whole fluff of it. i saw the snow farther on burst up as if from the explosion of a bomb, and caught just a glimpse of the deer, whose tremendous leaps were raising the feathery cloud. it had only a few yards to go in the open; but pitamakan had seen it rise from its bed, and was quick enough to get a fair shot before it disappeared. "i hit it!" he cried. "i saw its tail drop! come on." that was a certain sign. when a deer of this variety is alarmed and runs, it invariably raises its short, white-haired tail, and keeps swaying it like the inverted pendulum of a clock; but if even slightly wounded by the hunter, it instantly claps its tail tight against its body and keeps it there. "here is blood!" pitamakan called out, pointing to some red spots on the snow. they were just a few scattering drops, but i consoled myself with thinking that an arrow does not let out blood like a rifle-ball because the shaft fills the wound. we soon came to the edge of the fir thicket. beyond, the woods were so open that we could see a long way in the direction of the deer's trail. we dropped to a walk, and went on a little less hopefully; the blood-droppings became more scattering, and soon not another red spot was to be seen--a bad sign. at last we found where the deer had ceased running, had stopped and turned round to look back. it had stood for some time, as was shown by the well-trodden snow. even here there was not one drop of blood, and worst of all, from this place the deer had gone on at its natural long stride. "it is useless for us to trail her farther," said pitamakan dolefully. "her wound is only a slight one; it smarts just enough to keep her traveling and watching that we don't get a chance for another shot." i felt bad enough, but pitamakan felt worse, because he thought that he should have made a better shot. "oh, never mind," i said, trying to cheer him. "there are plenty of deer close round here, and it is a long time until night. go ahead. we'll do better next time." "i am pretty tired," he complained. "perhaps we had better go to camp and start out rested to-morrow." i had not thought to take the lead and break trail a part of the time; of course he was tired. i proposed to do it now, and added that it would be a good plan to walk on the ice of the river and look carefully into the timber along the shores for meat of some kind. "you speak truth!" he exclaimed, his face brightening in a way that was good to see. "go ahead; let's get over there as quick as possible." in a few minutes we were back on the ice, where he took the lead again. and now for the first time since leaving camp--except for a few minutes after the shot at the deer--i felt sure that with so much game in the valley we should kill something. on the smooth, new ice, our moccasins were absolutely noiseless; we were bound to get a near shot. inside of half an hour we flushed several coveys of grouse, and saw an otter and two mink; but there were so many tracks of big game winding round on the shore and in and out of the timber that we paid no attention to the small fry. it was at the apex of a sharp point, where the river ran right at the roots of some big pines, that we saw something that sent a thrill of expectation through us; the snow on a willow suddenly tumbled, while the willow itself trembled as if something had hit it. we stopped and listened, but heard nothing. then nearer to us the snow fell from another bush; from another closer yet, and pitamakan made ready to shoot just as a big cow elk walked into plain view and stopped, broadside toward us, not fifty feet away. "oh, now it is meat, sure," i thought, and with one eye on the cow and the other on my companion, i waited breathlessly. for an instant pitamakan held the bow motionless, then suddenly drew back the cord with a mighty pull, whirled half round on the slippery ice and sat down, with the bow still held out in his left hand. from each end of it dangled a part of the cord! that was a terrible disappointment. such a fair chance to get a big fat animal lost, all because of that weak bowstring! the elk had lunged out of sight the instant pitamakan moved. he sat for a moment motionless on the ice, with bowed head, a picture of utter dejection. finally he gave a deep sigh, got up slowly and listlessly, and muttered that we had better go home. "wait! let's knot the cord together," i proposed. "that may have been the one weak place in it." he shook his head in a hopeless way and started upstream, but after a few steps halted, and said, "i have no hope, but we'll try it." the cord had been several inches longer than was necessary, and after the knot was made it was still long enough to string the bow. when it was in place again, pitamakan gave it a half pull, a harder one, then fitted an arrow and drew it slowly back; but before the head of the shaft was anywhere near the bow, _frip!_ went the cord, broken in a new place. we were done for unless we could get a new and serviceable cord! without a word pitamakan started on and i followed, my mind all a jumble of impossible plans. we followed the winding river homeward in preference to the shorter route through the deep snow. the afternoon was no more than half gone when we arrived at the little shelter, rebuilt the fire, and sat down to roast some rabbit meat. "we can't even get any more rabbits," i said. "there are so many knots in our strings that a slip-noose can't be made with them." "that is true, brother," said pitamakan, "so we have but one chance left. if there is a bear in that cave across the river we have got to kill him." "with clubs?" "yes, of course. i told you that my dream forbids the cutting of my hair, and so there is no way to make a bowstring." "come on! come on!" i said desperately. "let's go now and have it over." we ate our rabbit meat as quickly as possible, drank from the spring, and by the help of the indispensable "anvil" and our cutting-stones, we got us each a heavy, green birch club. then we hurried off to the river. although much snow had fallen since we had seen the black bear's tracks there, its trail was still traceable up through the timber toward the cave. chapter vi well, we took up the dim trail on the farther side of the river and followed it through the timber toward the cave at the foot of the cliff, but i, for my part, was not at all anxious to reach the end of it. midway up the slope i called to pitamakan to halt. "let's talk this over and plan just what we will do at the cave," i proposed. "i don't know what there is to plan," he answered, turning and facing me. "we walk up to the cave, stoop down, and shout, 'sticky-mouth, come out of there!' out he comes, terribly scared, and we stand on each side of the entrance with raised clubs, and whack him on the base of the nose as hard as we can. down he falls. we hit him a few more times, and he dies." "yes?" said i. "yes?" i was trying to remember all the bear stories that i had heard the company men and the indians tell, but i could call to mind no story of their attacking a bear with clubs. "yes? yes what? why did you stop? go on and finish what you started to say." "we may be running a big risk," i replied. "i have always heard that any animal will fight when it is cornered." "but we are not going to corner this bear. we stand on each side of the entrance; it comes out; there is the big wide slope and the thick forest before it, and plenty of room to run. we will be in great luck if, with the one blow that we each will have time for, we succeed in knocking it down. remember this: we have to hit it and hit hard with one swing of the club, for it will be going so fast that there will be no chance for a second blow." we went on. i felt somewhat reassured, and was now anxious to have the adventure over as soon as possible. all our future depended on getting the bear. i wondered whether, if we failed to stop the animal with our clubs, pitamakan would venture to defy his dream, cut off a braid of his hair, and make a bow-cord. passing the last of the trees, we began to climb the short, bare slope before the cave, when suddenly we made a discovery that was sickening. about twenty yards from the cave the trail we were following turned sharply to the left and went quartering back into the timber. we stared at it for a moment in silence. then pitamakan said, dully:-"here ends our bear hunt! he was afraid to go to his den because our scent was still there. he has gone far off to some other place that he knows." the outlook was certainly black. there was but one chance for us now, i thought, and that was for me to persuade this red brother of mine to disregard his dream and cut off some of his hair for a bow-cord. but turning round and idly looking the other way, i saw something that instantly drove this thought from my mind. it was a dim trail along the foot of the cliff to the right of the cave. i grabbed pitamakan by the arm, yanked him round, and silently pointed at it. his quick eyes instantly discovered it, and he grinned, and danced a couple of steps. "aha! that is why this one turned and went away!" he exclaimed. "another bear was there already, had stolen his home and bed, and he was afraid to fight for them. come on! come on!" we went but a few steps, however, before he stopped short and stood in deep thought. finally he turned and looked at me queerly, as if i were a stranger and he were trying to learn by my appearance what manner of boy i was. it is not pleasant to be stared at in that way. i stood it as long as i could, and then asked, perhaps a little impatiently, why he did so. the answer i got was unexpected:-"i am thinking that the bear there in the cave may be a grizzly. how is it? shall we go on and take the chances, or turn back to camp? if you are afraid, there is no use of our trying to do anything up there." of course i was afraid, but i was also desperate; and i felt, too, that i must be just as brave as my partner. "go on!" i said, and my voice sounded strangely hollow to me. "go on! i will be right with you." we climbed the remainder of the slope and stood before the cave. its low entrance was buried in snow, all except a narrow space in the centre, through which the bear had ploughed its way in, and which, since its passing, had partly filled. the trail was so old that we could not determine whether a black or a grizzly bear had made it. but of one thing there could be no doubt: the animal was right there in the dark hole, only a few feet from us, as was shown by the faint wisps of congealed breath floating out of it into the cold air. pitamakan, silently stationing me on the right of the entrance, took his place at the left side, and motioning me to raise my club, shouted, "_pahk-si-kwo-yi, sak-sit!_" (sticky-mouth, come out!) nothing came; nor could we hear any movement, any stir of the leaves inside. again he shouted; and again and again, without result. then, motioning me to follow, he went down the slope. "we'll have to get a pole and jab him," he said, when we came to the timber. "look round for a good one." we soon found a slender dead pine, snapped it at the base where it had rotted, and knocked off the few scrawny limbs. it was fully twenty feet long, and very light. "now i am the stronger," said pitamakan, as we went back, "so do you handle the pole, and i will stand ready to hit a big blow with my club. you keep your club in your right hand, and work the pole into the cave with your left. in that way maybe you will have time to strike, too." when we came to the cave, i found that his plan would not work. i could not force the pole through the pile of snow at the entrance with one hand, so standing the club where i could quickly reach it, i used both hands. at every thrust the pole went in deeper, and in the excitement of the moment i drove it harder and harder, with the result that it unexpectedly went clear through the obstructing snow and on, and i fell headlong. at the instant i went down something struck the far end of the pole such a rap that i could feel the jar of it clear back through the snow, and a muffled, raucous, angry yowl set all my strained nerves a-quiver. as i was gathering myself to rise, the dreadful yowl was repeated right over my head, and down the bear came on me, clawing and squirming. its sharp nails cut right into my legs. i squirmed as best i could under its weight, and no doubt went through the motions of yelling; but my face was buried in the snow, and for the moment i could make no sound. although i was sure that a grizzly was upon me and that my time had come, i continued to wiggle, and to my great surprise, i suddenly slipped free from the weight, rose up, and toppled over backward, catching, as i went, just a glimpse of pitamakan fiercely striking a blow with his club. i was on my feet in no time, and what i saw caused me to yell with delight as i sprang for my club. the bear was kicking and writhing in the snow, and my partner was showering blows on its head. i delivered a blow or two myself before it ceased to struggle. then i saw that it was not a grizzly, but a black bear of no great size. had it been a grizzly, i certainly, and probably pitamakan, too, would have been killed right there. it was some little time before we could settle down to the work in hand. pitamakan had to describe how he had stood ready, and hit the bear a terrific blow on the nose as it came leaping out, and how he had followed it up with more blows as fast as he could swing his club. then i tried to tell how i had felt, crushed under the bear and expecting every instant to be bitten and clawed to death. but words failed me, and, moreover, a stinging sensation in my legs demanded my attention; there were several gashes in them from which blood was trickling, and my trousers were badly ripped. i rubbed the wounds a bit with snow, and found that they were not so serious as they looked. [illustration: pitamakan fiercely striking a blow] the bear, a male, was very fat, and was quite too heavy for us to carry; probably it weighed two hundred pounds. but we could drag it, and taking hold of its fore paws, we started home. it was easy to pull it down the slope and across the ice, but from there to camp, across the level valley, dragging it was very hard work. night had fallen when we arrived, and cold as the air was, we were covered with perspiration. luckily, we had a good supply of wood on hand. pitamakan, opening the ash-heap, raked out a mass of live coals and started a good fire. then we rested and broiled some rabbit meat before attacking the bear. never were there two happier boys than we, as we sat before our fire in that great wilderness, munched our insipid rabbit meat and gloated over our prize. the prehistoric people no doubt considered obsidian knives most excellent tools; but to us, who were accustomed only to sharp steel, they seemed anything but excellent; they severely tried our muscles, our patience, and our temper. they proved, however, to be not such bad flaying instruments. still, we were a long time ripping the bear's skin from the tip of the jaw down along the belly to the tail, and from the tail down the inside of the legs to and round the base of the feet. there were fully two inches of fat on the carcass, and when we finally got the hide off, we looked as if we had actually wallowed in it. by that time, according to the big dipper, it was past midnight, but pitamakan would not rest until he had the back sinews safe out of the carcass and drying before the fire for early use. it is commonly believed that the indians used the leg tendons of animals for bow-cords, thread, and wrappings, but this is a mistake; the only ones they took were the back sinews. these lie like ribbons on the outside of the flesh along the backbone, and vary in length and thickness according to the size of the animal. those of a buffalo bull, for instance, are nearly three feet long, three or four inches wide, and a quarter of an inch thick. when dry, they are easily shredded into thread of any desired size. those that we now took from the bear were not two feet long, but were more than sufficient for a couple of bow-cords. as soon as we had them free, we pressed them against a smooth length of dry wood, where they stuck; and laying this well back from the fire, we began our intermittent night's sleep, for, as i have said, we had to get up frequently to replenish the fire. the next morning, expecting to have a fine feast, i broiled some of the bear meat over the coals, but it was so rank that one mouthful was more than enough; so i helped pitamakan finish the last of the rabbit meat. he would have starved rather than eat the meat of a bear, for to the blackfeet the bear is "medicine," a sacred animal, near kin to man, and therefore not to be used for food. killing a grizzly was considered as great a feat as killing a sioux, or other enemy. but the successful hunter took no part of the animal except the claws, unless he were a medicine-man. the medicine-man, with many prayers and sacrifices to the gods, would occasionally take a strip of the fur to wrap round the roll containing his sacred pipe. pitamakan himself was somewhat averse to our making any use of the black bear's hide, but when i offered to do all the work of scraping off the fat meat and of drying it, he consented to sleep on it once with me, as an experiment, and if his dreams were good, to continue to use it. i went at my task with good will, and was half the morning getting the hide clean and in shape to stretch and dry. pitamakan meanwhile made two bow-cords of the bear sinew. first he raveled them into a mass of fine threads, and then hand-spun them into a twisted cord of the desired length; and he made a very good job of it, too. when he had stretched the cords to dry before the fire, he sharpened a twig of dry birch for an awl, and with the rest of the sinew, repaired our badly ripped moccasins. at noon we started out to hunt, and on the way dragged the bear carcass back to the river and across it into the big timber, where later on we hoped to use it for bait. this day we went up the river, walking noiselessly on the ice. from the start we felt confident of success; for not only were our bow-cords as good as we could desire, but the bows were now in fine condition, having dried out and become more stiff, yet springy. since, during the latter part of the night, more snow had fallen, we could distinguish fresh game tracks from old ones. and now that there was snow on the ice, we naturally expected to see where the hoofed game had been crossing the river; they seldom venture out on smooth ice, from fear of slipping and injuring themselves. the first game we saw were a number of ruffed grouse standing in a row at the edge of a strip of open water, to take their daily drink. they walked away into the willows at our approach, and from there flew into the firs, where we knocked down four of them with our blunt-headed bird arrows. i got only one, for of course i was not so good a marksman with bow and arrow as my partner, who had used the weapon more or less since he was old enough to walk. burying the grouse in the snow at the edge of the shore, we went on, and presently came to the place where several elk had crossed to the north side of the river, browsed among a bordering patch of red willows, and then gone into the thick firs. we followed them, not nearly so excited now that we had trustworthy weapons as we had been on the previous hunt. when we came near the firs, which covered several acres of the bend in the river, pitamakan sent me round to enter the farther side and come through the patch toward him, while he took his stand close to the place where the band had entered. "you needn't come back carefully," he said to me. "make all the noise you can--the more the better; then they will come running out here on their back trail, and i'll get some good shots. you'd better give me one of your real arrows, for you will probably not get a chance even for one shot at them." that left me with only one arrow with an obsidian point, but nevertheless i determined to do my best to get an elk. as pitamakan had remarked about himself, i, too, felt the sun power strong within me that morning and looked for success. with that feeling, call it what you will,--all old hunters will understand what i mean,--i was not at all surprised, a short time after entering the firs, to see, as i was sneaking along through them, a big bull elk astride a willow bush that he had borne down in order to nip the tender tips. he was not fifty feet from me, and no doubt thought that the slight noise which he heard was made by one of his band. he could not see me at first, because of a screen of fir branches between us, and he had not looked up when i made the final step that brought me into the open. but when i raised the bow, he jerked his head sidewise and gathered himself for a jump. he was not so quick as i. the strength of a giant seemed to swell in my arms; i drew the arrow sliding back across the bow almost to the head with a lightning-like pull, and let it go, _zip!_ deep into his side through the small ribs. away he went, and i after him, yelling at the top of my voice to scare the herd toward pitamakan, if possible. i saw several of them bounding away through the firs, but my eyes were all for the red trail of the bull. and presently i came to the great animal, stretched across a snow-covered log and breathing its last; for the arrow had pierced its lungs. "_wo-ke-haã­! ni-kaã­-nit-ab is-stum-ik!_" (come on! i have killed a bull!) i yelled. and from the far side of the firs came the answer: "_nis-toab ni-mut-uk-stan!_" (i have also killed!) that was great news. although it was hard for me to leave my big bull even for a moment, i went to pitamakan, and found that he had killed a fine big cow. he had used three arrows, and had finally dropped her at the edge of the river. we were so much pleased and excited over our success that it was some time before we could cease telling how it all happened and settle down to work. we had several fresh obsidian flakes, but as the edges soon grew dull, we were all the rest of the day in getting the hides off the animals and going to camp with the meat of the cow. the meat of my bull was too poor to use, but his skin, sinews, brains, and liver were of the greatest value to us, as will be explained. "there is so much for us to do that it is hard to decide what to do first," said pitamakan that night. it was long after dark, and we had just gathered the last of a pile of firewood and sat ourselves down before the cheerful blaze. "the first thing is to cook a couple of grouse, some elk liver, and hang a side of elk ribs over the fire to roast for later eating," i said, and began preparing the great feast. after our long diet of rabbits, it was a feast. we finished the birds and the liver, and then sat waiting patiently for the fat ribs to roast to a crisp brown as they swung on a tripod over the fire. i was now so accustomed to eating meat without salt that i no longer craved the mineral, and of course my companion never thought of it. in those days the blackfeet used none; their very name for it, _is-tsik-si-pok-wi_ (like fire tastes), proved their dislike of the condiment. "well, let us now decide what we shall do first," pitamakan again proposed. "we need new moccasins, new leggings and snowshoes. moreover, we need a comfortable lodge. which shall be first?" "the lodge," i answered, without hesitation. "but how can we make one? what material can we get for one unless we kill twenty elk and tan the skins? that would take a long time." "this is a different kind of lodge," he explained. "when you came up the big river you saw the lodges of the earth people? yes. well, we will build one like theirs." on the voyage up the missouri with my uncle i had not only seen the lodges of the earth people (sak-wi tup-pi), as the blackfeet called the mandans, but i had been inside several of them, and noted how warm and comfortable they were. their construction was merely a matter of posts, poles, and earth. we agreed to begin one in the morning, and do no hunting until it was done. the site that we chose for the lodge was a mile below camp and close to the river, where two or three years before a fire, sweeping through a growth of "lodge-pole" pines, had killed thousands of the young, slender trees. in a grove of heavy firs close by we began the work, and as every one should know how to build a comfortable house without the aid of tools and nails, i will give some details of the construction. in place of the four heavy corner posts which the mandans cut, we used four low-crotched trees that stood about twenty feet apart in the form of a square. in the crotches on two sides of the square we laid as heavy a pole as we could carry, and bolstered up the centre with a pile of flat rocks, to keep it from sagging. on the joists, as these may be called, we laid lighter poles side by side, to form the roof. in the centre we left a space about four feet wide, the ends of which we covered with shorter poles, until we reduced it to a hole four feet square. the next task was to get the poles for the sides. these we made of the proper length by first denting them with sharp-edged stones and then snapping them off. they were slanted all round against the four sides, except for a narrow space in the south side, which we left for a doorway. next we thatched the roof and sides with a thick layer of balsam boughs, on top of which we laid a covering of earth nearly a foot deep. this earth we shoveled into an elk hide with elk shoulder blades, and then carried each load to its proper place. lastly, we constructed in the same manner a passageway six or eight feet long to the door. all this took us several days to accomplish, and was hard work. but when we had laid a ring of heavy stones directly under the square opening in the roof for a fireplace, made a thick bed of balsam boughs, and covered it with the bearskin, put up an elkskin for a door, and sat us down before a cheerful fire, we had a snug, warm house, and were vastly proud of it. "now for some adventure," said pitamakan, as we sat eating our first meal in the new house. "what say you we had best do?" "make some moccasins and snowshoes," i replied. "we can do that at night. let us----" the sentence was never finished. a terrible booming roar, seemingly right overhead, broke upon our ears. pitamakan's brown face turned an ashy gray as he sprang up, crying: "run! run! run!" chapter vii out into the snow we ran, while nearer and nearer sounded that terrific roaring and rumbling; it was as if the round world was being rent asunder. pitamakan led the way straight back from the river toward the south side of the valley, and we had run probably two hundred yards before the noise ceased as suddenly as it had begun. we were quite out of breath, and it was some time before i could ask what had happened. "why, don't you know?" he said. "that was a great piece of the ice cliff on the mountain across there. it broke off and came tearing down into the valley. trees, boulders, everything in its way were smashed and carried down. i thought that it was going to bury our lodge." pitamakan wanted to make an early start in the morning to view the path of the avalanche, but i insisted that we stay at home and work hard until the things that we needed so much were finished. i had my way. ever since the day of the elk killing, we had kept one of the big hides in the river in order to loosen the hair. in the morning we brought it into the lodge, and laying it over a smooth, hard piece of driftwood, grained it with a heavy elk rib for a graining-knife. it was very hard work. although we sharpened an edge of the rib with a piece of sandstone and kept it as sharp as possible, we had to bear down on it with all our strength, pushing it an inch or two at a time in order to separate the hair from the skin. taking turns, we were half a day in finishing the job. we cut the hide into two parts. of these, we dried one, and cut the other into webbing-strings for snowshoes--tedious work with our obsidian knives. as soon as the half hide was dry, i rubbed elk brains and liver well into it, and then, rolling it up, laid it away for a couple of days until the mixture could neutralize the large amount of glue that is in all hides. after that operation, i spent half a day in washing the hide and then rubbing and stretching it as it dried. i had then a very good piece of elk leather,--so-called "buckskin,"--enough for four pairs of moccasins. these pitamakan and i made very large, so that they would go over the rabbit-skins with which we wrapped our feet as a protection from the cold. our needle for sewing them was a sharp awl made from a piece of an elk's leg bone; the thread was of elk sinew. _o-wam_ (shape of eggs) is the blackfoot name for snowshoes. those that we made were neither shaped like an egg nor like anything else. the bows were of birch, and no two were alike, and the webbing was woven on them in a way to make a forest indian laugh. neither pitamakan's people nor the other tribes of the plains knew anything about snowshoes except in a general way, and i had never seen a pair. all things considered, however, we did a fairly good job. if the shoes were heavy and clumsy, at least they were serviceable, for they sank only a few inches in the snow when we tested them. the evening we finished this work another snowstorm came on, which lasted two nights and a day, and forced us to postpone our hunt. we employed the time in improving the interior of the lodge by building a heavier stone platform for the fire, one that would give off considerable heat after we went to sleep. in order to create a draft for the fire, we were forced to admit some air through the doorway, and this chilled us. finally, i remembered that i had seen in the mandan lodges screens several feet high, put between the doorway and the fire, in order to force the cold air upward. we made one at once of poles, backed with earth, and then, building a small fire, sat down on our bed to see how it worked; no more cold air swept across the floor, and we were absolutely comfortable. but in the night, although the stones gave out some heat, we were obliged to replenish the fire as soon as it died down. what we needed in order to have unbroken sleep was bedding. pitamakan said that one animal here, the white mountain goat, had a warmer, thicker coat of fur than the buffalo. we determined to get some of the hides and tan them into soft robes. the morning after the storm broke clear and cold, but my partner refused to go up into the high mountains after goats. "we must put it off and do something else to-day," he said. "i had a very bad dream last night--a confused dream of a bear and a goat, one biting and clawing me, and the other sticking its sharp horns into my side. now either that is a warning not to hunt goats to-day, or it is a sign that the bearskin that we are sleeping on is bad medicine. this is not the first bad dream that i have had since lying on it." "my dreams have all been good since we began sleeping on it," i said. "then use it by yourself; i shall not sleep on it again." "oh, dreams don't mean anything!" i exclaimed. "white people pay no attention to them." "that is because your gods give you different medicine from that our gods give us," he said, very seriously. "to us is given the dream; in that way our gods show us the things we may and may not do. do not speak lightly of it, lest you bring harm to me." i had sense enough to heed his wish; never afterward, either by word or look, did i cast even a shadow of doubt upon his beliefs. for that reason, largely, we got along together in perfect harmony, as all companions should. as there was in his dream nothing about other animals, we put on our snowshoes and started out to hunt and set traps in the valley. at odd moments we had been making triggers of different sizes for deadfalls, and now had fifteen ready to use. they were of the "figure 4" pattern; more complicated than the two-piece triggers, but more sure of action. having with the small ones set deadfalls for marten, fisher, and mink, we went on up the river to the carcasses of the bear and the bull elk. we found that both had been almost entirely eaten by wolverenes, lynxes, and mountain lions. having built at each of these places a large deadfall, we weighted the drop-bars so heavily with old logs that there could be no escape for the largest prowler once he seized the bait. by the time we had the last of the triggers baited and set up and the little pen built behind the drop-bar, night was coming on, and we hurried home. we had seen many tracks of deer, elk, and moose, but had been too busy to hunt any of them. as we neared the lodge, another snowstorm set in, but that did not disturb us; in fact, the more snow the better, for with deep snow the hoofed game of the valley would be unable to escape us. we could choose the fat does and cows for our winter's meat. the bucks and bulls were already poor, and the others would lose flesh rapidly once they were obliged to "yard," that is, to confine themselves to their hard-beaten trails in the limited area of a willow patch. it was a heavy snow that fell in the night, and the next morning snowshoeing was good. as pitamakan had had no bad dreams, and the sun was shining in a clear sky, we started out for a goat hunt. after climbing the mountain-side opposite the lodge for some time, we came to a series of ledges, whence we obtained a fine view of the country which we were living in. the mountain which we were on was high and very steep. not far below its summit was the big ice field, terminating at the edge of a cliff, from which a great mass had tumbled, and started the avalanche that had frightened us. turning to the east and pointing to the backbone of the range, pitamakan told me to notice how absolutely white it all was except the perpendicular cliffs, where snow could not lie. there was no question but that the snow was a great deal deeper up there than where we were. i thought that there was a longing in pitamakan's eyes as he gazed at the tremendous wall of rock and snow that separated us from the plains and from our people, but as he said nothing, i kept quiet. for myself, i felt that i would give anything, suffer any hardships, if i could only get once more to fort benton and my uncle. true, we now had a comfortable lodge and plenty of elk meat, weapons for killing game, snowshoes for traveling, and the outlook for more comforts was favorable. but for all that, the future was very uncertain; there were many things that might prevent our ever reaching the missouri; all nature was arrayed against us, and so was man himself. pitamakan roused me from my reverie by a tap on the shoulder. "i can see no goat signs here above us," he said, "but look over there at the ledges well up on the next mountain to the east. do you see the fresh trails?" i did. in the smooth, glittering snow they were startlingly distinct in their windings and turnings from clump to clump of the pines on the rocky ledges. none of the animals that made them were in sight, but that was not strange; as they were of practically the same color as the snow, we could not see them at that distance except when they happened to get in front of the dark pines or rock. although the distance over there was not more than a mile in a straight line, a cut gorge between the two mountains obliged us to return to the river before making the ascent, which more than doubled the distance. after striking the river, we followed it up past the mouth of the gorge, past three of the deadfalls set near the shore. the first one held a fine, large, dark-furred marten, its body nipped across the shoulders and crushed by the drop-bar. taking the little victim out, and hanging it in a tree, we reset the trap. the next deadfall was unsprung. the third, one of the big falls, was down, and we hurried as fast as we could to see what it held. "a lynx," i ventured. "a wolverene," pitamakan guessed. we were both wrong. pinned down by the neck was a big mountain lion, to us the most valuable of all the animals of the forest. the blackfeet, as well as the crows and gros ventres, prized the skins very highly for use as saddle-robes--we could get at least four horses for this one. taking such a prize made us feel rich. leaving it in the fall until our return, we turned off from the river and began the ascent of the mountain in high spirits. for a time the going was good, although increasingly difficult. after we had passed through the big timber, the mountain became more and more steep, until it was impossible for us to go farther on snowshoes. taking them off, we wallowed up through the deep snow from ledge to ledge, keeping away from the clumps of stunted pine as much as possible, for in them the snow lay deepest and was most fluffy. the weather was bitterly cold, but we were warm enough, even perspiring from our exertions. much as we needed to stop and rest at frequent intervals, it was impossible to do so, for the instant we halted we began to shiver. more than once we were on the point of giving up the hunt, but each time the thought of what a few goat hides meant to us strengthened our legs to further endeavor. i never envied a bird more than i did one that i saw that day. a clark's crow it was, raucous of voice and insolent, that kept flying a short distance ahead of us and lighting on the pines, where it pretended to pick kernels out of the big cones. if we could only fly like that, i kept thinking, within a moment's time we could be right on the goats. strange as it may seem, there was more bird life on that bleak, cold height than in the forest below. one variety of small, sweet singers, flying all round us in large flocks, was especially numerous. i wondered what they could be. long years afterward an ornithologist told me that they were gray-crowned finches--arctic birds that love the winter cold and are happiest in a snowdrift. we saw, too, many chattering flocks of bohemian waxwings, also visitors from the arctic regions. most interesting of all were the ptarmigan, small, snow-white grouse with jet-black eyes, bill, and toes. never descending to the valleys, either for food or shelter, they live on the high, bare mountains the year round. they are heavily feathered clear to the toes, so that their feet cannot freeze; and at night, and by day, too, in severe weather, instead of roosting in the dwarf pines they plunge down into soft snow, tunnel under the surface for several feet, and then tramp a chamber large enough to sit in. these birds were very tame, and often allowed us to get within fifteen or twenty feet of them before flying or running away. some were saucy and made a great fuss at our approach, cocking up their tails and cackling, and even making a feint of charging us. at last we came walking out on a ledge that ended at the side of a big gouge in the mountain, and on the far verge of it saw a goat, a big old fellow, sitting at the edge of a small cliff. it was sitting down on its haunches, just as a dog does. should you see a cow, a sheep, or any herbivorous animal do that, you would think his position extremely ludicrous. in the case of the goat, because of its strange and uncouth shape, it is more than ludicrous; it is weird. the animal has a long, broad-nosed head, set apparently right against its shoulders; a long, flowing beard hangs from its chin; its withers are extremely high, and its hams low, like those of the buffalo. its abnormally long hair flutters round its knees like a pair of embroidered pantalets, and rises eight or ten inches in length above the shoulders. the tail is short, and so heavily haired that it looks like a thick club. its round, scimitar-shaped black horns rise in a backward curve from the thick, fuzzy coat, and seem very small for the big, deep-chested animal. the goat was almost as new to pitamakan as to me. "what is the matter with it?" he exclaimed. "do you think it is sick, or hurt?" "he looks as if he felt very sad," i replied. and truly the animal did look very dejected, its head sunk on its brisket, its black eyes staring vacantly at the valley far below, as if it were burdened with all the pains and sorrows of the ages. we were so interested in watching it that at first we did not see the others, thirteen in all, scattered close round on the little ledges above him. some were standing, others lying down. one big old "billy" lay under a low-branched dwarf pine, and now and then would raise its head, bite off a mouthful of the long, coarse needles, and deliberately chew them. we had come out in plain view of the band, and now wondered that they had not seen us and run away. "let's back up step by step until we are in the shelter of the pines back there, then look out a way to get to them," pitamakan proposed. on starting to do so, we found that the goats had seen us all the time. two or three of them turned their heads and stared at us with apparent curiosity; the old billy at the edge of the cliff gave us one vacant stare, and resumed his brooding; the others paid no attention to our movements. unquestionably they had never seen man before, and did not consider us enemies because we were not four-legged, like the beasts that preyed upon them. so instead of backing cautiously, we turned and walked into the little clump of pines, and beyond them to a deep gutter, where we began the difficult task of stalking the animals. we had to climb for several hundred yards to a broad ledge, follow it for perhaps twice that distance, and then work our way, as best we could, straight down to the goats. that was a terrible climb. as the angle of the mountain was such that the climb would have been difficult on bare rock, you can imagine how hard it was to go up in the deep snow. using our snowshoes for shovels and taking the lead in turn, we fought our way through, upward, inch by inch. more than once a mass of snow gave way above our gouging, and swept us down a few feet or a few yards. once pitamakan was buried so deep in it that i was obliged to dig him out; he was gasping for breath by the time i uncovered his head. on the ledge the going was so level that we wore our snowshoes a part of the way across, and then, wading to a point directly above the goats, we began the descent. that was easy. straight ahead of us the mountain dropped in a series of little shelves, or cliffs, down which we could easily climb. stopping when we thought we were near to the goats, we strung our bows and fitted arrows to them. as i was a poor shot, i took but one arrow, to be used only in an emergency. pitamakan carried the other four. in a few moments we struck a deep and well-packed goat trail that meandered along a shelf thirty, and in places fifty feet wide. here and there were clumps of dwarf pine and juniper that prevented our seeing very far ahead, and pitamakan gave me the sign to look sharp for the game. a moment later, as we followed the trail round some pines, we came face to face with a big billy-goat. the instant that he saw us he bristled up his hair and came for us. did you ever see a wild pig prance out for a fight? well, that is the way that goat came at us--head down and prancing sidewise. i don't know whether we were more surprised or scared; probably scared. the sight of those round, sharp black horns made our flesh creep; indeed, the whole aspect of the uncouth animal was terrifying. coming at us head on, there was little chance for an arrow to do any damage to him. "run out that way!" pitamakan cried, as he gave me a push. "i'll go this way!" there was not any running about it; we waddled to one side and the other from the caã±on-like trail out into the deep snow, and it was remarkable what progress we made. as i said, the goat came prancing toward us, not jumping full speed, as he might have done, so that we had plenty of time to get out of the trail. when he came opposite he seemed undecided what to do next. we did not give him time to make up his mind. pitamakan let fly an arrow, while i stood ready to shoot if need be. but pitamakan's shaft sped true; the old billy flinched and humped himself, threw up his head with a pitiful, silly expression of surprise, and dropped in his tracks. we waded back into the trail and examined our prize; such heavy, thick, long hair and fleece i had never seen on any other animal. at the base of the sharp horns were black, warty, rubber-like excrescences. "smell them!" pitamakan bade me, and i did. they gave off an exceedingly rank odor of musk. pitamakan now pulled out the arrow; it had evidently pierced the heart. he proposed that we go after the band and kill as many as possible; we needed at least four large, or six small skins for a good bed-robe. "well, come on, lead the way," i said. he held up his hand, and i could see his eyes grow big as if from fear. "what is it?" i asked. he did not answer, but stood anxiously looking this way and that, and soon i, too, heard the faint, remote droning noise that had alarmed him. we looked at the mountain above us, and at others near and far, but there was nowhere any sign of an avalanche. the droning noise became louder and deeper, filling us with dread all the more poignant because it was impossible to determine the cause. "the old medicine-men told the truth!" said pitamakan. "these mountains are no place for the blackfeet. the gods that dwell here are not our gods, and they do strange and cruel things to us plains people when they get the chance." i had nothing to say. we listened; the droning grew louder; it seemed all about us, and yet we could see nothing unusual. "come on! let's get away from here!" pitamakan cried. chapter viii "where shall we go?" i asked. "this noise seems to come from everywhere and nowhere." i looked up at the top of the mountain which we were on, and saw a long streak of snow extending eastward from it like an immense pennant. "look! it is nothing but the wind that is making that noise!" i exclaimed. "see how it is driving the snow up there!" "yes," pitamakan agreed. "but listen. the sound of its blowing does not come from there any more than from elsewhere. it comes from every direction up there in the blue." we could now see snow flying from the tops of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley. in a few moments the whole summit of the range was lost in a vast haze of drifting, flying snow. but where we were there was only a gentle breeze from the west, which did not increase in force. i remembered now that in winter, when fierce northwest winds blew across the plains, the summit of the rockies was always hidden by grayish-white clouds. it was a strange sensation to hear the drone of a terrific wind and not feel it, and i said so. "everything is strange in this country," my partner said, dully. "here wind-maker lives; and many another of the mountain and forest gods. we have to make strong medicine, brother, to escape them." this was the first of the terrific winter winds that blow across the northwest plains. many a time thereafter we heard the strange roaring sound that seemed to come from nowhere in particular; but down in the valley, and even high up on the sides of the mountains, near the lodge, there was never more than a gentle breeze. pitamakan was always depressed when we heard the strange roaring, and it made me feel nervous and apprehensive of i knew not what. we waded and slid and fell down to the next ledge, and there, working our way to the edge, we saw some of the goats right beneath us. there were seven of them,--old "nannies," two kids, and "billies" one and two years old,--all in a close bunch not more than twenty feet below us. instead of running, they stood and stared up at us vacuously, while their concave faces seemed to heighten their expression of stupid wonder. pitamakan shot one of the nannies. at the same time i drew my bow on one of the goats, but on second thought eased it, for i might waste a precious arrow. i had to use all my will power in denying myself that chance to add another animal to my list of trophies. pitamakan was not wasting any time: _zip! zip! zip!_ he sped his remaining arrows, reached out for one of mine, and shot it just as an old nannie, awaking to the fact that something was wrong with her kindred, started off to the left at a lumbering gallop, more ungainly and racking than that of a steer. here was success, indeed! i was so excited that i went aimlessly from one to another of the goats, feeling of their heavy coats and smooth, sharp horns. having dressed the animals, we dragged them from the ledges out on the steep slide, where we fastened them one to another in a novel way. making a slit down the lower joint of a hind leg, we thrust a fore leg of the next animal through it,--between tendon and bone,--then slit the fore leg in the same manner, and stuck a stick in it so that it could not slip out. we soon had all five animals fastened in line, and then taking the first one by the horns, we started down. the deep snow was now a help instead of a hindrance; for it kept our tow of game from sliding too fast down the tremendously steep incline. knowing that we were likely to start an avalanche, we kept as close to the edge of the timber as we could. even so, i had the feeling which a man has while walking on thin ice over deep water. i tried to push cautiously through the snow, and looked back anxiously whenever the game in a particularly steep place came sliding down on us by the mere pull of its own weight. pitamakan was less apprehensive. "if a slide starts, we can probably get out of it by making a rush for the timber," he said. "anyhow, what is to be will be, so don't worry." we came safe to the foot of the slide, but had time to skin only one goat before dark; it was slow work with our obsidian knives. as we could not safely leave the others unprotected from the prowlers during the night, we laid them side by side on a heap of balsam boughs, where the air could circulate all round them, and pitamakan hung his capote on a stick right over them, in order that the sight and odor of it might prevent any wandering lion, lynx, or wolverene from robbing us. to go without his capote in such cold weather was certainly a sacrifice on pitamakan's part. if i am asked why we took pains to lay the game on boughs, the answer is that, although any one would think that snow would be a natural refrigerator, the opposite is the case, for freshly killed animals will spoil in a few hours if they are buried in it. to keep from freezing, pitamakan hurried on to camp, while i followed slowly with the goatskin and head. there was not time to take the lion or marten from the deadfalls. when i got to the lodge, pitamakan had a fire burning and the last of the cow elk ribs roasting over it. we were wet to the skin, of course, but that did not matter. off came our few garments, to be hung a short time over the fire and then put on again. how cheerful and restful it was to stretch out on our balsam beds and enjoy the heat after the long day's battle with snow and precipitous mountain-sides! the next day, and for many days thereafter, we had much work to keep us busy. we skinned the goats, tanned the hides into soft robes, and sewed them together in the form of a big bag, with the fur side in. the night on which we crawled into it for the first time was a great occasion. on that night, for the very first time since leaving the blackfoot camp, we slept perfectly warm and without waking with shivers to rebuild the fire. the deadfalls also took a great deal of our time. every night some of them were sprung, and we found from one to three or four valuable fur animals under the drop-bars. it was a tedious job to skin them and properly stretch the pelts to dry, but for all that, we loved the work and were proud of the result. here and there in the lodge a few marten, fisher, wolverene, and lynx skins were always drying, and in a corner the pile of cured peltries was steadily growing. three of them were of mountain lions. during this time much more snow fell; it was fully six feet deep in the woods when the last of the elk hams was broiled and eaten. for a day or two we subsisted on goat meat, although the best of it had a slight musky odor and flavor. as pitamakan said, it was not real food. as our bows were not nearly so strong as they looked, my partner was always wishing for glue, so that we might back them with sinew. there was material enough for glue, but there was nothing to make it in. "the mandans made pots of earth," i said to him one day. "perhaps we can make one that will stand fire and water." out we went along the river to look for clay. at the first cut-bank that we came to i gouged off the snow that thinly coated its perpendicular side, and lo! there was a layer of clay six inches thick between two layers of gravel. we broke out several large flat chunks of the stuff,--it was frozen, of course,--and carried it to the lodge. there, breaking it into fine pieces and thawing it, we added a small amount of water, and worked it into a stiff paste of the right consistency, as we thought, for moulding. pitamakan, always artistic, fashioned a thin bowl like those that he had seen in the mandan village, while i made mine an inch thick, with a capacity of not more than two quarts. when we baked them in the coals, mine cracked, and pitamakan's fell to pieces. that was discouraging; evidently the clay was not of the right consistency. i worked up another portion of clay with less water, while my partner added even more water than before to his batch. we each soon had a bowl fashioned and put to bake. in a few minutes the one which pitamakan had made fell to pieces, but mine, which was thick and clumsy in shape, seemed to stand the heat well. i gradually increased the fire round it, and after keeping the blaze up for a long time, i allowed the fire at last to die out gradually. the bowl turned out fairly well; for although it had one crack in the side, it was dark red in color, and gave a substantial ring when we tapped it with a stick. however, we took no chances of a mishap by moving it. we plastered the crack with fresh clay, and then, putting into it nearly a quart of water, an elk hoof and a couple of goat hoofs, we rebuilt the fire just close enough to make the mixture simmer, and adding more water from time to time during the day, patiently awaited results. "_ai-y!_ it is real glue!" pitamakan exclaimed that evening, after dipping a stick in the mess and testing it with his fingers. we were quite excited and proud of our success. softening the four elk sinews in the hot glue, pitamakan then plastered a pair of them on each bow. the place where the ends overlapped at the centre, he bound with a sinew wrapping. of course the bows were unstrung when the backing was put on, and as soon as the work was done, we laid them away from the fire, that they might dry slowly. in the morning, the first thing, after crawling out of our fur nest, we strung and tested them, and found that the backing had more than doubled their strength and elasticity. now we were ready to hunt our winter meat, and after a hurried breakfast of musky goat steak, we started in quest of the game. not since the day of the goat hunt had we seen any tracks of moose, elk, or deer. pitamakan said that he had heard that the deer went from the high mountains down toward the lake of the flatheads to winter, and that we need not expect to see any more of them. but he added that it did not matter, for other game would yard close round the lodge. taking a zigzag course and examining every red willow patch along our route, we went down the valley. as it was a stinging cold day, we had our hands tucked up in the sleeves of our capotes, and our bows and arrows under our arms, for as yet we had no mittens. our legs suffered, too, from need of new coverings. the first game that we saw was an otter, fishing in a dark pool at the foot of a rapid. he would crawl out on the ice fringing it, sit still for a moment, sniffing the air and looking sharp for any enemy, and then make a sudden dive. we watched him until he had brought up a big trout and had begun to eat it, when we turned away without the animal seeing us. except at close range, the otter's eyesight is poor, but he has a keen nose and sharp ears. later we intended to set a deadfall for him, if by any means we could catch fish to bait it. a mile or more below the lodge we came to a deep, hard-packed trail, which wound and branched in every direction through a big red-willow thicket, which we guessed to be a moose yard. in many places the willows had been browsed off as far out from the paths as the animals could stretch their necks. here and there were large, hard-packed circular depressions in the snow where they had lain down to rest and sleep, always, i imagine, with one of their number on the watch for any prowling mountain lion. we went down through the centre of the yard, although we had some difficulty in crossing the deep trails on our snowshoes. soon we sighted the game--two cow moose, two calves, and two yearlings. the instant that they saw us the old lead cow trotted away down the trail, leading the others, and then by turning into every successive left-hand fork, tried to circle round behind us. when we headed her off, she turned and tried to circle round us in the other direction. then pitamakan and i separated, and in that way drove the little band steadily ahead of us, until it reached the lower end of the yard. there, with a tremendous leap, the old cow broke out of the yard into the fresh snow, and the way she made it fly behind her reminded me of the stern wheel of a missouri river steamboat beating up spray. all the others followed her until we came close, when all but her calf wheeled in the new path and rushed back for the yard. they were so close to us that we might almost have touched them. pitamakan shot an arrow deep between the ribs of the cow, and by a lucky aim i put my one arrow into the calf behind her. both of them fell, but the two yearlings, scrambling over their bodies, escaped into the yard. we went on in pursuit of the other cow and her calf. the strength that she displayed in breaking her way through six feet of snow was wonderful. for at least three hundred yards she went faster than we could go on our web shoes, but after that she gave out rapidly, and finally stopped altogether. when we came close to her, she plunged back past the calf and stood awaiting us, determined to protect it to the last. all the hair on her shoulders and back was ruffed and bristling forward, while her eyes blazed with anger, although there was also in them the look of terror and despair. when we got close to her, she rushed at us. we had to do some lively scrambling to keep out of her way. but she soon tired, and then while i attracted her attention, pitamakan slipped round on the other side of her. as his bow-cord twanged, she dropped her head, and the light almost instantly went out of her eyes. the poor calf met the same fate a moment later. it was cruel work, but as necessary as it was cruel; we killed that we might live. there remained the two yearlings, and i proposed that we spare them. pitamakan looked at me with surprise. "what! let them go?" he exclaimed. "and many winter moons yet before us? why, brother, you talk foolishly! of course we must kill them. even then we may not have enough meat to last until spring." so we chased them also out into deep snow, and did as he said. by the time we had one calf skinned we were obliged to go home and gather the night's wood. the next day we skinned the rest of the animals, cut up the meat, and hung it in trees, whence it could be packed home from time to time. two of the hides we put to soak in the river, preparatory to graining and tanning them. the others we stretched on frames and allowed to freeze dry, after which we laid them on our couch. during the short days we tended the deadfalls, skinned and stretched what fur was trapped in them, packed in meat and hung it beside the lodge, and tanned the two hides. having done the tanning successfully, we went into the tailoring business. pitamakan cut pieces of proper shape from the big, soft skins, but in the work of sewing i did my share. after three or four evenings' work, we were the proud wearers of new shirts, new leggings, and new mittens. our earthen pot fell to pieces the day after we had made glue in it. that was a serious loss, for we had intended to boil meat in it. roasted meat is good, but does not do so well as a steady diet. the indians of the north regard boiled meat as we regard bread, that is, as the staff of life. pitamakan, who craved it more than i, determined, now that we had plenty of hides, to use a part of one for a kettle. from one of the yearling moose hides he cut a large, round piece, soaked it in the river until it was soft, and then sewed the edge in pleats to a birch hoop about two feet in diameter, so as to make a stiff-rimmed bag about as deep as it was wide. with a strip of hide he suspended it from a pole in the lodge roof. next he set several clean stones in the fire to heat, and put some rather finely cut meat in the bag with two quarts of water. when the rocks were red-hot, he dropped them one by one into the bag, and pulled them out to reheat as fast as they cooled. in this way the meat was boiled. such was the ancient way of cooking it before the white traders brought pots and kettle into the north country. the meat was not cooked long, only long enough, in fact to change its color, and was really more nutritious than it would have been had it been stewed a long time. we enjoyed that first meal of it with keen relish, and thereafter ate more boiled than roasted meat. as the winter snows settled and hardened, we saw more and more trails of otter along the river, where they traveled from one open hole to another to do their fishing, and one day we began our campaign against them by going fishing ourselves. our tackle consisted of a sinew cord and loop several feet long, tied to a long, slender pole. in the first open pool that we looked into there were numerous trout and suckers; of course we tried first to snare the trout. we soon learned, however, that it could not be done, for they would not allow the loop to come nearer than five or six inches to their heads, but always drifted downstream from it in a tantalizing manner. next, trying the suckers, big, reddish-black fellows of two pounds' weight, we found them easy to snare. they lay as if they were half dead, their bellies close to the bottom, and never moved when the loop drifted down round their heads, thinking, no doubt, that it was but a piece of passing water-grass. when the noose was just behind the gills, we gave the pole a sharp yank, and up came the fish, wriggling and flapping, helpless in the grip of the tightened cord. after we caught three of them, we spent the rest of the morning setting a deadfall at each of three pools where the otters were working. but for some time afterward we got no otters; of all animals they are the shyest and most difficult to trap. it was not until all traces of the man scent had died out that one was finally lured by the sucker bait, and was killed by the fall-bar. as time passed, we set more and more deadfalls up and down the valley, so many that finally we could not make the round of them all in one day. one morning we would attend to those lying east of the lodge, and the next morning visit those to the west of it. the farthest one to the west was at least seven miles away, and for some unknown reason more fur came to it than to any of the others; we seldom visited it without finding a marten or a fisher. pitamakan called it the _nat-o-wap-i kyak-ach-is_--medicine-trap, as the words may be freely translated. _nat-o-wap-i_ really means "of the sun"--"sun-power." as we approached this deadfall one day, when we had taken nothing from the other traps except a marten that a passing fisher had maliciously torn to shreds, pitamakan began the coyote prayer song, because, as he said, something had to be done to bring us better luck. we soon saw the deadfall, noticed that the bar was down, and hurried eagerly forward to see what it held, while my partner sang louder than ever. on coming to it, we found a fine, black, fluffy-furred fisher; whereupon pitamakan raised his hand and began chanting a prayer of thanks to the gods. meanwhile i saw, a little farther on, a trail in the snow which excited my interest, and i impatiently waited for him to finish his devotions to call his attention to it. "look! there's the trail of a bear!" i said, although it seemed odd to me that a bear should be wandering round in the dead of winter. we hurried over to it. what we saw made us stare wildly round with fright, while we quickly strung our bows. it was the trail of a man on long, narrow web shoes--an indian, of course, and therefore an enemy. the trail was fresh, too, apparently as fresh as our own. and but a moment before, pitamakan had been singing at the top of his voice! chapter ix crossing the valley from south to north in front of us, the snowshoe trail disappeared, a hundred yards away, in a clump of pines. the indian, brushing against a branch, had relieved it of its weight of snow, and its dark green foliage stood out in sharp contrast with the prevailing white. there was a chance that he might still be in that thicket. "we must know if he is there," said pitamakan. "though he didn't hear us we must still know whence this enemy came, and why, and where he is going." we began by going cautiously round the pines. from a distance, we could see the trail coming out of them on the farther side and going on straight to the river, where the water fell in cascades over a wide series of low, broken reefs. from there the trail followed the edge of the open water down past the last of the falls, and then showed plain on the frozen river as far as we could see. venturing now to follow it to the cascades, we learned at a glance, on arriving there, why the lone traveler had come into our peaceful valley. at the edge of the water the snow was all trampled down, and the prints of bare feet in it showed that the man had been wading in the river. scattered on the packed snow were several fragments of dark green rock, one of which pitamakan picked up and examined. "this is what he came after," he said. "it is pipestone and very soft. both the kootenays and the flatheads make their pipes of it because it is so easily worked into shape." "where do you think he came from?" i asked. "from the camp of his people. these mountain indians winter down along their big lake. very little snow falls there, and horse-feed is always good." "well, if he came from down there, why do we find his trail to this place coming straight across the valley from the south?" "ah, that is so!" pitamakan exclaimed. "come on! we must find out about that." we took the man's back trail, and, passing our deadfall, paused to note how plainly it could be seen from several points along the way. it was a wonder that he had noticed neither the deadfall nor our hard-packed, snowshoe trail. "the gods were certainly good to us!" my partner exclaimed. "they caused him to look the other way as he passed." the back trail led us straight to the foot of the steep mountain rising from the valley. there, in several places, the snow was scraped away to the ground, where evidently the man had searched for the pipestone ledge that was probably exposed somewhere near. failing to find it, he had been obliged to go to the river and wade to the place where it again cropped out. his trail to the side hill came straight up the valley. we certainly had something to think and talk about now--and also to worry about. others of the enemy might come after pipestone, and there was our trail running straight to the place. going back to the deadfall, we took out the fisher, but did not reset the trap; for we determined not to go thereafter within several miles of the pipestone falls. another heavy snowfall would pretty much obliterate our trail, and we prayed that it would soon come. from that day, indeed, our sense of peace and security was gone. sitting within the lodge, we always had the feeling that the enemy might be close by, waiting to shoot us when we stepped outside. on the daily rounds of our traps we were ever watching places where a foe might be lying in wait. pitamakan said that the only thing for us to do was to make strong medicine. accordingly, he gave our bearskin to the sun; he lashed it firmly in the fork of a tree, and made a strong prayer to the shining god to guard us from being ambushed by the enemy. although we had long since lost track of the days of the week, we agreed in thinking that the discovery of the man's trail took place in "the moon before the moon when the web-feet come"; or, as the white man would say, in february. at the end of the next moon, then,--in march,--spring would come on the plains. up where we were, however, the snow would last much longer--probably until may. pitamakan said that we must leave the valley long before then, because with the first signs of spring the deer would be working back into the high mountains, and the kootenays would follow them. "how can we do that when, as you say, the pass cannot be crossed until summer?" i asked. "there is another pass to the south of us," he replied, "the two medicine pass. there is no dangerous place anywhere along it." "then we can easily get out of here!" i exclaimed. "let us start soon." he shook his head. "no," he said. "we can't go until the snow melts from the low country where the kootenays and flatheads winter. we have to go down there to make our start on the two medicine trail." "why so?" said i, in surprise. "why can't we go straight south from here until we strike it?" he laughed grimly. "between us and the trail lie many caã±ons and many mountains that none but the birds can cross. besides, along each stream is a trail used by these indians in their hunts up toward the backbone of the range, which is like the trail that crosses over to the two medicine. i could not recognize the right one when we came to it, and we should follow up one after another, and wear ourselves out. i remember some landmarks only where the right trail leaves the lake and enters the heavy timber, and from that place we have to start. also, we have to start from there on bare ground; for if we started on the snow, our trail would be seen and followed, and that would be the end for us." "well, then, let's go up and look at the summit of our pass," i proposed. "it may not be so bad as you think. perhaps we can find some way to cross the dangerous place." he objected that we should waste our time, but i kept urging that we must overlook no possible chance to escape to the plains, until finally i persuaded him. one bright morning we put on our snowshoes and started. as the going was good on the deep, settled snow, we were not long in covering the distance to the salt springs. up and down the mountainside, all round them, was a perfect network of goat trails in the snow, and here and there were large and small groups of the strange, uncouth animals, some lying down, some sitting and staring dejectedly off into space, while still others were cropping lichens from wind-swept, rocky walls. although several of them were less than three hundred yards away, they paid no attention to us. after watching some that were feeding on the cliff wall, where they looked as if they were pasted to it, we came to the conclusion that they could travel where a bighorn would certainly fall and be dashed to pieces. one old billy-goat was almost human in the way in which he got over difficult places. after standing on his hind legs and gathering all the lichen within reach he concluded to ascend to the next shelf. since there was not room for him to back away for a leap, he placed his forefeet over the edge, and drew himself up on to it--exactly as a man draws himself up by the sheer muscular strength of his arms. not far beyond the springs, we left the last of the timber and began the ascent of the summit proper, and soon came into the zone of terrific winds; but fortunately for us, there was scarce a breath stirring that day. the snow was so hard-packed by the wind that when we removed our snowshoes, our moccasined feet left no impressions in it. the rocky slopes facing the northwest were absolutely bare, while those pitching the other way lay buried under drifts from five to fifty feet and more in depth. late in the afternoon we came to the west end of the pass, having made twice as good time in the ascent as we had in the descent in the autumn with horses. i needed but one glance at the place to be convinced that it was impassable. the steep slide where my horse and i had so nearly been lost was buried deep in snow; towering above it were heavy, greenish, concave drifts of snow clinging to the knife-edge wall and likely to topple over at any moment. our weight might, and probably would, start an avalanche rushing down the slide and off into abysmal space. we stood in the trail of several goats, which had ventured out on the slide for a few yards, abruptly turned and retraced their steps. "even they feared to cross," said pitamakan. "come on! let's go home." i was so disappointed that i had not a word to say on the way down. we reached the lodge late in the night, made sure that no one had been near it during our absence, and after building a good fire and eating some roast meat, crawled into our fur bag, nearly worn out. it had been a long, hard day. at this time our catch of fur began to decrease rapidly. it is my belief that the predatory as well as the herbivorous animals never stray very far from the place where they are born. a case in point is that of an old grizzly bear, whose trail could not be mistaken because he had lost a toe from his left front foot. every three weeks he crossed the outlet of the upper st. mary's lake, wandered up into the red eagle valley, swung round northward along the back-bone of the rockies to the swift current waters, and thence down across the outlet again. observation of other animals also leads me to believe that they all have their habitual rounds. if this is so, it explains why it was that our deadfalls held fewer and fewer prizes for us, until finally three or four days would pass without our finding even a marten to reward us for our long, weary tramps. the days now grew noticeably longer and warmer, until finally snow-shoeing was impossible after nine or ten o'clock in the morning. the warm sun turned the snow into large, loose, water-saturated grains which would give way every few steps and let us down clear to the ground, often in places where the snow was so deep that we stood, so to speak, in a greenish well from which we had to look straight up to see the sky. it was very difficult to get out of such places. toward the end of our stay we did most of our tramping in the early morning, when the snow was covered with so hard a crust by the night's frost that it would hold us up without snowshoes. one evening we heard the distant cry of wild geese. that was our signal for departure. we made a last round of the deadfalls, sprung each one that was set, and the next day made up two bundles of the peltries that we were to take with us. there were in all sixty-one marten, ten fisher, seventeen mink, five wolverene, one mountain-lion, eight lynx, and two otter skins. fortunately, there was little weight in all that number, and we bound them so compactly that there was little bulk. a quantity of moose meat, cut into thin sheets and dried, made up the rest of our pack. nor did we forget the fire-drill and a small, hard piece of birch wood that had been seasoning by the fire all the winter for a drill base. the goatskin sleeping-bag was too heavy to take along; it would have added much to our comfort, of course, but there was now no night cold enough to be very disagreeable so long as we could have fire, and of that we were assured. however, pitamakan did not intend that the bag should be wasted; almost the last thing that he did was to make an offering of it to the sun. lashing the bundle in a tree, he prayed that we might survive all perils by the way, and soon reach the lodges of our people. at sundown we ate our last meal in the lodge and enjoyed for the last time its cheerful shelter. somehow, as we sat by the fire, we did not feel like talking. to go away and leave the little home to the elements and the prowlers of the night was like parting forever from some near and dear friend. we waited several hours, until the frost hardened the snow; then putting on the snowshoes and slinging the packs, we started away down the valley. there was certainly a lump in my throat as i turned for a last look at the lodge, with the smoke of its fire curling up from it and beckoning us back to rest and sleep. until midnight the stiffening crust occasionally broke and let us down; but after that time it became so hard that, taking off our snowshoes and slinging them to the packs, we made remarkable time down the valley. after passing the pipestone falls, we entered country new to us, where the valley became much wider. every mile or two a branch came into the river, which we were obliged to ford, for the ice had gone out of the streams. it was no fun to remove moccasins and leggings, wade through the icy water, and then put them on in the snow on the other side. for several weeks avalanches had been thundering down the mountain-sides all round us, and this night they seemed more frequent than ever. once one tore its way to the valley just behind us. not an hour later, pitamakan's pack-thong broke, and let his bundle down into the snow. as we stopped to retie it, there came the rumbling of an avalanche, apparently right over our heads. i thought that it would strike the valley not far below us. "come! get up!" i cried. "let's run back as fast as we can!" "not so! we must run the other way. can't you hear? it is going to strike either where we are, or close behind us," pitamakan answered; and grasping my arm, he tried to make me go forward with him. "can't you hear it there?" i shouted, taking hold of him in my turn and pulling the other way. "it is coming down right where we stand, or not far below here!" and thus we stood while the dreadful noise increased, until it seemed as if the world was being rent wide open. there was a confusion of thunderous sound--the grinding of rocks and ice, the crashing and snapping of great trees. the avalanche came nearer with terrific speed, until finally it filled all the region round with such a deafening noise that it was impossible even to guess where it would sweep down into the valley. we ran a few steps upstream, then as many more back, and finally stood trembling, quite uncertain which way to fly. but only for a moment; just ahead of us the great forest trees began to leap out and downward from the steep mountain-side, and then the mass of the avalanche burst into the flat and piled up a hundred feet deep before us--a dirty ridge of wrecked mountain-side that extended away across the valley to the river. there was a last rumble and cracking of branches as it settled, and then all was still. "you see that i was right," i said. "it did strike below us." "yes, you heard better than i did," my partner admitted, "but that is not what saved us. i am sure that the gods caused the pack-thong to break and stop us; otherwise we should have been right in the path of the slide." re-slinging our packs, we climbed the rough mass of the slide, round and over big boulders, ice blocks, and tree trunks, through piles of brush and broken branches. at the apex of the heap pitamakan reached down, pulled something from the earth-stained snow, and passed it to me. it was the head and neck of a mountain goat, crushed almost flat, the flesh of which was still warm. [illustration: the avalanche burst into the flat] "you see what would have happened to us if my pack-thong had not broken," he said grimly. "it must be that many goats perish in this way," i remarked. "yes, and also many bighorn," he said. "i have heard the old hunters say that the bears, when they first come out in the spring, get their living from these slides. they travel from one to another, and paw round in search of the dead animals buried in them." at daylight we entered an open park where we could see back toward the summit. there was no doubt that we had traveled a long way during the night, for the mountain opposite our abandoned lodge looked twenty miles distant. the valley here was fully a mile wide, and the mountains bordering it were covered with pines clear to the summit. they were not more than a thousand feet high, and the western rim of them seemed not more than fifteen miles away. we believed that from where they ended the distance could not be great to the lake of the flatheads. down here the snow was only about four feet deep, less than half the depth of it where we had wintered. the air became warm much earlier in the morning than it did up there. using the snowshoes now, as the crust was getting weak, we kept going, although very tired. during the two hours that we were able to travel after sunrise, we passed great numbers of elk, and not a few moose, and when, finally, the snow grew spongy and obliged us to stop for the day, we were plainly within the deer range, for both white-tail and mule-deer were as plentiful as jack-rabbits are in certain parts of the plains. we stopped for our much-needed rest on a bare sandbar of the river, and with bow and drill started a little fire and roasted some dry meat. the sun shone warm there, and after eating, we lay down on the sand and slept until almost night. starting on again as soon as the snow crusted, we traveled the rest of the night without any trouble, and soon after daybreak suddenly passed the snow-line and stepped into green-sprouting grass. the summer birds had come, and were singing all round us. a meadow-lark, on a bush close by, was especially tuneful, and pitamakan mocked it: "_kit-ah-kim ai-siks-is-to-ki!_" (your sister is dark-complexioned!) he cried gleefully. "oh, no, little yellow-breast, you make a mistake. i have no sister." we were in the edge of a fine prairie dotted with groves of pine and cottonwood. the land sloped gently to the west. i thought that it could not be far in that direction to the big lake, but pitamakan said that it was way off to the southwest, perhaps two days' journey from where we were. suddenly he fell on his knees and began with feverish haste to dig up a slender, green-leaved plant. "it is camass!" he cried, holding it up and wiping the earth from the white, onion-shaped root. "dig! dig! see, there are plenty of them all round. eat plenty of them. they are good." so they were; crisp, starchy, and rather sweet. after our winter-long diet of meat, they were exactly what our appetites craved and our systems needed. we made a meal of them right there. for once hunger got the better of our caution. laying down our pack and snowshoes, we dug up root after root, all the time moving out into prairie farther and farther from the edge of the timber. "come on! let's get our packs and hide somewhere for the day," i said finally. "i am filled with these things to the neck." "oh, wait a little; i want a few more," my partner answered. just then a band of deer burst out of a cottonwood grove about five hundred yards to the west of us, and as we sat staring and wondering what had startled them, three indians came riding like the wind round one side of the grove, and four more appeared on the other side, in swift pursuit of the animals. chapter x "don't you move!" pitamakan exclaimed. he spoke just in time, for i was on the point of springing up and running for the timber. the game--they were mule-deer, which are not fleet runners, like the white-tail--came bouncing awkwardly toward us, while the indians gained on them perceptibly. never before had i felt that i was a giant; but as i sat there in the short grass of the open prairie, i felt as if my body was actually towering into the sky. i instinctively tried to make myself of smaller size. all my muscles quivered and contracted so tensely that the feeling was painful. "oh, come!" i cried. "can't you see that they--" "be still!" pitamakan broke in. "the wind is from us to them. the deer will soon turn. our one chance is to sit motionless. they haven't seen us yet." the deer came steadily toward us, jumping awkwardly and high. they were now less than four hundred yards away, and although the wind was increasing, they gave no sign of having scented us. "they must turn soon," pitamakan said. "but if they don't, and you see that the indians are coming for us, string your bow. let us fight our best until our end comes." that had been my thought. i had two of our five obsidian-pointed arrows. if worse came to worst, i hoped that i should be able to speed them swift and true. now the deer were less than three hundred yards from us, and i gave up all hope that they would turn. to me the indians seemed to be staring straight at us instead of at the animals. i had started to reach for my bow and arrows, which lay on the ground beside me, when the deer did turn, suddenly and sharply to the right. the pursuers, turning also, almost at the same time, gained considerably on them. i realized that we had not been discovered. the leading hunter now raised his gun and fired. the hornless old buck at the head of the band sharply shook his head, and holding it askew as if the bullet had stung it, swerved to the right again, directly away from us. the herd followed him, while the hunters again made a short cut toward them and began shooting. their backs were now to us. "run! run for the timber!" my partner commanded; and grabbing my bow and arrows, i followed him, faster, probably, than i had ever run before. it was a hundred yards or more to the timber. as we neared it, i began to hope that we should get into its shelter unseen. behind us the hunters kept shooting at the deer, but neither of us took time to look back until we came to our packs, and paused to lift them and the snowshoes. at that very moment the war-cry of the enemy was raised, and we knew that they had discovered us. we looked, and saw that they were coming our way as fast as their horses could lope. and how they did yell! there was menace in those shrill staccato yelps. "we must leave the furs. just take your snowshoes and come on," said pitamakan, and i grabbed them up and followed him. it was only a few yards back in the timber to the snow-line. upon reaching it, i threw down my shoes, stuck my toes into the loops, and was starting on without fastening the ankle-thongs, when my partner ordered me to tie them properly. it seemed to me that my fingers had never been so clumsy. we stepped up on the snow, and found that the crust was still strong enough to bear our weight, although it cracked and gave slightly where the centre of the poor webbing sagged under our feet. at the edge of the prairie the timber was scattering; but back a short distance there were several dense thickets, and back of them again was the line of the heavy pine forest. we made for the nearest thicket, while the yells of the enemy sounded nearer and louder at every step we took. it was easy to guess when they came to the fur packs, for there was a momentary stop in the war-cries as they loudly disputed over the possession of them. then, abandoning their horses, they began shooting at us as they advanced into the snow, through which they broke and floundered at almost every step. the advantage was now all with us, provided we were not hit. once i stopped behind a tree for an instant and looked back. three of the men had not tried to come on over the snow, but standing at the edge of it, loaded and fired as fast as possible. the others were doing their best to advance over the crust, and had our plight not been so desperate, i should have laughed to see them. they stepped gingerly, teetering along with open mouths and arms outspread, and sometimes the crust would bear their weight for three or four paces, and so increase their confidence that they would quicken their speed, only to break through and sink waist-deep. [illustration: i grabbed them up and followed him] i pushed a flap of my old capote out from the tree as far as i could with the bow, in the hope of drawing their fire; but, finding that they were not to be caught by any such ruse, i hurried on. then several bullets came so close to me that i could feel the wind from them; one struck a tree which i was passing, and flicked off bits of bark, which stung my left cheek and cut the lobe of my left ear. when the enemy saw me raise my hand to my face, they yelled with triumph, and pitamakan turned to see what had happened. "go on! it is nothing!" i called out. at that instant another shot was fired, and i thought that i heard my partner give a little cry of pain; but he did not flinch, and continued on as rapidly as before. when i came where he had been, however, i saw that his trail was bloody, and i feared the worst, for i well knew that even with a death-wound he would keep on bravely to the very end. the rest of the run to the thicket was like some terrible dream to me, for i expected that every step he made would be his last. but finally he passed into the screen of young evergreens, and a moment later i was beside him, asking how badly he was hurt. "it is only a flesh-wound here," he answered, gripping the inner part of his left thigh. "come on, we mustn't stop." as the enemy could no longer see us, we made our way to the line of big timber without fear of their bullets. they gave a few last yells as we went into the thicket, and shouted some words at us, which of course we could not understand. and then all was still. without a word, pitamakan went on and on up the steep mountain-side, and i sadly followed him. soon, coming to an opening in the timber, we stepped out into it, until we could get a good view of the plain below. the indians were riding back to where they had chased the deer. soon they dismounted and began skinning two that they had killed. we removed our snowshoes and sat down on them. pitamakan let down his legging and washed his wound with snow; the bullet had split open the skin for a length of several inches, but fortunately, had not torn the muscles. as soon as the wound was washed and dry, i went over to a balsam fir and gathered the contents of three or four blisters, which he smeared all over the raw place. in a few minutes he said that the pungent, sticky stuff had stopped the burning of the wound. we were two sad boys that morning. the loss of the furs, for which we had worked so hard all winter, was not easy to bear. every few minutes pitamakan would cry out to his gods to punish the thieves, and my heart was as sore against them as his. with the fur packs we had lost also our fire-drill and socket piece. "but that doesn't matter," pitamakan said. "we have good bows and can make a drill at any time. perhaps we shall never again have any use for one!" "how so? are we never to eat again? shall we not need fire of nights to keep us warm?" i asked. "maybe we shall and maybe not," pitamakan replied. "it is not likely that those hunters will go home without trying to take our scalps with them; we'll soon know about that." we watched the men in silence for some little time. four of them were round one deer, and three were at work skinning the other. soon, however, one man left each group and began cutting willows. soon afterward we saw that those remaining had got the deer hides off and were cutting them into strips. "i thought that they would do that," said my partner. "they are going to make snowshoes and follow us. hurry now, and fasten on your shoes!" i did as i was told and asked no questions. pitamakan limped badly when he started off, but made light of his lameness and insisted that he felt no pain. by this time the sun was fast weakening the crust; in a short time neither we nor our enemy would be able to travel, and i told my partner that while they were making their shoes, we ought to get so far ahead that they never would be able to overtake us. "they are seven, we only two," he said. "they will break trail by turns when the snow gets soft. our chance to escape is to get back to the dry prairie while they are climbing the mountain on our trail." that was a plan that had never entered my head, but i instantly saw its possibilities. left to my own resources, i should only have struggled on and on into the mountains, eventually to be captured. for an hour or more, just as long as the crust would hold, we kept along the side of the mountain parallel with the river; then, when the crust at last broke with us at every step, we took off our snowshoes and floundered down the tremendously steep slope to the stream, and turning with it, walked and ran along the gravelly and sandy shore. so, not later than mid-afternoon, we came again to the foot of the mountain, and walking to the edge of the timber bordering the river, looked out on the prairie from which we had been driven in the morning. "_sum-is! sum-is!_" pitamakan cried, pointing away south to the place of the deer chase. "_i-kit-si-kum! sap-un-is-tsim!_" (seven! the whole number!) i exclaimed. the horses of the enemy were picketed out there and quietly grazing, but not one of the hunters was to be seen. it seemed too good to be true. we stood still for some time, while we searched the prairie and the mountain-side for sign of the enemy. "they seem all to have taken our trail," said pitamakan, at last, "and maybe that is the way of it. if one has remained to watch the horses, he must be lying in that little pine grove near them. let's go down the river a little farther, then swing round and sneak into the grove from the other side." we hurried on in the river-bottom for half a mile, and then swung out across the open ground. our hearts throbbed with hope, and with fear, too, as we approached the one place where a guard might be stationed. stealing into the little grove as silently as shadows, we moved through it so slowly that a red squirrel digging in the needle-covered earth near by never noted our passing. there was not more than an acre of the young trees, and they covered a space twice as long as wide, so we were able to see every foot of it as we passed along. when we were nearing the farther end, a coyote gave us a terrible scare; as he rose up behind a thin screen of low boughs, we could not see at first just what it was. i have heard of people turning cold from fear; maybe they do, but fear does not affect me in that way. a flash of heat swept through me; my mouth grew dry. my sense of being perfectly helpless, my expectation that a bullet would come tearing into me, was something that i shall never forget. this time the suspense was short; the coyote walked boldly off in the direction in which we were going, and since the wind was in our faces, we instantly realized that no man was concealed out there ahead of him. still, pitamakan was cautious and, in spite of my urgent signs, kept on as stealthily as before. but when we came to the edge of the grove, we saw the coyote was walking jauntily round among the feeding horses. off to the right, near one of the deer carcasses, lay the hunters' saddles, saddle-blankets and other stuff. we found also a litter of willow cuttings and short strips of deer hide where the hunters had made their snowshoes. the saddles were all home-made, but better than none. we each selected one and the best of the blankets, and began saddling the two most sturdy and swift-looking of the seven animals. that done, we turned the remaining five loose, after removing their lariats and throwing them away. then we got into the saddle and started to gather up the loose stock, when i suddenly thought of something that we had entirely forgotten in our excitement. "pitamakan! our furs! where can they be?" i asked. "there! there!" he answered, pointing to where the other deer carcass lay. and sure enough, there the two packs were, just as we had bound them. here was more luck! we lost no time in riding over to the place and picking them up; then, driving the other horses ahead of us, we rode away to the southwest as fast as possible. somewhere on the big, timbered mountain behind us, the enemy were worming along on our trail; or, what is more likely, completely exhausted from struggling in the soft snow, they were waiting for the night freeze, to enable them to go on. the loose horses trotted ahead of us most willingly--suspiciously so; and in the course of half an hour, on our coming to a strip of timber, the reason for such unusual conduct was plain. here was a broad, hard trail that led, no doubt, directly to the camp which they had come from in the morning. of course they were willing to be driven back to their mates! and now, as we pushed along this highway, one and another of them began to nicker, a sure sign that the camp was not far distant. there were only three or four hundred yards of the timber, and then another big prairie; and at the farther end of this, a couple of miles away, smoke was rising from another patch of timber, near which many horses were grazing. "there! there is the camp of the enemy!" pitamakan cried. "already they may have seen us! let's get back into the timber as quick as we can." that was not easy to do; the loose stock wanted to keep right on toward their mates, and it required hard riding to head them off and turn them back. and then when we did accomplish it, they were very restless; it was only by the greatest vigilance that we kept them from breaking back. while the sun slowly sank toward the horizon, we waited in suspense, for there was a chance that the party of seven, or some other party, might appear at any moment. the thought that, after our great success of the day, we might lose everything, and our lives also, kept us keyed up to an intense pitch of excitement. toward sunset there was a commotion among the horse herds at the farther end of the prairie, and two riders came loping straight toward us. at first we were not much alarmed, for we thought that they were only looking for some stray animal from the bands; but they kept coming straight on, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and it was soon plain, either that they had seen us and were going to have a look at our outfit, or that they were going to take the trail through the timber, in search, probably, of the missing hunters whose horses we had rounded up. there was but one thing for us to do--hustle the animals as far from the trail as possible; and going at it in a whirl of excitement, we hissed at them, flicked them with our bridle-ropes, and struck them with dead limbs that we snatched from the trees. never were horses so obstinate; they simply ducked their heads to the missiles and milled round and round among the trees and underbrush. we had got them no more than a bow-shot away from the trail, when, looking out into the open, we saw that the riders had almost reached the thin belt of timber that screened us. "get off your horse and try to hold him still there behind that brush!" my partner called out; and off i slid and grasped the animal by the nose and one ear. we could plainly hear now the thud of the oncoming horses. if one of the seven animals we had should nicker, we were lost. presently the two riders entered the timber, and we could see them plainly as they sped along the trail. tall, heavy men they were, with long, flying hair and grim faces. each carried a long gun. when they came in sight, my animal pricked up his ears and began to prance and toss his head, but i hung to him desperately, although i was hoisted more than once clear off the ground. as i swung and bobbed in the air, i got flashing glimpses of the enemy, of pitamakan struggling with his animal, and of the loose stock looking curiously at the scene. i expected every instant that one of them would whinny, but not one of them did! the two men passed swiftly along the trail out of sight, and the beat of their horses' hoofs died slowly away. then once more we took hope. the sun was down and darkness was stealing over the land. faint from this last narrow escape, we got into the saddle once more, and leaving the loose stock to stray whither they would, rode out into the open and took a course down the prairie that would leave the big camp far to our right. passing it a little later, we could see the dim, yellow glow of the lodge fires, and hear the people singing, and the dogs barking now and then in answer to the mocking yelps of the coyotes. we traveled on through the night in a partly timbered country, and, by god's mercy, safely forded some streams that were raging spring torrents. it was between midnight and dawn that we finally gave out, and, picketing our animals, lay down and slept. but the first peep of the sun roused us. staggering to our feet, stiff and sore, we saddled, and rode on again in a half stupor. it was past noon when, from the edge of a sloping plain, we saw the big lake of the flatheads. pitamakan knew the place at once. "down there by the shore was the big camp the time we were here," he said, "and over there by the side of that little river runs the trail to buffalo land." we came to it a little later, a broad, well-worn trail that had been used for countless years for summer travel by the mountain tribes. there were no tracks in it now save those of the wolf and the deer. dismounting beside it to rest the horses, we took a few bites of dry meat, while they greedily cropped the tender spring grass. we did not remain there long. behind us stretched the trail of our horses, plain enough in the young green grass, a trail that could be easily followed from where we had first taken the animals. we went on all through the afternoon eastward into the mountains. here the mountains were low, and in the still lower pass there was no snow to block us. indeed, two medicine pass is so low that you cannot tell when you pass the summit except by the changed course of the streamlets. late the next afternoon we caught a glimpse of the great plains, stretching green from the foot of the mountains away eastward to the far horizon; and at sight of them we both shouted, and pitamakan gave thanks to his gods. down at the foot of the mountains we saw a little later four buffalo bulls, and gave greeting to them as if they were our brothers. but not appreciating our feelings, they ran lumbering away. two days afterward we came to the edge of the hill overlooking fort benton and the missouri, our stream of streams. the sight of it, and of our own people walking here and there outside the fort and along the river, brought tears to our eyes and great joy and peace to our hearts. we urged our weary horses down the hill and across the bottom. an indian boy, hunting horses, met us while we were yet some distance out, gave one look at our faces, and fled straight to the blackfeet camp by the fort. the people instantly poured out of the lodges and came running to greet us. surrounded by several hundred of them, all talking at once and asking a thousand questions, we rode into the great courtyard. there, foremost of the company folk who came out to see what was the cause of all the noise, were my uncle and his wife. they fairly tore me from my horse, smothered and crushed me with kisses and embraces, and were for leading me straight to our quarters; but i would not budge an inch until i had secured my precious pack of furs from the saddle and had given the worn animal into the keeping of one of pitamakan's relatives. by that time the factor himself had come from his office, and i had then and there to tell the story of our winter and our hardships in the great mountains. how the people hung upon my words, how they applauded and cheered! without doubt those were the proudest moments of my life. for a mere boy to hold those seasoned old voyageurs and plainsmen spellbound was something of a feat, you may be sure. but at last it was all over, and once more i entered our little house and sat down on my own soft couch of buffalo-robes. as the evening was chilly, a cheerful fire was blazing in the hearth. tsis-tsak-ki bustled round, and while cooking the supper, managed to get out clean clothes for me, and get ready a tub of water, soap, and towels. never before had i seen my uncle wesley so excited; he could not sit still. every few moments he would come over and pinch my arm, or slap me on my back, just to make sure, as he explained, that i was really with them once more. so ended my first great adventure on the frontier that was, and is no more. the end the riverside press cambridge . massachusetts u . s . a transcriber's note: every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible. italic text has been marked with _underscores_. rising wolf the white blackfoot [illustration: i leaned out and fired straight at a big head (p. 105)] rising wolf the white blackfoot hugh monroe's story of his first year on the plains by james willard schultz with illustrations by frank e. schoonover [illustration] boston and new york houghton mifflin company the riverside press cambridge 1919 copyright, 1918, by the sprague publishing company copyright, 1919, by james willard schultz all rights reserved contents i. with the hudson's bay company 3 ii. the sun-glass 29 iii. hunting with red crow 56 iv. a fight with the river people 79 v. buffalo hunting 104 vi. camping on arrow river 129 vii. the crows attack the blackfeet 154 viii. in the yellow river country 179 ix. the coming of cold maker 205 x. making peace with the crows 230 illustrations i leaned out and fired straight at a big head _frontispiece_ how strange it seemed to me, a boy, to sit in the prow 10 as they swept past us they shot their arrows 156 hugh monroe in his old age 252 _from a photograph_ _the drawings are by frank e. schoonover_ introduction one of the greatest pleasures of my long life on the plains was my intimate friendship with hugh monroe, or rising wolf, whose tale of his first experiences upon the saskatchewan-missouri river plains is set forth in _rising wolf_ just as i had it from him before the lodge fires of the long ago. at first an _engagé_ of the hudson's bay company, then of the american fur company, and finally free trapper, hugh monroe saw more "new country" and had more adventures than most of the early men of the west. during the last years of his long life he lived much with his grandson, william jackson, ex-custer scout, who was my partner, and we loved to have him with us. slender of figure, and not tall, blue-eyed and once brown-haired, he must have been in his time a man of fine appearance. honest he was and truthful. kind of heart and brave. a good christian, too, and yet with no small faith in the gods of his blackfoot people. and he was a man of tremendous vitality. up to the very last he went about with his loved flintlock gun, trapping beavers and shooting an occasional deer. he died in his ninety-eighth year, and we buried him in the two medicine valley, under the shadow of the cliffs over which he had so many times helped the pi-kun-i stampede herds of buffalo to their death, and in sight of that great, sky-piercing height of red rock on the north side of the two medicine lake, which we named rising wolf mountain. it is a fitting monument to the man who was the first of his race to see it, and the great expanse it overlooks. j. w. s. rising wolf the white blackfoot hugh monroe's story of his first year on the plains rising wolf the white blackfoot chapter i with the hudson's bay company you ask me for the story of my life. my friend, it would fill many volumes, for i have lived a long life of great adventure. but i am glad! you shall have the story. let us set it forth in order. so! i begin: i was born in three rivers settlement, province of quebec, july 9, 1798. my father was captain hugh monroe, of the english army. my mother was amélie de la roche, daughter of a noble family of french _émigrés_. her father owned a fine mansion in montreal, and the large estate in three rivers, where my father lived with her what time he was not with his regiment on some expedition. my childhood days were quiet enough. i played with the children of our peasantry; a jesuit father, resident with us, taught me a smattering of reading and writing in both french and english; and presently i got a gun, a beautiful, light smoothbore carrying thirty balls to the pound. from that time on it was always the gun with me. i ceased playing with the peasant children, and spent the most of my time hunting in the great forest surrounding the settlement. in my twelfth summer i killed my first deer. i shot two black bears when i was thirteen, and oh, how proud i was of that! an old pensioner of my mother's, a half-breed montagnais indian, too old and feeble to do much himself, taught me to trap the beaver, the otter, and the land fur-bearers, the fox, fisher, marten, and mink, and i caught many of them. every spring my grandfather de la roche sold the pelts for me in montreal for a good price, one winter catch, i remember, bringing me in thirty pounds, which was a large sum for a boy to earn in a few months' time. after the beginning of 1812 i saw little of my father, for then, you know, began the war between the english and the americans, and he was with his regiment here and there, and took part in several battles. it was in the autumn of that year that my grandfather sent for us to move in to montreal and live with him. i did not like the town. i could neither hunt nor trap. i had little to do with the town boys; i did not understand their ways, so different from my ways. mornings i attended the parish school; afternoons i rowed on the river, or visited in the warehouses of the hudson's bay company, with which my grandfather had much to do. there i met _voyageurs_ and trappers from far places--men dressed all in buckskin clothes, with strangely fashioned fur caps on their heads, and beaded moccasins encasing their feet. some were french, and some english, the one race having little to do with the other, but that made no difference with me; i made friends with both factions, and passed many, many pleasant hours listening to their tales of wild adventure, of fights with indians, encounters with fierce bears of the far west, and of perilous canoe trips on madly running rivers. "that is the kind of life i want to lead," i said to myself, and, young as i was, began to importune my mother to allow me to engage with the great company. at first she but laughed at me. but as winter and summer and winter went by, and i never ceased my entreaties, not only to her, but to my grandfather, and to my father when he visited us, it became a matter not to be dismissed with idle jests. and at last i had my way. "he was born for the adventurous life, and nothing else," said my father, "so we may as well let him begin now, and grow up to a responsible position with the company. who knows but he may some day become its governor!" it was my mother who objected to my going. many a tear she shed over the little traveling-kit she prepared for me, and made me promise again and again that i would return to her, for a visit at least, at the expiration of my apprenticeship to the company. it was a fine kit that she got together for me, changes of underclothes, many pairs of stockings, several pairs of boots, an awl, and needles and thread, a comb and brush, and a razor, strop, and brush and soap. "you will need the razor later on. oh, just think! my boy will be a bearded man when he returns to me!" "not if i can keep the razor. i despise whiskers! mustaches! they are unclean! i shall keep my face smooth," i told her, and i have done so to this day. when the time came for my going my father gave me a brace of silver-mounted pistols in holsters for the belt, and plenty of balls and extra flints for them. my grandfather gave me twenty pounds, and a sun-glass. "there are times when flint and steel are useless, but as long as the sun shines you can always make fire with this," he told me. little did we think what an important part it was to play in my first adventure upon the plains. at last the day for my departure came. we had breakfast by candlelight and then my grandfather took us and my kit down to the wharf in his carriage. i went into the office and signed articles of apprenticeship to the hudson's bay company for five years, at twenty pounds per year, and found, my father and mother signing as witnesses. whereupon the chief clerk gave me a letter to the factor to whom i was to report without undue delay, factor james hardesty, at mountain fort, saskatchewan river, foot of the rocky mountains, the company's new fort built for the purpose of trade with the little-known tribes of the blackfeet, said to be a very numerous people, and possessors of a vast hunting-ground teeming with beaver and other fur animals. my mother almost fainted when she learned how very far away was my destination. she wept over me, kissed me many times, and made me promise again and again that i would return to her at the end of the five years. and so we went from the office to the end of the wharf, where were the five big keel boats of the company, all loaded, and manned by the sturdy french and english _voyageurs_, and i got into one of them with my kit, smoothbore in hand and pistols at my belt, and the men cast off and bent to their oars. as far as i could see them, my father and mother and grandfather kept waving their handkerchiefs to me, and i waved mine to them. i never saw them after that day! it was may 3, 1814, about two months short of my sixteenth birthday. as i have said, there were five boats in the flotilla, and each one was loaded with four or five tons of goods for the indian trade, everything being done up in waterproof packages of about one hundred pounds weight. the heavy goods were mostly guns, powder and ball and flints, tobacco, beads, beaver traps, and brass and copper wire for making bracelets, and ear and finger rings, and axes, and copper and brass kettles of various size, and small hand mirrors. the lighter goods comprised blankets, red, blue, and yellow woolen cloth, needles, awls, thread, and the many other articles and trinkets sure to take the red man's fancy. not a very valuable cargo, you may say, nor was it there in montreal. but at mountain fort, foot of the rocky mountains, it would be of enormous value. there a gun was worth sixty beaver pelts--sixty pounds' worth of fur--and all the other articles sold in the same proportion. why, a yard of tobacco--it was in long twists like rope--sold there for two beaver skins! [illustration: how strange it seemed to me, a boy, to sit in the prow] i shall say little of our long journey to mountain fort. it was interesting, but as nothing compared to what i saw and experienced after arriving at my destination. we turned into the ottawa river from the st. lawrence. how strange it seemed to me, a boy, to sit in the prow as strong men drove us fast and faster toward that unknown land. we ascended the ottawa as far as it was navigable, and then portaged our boats and cargoes from lake to lake across a divide, and finally, early in september, arrived at york factory, on the saskatchewan river, and close to where the stream empties into hudson bay. there we wintered, and set forth again as soon as the ice went out in the spring. _en route_ i saw, for the first time, buffaloes, elk, and one or two grizzly bears, monstrously big bears they appeared to be, even at a distance. i also saw some camps of cree indians, enemies of the blackfeet, but friendly to the whites, and was told that they feared to visit the fort to trade when the blackfeet were there. at last, after many weary days of rowing and cordelling up the swift saskatchewan, we arrived at mountain fort. it was the 10th day of july, 1815. i had been a year and a couple of months on my way to it from montreal! the fort, built of logs, the buildings roofed with poles and earth, was in a heavily timbered bottom above the high-water mark of the river. it was enclosed with a high, log stockade, and had a bastion at one corner, in which were two small cannon. it was later to be known as bow fort, as the stream it was upon, which was a main tributary of the saskatchewan, was called by the blackfeet bow river. the fort bottom came suddenly into view as our boats rounded a sharp bend of the river, and my eyes and mouth opened wide, i guess, when i saw that its shore was crowded with indians, actually thousands of them. they had seen few white men, and few boats other than the round "bull boats" which they hastily constructed when they wanted to cross a river, and our arrival was of intense interest to them. i noted at once that they were far different from all other indians that i had seen on my long trip across the country. they were much taller, lighter of skin, and slenderly and gracefully built. i marveled at the length of hair of some of the men; in some instances the heavy braids touched the ground; five feet and more of hair! a very few of them wore blankets; the rest were dressed in well-tanned leather--call it buckskin if you will--garments, sewed with sinew thread. but these were well made, and very picturesque, ornamented, as many of them were, with vivid embroidery of porcupine quills, dyed all the colors of the rainbow. men, women, and children, they all, excepting the few possessors of our company blankets, wore wraps, or togas, of buffalo cow leather, those of some of the men covered with bright-painted pictographs of their adventures, and strange animals of their dreams. i noticed that few of the men had guns; the most of them carried bows and arrows in fur or leather cases and quivers at their backs. as we swept past the great crowd of people toward the landing, my heart went out to every one of them. i wanted to know them, these people of the plains, as yet unaffected and unspoiled by intercourse with the whites. little did i think how very soon i was to know them, and know them intimately! at the landing the factor, hardesty, and some of his employees, backed by a half-circle of chiefs, awaited our coming. little attention was paid to me, just a boy. the factor greeted the head _voyageur_ of our flotilla, then the men, and then seemed suddenly to discover me: "and you--" he stopped and stared at me, and said impatiently to one whom i afterward learned was his clerk: "i asked for men, and they send me a boy!" then he turned again to me and asked: "well, young man, what brings you here to this wild land?" "i came to work, sir!" i answered, and handed him the letter which the company clerk had given me in montreal. he read it and his manner toward me instantly changed. "ah, ha! so you are hugh monroe, junior!" he exclaimed. "and you have come out to grow up with the company! i know your father well, young sir. and your grandfather de la roche as well. fine gentlemen they are. well! well! we shall find some use for you, i am sure." and he shook hands with me, and then, after a time, told me to accompany him to his quarters. we went up the broad beaten path in the timber to the fort, and the big, hewn timber gate swung open for us, and its keeper bowed low as he let us in. "we keep a guard here night and day, and two men up there with the cannon. we have many indians hereabout, and as yet do not know them well," the factor told me. we went into his quarters, a big room with an enormous fireplace at one end. it had windows of thin, oiled rawhide, which let in a yellowish light. its furniture was home-made and comprised a desk, several chairs, a bunk, piled high with buffalo robes and blankets, and an elkhorn rack supporting several guns. i was told to put my gun and pistols on the rack, that another bunk should be put up, and that this was to be my home for the present. we soon went out, for a long line of employees was bringing in the cargoes from the boats, and the factor had to inspect them. i made my way to the upper floor of the bastion and entered into conversation with the two men on guard there with the cannon, and looked down now and then at the great crowd of indians out in front of the stockade. many of them had bundles of beaver and other fur which they were waiting to trade for the newly arrived goods. the watch told me that they had been encamped at the fort for two months awaiting the coming of the boats, and that they had more fur than the cargoes of the five boats could buy, unless the factor more than doubled the price of the goods. that didn't seem possible to me. "why, how many indians do you think are here?" asked one of the watch. "three or four thousand?" i hazarded. he laughed. "make it thirty thousand, and you will come nearer hitting it," he told me, and i gasped. "there are a lot more than that," said the other watch, confidently. "yes, i guess there are," the first went on. "you see, young fellow, we have here right now all three tribes of the blackfeet, and their allies, the gros ventres, and sak-sis. yes, there's probably between thirty and forty thousand of them, all told." again i gasped. "why, if they wanted to, they could take this fort without any trouble!" i exclaimed. "take it! huh! in just two minutes all would be over with us if they started in. these are the boys that keep them from doing it," he said, and patted the cannon beside him. "you see that cottonwood tree out there, how its limbs are all splintered and dead?" said the other watch. "well, we fired a four-pound charge of trade balls into it just to show them what it would do. there was a big crowd out there before the gate, as big as there is now, and when we touched her off you should have heard the women and children yell, and seen 'em run for cover. the men, most of them, jumped when the old gun boomed, but they stood their ground and stared and stared at the shower of leaves and twigs coming down. we then fired the other one, and down came about all of the rest of the tree-top. i bet you they said to one another: 'it's no use trying to take that fort; those big guns would cut us all down just as they did the tree-top!'" "but we are taking no chances," said the other. "you see that little gate in the big gate? well, when the indians come to trade we let them in through it, a few at a time, making them leave their weapons outside, and just as long as the trade lasts we keep one of the cannon pointed to the door of the trade-room." "and do you never leave the fort and the protection of the guns?" i asked, thinking how hard it would be for me to remain shut up in the fort, never to visit in the camps of the indians, or hunt the game with which the country teemed. "oh, we go out whenever we want to," said one. "you see, they wouldn't pot just a few of us, for fear that they couldn't trade here any more, and they are crazy for our goods. no, unless they can kill us all and take the fort at one swoop, we shall never be harmed by them, and it is only at a time like this, when the trade-room is full of goods, that there is any danger. anyhow, that is the way i look at it." "and right you are," the other watch agreed. just then the factor called to me that it was dinner-time, and i left the bastion and followed him into a room where the cook, a french-huron woman, wife of one of the employees, served us our simple meal. it consisted solely of buffalo meat and strong black tea, and the factor explained that he, as well as the employees, lived upon meat and the various fruits of the country, fresh and dried, the year around. christmas was the one exception; on that day every one had a generous portion of plum pudding with his meat dinner! you can see how it was in those days. freight was a year _en route_ to that far place from montreal, and every pound of it had to be merchandise for the indian trade. at a rough guess i should say that every pound laid down at the fort was worth from three to twenty guineas per pound in fur. copper wire made into bracelets and other jewelry, for instance, was worth a hundred guineas, a hundred beaver skins, per pound. naturally, the orders from london were that factors and employees alike must be satisfied with the one big treat, plum pudding for the christmas dinner! well, it didn't matter. we became so accustomed to a meat diet that we gave little thought to other food. in summer, when in turn the service berries, choke-cherries, and bull berries ripened, we feasted upon them, and the women dried some for winter use, not enough, however, for more than an occasional dish, stewed, and without sugar, rather flavorless. we finished our meal and some of the employees took our place at the table after we went out. factors of the company did not eat with the men. in fact they did not associate with them. they held themselves aloof, and ruled their forts with stern justice. they generally issued their orders through their clerks. after the men had finished their dinner, the great occasion of the year, the trade, was opened by a feast to the chiefs of the different tribes. they came into the fort followed by their women, staggering under loads of fur, and the factor sat with them while they ate, and smoked with them afterward. after the pipe had gone the rounds, the chiefs one by one made speeches, very badly interpreted by a man named antoine bissette, a french-iroquois half-breed who had married a cree woman who had some knowledge of the blackfoot language, and through her had acquired a few words of it. each chief made a long speech, and at the end of it the interpreter would say: "he says dat he is friend to whites. he say dat you his brudder. he say dat he give you hees pack of furs what hees woman she has dere!" "and what else did he say?" the factor would ask. "an' dat is all." "and that is all! huh!" the factor exclaimed. "here we have had long speeches, matters of importance to the trade may have been touched upon, and you can't tell me what has been said! i told you a year ago, antoine, to study this language, but you do not improve in it. if anything, your interpreting is worse than it was last spring!" "but what can i do? my woman, he is mad all the time. he say blackfoot language no good; no will talk it. so, me, i no can learn." "huh!" the factor again sputtered, and with a shrug of the shoulders and a wave of the hand, led the way to the trade-room. there he gave the chiefs good value for their furs, and presents besides, and they retired, well satisfied, to make room for their people. i spent all of the afternoon in the trade-room watching them, and saw much to interest and amuse me. the men, almost without exception, bought guns and ammunition, traps, and tobacco, and the women bought the finery. i saw one young woman pay twenty beavers for a white blanket, and proudly drape it around the stalwart form of her man. he wore it for a few minutes, and then put it over her shoulders, and when his turn came to trade he bought for her several skins' worth of copper jewelry. i saw many such instances during the trade of the next few days, and one idea of the indians that i had--that the men took everything and merely tolerated their women, used them as mere slaves--went glimmering. the next morning the factor told me that he would give me the day off, and advised that i spend it in visiting the camps of the different tribes, located in the river bottoms above the post. he assured me that i should be perfectly safe in doing so, and said that i had best leave my gun at home, so as to show the indians that we regarded them as the friends that they professed to be. i did, however, thrust one of my pistols under my shirt-bosom and, upon antoine's advice, wore a blanket indian fashion, so the camp dogs would not bother me. thus equipped, i set forth. i had a wonderful day, a day of a thousand surprises and intense interest. the trail to the next bottom above the fort ran over a point of the plain ending in a bank at the river, and looking out from it i saw that the plain for several miles was covered with the horses of the different tribes, actually thousands and thousands of them, all in bands of from sixty or seventy to two or three hundred head. i afterward found that each owner so herded his horses that they became attached to one another, and would not mix with other herds. from the point i looked down upon the camp in the next bottom, the camp of the pi-kun-i, or so-called piegans, the largest tribe of the blackfoot nation, and tried to count the lodges. i actually counted fourteen hundred and thirty, and afterwards estimated that there were four hundred more pitched in the timber bordering the river. well, say that there were eighteen hundred lodges, and five persons to the lodge; that made a tribe of nine thousand people! i went down into the camp, keeping an eye upon the great wolf-like dogs lying around each lodge. children were playing everywhere around, and the river was full of them, swimming. women were busy with their daily tasks, cooking meat, tanning leather, or removing the hair from hides with oddly shaped elkhorn hoes tipped with steel or flint, or else sitting in the shade of the lodges gossiping, and sewing garments with awl and sinew thread, or embroidering them with colored porcupine quills. men were also gathered in little groups, chatting and passing great stone-bowled, long-stemmed pipes from hand to hand. it was all a peaceful and interesting scene. i did not go through the whole camp; i somehow felt bashful before so many people; but as far as i went all smiled at me pleasantly as i passed, and spoke to me in kindly tones. how i wished that i could know what they said! how i wanted to know the meaning of the strange symbols with which some of the lodges were painted! on some were paintings of animals; buffalo, otter, beaver, deer, all with a red line running from the mouth back to a triangular figure in red in the center of the body. no two lodges, with one exception, were painted alike. on many of them, perhaps most, was painted, close up to the smoke-hole and at the rear, a symbol shaped much like a maltese cross. i determined to ask antoine what all the paintings signified. from this camp i went on up the river to the others, those of the sik-si-kah, or blackfeet proper, and the kai-na, or bloods; these two and the pi-kun-i comprising the three tribes of the blackfoot nation. and beyond them i looked down from the edge of the plain at the big camp of the ut-se-na, or gros ventres, and last, that of the sak-sis, or heavy talkers, a small athabaskan tribe which had long been under the protection of the blackfeet, as i learned later. that evening i asked antoine many questions about what i had seen, only to find that he could not answer them. nor could any of the employees. through the open doorway between the cook-room and his quarters the factor heard my futile questioning and called to me. i went in. he had me close the door, and then asked me a question that made me gasp. chapter ii the sun-glass "how would you like to travel about with the pi-kun-i for a time, and learn their language?" i could only stare at him, hardly believing my ears, and he added: "i am sure that you would be in no more danger than you are here in the fort, or i would not propose this." "i would rather do it than anything else! it is just what i want to do!" i told him. "let me explain the situation to you fully," he went on. "but, first, did you ever hear of lewis and clark? "no? well, they are two american army officers who, a few years ago, led an expedition from the mississippi river up the missouri river to its head in the rocky mountains, and thence down the waters of the oregon to its confluence with the pacific ocean. they were the first white men ever to see the country at the headwaters of the missouri, and between it and the ocean. now, in the dispatches that came to me with the goods, yesterday, i received most disturbing news: following the trail of lewis and clark, our rival, the american fur company, is pushing westward and establishing posts on the missouri, the upper part of which is in our own territory. i am ordered to learn if it has entered our territory, and if so, to take steps to block its trade with our blackfoot tribes. the pi-kun-i are going south to the missouri plains for the summer as soon as they finish their trade with us, and i want you to go with them, and, while learning their language, keep an eye out for our rivals. i can't trust antoine to do this, and anyhow he will never become a good interpreter. i believe that you will soon master the language." of course the factor was mistaken. the missouri river country was not in our territory. we were to learn that later. nor did we then have any idea of the vast extent of the hunting-ground of the blackfeet. it was for me to discover that it extended from the saskatchewan, yes, even from the slave lakes, south to their elk river of the south, which is the yellowstone river of the whites, and from the rocky mountains eastward for an average width of more than three hundred miles. a part of it, from the tributaries of the missouri south, had been crow country, but the blackfeet had driven them from it. the pi-kun-i, with their allies, the ut-se-na, or gros ventres, lived for the greater part of the time in the southern part of it, along the missouri and its northern and southern tributaries, and the other two tribes, with their athabaskans, the sak-sis, liked best the plains of the saskatchewan and its tributaries. before the advent of the horse the blackfeet tribes had all lived in the slave lake country. the crees had so named these great bodies of water, for the reason that in that far-away time the blackfeet made slaves of the enemies they captured. as nearly as i could learn, it was between 1680 and 1700 when the blackfeet began to obtain horses by raids far to the south, even to old mexico, and in 1741 or 1742 obtained a few guns from the post on the assiniboine river founded by the sieur de la vérendrie, that unfortunate explorer who was the first white man to see the rocky, or as he named them, the shining, mountains. with both guns and horses, the blackfeet were not long in taking possession of the rich game country to the south of the slave lakes, and driving from it not only the crows, but other tribes as well. on the day after my talk with the factor, he had an interview with lone walker, head chief of the pi-kun-i, to which i was an interested listener. it was agreed, as well as antoine could explain the matter, that i was to travel south in his care, living in his lodge, and riding his horses, and that upon bringing me safe back to the fort when he and his tribes returned to trade, he should be given a gun, two blankets, and two lengths of twist tobacco. rich presents, indeed! more than enough, as the factor said, to insure his taking the greatest care of me. and anyhow my heart went out to the chief. tall, dignified in bearing, his handsome face and eyes expressive of a kind and honest nature, i felt from the start that he would be a good friend to me, and i was not mistaken. i little realized at that time, however, what a really great man he was with his people. owing to their desire to start south at once, the pi-kun-i were the first to trade in their take of furs. they were a matter of ten or twelve days doing it, and in the meantime i kept pretty close in the trade-room listening to antoine's interpretations of their needs, and memorizing the words. in that way i learned their names for the different trade articles, and a few helpful sentences as well, such as the equivalent in their language for "what is it?" "where is it?" "what is it named?" and so on. and then, one day, i saw antoine's wife sitting with a sak-si woman, the two apparently conversing with one another by means of signs. i asked antoine about it and learned that it was the sign language, used by all the tribes of the plains; that almost anything could be told by it, even stories, and that his wife understood it very well. "then why don't you learn it? would it not be of great help in your interpreting?" the factor asked him. "i am try! i am do my possible! sare, honneur, my han's, my fingare, he is not queek to do it!" he answered. "huh! antoine, you're a fool! yes, and so am i, or i would have known about this sign language, and have learned it long since!" the factor exclaimed. "my woman, she will teach it to you; i will help," antoine volunteered. we began lessons with her that very evening, and before i left i had pretty well learned it. the signs are invariably so significant of the thought to be expressed, that, once seen and understood, they are not easily forgotten. i know not where the sign language originated, but i think that it came to the people of the plains from mexico, spreading from one tribe to another until it finally reached the blackfeet. the tribes of the forests, and of the two coasts, and the great lakes, knew it not. at last the morning came upon which the pi-kun-i were to break camp. on the evening before lone walker had sent my outfit of things over to his lodge, ready to be put upon one of his pack horses, and now, leading a horse for me, he came to the fort with his under-chiefs for a farewell meal and smoke with the factor. i hastily ate my morning meat and, while the smoking was going on, saddled and bridled the horse. the factor had given me his own light, english, hunting-saddle, and i thought it a very comfortable one to ride upon. later, when i got from a warrior a spanish saddle that he had taken in a raid far to the south, i learned what comfort in riding really was! the horse saddled, i said good-bye to the men. the _voyageurs_ with whom i had come to the fort were soon to load the boats with furs and return to york factory, and eventually montreal, and i handed the head man a letter for my mother, telling her of my safe arrival at the fort, of the thousands of wild indians that i had seen, and the expedition upon which i was about to embark. if all went well, she would receive it in about a year's time. the round of smoking ended, the chiefs came out with the factor, and i said a last good-bye to him, and we mounted and set forth. there were just twenty-four of the chiefs, one for each band, or gens, of the pi-kun-i--lone walker, as i afterward learned, being chief of the i-nuk-siks, or small robes band, as well as head chief of the tribe. with them were five other men, each wearing his hair done into a huge, furbound knot on the foretop of his head, the insignia of the sun priest, or so-called medicine man. none of the party wore war bonnets, or war costumes, and that rather surprised me. i soon learned that they were never worn except when the men were going into battle--if there was time to put them on, and when dancing, or observing some great religious ceremony. no! the decked-out indian, hunting, or traveling, or sitting about in camp, and the indian wearing nothing but a breech clout and a pair of moccasins, is just the indian of the artists' dreams! my indians wore plain leather shirts, and wide-flapped leggings, and quill-embroidered moccasins, and their wraps were also of leather, some of them painted with pictographs of the wearer's adventures in war and hunting. but for all that they were picturesque enough. each one carried a shield slung from the left arm, and bow and arrows in a case and quiver at the back, and a gun across the saddle front. beautifully dyed quill embroidery on the fringed leather pipe and tobacco sacks dangling from their belts, and the bright, painted symbols on the covering of their shields gave the needed color to their otherwise somewhat soberly plain, everyday wear. and what splendidly built men they were! what fine features they had, and the small, perfectly formed hands and feet of real gentlemen. and i learned that they had the manners of gentlemen. that in their daily intercourse they were ever courteous to one another. that their jesting and joking was never rude or coarse, and how they did love a good joke and laugh! and proud they were, of their lineage, and their war records, and their women and children, of their great herds of horses, and their vast domain. but it was a just and natural pride, in no way different from the pride of our own best people. and with it was great kindliness of heart and ready proffers of help for all the unfortunate, for widows and orphans, the old and the sick. such were the old-time blackfoot chiefs. camp had been broken while the chiefs were saying their farewells in the fort, and now, as we rode out upon the plain from the river bottom, we saw the great caravan strung out away ahead of us and to our right. it was like a huge snake making its way southward over the ridges and the hollows of the plain, a snake about three miles in length! it was advancing at a slow trot, and at a livelier pace we rode along its length to take the lead. each family had its place in it, the women and children riding pack and travois horses, the men and youths driving the loose ones. the trappings of the horses, broad leather breast bands and cruppers, blazed with color, beautifully worked designs of porcupine-quill embroidery. the quaintly shaped _parflèches_, fringed pouches and sacks of rawhide and leather, upon the pack horses were brightly painted. some horses, generally white ones daubed with red ochre, the sacred color, carried nothing but the pipe and pouches of a medicine man, and were always led. the lodge-pole horses dragged, generally, four lodge poles, two fastened to each side of the saddle by the small ends, and these and the ends of the travois poles scraped harshly into the plain and wore deeper than ever the many furrows of the broad trail. as i rode with the chiefs along the edge of the long column i believe that every man, woman, and child of it gave me a smile, and some sort of greeting--one of which, "ok-yi, nap-i-an-i-kap-i!" (welcome, white youth), i already knew. and to all i replied: "ok-yi, ni-tuk-a!" (welcome, friend), which was a sad error when addressed to a woman or girl, embarrassing them, and causing all who heard to laugh. but the greetings and the smiles gave me heart; i felt that i was already liked by these people of the plains, and that was pleasant. i certainly liked them. we passed the long column and rode on ahead of it, but not in the real lead. ahead of us several hundred men, the scouts for the day, rode spread out like a great fan far to the right and left of the trail, as well as some of them upon it. they were not hunting; time and again we saw herds of buffaloes and antelopes rushing off out of their way, and none pursued them. it was about noon when, topping a low ridge, lone walker led us a little to one side of the trail and dismounted. so did we all, tethering our horses to bunches of sage or greasewood, and then sitting in a little circle on the top of the rise. a medicine man unfastened the fringed and embroidered sack dangling at his belt and, getting out pipe and tobacco and some dried leaves of _l'herb_ to mix with the tobacco, made leisurely but careful preparations for a smoke. first he thoroughly cleaned the huge, black, stone bowl, blowing through it, and then the separate, long, carved wooden stem, to make sure that they were clear. then he fitted them together, and little by little filled the bowl with the mixture of tobacco and _l'herb_, tamping down each pinch with a small, blunt-ended stick. this done to his entire satisfaction, he unslung from his shoulder a section from a birch tree, about four inches in diameter and six inches in length, removed its wooden stopper, and i saw that it was hollowed out, and clay lined. turning the mouth of the strange receptacle to the ground, he gave it a rap or two and out came a piece of partly charred punk wood which he quickly picked up and blew upon, and i realized that this was the blackfoot way of keeping fire. but, blow as he would, there came no glow in the punk, no rise of smoke. the fire was out. with an exclamation of disappointment the man dropped the punk back into place, put in the stopper, meantime looking around the circle to see if any one carried one of these fire boxes, as i may call them. none did. here and there a man spoke, evidently remarking upon his disappointment. and then, suddenly, i thought of my grandfather's present to me, the sun-glass in the pouch at my side, and i called out to the medicine man: "i will light it for you!" in my excitement i forgot that he knew no word of my language. but i had called his attention to me, and that of all the others too. they watched me closely as i fumbled in the pouch for the glass, drew it out and removed its silk wrapping. having done that, i made signs to the medicine man to put the stem of the pipe to his mouth. he did so, and i focused the glass upon the charge of the tobacco mixture in the bowl. almost at once it began to turn black and a thin streak of smoke to rise from it, and, drawing steadily upon the stem, the medicine man filled his mouth with smoke, his eyes growing bigger and bigger, until at last he let out a great blow of it, and then, with a shout of surprise, sprang to his feet and held the pipe aloft toward the sun. at that all the other chiefs sprang up, and shouting i knew not what, made a rush for me, and i believed my time had come! antoine had told me that the blackfeet--as he called them, the heathen blackfeet--worshiped the sun. the thought flashed through my mind that i was to be killed for using the sacred fire of their god! and as wild-eyed, excited, shouting chiefs came crowding around me i threw up my hands, in one of them the fateful glass, and cried: "i did not mean harm! it is a glass, nothing but a glass!" as though they could understand! or my pitiful cry save me! but suddenly, instead of blows i saw that lone walker and others nearest me were stroking my shoulders, my breast, and back with their open hands, and then their own bodies, and the others, crowding, reached in between them and touched me wherever they could, and then stroked themselves, meantime shouting something to the head of the passing caravan. out from it rushed all who heard, men and women, and sprang from their horses and surged in to me, women frantically edging in under the arms of the men and rubbing their suckling infants against any part of my body that they could reach. and still badly frightened, i thrust the glass into lone walker's hand and made signs the best i could that i gave it to him. with a shout he held it aloft, tears streaming from his eyes, and began what i sensed must be a prayer to the sun. at that a great hush came upon the ever-increasing crowd. all listened closely, occasionally crying out something that i afterward learned was as we would say: "yes! yes! have pity upon us all, o sun!" then, presently, he finished the prayer, and looking around at the people addressed a few words to them. whereupon they mounted and resumed their places in the column, and moved on. the chiefs, however, again sat down in a circle, lone walker signing to me to sit beside him, and the pipe was passed from hand to hand, each one in turn taking a few whiffs of smoke from it and blowing it first toward the sun, and then to the ground. at last the pipe came to me. i passed it on to the chief on my right, but he instantly handed it back and gave me to understand that i was to smoke. i did so, blowing the smoke to sky and earth as i had seen the others do, and then passed it on. i had never smoked. the taste of it was bitter and nauseating in my mouth; my head soon began to swim and i felt terribly sick for a long time. i did not smoke again until i was past my twenty-fifth birthday. well, when the pipe was smoked out and put away we mounted our horses and rode on, i still sick but quite over my scare. word of what i had done, of my bringing down sun fire, had evidently passed back the entire length of the column, for as i rode on to the head of it with the chiefs the people all called out to me again, and this time with a new name for me, and in their manner respect, even awe, was evident enough. they called me now, "nat-o-wap-an-i-kap-i," which i thought had to do with the sun (nat-os). i was right; i soon learned that the word meant sun youth, or sacred youth. i was very proud of the name, and very glad of my grandfather's happy thought in selecting the glass for me. true, i had brought it this long way across the plains only to part with it, but my one chance use of it had given me important standing with the tribe. we traveled on steadily ahead of the column until about four o'clock in the afternoon, and then once more dismounted and gathered in a circle, this time on the edge of a long slope running down to the timbered valley of a small stream. again the medicine man got out his pipe and filled it, and i taught lone walker how to light the charge with the sun-glass, every one intently watching, and making exclamations of wonder and satisfaction when the feat was accomplished. this time i firmly passed the pipe when it came to me, and while the chiefs smoked and chatted i watched the long procession of the tribe pass down the slope into the valley, and scatter out over a big, grassy flat on the far side of the creek. there the horses were relieved of their burdens, and a few minutes later every lodge of the camp was up in place, and the women were carrying into them their various family belongings, and going for wood and water. all that was the women's work; the men sat about until all was completed. as soon as the pipe was smoked out we got upon our horses and rode slowly down the slope to the creek, and then scattered out into camp. lone walker led me to the southwest part of the big circle of lodges, which was the allotted place for his band, the small robes, and to one of two immense lodges, which were both his property. we got down from our horses, and i was about to unsaddle mine, when a woman took him from me, and signed that i was to follow the chief into the lodge. i did so, and, making a step in through the doorway, heard a growling and snorting that made my heart jump. and well it might, for there on each side of me, reared back and hair all bristled up, was a half-grown grizzly bear! i dared not move, neither to retreat, nor go forward, and thus i stood for what seemed to me hours of time, and then lone walker scolded the bears and they dropped down at rest and i passed them and went to the place pointed out to me, the comfortable couch on the left of the chief's. i think that the chief allowed me to stand so long facing the bears, just to try me; to learn if i had any nerve. i was glad that i had not cried out or fled. i soon became friendly with those bears, and often played with them. it has been said that grizzlies cannot be tamed. those two were tame. they had been captured when small cubs, so small that they made no resistance to being taken up, and for months had been held up to the teats of mares, there to get the milk without which they could not have lived. i may say here that they disappeared one night in the spring of their third year, and were never seen again. they had at last answered the call of their kind. it was with intense interest that i looked about the lodge, the first that i had ever entered, and which was to be my home for i knew not how many months. it was a lodge of twenty-eight buffalo cow skins, tanned into soft leather, trimmed to proper shape to fit together, and sewed with strong sinew thread. it was all of twenty-four feet in diameter, and the lodge poles were at least thirty-six feet long, and so heavy that a horse dragged but two of them. there were thirty poles, and the lodge skin was in two sections. all around the inside was a leather lining running from the ground up to a height of about six feet, and attached to a rawhide line running from pole to pole. this made an air space between the lodge skin and the lining of the thickness of the poles. the pegged lodge skin did not reach the ground by four inches or more, so the air rushed in under it, and up between it and the lining, and out of the top of the lodge. this created a good draught for the fire and carried off the smoke. no air came in through or under the lining, it reflected the heat of the fire, and because of this simple construction the lodge was warm and comfortable even in the coldest winter weather. the lining was brightly painted, the design being a series of three different long, narrow, geometric figures distinctively blackfoot. all around the lodge, excepting on each side of the doorway, were the couches of the occupants, ten in number, a slanting back-rest of willow slats at the head and foot of each one. in the triangular spaces thus left between the couches, and on each side of the doorway, were stored no end of _parflèches_, bags, pouches, and leather-wrapped bundles containing the property of the different occupants of the lodge. besides lone walker and myself, there were eight women and nine children, ranging from babies up to boys and girls twelve and fourteen and eighteen years old, the latter being a boy named i-sas-to, or red crow, whose couch and sitting-place i was to share. be not shocked or surprised when i tell you that lone walker had nineteen wives. eight were in this lodge. the others and their children, and the chief's old father and mother were in the adjoining, big, twenty-eight-skin lodge. at first this polygamy was very repugnant to me; but i soon saw how necessary it was. the blackfeet men were continually falling in battle with their many enemies, and only by becoming plural wives could the large preponderance of women be cared for. lone walker's first, or head wife, named sis-tsi-ah-ki, or little bird woman, was a fine-looking woman of about thirty-five years. she was one of the happiest persons i have known. there was always a smile on her face, she sang constantly at her work, and her heart was as good as her smile; she was always doing something nice for others. in a way she was the head, or supervisor of the other wives, apportioning to each the work that was for the family. but each woman had her own private property, including horses, and her share of the meat and hides brought in. there was a big gathering in our lodge that night, men constantly coming in to see the wonderful instrument that could bring down sun fire. it was late when we got to rest. the fire died down. like the others, i disrobed under the coverings of my couch, and then i went to sleep with never a thought of fear, i, a lone white boy, in a camp of about nine thousand wild indians! lone walker aroused us soon after daylight the next morning and had me go with him and all his male children to bathe in the stream. winter and summer the blackfeet never neglected that daily bath, although sometimes they had to go out and rub themselves with snow, because there was nowhere open water. in winter the women and girls took their baths in sweat lodges. after the bath we had an early meal of dried meat, roasted before the fire, and small portions of rich, dried buffalo back fat, which was used as the whites use butter. while we were eating, lone walker gave me to understand that his two lodges were needing fresh meat, and that with his son i could go on ahead of the moving camp and kill some. that pleased me; it was just what i was longing to do. you can imagine how much more pleased i was when the great herd of the chief's horses were brought in, and, saying, "you gave me your fire instrument, i now give you something," he selected ten good horses in the herd and said that they were all mine. how rich i felt! long before the lodges came down red crow and i were riding out along the great south trail. as we topped the slope of the valley and i looked out upon the immense plain ahead, and at the snow-covered peaks of the great mountains bordering it on the west, i said to myself, that this was the happiest day of my life, for i, hugh monroe, just a boy, was entering a great section of the country that white men had never traversed! and, oh, how keen i was to see it all--its plains and stream valleys, its tremendous mountains, its pine-crowned, flat-topped sentinel buttes! mine was to be the honor of learning their blackfeet names, and translating them for the map our company was to make for the use of its men. also, i looked forward with great desire for the adventures which i felt sure i was to have in that unknown land. had i known what some of them were to be, i would perhaps have turned right then and made my way back to the safety of the fort. chapter iii hunting with red crow when we rode out upon the plain from the valley on our way from the post we saw several bands of buffaloes away off to the right and left of the trail. red crow paid no attention to them, and when, at last, i gave him to understand by signs that i would like to approach the nearest band, a couple of miles ahead and perhaps that far from the trail, he answered that we must do our killing on, or close to, the trail so that the women could put the meat on the pack horses when they came along. in my hunting back in the forest at home i had learned the value of the saying about the bird in hand, and i thought that we should go after that nearest herd because we might not see another so close to the trail during the day. but i need not have worried; before the day was over i learned that the game of the plains was as ten thousand to one of the game of the eastern forest. we rode on perhaps three miles farther, and then, topping one of the many low ridges of the plain, saw an immense herd of buffaloes grazing on the next ridge, and right on the trail. they were slowly moving south, and we waited a long time for the last stragglers of the herd to pass over the ridge and out of sight, and then rode on at an easy lope. as we neared the top of the ridge red crow drew his bow from the case and quiver at his back, and then drew out four arrows, three of which he held crosswise in his mouth, fitting the fourth to the bow. i looked into the pan of my gun and made sure that it was full of powder. and then my heart began to beat fast; i was soon to have my first shot at a buffalo! i said to myself: "i must be careful to take good aim! i will not--will not get excited!" i thought that when near the top of the ridge we would dismount, go on a few steps and cautiously rise up and shoot at the nearest of the buffaloes. but red crow never slackened the speed of his horse and i was obliged to follow his lead. upon reaching the ridge top we saw the great herd resting close under us on the slope, some lying down, others apparently asleep where they stood. but they saw us as soon as we saw them, and away they went, we after them as fast as our eager horses could run. i had never thought that a horse could be so keen for the chase. mine just took the bit in his teeth and carried me where he willed. we were soon right at the edge of the frightened herd. i saw red crow, some thirty or forty yards ahead of me, ride close up to the right side of an animal and fire an arrow into it, just back of the ribs, and go on without giving it further attention. and then i realized that my horse had brought me close to one of the huge, shaggy-headed, sharp-horned animals, and i poked my gun out and fired, and saw blood almost instantly begin to gush from its nostrils. it made a few more leaps and stopped and fell, and i tried to stop my horse beside it as i shouted, "i have killed a buffalo! i have killed a buffalo!" but i could not check up the horse, or even turn him, try as i would; a few jumps more and he had me up beside another animal. then i wished that my pistols were in my belt, instead of in my traveling-kit. i poured a charge of powder from the horn into my hand, but spilled it all before i could get it to the muzzle of my gun. i tried again with the same result. i was not used to loading a gun when riding a horse at its top speed. i gave up the attempt and watched red crow, still ahead, and the huge animals thundering along on either side of me. clumsily built though they were, with deep chest, high hump on the shoulders, and cat hammed, they were far swifter runners than any horse, except for the first few hundred yards of the start. the horse soon tired; they could keep up their killing pace for hours, when frightened. after a half-mile of the chase red crow dropped out of it, and i managed to turn my horse with his and start back over the ground that we had come. ahead of us lay three dead buffaloes, and quite near one was standing humped up, head down, badly wounded. it suddenly dropped and was dead when we rode up to it. i rode on to the one i had killed, eager to examine it, and red crow followed me. as we approached it he laughed and gave me to understand that it was an old bull, and therefore no good, its meat too tough to eat, and he pointed to his three, two young cows and a yearling bull, as good, fat meat. i felt sorry that i had uselessly killed the huge animal. i got down from my horse and examined it. its massive, sharp-horned, shaggy, and bewhiskered head; its long knee hair, encircling the legs like pantalettes, and the great hump on its shoulders were all very odd. in order to get some idea of its height i lay down on its side, my feet even with its fore feet. then i reached up and found that i could nowhere near touch the top of its hump. it was between six and seven feet in height! "one part of it is good," red crow signed to me, and got off his horse and skinned down the bull's lower jaw, and pulled out and back the tongue through the opening, cut it off at the base, and handed it to me. i had it that night for my supper, well roasted over the coals, and thought it the best meat i had ever tasted. i had been wondering how, with nothing but a knife, the hunters managed to butcher such large animals as the buffaloes were. red crow now showed me how it was done. we went to the first of his kills, and after withdrawing the arrow, wiping it clean with a wisp of grass, and replacing it in the quiver, he twisted the cow's head sharply around beside the body, the horns sticking into the ground holding it in place. he then grasped the under foreleg by the ankle, and using it as a lever gave a quick heave. lo, the great body rolled up on its back and remained there propped against the sideways turned head! it was simple enough. he now cut the hide from tail to neck along the belly, and from that incision down each leg, and then, i helping in the skinning, we soon had the bare carcass lying upon its spread-out hide. then off came the legs, next the carcass was turned upon its side, an incision was made all along the base of the hump, and it was broken off by hammering the ends of the hump, or dorsal ribs, with a joint of a leg cut off at the knee. lastly, with a knife and the blows of the leg joint, the ribs were taken off in two sections, and nothing remained upon the hide but a portion of the backbone and the entrails. these we rolled off the hide and the job was done, except tying the portions two by two with strands of the hide, so that they would balance one another on the pack horse. we had all three animals butchered before the moving camp came up. then lone walker's outfit left the line and came out to us, his head wife supervised the packing of the meat, and we were soon on our way again. i had had my first buffalo hunt. but i did not know that the buffaloes were to be my staff of life, my food, my shelter, and my clothing, so to speak, for nearly seventy years, until, in fact, they were to be exterminated in the early eighties! late in the afternoon of our seventh day out from the fort we went into camp at the junction of two beautiful, clear mountain streams, as i afterward learned, the belly river, and old man's river. the former was so named on account of the broad bend it makes in its course, and the latter because it is believed that old man, when making the world, tarried long in the mountains at its head and gambled with red old man, another god. on a mountain-side there is still to be seen a long, smooth furrow in the rock formation, and at the foot of it several huge stone balls which the gods rolled along it at the goal. the timber along these streams was alive with deer and elk, and from the plains countless herds of buffaloes and antelopes came swarming to them morning and evening to drink. the chiefs decreed that we should camp there for some days for hunting and drying meat, and with red crow for my companion i had great sport, killing several of each kind of game. we would ride out in the morning, followed by red crow's sister, su-yi-kai-yi-ah-ki, or mink woman, riding a gentle horse and leading a couple of pack horses for bringing in the meat. of course hundreds of hunters went out each day, but by picketing each evening the horses we were to use next day, and starting very early in the morning, we got a long start of most of them and generally had all the meat we could pack before noon. we killed buffaloes mostly, for that was the staple meat, meat that one never tired of eating. antelope, deer, and elk meat was good fresh, for a change, but it did not dry well. as fast as we got the buffalo meat home, sis-tsi-ah-ki divided it equally in quality and amount among the wives, and they cut it into very thin sheets, and hung it in the sun, and in about two days' time it dried out, and was then packed for transportation in _parflèches_, large rawhide receptacles shaped like an envelope, the flaps laced together. su-yi-kai-yi-ah-ki was of great help to us in our hunting. we often sent her into the timber, or around behind a ridge, or up a coulee to drive game to us, and she seldom failed to do it. she was also an expert wielder of the knife, able to skin an animal as quickly as either of us. she was about my age, and tall and slender, quick in all her actions, and very beautiful. her especial pride was her hair, which she always kept neatly done into two long braids. the ends of them almost touched the ground when she stood up straight. best of all, she had the same kind heart and happy disposition as her mother, sis-tsi-ah-ki. let me say here that a woman's or girl's name always terminated in "ah-ki," the term for woman. for instance, if a man was named after a bear, he would be called kyai-yo. if a woman was so named, she would be kyai-yo-ah-ki (bear woman). from the junction of belly river and old man's river, we trailed southwest across the plain to a large stream that i was told was named ahk-ai-nus-kwo-na-e-tuk-tai (gathering-of-many-chiefs river), for the reason that in years gone by the chiefs of the blackfeet tribes had there met the chiefs of tribes living on the west side of the mountains, and concluded a peace treaty with them, which, however, lasted only two summers. we camped beside the river that evening, and the next day, following it up in its deep, wide valley, came to the shore of a large lake from which it ran, and there made camp. never had i seen so beautiful a lake, or water so clear, and i said so as well as i could in signs and my small knowledge of the language i was trying so hard to learn. "it is beautiful," red crow told me, "but wait until to-morrow; i will then show you a lake far larger and more beautiful. "we call these the lakes inside," he went on. "see, this lake lies partly within the mountains. the one above is wholly within them. but you shall see it all to-morrow." over and over i repeated the name for them: puhkt-o-muk-si-kim-iks (lakes inside), until sure that i would not forget it. now they are known as st. mary's lakes. the morning after we camped at the foot of the lake, red crow, his sister, mink woman, and i were riding up the east side of the lake soon after daylight, and before any of the hunters were ready to start out. we followed a heavy game trail through quaking aspen groves and across little open, grassy parks, the still water of the lake always in view on our right, and across it the dark, timbered slope running up to a flat-topped mountain ending in an abrupt cliff hundreds of feet in height. we passed a beautiful island close in to our shore, and saw a small band of elk crossing a grassy opening in its heavy timber. elk and deer, and now and then a few buffaloes, were continually getting out of our way, and once i got a glimpse of a big bull moose as it trotted into a willow thicket, and learned its name from red crow's exclamation, "siks-tsi-so!" but i did not know for some time that the word means "black-going-out-of-sight." a most appropriate name for the shy animal, for generally that is about all that the hunter sees of it, its dark hind quarters disappearing in the thick cover it inhabits. passing the head of the lower lake, we crossed a half-mile wide prairie and came to the foot of the upper lake, long, narrow, and running back between mountains rising steeply to great height from the water's edge. i have traveled far; from the st. lawrence to hudson's bay, and from it to the rockies, and along them south to the great salt lake, but nowhere have i seen anything to equal the beauty of that lake, and the grandeur of its surrounding mountains. i fell in love with the place right then. red crow was anxious to go on, but i made him wait until i gazed and gazed at the wonderful scene before me. it was all so beautiful, and yet so stern, that it hurt. grim, cold, defiant were the rocky heights of the mountains, and blue-black the water of the lake because of its great depth; but for all that i was fascinated by it all. i felt that i would like to camp there a long, long time and climb all those tremendous heights, and explore the whole of the great valley. "come!" red crow called out at last, and we rode on, crossing the river on a good ford not far below the foot of the lake, and then following another big-game trail through more groves and parks along the west side of the lake. even here, away back from the plains, were several herds of buffaloes, and more deer and elk trotting and running from our near approach. i was more than once tempted to shoot at one of them, but red crow kept signing to me: "wait! we will kill above here." at last we arrived at the foot of a long, rocky, and in most places wall-like ridge that ran from the mountains out across the valley and ended in a high cliff jutting out over the lake. we left our horses at the foot of it, followed a game trail up through a break in the wall and came out on the sparsely timbered, rounding top, grass-grown in places. beyond, the lake, mountain walled, ran back several miles farther. beyond it a narrow and heavily timbered valley ran away back toward the summit of the range, where reposed long, high belts of what i thought was snow, but later learned was glacial ice, leavings of cold maker, the pi-kun-i say, and his sign that, though the sun has driven him back into the far north, he will come again with his winds and snows. we went on a few paces and red crow suddenly stopped and pointed to some moving white figures high up on the steep side of a red-rocked mountain ahead and to our right. he made the sign for them: one's forefingers sloping upward and backward from each side of the head above the ears, and by that i knew that they had slender, backward curved horns. "ai-po-muk-a-kin-a," he called them, meaning "white-big-heads." i had seen a few skins of the animals at the fort, and the factor had told me that they were those of the rocky mountain ibex. "we will go up and kill some of them!" red crow said, and we began a climb that lasted for hours. it was my first real mountain climb and i liked it even though i did shiver and sometimes feel faint, when we made our way along the edge of cliffs where a slip of the foot would mean the end for us. we climbed almost straight up and down watercourses; over steep ridges; and then from one rocky, timbered shelf to another, and at last approached the place where we had last seen the animals. red crow signed us to be cautious, and with ready bow and arrows led the way across a wide rock shelf, i close at his heels with my gun well primed and cocked, and right at my shoulder his sister, just as eager to see the game as we were. as we neared the edge of the shelf red crow motioned us to step up in line with him, and then we all very carefully looked down over it and saw the animals. but there was something going on with them that made red crow motion me to hold still. there were five, all big, white, long-haired males, and all standing at the edge of the shelf just under us, and looking intently at something below that we could not see. their bodies were much the shape of the buffalo, high over the shoulders, low behind, and very deep chested; and they had long hair pantalettes at the knees, and a long beard. but their heads were very different; long, narrow, flat-faced. foolish-faced, i thought. their hair was more of a creamy color than white, and their horns, round, long, slender, curving back to a sharp point, were coal black, as were their eyes, nose, and hoofs. but strangest of all was the attitude of the one on the right of the row; he was sitting down on his haunches, just as a dog or cat sits, as he stared down, and such a position for a hoofed animal, a ruminant, was so odd, so funny, that i almost laughed aloud. we were not fifty feet above the ibexes, but so intent were they upon what they were watching that they never looked up. whatever it was, it seemed to be on the shelf of rock just below them and moving to the right, for the ibexes' heads kept turning steadily that way as they watched it. then presently we saw what it was: another ibex. he came up on the shelf that they were on, a very big, old male, and advanced toward them, and they all turned to face him, backs humped, hair bristling forward, heads lowered, and one advanced, trotting sideways, to meet him. he had also bristled up, and we thought that we were to see a big fight. they met, smelled one another's noses, and leaped into the air, coming down several feet apart, stood motionless for some time, and then the one that belonged to the band went back to his companions while another went forward and through the same performance with the newcomer. it was a very funny sight. but i was becoming anxious to shoot. i wanted one of the strange animals and was afraid that if we delayed firing they might become aware of us and suddenly take to flight. i nudged red crow and signed him to shoot, and as he raised his bow i aimed at the newcomer, biggest of them all. twang, went the bow, and whoom, my gun! my animal fell, as did the one red crow had chosen for his arrow, and both made faint attempts to regain their feet. the others did not run. without doubt they had never heard the report of a gun before, and mistook it for the dropping of a time-loosened rock from the heights above. they just stood and stared at their fallen companions, and i drew back from the edge of the shelf and began reloading my gun, while red crow continued firing arrow after arrow from the bunch he held in his left hand with the bow. i was not long getting the charge down and pouring priming into the pan, and then i advanced for another shot. can you imagine my surprise when i found that i was too late? all the little band were down, dead and dying, and, as i looked, the last of them ceased struggling and lay still! i stared at them, at red crow and his bow, and at my gun. in many ways mine was the better weapon, but for running buffaloes, and other quick shooting at short range, i saw that the bow was the thing to use. right there i determined to get a bow outfit and learn to use it, and always to carry it on my back, and my gun in my hands. we found a place to get down from our shelf to the dead animals, and i carefully examined mine before skinning it. i found that it had a thick growth of short wool underneath its long, coarse hair, and after that never wondered at the ability of its kind to withstand cold. in winter, the more severe the weather and deep the snow, the higher they range on the mountains, seeking the bare rock which the fierce winds keep free from snow, for there grows their favorite food, moss, and several varieties of lichen. when i began skinning my kill i was struck by its peculiar odor, just like that of a muskrat and a hundred times as strong. at the rear base of each horn i found a wart-like black gland filled with yellowish, greasy musk. when i finished skinning my animal i began on another, and we soon had them all skinned. i then took the boss, or dorsal ribs, of my kill and wrapped them in the two hides i was to carry, although red crow and his sister laughed at me, and gave me to understand that the meat was not good. i confess that i did not enjoy it. it was coarse and tough, and musky. however, a young, fat male or female of this high mountain species is good eating--when no other kind of meat is obtainable. while we were preparing to leave the shelf i saw my first bighorns, a band of ewes and young between us and the lake, and five big rams on the mountain-side to the south of us. we had no time to go after them, as the sun was getting low, and anyhow i was well satisfied with our success of the day. we hurried down the mountain to our horses and started on the long trail to camp. whenever we crossed a park and looked out upon the lake we saw its calm surface broken by the jumping of hundreds of fish, some of the splashes undoubtedly made by fish of great size. i afterward found that they were the so-called mackinaw trout, running in weight up to forty pounds. besides them these lakes are full of cutthroat trout, and what the whites call dolly varden trout, and whitefish. the sun had set when we crossed the river and the big prairie at the foot of the upper lake, and started on the trail along the lower lake. it was almost dark when, hurrying along at a good lope, we crossed the park opposite the island, and entered a quaking aspen grove. and then, without warning, red crow's horse gave a sudden sideways leap and threw him, and went snorting and tearing off to the right, and mink woman's and my horses took after him, plunging and kicking with fright, and try as we would we could not stop them. i saw the girl knocked from her horse by a projecting, low bough of a cottonwood tree. behind us red crow was shouting "kyai-yo! kyai-yo! spom-ok-it!" (a bear! a bear! help!) as i could not stop my horse i sprang off him, holding fast to my gun, passed mink woman struggling to her feet, and ran to assist my friend, his continued cries for help almost drowned by the terrible roars of an angry bear. never had i heard anything so terrible. it struck fear to my heart. i wanted to turn and run from it, but i just couldn't! and there close behind me came the girl, crying, "spom-os! spom-os!" (help him! help him!) i just gritted my teeth and kept on. chapter iv a fight with the river people i went but a little way through the brush when, in the dim light, i saw red crow clinging with both hands to a slender, swaying, quaking aspen, and jerking up his feet from the up-reaching swipes of a big bear's claws. he could find no lodgment for his feet and could climb no higher; as it was, the little tree threatened to snap in two at any moment. it was bending more and more to the right, and directly over the bear, and he was lifting his legs higher and higher. there was no time to be lost! scared though i was, i raised my gun, took careful sight for a heart shot at the big animal, and pulled the trigger. whoom! and the bear gave a louder roar than ever, fell and clawed at its side, then rose and came after me, and as i turned to run i saw the little tree snap in two and red crow drop to the ground. i turned only to bump heavily into mink woman, and we fell, both yelling, and sprang up and ran for our lives, expecting that every jump would be our last. but we had gone only a short way when it struck me that we were not being pursued, and then, oh, how can i describe the relief i felt when i heard red crow shout to us: "puk-si-put! ahk-ai-ni!" (come! he is dead!) well, when i heard that my strength seemed suddenly to go from me, and i guess that the girl felt the same way. we turned back, hand in hand, wabbly on our legs, and gasping as we recovered our breath. again and again red crow called to us, and at last i got enough wind into me to answer him, and he came to meet us, and led us back to the bear. i had not thought that a grizzly could be as big as it was. it lay there on its side as big bodied as a buffalo cow. the big mouth was open, exposing upper and lower yellow fangs as long as my forefinger. i lifted up one huge forefoot and saw that the claws were four inches and more in length. lastly, i saw that there was an arrow deep in its breast. then, as we stood there, red crow made me understand that when his horse threw him and he got to his feet, he found the bear standing erect facing him, and he had fired an arrow into it and taken to the nearest tree. i knew the rest. i saw that the arrow had pierced the bear's lungs; that it would have bled to death anyhow. but my shot had been a heart shot, and just in time, for the little tree was bending, breaking even as i fired, and the bear would have had red crow had it not started in pursuit of us. "the claws, you take them!" red crow now signed to me. but i refused. i knew how highly they were valued for necklace ornaments, and i wanted no necklace. nor did i want the great hide, for its new coat was short, and the old winter coat still clung to it in faded yellow patches. red crow quickly unjointed the long fore claws, and we hunted around and found our ibex hides, which had come to the ground with us, and resumed our way in the gathering night. the horses had, of course, gone on, and would never stop until they found the band in which they belonged. after the experience we had had, we went on with fear in our hearts, imagining that every animal we heard moving was a bear. there was no moon, and in the thick groves we had to just feel our way. but at last we passed the foot of the lake and saw the yellow gleaming of the hundreds of lodges of the camp on the far side of the river. the ford was too deep, the water too swift for us to cross it on foot, so we called for help, and several who heard came over on horseback and took us up behind, and across to the camp, where we found lone walker was gathering a party to go in search for us. what a welcome we got! the women hugged and kissed red crow and his sister, and me too, just as if i were another son, and lone walker patted us on the shoulder and followed us into the lodge, and fussed at the women to hurry and set food before us. we ate, and let mink woman tell the story of the day, which she did between bites, and oh, how her eyes flashed and the words poured out as she described with telling gestures our experience with the bear! a crowd of chiefs and warriors had come into the lodge when word went around that we had killed a big bear, and listened to her story with close attention and many exclamations of surprise and approval; and when she ended, and red crow had exhibited the huge claws, lone walker made a little speech to me. i understood enough of it, with his signs, to know that he praised me for my bravery in going to his son's rescue and giving the bear its death shot. let me say here that in those days, with only bow and arrows, or a flintlock gun, the bravest of hunters generally let the grizzly alone if he would only let them alone. the trouble was that the grizzly, sure of his terrible strength, only too often charged the hunter at sight and without the slightest provocation. i have recently read lewis and clark's "journal," and find that they agree with me that the grizzly, or as they called it, the white bear, was a most ferocious and dangerous animal. the chiefs having decided that camp should not be moved until the next day, red crow and his sister took me next morning up a stream now called swift water, running into the river from the west. there were a number of lakes upon it, and one of them, just above a falls, was a very beautiful sheet of water. beyond it, at what was the head of the main fork of the stream, were more great deposits of ice, old cold maker's leavings. but i was not so much interested in them as i was in taking note of the beaver signs, which was a part of my duty on this trip of discovery into the southland. it was the factor's intention to send some _engagés_ trappers into it if i found enough fur to keep them busy. between this lake and a smaller one lying at the foot of a great ice sheet, i found no less than thirteen dammed ponds, all containing a number of inhabited beaver houses; and there were a number of their ponds farther down the stream. camp was broken the following morning, but before the lodges came down i was off on the trail with the chiefs. we topped the long, high ridge sloping up eastward from the lower lake, and looked out upon the greatest expanse of mountainand butte-studded plains that i had ever seen. and i thrilled at the thought that i was the very first one of my race to see it. lone walker pointed down to a small stream heading in a great patch of pine and spruce on the side of the ridge. "that is the little river. far to the east it joins the big river of the south," he told me, and i realized that i was on top of the watershed of the gulf of mexico. we rode on down to the stream and i got off my horse and drank from it for good luck. the whites misnamed it when they, years afterward, called it milk river. the blackfoot name was best, for it is a very small river for all its three hundred and more miles of length from its source to its junction with the missouri. as i drank the swamp-flavored water i thought how fine it would be to make a dugout there, and voyage down the stream to the missouri, and down that to the mississippi, and thence to the gulf of mexico and its tropical shores. what a long journey it would be; thousands of miles! what strange peoples i should see; tribe after tribe of indians, then americans, and at last the french and the spanish of the far south! and what adventure there would be! fights with some of those wild tribes, and with bears, and perhaps with lawless whites. they would try to take from me the hundreds of beaver pelts that i should trap on the way! but no! my dugout would not carry many skins, and if i survived the dangers i should arrive, poor and ragged, among a strange people, and have to work for them for a few pence a day. "away with you, dream," i said, and mounted my horse and rejoined the chiefs. coming to the southernmost little branch of the south fork of the river, lone walker, in the lead, got down from his horse, examined some tracks in the mud, and called out something which caused the others to spring from their horses and crowd around him. so did i, and saw several fresh moccasin tracks. at sight of them the chiefs had all become greatly excited, and talked so fast that i could understand nothing of what they said. i concluded, however, that the tracks had been made by some enemy, and saw by closer examination that the makers of them had worn soft, leather-soled moccasins, very different from the _parflèche_ or semi-rawhide soles of all blackfoot summer footwear. looking back on our trail, and seeing a large body of warriors coming to take the lead, several of the chiefs signaled them to hurry; and when they rode up lone walker gave some orders that sent them scurrying off in all directions. one of them presently came back in sight from the timber above the crossing, and signed to us to come to him. we all mounted and went up, and he led us into the timber and to a camping-ground where many lodges, several hundred, i thought, had recently been pitched. several of the chiefs poked out the ashes of one or two fireplaces and uncovered red coals; it was evident that the campers had moved away the day before. the chiefs were greatly excited over the find, and after a short council hurried back to the trail and gave orders that we should go into camp right there. while we waited for the long column to come up i gave lone walker the query sign--holding my hand up in front of me, palm outward, and waving it like the inverted pendulum of a clock, and he answered in speech and signs both, so that i understood: "the campers here were river people. we have forbidden them to come over here on our plains, but they keep coming and stealing our buffaloes. we shall now make them cry!" "you are going to fight them?" i signed. "yes." a queer feeling came over me at his answer. i shivered. in my mind's eye i saw a great battle, arrows flying and guns booming, and men falling and crying out in their death agony. and for what? just a few of the buffaloes that blackened the plains! "don't fight! there are plenty of buffaloes! let the river people go in peace with what few they have killed," i signed, but he gave me no answer other than a grim smile, and rode out to meet the head of the column. word had already gone back the whole length of it of our discovery, and as the excited people came up to their allotted place in the great circle and slung the packs from their horses, the women chattering and the men urging them to hurry and get out their war clothes, dogs barking and horses calling to one another, the din of it all was deafening. i now learned that, when there was time for the change, the warriors put on their war clothes before going against the enemy. the change was soon made, and it was startling. somber, everyday, plain wear had given place to shirts beautifully embroidered with porcupine-quill work of bright colors and pleasing design, and fringed with white weasel skins and here and there scalps of the enemy. the leggings were also fringed, and generally painted with figures of medicine animals. not a few wore moccasins of solid quill embroidery. every man had on a war bonnet of eagle tail feathers, or horns and weasel skins, and carried suspended from his left arm a thick, round shield of shrunk bull hide, from the circumference of which eagle tail feathers fluttered gayly in the wind. thus dressed, with bow and arrow case on their backs, guns in hand, and mounted on their prancing, high-spirited horses, the hundreds of warriors who soon gathered around us presented the most picturesque and at the same time formidable sight that i had ever seen. i admired them, and yet they filled me with terror against them; if they chose to attack us, our fort, our cannon and guns were as a barrier of feathers against the wind! and i, just a boy, was alone with them! i shivered. and then lone walker spoke kindly to me, and my fear died before his smile. "come! we go! you shall see something to make your heart glad!" he said. i hesitated, and the warriors suddenly broke out into a song that i knew must be a song of battle. it thrilled me; excited me. i sprang upon my horse and we were off. lone walker signed to me to fall in behind, and i found myself riding beside red crow at the rear of the swiftly moving band. following the trail of the enemy we soon topped a long, brushy slope and turned down into a beautiful timbered valley, and up it along a broad, clear stream in which i saw many a trout leaping for flies, and which, from the signs, was alive with beavers. it was the pu-nak-ik-si, or cutbank river, so named on account of the rock walls on both sides of the lower part of its valley. three or four miles above where we struck the valley it narrowed rapidly, hemmed in by the mountains, and we had to slow up, for the narrow trail led on through a thick growth of timber and, in places, almost impenetrable brush. then, for a short distance below the forks, the valley widened again, and there we passed the largest beaver dam that i had ever seen. it ran for all of a half-mile from slope to slope across the valley, forming a pond of hundreds of acres in extent, that was dotted with the lodges of the bark eaters. above it we turned up the south fork of the stream and neared the summit of the range. the valley narrowed to a width of a few hundred yards; ahead a high rock wall crossed it, and the trail ran steeply up the right mountain-side to gain its rough top. we were a long time making that for we were obliged to ride in single file because of the narrowness of the trail. the chiefs, leading, raised a great shout when they reached the edge of the wall, and signed back that they could see the enemy. we crowded on as fast as we could, red crow and i the last to top the wall, and oh, how anxious i was to see what was ahead! i saw, and just held my horse and stared and stared. for a mile or more from the wall the trail still ran south up a rocky slope, then turned, and, still rising, ran along a very steep slope to the summit of the range. along that slope the trail was black with riders and loose horses, hurrying across it at a trot and in single file, and back at the turn of the trail the rear guard of the fleeing tribe was making a stand against our advance. the warriors were afoot, their horses having gone on with the column, and our men had left their horses and were running on and spreading out, those who had guns already beginning to use them. "come on! hurry!" red crow shouted to me, and was off. i did not follow him, not at first, but as the river people's guard retreated and our men advanced, i did ride on, dreading to see men fall, but withal so fascinated by the fight that i could not remain where i was. i went to the spot where the enemy had first made their stand, and saw several bodies lying among the rocks. they had already been scalped. the last of the camp movers, the men, women, and children with the pack and loose horses, had all now crossed the long, steep slope, the latter part of which was very steep, and ran down to the edge of a cut-walled chasm of tremendous depth, and had gone out of sight beyond the summit. the guards were now on the trail along this most dangerous part of it, our warriors following them in single file at long bow range, but all of them except two or three in the lead, unable to use their weapons. it was a duel between these and the two or three rear men of the enemy. our lead man was, as i afterward learned, lone walker, and the men next to him chiefs bear head and bull-turns-around. all three had guns and were firing and reloading them and firing again as fast as they could, and doing terrible execution. one after another i saw five of the enemy fall from the trail, which was just a narrow path in the slide rock, and go bouncing and whirling down, and off the edge of that great cliff into space. it was a terrible sight! it made me tremble! i strained my body as i sat there on my horse, scrouged down as each one fell. i could not see that any of our warriors were falling; they were keeping themselves pretty well protected with their shields. capping the slope where all this was going on was a long, narrow wall of rock running out from the summit of the range, and happening to glance up at it i saw numbers of the enemy hurrying out along it to get opposite our men and shoot down at them. i instantly urged my horse forward, shouting as loud as i could, but no one looked back and i knew that i was not heard. i went on to where the horses had been left, jumped from mine there and ran on out along the slope, shouting again and pointing up to the top of the rock wall. at last some one saw me, and gave the alarm, and the whole party stopped and looked at me, then up where i was pointing and saw their danger, and all turned and started to retreat. but they had no more than started than the enemy began firing down at them. it was a long way down, several hundred yards, and their arrows and the few balls they fired did no damage; and seeing that, one of the enemy toppled a boulder off the cliff. it struck the slope with a loud crash and rolled and bounded on almost as swiftly as a ball from a gun, and i expected it to hurl three or four of our running men off the trail and down over the edge of the cliff. but when within twenty or thirty feet of the line it bounded high from the slope and shot out away over the trail, and away out over the cliff, and long afterward i heard it crash onto the bottom of the chasm. now the enemy abandoned their weapons and began, all of them, to hurl boulders down onto the slope. had they done that at first they would likely have swept many of our men off the trail and over the cliff; but now the most of them had passed the danger line. as the last of them were running out from under the outer point of the wall, a man there loosed a last big rock; it broke into many pieces when it hit the slope, and these went hurtling down with tremendous speed. there was no possibility of dodging them; two men were struck; one of them rolled down to the cliff and off it, but the other, the very last in the line, was whirled around, and as he dropped, half on and half off the trail, the man next to him turned back and helped him to his feet, and without further assistance he staggered on to safety. he was lone walker. his right shoulder was broken and terribly bruised. the man we had lost was short arrow, young, just recently made a warrior. we all gathered where the horses had been left, and a doctor man bound the chief's wound as best he could. there was much talk of short arrow's sudden going, and regret for it; and there was rejoicing, too; the enemy had paid dearly, seven lives, for what buffalo and other game they had killed out on the blackfeet plains. the sun was setting. as we tightened saddle cinches and prepared to go, we had a last look out along the slope. a great crowd of people was gathered on the summit watching us, and up on the wall top over the trail, sharply outlined against the sunset sky, dozens of warriors were gathering piles of rocks to hurl down at us should we again attempt to cross the slope. our chiefs had no thought of it. the enemy had been sufficiently punished, and anyhow the stand that they had taken was unassailable. we got onto our horses and hurried to get down into the valley below the rock wall while there was still a little light, and from there on let the horses take us home. we arrived in camp long after midnight. the people were still up, awaiting our return, and the greeting that we got surprised me. the women and old men gathered around us, shouting the names of the warriors, praising them for their bravery, and giving thanks to the gods for their safe return. but there was mourning too; when the noise of the greeting subsided we could hear the relatives of short arrow wailing over their loss. i did not sleep much that night; every time i fell into a doze i saw the bodies of the enemy bounding down that rocky slope and off the edge of the thousand foot wall, and awoke with a start. although suffering great pain in his shoulder, lone walker the next morning declared that he was able to travel, and camp was soon broken. after crossing the valley of cutbank river we left the big south trail, turning off from it to the southeast, and after a time striking the valley of another stream, the nat-ok-i-o-kan, or two-medicine-lodge river. i learned that this was the main fork of kyai-is-i-sak-ta, or bear river, the stream which lewis and clark had named maria's river, after the sweetheart of one of them. but i did not know that for many a year after i first saw it. we went into camp in a heavily timbered bottom walled on the north side by a long, high cliff, at the foot of which was a great corral in the shape of a half circle, the cliff itself forming the back part of it. it was built of fallen trees, driftwood from the river, and boulders, and was very high and strong. red crow told me that it was a buffalo trap; that whole herds of buffaloes were driven off the cliff into it. i could not understand much of what he told me, but later on saw a great herd decoyed to a cliff and stampeded over it, a waterfall of huge, brown, whirling animals. it was a wonderful spectacle. i shall have something to say about that later on. i now learned that we had come to this particular camping place for the purpose of building a great lodge offering, called o-kan, or his dream, to the sun. when we went into camp the lodges were not put up in the usual formation, but were set to form a great circle on the level, grassy bottom between the timber, bordering the stream, and the cliff. in the center of this circle, the sacred lodge was to be erected with ceremonies that would last for some days. on the following morning red crow and i, mink woman accompanying us, went hunting; we were to bring in enough meat to last our two lodges until the great festival ended. as usual, we started out very early, long before the great majority of the hunters were up. we rode down the valley through a number of bottoms of varying size, seeing a few deer, a band of antelopes, and two or three elk, but finding no buffaloes until we neared the junction of the river with another stream, which red crow told me was mi-sin-ski-is-i-sak-ta (striped-face--or, in other words, badger river). there, on the point between the two streams, we discovered a large herd of buffaloes filing down into the bottom to drink. we hurried on through the timber to get ahead of them, intending to hide in the brush on the point of land between the streams and dash into them when they came near. but as buffaloes often did, they suddenly broke into a run when part way down the slope, their thirst and sight of the water urging them forward, so we crossed the river, and riding in the shelter of the willows made our approach. they had all crowded out on the narrow point of land ahead and were drinking from both streams. "we will kill many!" red crow signed to me as we rode through the willows, and then out from the stream in the shelter of some clumps of berry brush, through which we could glimpse the solidly packed rows of the drinking animals. that was my thought, too, for i saw that we could get within fifty or sixty yards of them before they discovered our approach. i loosed the pistols in my belt, and slipped the case from my gun as we made our way into the last piece of brush; when we went out of it, red crow signed to me, we were to charge. just then a gun boomed somewhere ahead of us, and at the report the buffaloes whirled out from the streams and with a thunder and rattle of hoofs came straight toward us, a solid mass of several hundred head that covered the width of the point. red crow yelled something to us, but we could not hear him. we all turned about, the girl letting go the two horses she was leading, and fled. unless our horses could outrun the stampede they were sure to be gored, and down we would go to a terrible death! chapter v buffalo hunting when we cleared that brush patch i looked back. the buffaloes were no more than fifty yards behind us and the brush was gone, trampled down to its roots. i did not see the two horses that mink woman had been leading, or think of them at that time; my one thought was to get away from that onrushing wall of shaggy, sharp-horned, bobbing heads. red crow, frantically thumping his horse with his heels, was leading us, heading obliquely toward badger river, and waving to us to follow him. mink woman was just ahead of me, but she had the slower horse and i was gaining upon her, even as the buffaloes were gaining upon us all. i wondered if we could possibly clear their front. i rode up beside the girl, on her left, and hung there to protect her as best i could. nearer and nearer came the buffaloes. when they were within fifty feet of us, and we still fifty or sixty yards from the river, i fired my gun at them and to my surprise dropped a big cow. but that had no effect upon the others; they surged on over her body as though it were no more than an ant hill. "i must try again!" i said to myself and holding gun and bridle in my right hand, drew a pistol with my left. it was to be my last shot, and i held it as long as i could. we neared the river; the herd kept gaining upon us, came up to us and i leaned out and fired straight at a big head that i could almost touch with the muzzle of the pistol. it dropped. looking ahead then i saw that we were close to the edge of a high cutbank at the edge of the river, saw red crow leap his horse from it and go out of sight; a couple more jumps of our horses and we, too, would clear it. but just then a big head thumped into the side of my horse, knocking him against mink woman's horse. as i felt him falling with me i let go pistol and gun and bridle, and reaching out blindly grasped the mane of her horse with both hands and swung free. the next instant another big head struck her horse a mighty thud in the flank and whirled him half around and off the cutbank, and down we went with a splash into deep water; we were safe! i let go the horse, and the girl, still on its back, swam it downstream to shallow water, i following, and we finally passed below the cutbank and went ashore on the point, red crow going out a little ahead of us. a man skinning a buffalo there whirled around and stared at us open-mouthed, and then cried: "what has happened to you?" "you did it, you stampeded the buffaloes onto us! we have had a narrow escape!" red crow answered. but my one thought now was of my gun and pistol; i ran on to find them, dreading to see them trampled into useless pieces of wood and iron, and the hunter mounted his horse and came with the others after me. it was a couple of hundred yards up to where we had made our sudden turn, and there in the trampled and broken brush patch we found the two pack horses, frightfully gored and trampled, both dead. mink woman had led them by a single, strong rawhide rope, and the buffaloes striking it had dragged them, gored them, knocked them off their feet. we went on, past the first buffalo that i had killed, and soon came to the other one, and just beyond it to my horse, disemboweled, down, and dying. red crow put an arrow into him and ended his misery. just in front of him lay my gun, and i gave a shout of joy when i saw that it had not been trampled. we could not find the pistol, and it occurred to me that it might be under the dead horse; we turned him over and there it was, pressed hard into the ground but unbroken! we looked at one another and laughed, and red crow sang the "i don't care" song--i did not know it then--and the hunter said: "all is well! you have lost horses, they are nothing. you are wet, your clothes will dry. you have two fat buffaloes, be glad!" and at that we laughed again. but i guess that my laugh had a little shake in it; i kept seeing that terrible wall of frightened buffaloes thundering out upon us! the first thing that i did was to reload my gun and recovered pistol, and draw the wet charge and reload it. then mink woman and i turned to our two buffaloes and red crow hurried home for horses to replace those that we had lost. it was late afternoon when we got into camp with our loads of meat. so ended another experience in my early life on the plains. during the following days of our encampment there on the two medicine, the whole time was given over to the ceremonies of the o-kan, or medicine lodge, as our company men came to call it, and i was surprised to learn by it how intensely religious these people were, and how sincerely they reverenced and honored their gods. my greatest surprise came at the start, when i learned that it was women, not men, who had vowed to build the great lodge to the sun, the men merely assisting them. it was then, too, that i got my first insight into the important position of women in the tribe; they were far from being the slaves and drudges that i had been told they were. during the year that had passed a number of women had vowed to the sun to build this sacrifice to him if he would cure some loved relative of his illness, or bring him safely home from the war trail, and those whose prayers were granted now banded together, under the lead of the most experienced one of their number, to fulfill their vows. the different ceremonies were very intricate, and to me, with my slight knowledge of the language, quite mysterious. but, christian though i was, i was completely carried away by them, and took part in some of them as i was told to do by lone walker and his family. on the day after the great lodge was put up, red crow's mother took him and mink woman and me into it, and had one of the medicine women give us each a small piece of the sacred dried buffalo tongues which were being handed to all the people as they came in for them. i held mine, watching what the others did with theirs, and then, when my turn came, i held it up to the sky and made a little prayer to the sun for good health, long life, and happiness, and having said that, i buried a part of the meat in the ground, at the same time crying out: "hai-yu! sak-wi-ah-ki, kim-o-ket!" (oh, you! earth mother, pity me!) after that was done the mother and red crow and his sister made sacrifices to the sun, giving a beautifully embroidered robe, a bone necklace, and a war bonnet, which a medicine man hung to the roof poles while they prayed. but i was not forgotten; the good mother handed me a pair of new, embroidered moccasins and told me to hand them to the medicine man to hang up, and prayed for me while he did so. i could not understand half of it, but enough to know that in her i had a true friend, a second mother as it were. on the following day i learned that i had a second father, too. the warriors, gathered in front of the great lodge, were one by one counting their coups, their deeds of bravery, with the aid of friends enacting each scene of battle, and showing just how they had conquered the enemy. it was all like a play; a very interesting play. as red crow and i stood at the edge of the crowd looking on, lone walker saw us, raised his hand for silence, and said loudly, so that all could hear: "there stand my two sons, my red son and my white son. come, son red crow, count coups for yourself and your brother, too, as he cannot yet speak our language well." at that red crow took my hand and we walked out in front of the chief, turned and faced the crowd, and then red crow described how we had killed the big grizzly, i going to his rescue and giving it the death shot just in time to save him. he ended, and the drummers stationed beside the chiefs banged their drums, and the people shouted their approval. following that, lone walker again addressed the crowd: "by that brave deed which you have heard, my white son has earned a name for himself," he said. "it was a brave deed; by his quick rush in and timely shot he saved my red son's life, and so he must have a brave and good man's name. i give him the name of one who has recently gone from us in his old age. look at him, all of you, my son, rising wolf!" and at that the people again shouted approval, and the drummers banged their drums. of course i did not know then all that he had said, but i did know that i had been named mah-kwi-i-po-ats (wolf rising, or, as the whites prefer to translate it, rising wolf). the preparations for building the o-kan required two days' time; the attendant ceremonies four days more, four, the sacred number, the number of the world directions, north, south, east, and west. on the morning following the last day of the ceremonies we broke camp and, leaving the great lodge and its wealth of sun offerings to the elements, moved south again, or, rather, southwest, in order to regain the mountain trail. their religious duties fulfilled, the people were very happy, and i felt as light-hearted as any of them, and eager to see more--see all of their great country. we crossed badger river, and then sik-o-kin-is-i-sak-ta, or black barkbirch river, and encamped on a small stream named o-saks-i-i-tuk-tai, back fat, or as our french _voyageurs_ later translated it, depouille creek. from there our next camp was on kok-sis-tuk-wi-a-tuk-tai (point-of-rocks river). i never knew why the whites named it sun river. nor did i dream that the day was to come when i would see its broad bottoms fenced in and irrigated, and a fort built upon it to house blue-coated american soldiers. if i then gave the future any thought, it was that those great plains and mountains would ever be the hunting-ground of the blackfeet, and the unfailing source of a great supply of furs for our company. we camped on this stream well out from the mountains, and the next morning, moving on, at noon arrived at its junction with a great river which at first sight i knew must be the missouri, the o-muk-at-ai of the blackfeet tribes. below, not far away by the sound, i could hear the dull roar of a waterfall. we turned downstream, crossed on a swift and fairly deep ford above the falls, and went into camp. as soon as the lodges were up and the women had cooked some meat for us, red crow and i saddled fresh horses and struck out to see the country. we had come to the trail of lewis and clark, and i was anxious to learn if they had had any followers, if the american fur company's men had come into the country, as my factor feared. we rode to the fall, and after looking at it moved on down and came upon an old and very dim trail along which lay here and there log cuttings about eight feet long and a foot or more in diameter. they were well worn; small pieces of rock and gravel were embedded in them, and i saw at once that they had been used for rollers under boats in portaging them around the falls. i realized how great a task that had been when red crow guided me down to all the falls, the last a number of miles below our camp. the blackfoot name for the falls is i-pum-is-tuk-wi (rock-wall-across-the-river.) sitting on the shore of the river below the last falls, at the point where the portage had begun, i tried to get some information from red crow as to the white men who had passed up there, but he could tell me nothing. as we talked i was idly heaping a pile of sand before me, and in doing so uncovered two long, rusty spikes. "what a find! what a rich find! give me one of them," red crow exclaimed, and i handed him one. "see! it is long. it will make two arrow points," he explained. and at that i carefully pocketed mine. material for arrowheads, iron, i mean, was very valuable at that time, in that country. our company was selling arrow points of hoop iron at the rate of a beaver skin for six points. some of the blackfeet hunters were still using flint points which they made themselves. and that reminds me of something. at the foot of the buffalo trap cliffs on the two medicine i picked up one evening a number of flint and obsidian arrow points, many of them perfectly and beautifully fashioned. i took them to the lodge and offered them to lone walker, thinking that i was doing him a good turn. but he started back from them as though they had been a rattlesnake, and refused to even touch them. "some of those, especially the black ones, are surely crow points, and so unlucky to us," he explained. "this was crow country. we took it from them. maybe our fathers killed the owners of those points. but the shadows of the dead keep coming back to watch their property, and cause sickness, trouble, to any who take it. i wish that you would take the points back where you got them and leave them there." i did so, but carefully cached them under a rock, and years later recovered them. but that is not all. after returning to the lodge i asked lone walker where the people obtained the black, as they called it, ice rock for making their arrows, and he told me that away to the south, near the head of elk river, or in other words, the yellowstone, were springs of boiling water, some of them shooting high in the air with tremendous roaring, and that near one of these springs was a whole butte of the ice rock, and it was there that his people went to get their supply. "but it is a dreadful place!" he concluded. "we approach it with fear in our hearts, and make great sacrifices to the gods to protect us. and as soon as we arrive at the ice rock butte we snatch up what we need of it and hurry away." he was telling me, of course, of the wonderful geysers of the yellowstone. i believe that i am the first white person who ever heard of them. but to continue: when red crow and i returned home that evening, i asked lone walker if his people had seen the white men who had left the cut logs in the trail around the falls, and he replied that neither the pi-kun-i, nor any other of the blackfeet tribes had seen them, but he himself had heard of them from the earth house people--the mandans--when visiting them several summers back. they had been a large party, traveling in boats, had wintered with the mandans and gone westward, even to the everywheres-water of the west, and the next summer had come back, this time on horses instead of in boats. if you have read lewis and clark's "journal," you will remember that they met and fought--on what must have been cutbank river--some people that they thought were blackfeet. they were not. they must have been a war party of crows or some other tribe going through the country. i next asked lone walker if he had ever seen white men on the missouri river waters. "two. in the mandan camp. of a race the mandans call nothing white men," he answered. and from that time the blackfoot name for the french has been kis-tap-ap-i-kwaks (useless, or nothing white men), as distinguishing them from the english, the red coats, and the americans, long knives. lone walker's answer pleased me; it was evident that the american fur company had not entered the blackfoot, or even the mandan country, far below. but even then that company was pushing, pushing its forts farther and farther up the missouri, and the day was coming, far off but coming, when i would be one of its employees! we camped there at the falls several days and hunted buffaloes, making several big runs and killing all the meat that was wanted at that time. our lodges were pitched close to the river, right where the whites are now building the town they have named great falls. our next move was out to the point of the little spur of the mountains that is named highwood. its slopes were just alive with deer and elk, especially elk, and red crow and i killed two of them, big fat bulls, for a change of meat for our lodges. we did all the hunting for lone walker's big family; they required an awful lot of meat; of fresh meat about three pounds a day for each person, and each day there were also a number of guests to be fed. at a rough guess i put the amount that we used at three hundred pounds a day. do you wonder that red crow and i, and mink woman helping us, were kept pretty busy? leaving the highwood we moved out to arrow river (ap-si-is-i-sak-ta), and once more i felt that i was in country that white men had never seen. the arrow river valley is for most of its course a deep, walled gash in the plains; there are long stretches of it where neither man nor any animal, except the bighorn, can climb its red rock cliffs. but the moment i first set eyes upon it, i liked it. i always did like cliffs, their ledges, and caves hiding one can never tell what mysteries. there were many bighorn along these cliffs, and mule deer were plentiful in all the rough breaks of the valley. out on the plains endless herds of buffaloes and antelopes grazed, coming daily down steep and narrow, deep-worn trails to drink at the river; and in the valley itself every patch of timber fringing the stream sheltered white-tailed deer and elk. there were many beavers, pond beavers and bank beavers, along the stream. bear tracks were everywhere to be seen, in the dusty game trails, and in the river shore sands. we wound down into the deep canyon by following a well-worn game trail down a coulee several miles in length, and when we went into camp between a fine cottonwood grove and the stream, and lone walker said that we would remain there for some time, i was much pleased, for i wanted to do a lot of hunting and exploring along the cliffs with red crow. we could not do it the next day, for we had to get meat for the two lodges. that was not difficult. with mink woman to help us, and leading six pack horses, we left very early in the morning and rode down the valley for four or five miles, examining the many game trails that came into the valley; there was one in every break, every coulee cutting the rock wall formation. we at last struck a well-worn trail that came into the valley through a gap in the cliff not twenty feet wide, and under a projecting rock shelf about ten feet high. we saw that we could climb onto the shelf, and shoot straight down at the game as it passed, so red crow rode up the trail to look out on the plain and learn if it would pay us to make our stand there. he was gone a long time, and when he returned said that a very large herd of buffaloes was out beyond the head of the coulee, and slowly grazing toward it; he thought that it would be coming in to water before noon. we therefore hid our horses in some timber below the mouth of the coulee, and then all three climbed up on the rock shelf and sat down. i held my gun ready, laid a pistol on either side of me, and red crow strung his bow and got out a handful of arrows. it was hot there on that shelf. the sun blazed down upon us, and we could not have held out had not a light wind been blowing down the coulee. it was past noon when a most peculiar noise came to us with the wind; a deep, roaring noise like distant, but steady thunder. i asked what caused it. "it is the bulls; the buffalo bulls are grunting because now is their mating season," red crow explained. "they now take wives. they are very mad; they fight one another, and night and day keep up that grunting." the noise became louder and louder. "they come. they are coming now to drink," said red crow, and soon after that we saw the lead of the herd coming around a bend in the coulee. a number of bulls came first, heads down, and swaying as they walked with ponderous tread, and as they came nearer i saw that they were making that peculiar noise with their mouths closed, or all but closed. it was what i called a grunting bellow, very deep sounding, long sustained, a sound wholly unlike any other sound in the world. it was a sound that exactly fitted the animal that made it. as the buffalo's appearance was ever that of a forbidding, melancholy animal brooding over strange mysteries, so was its close-mouthed bellowing expressive of great sadness, and unfathomable mystery; of age-old mysteries that man can never penetrate. often, as we gazed at bulls standing on some high point, and as motionless as though of stone, indians have said to me: "they know! they know everything, they see everything! nothing has been hidden from them from the time old man made the world and put them upon it!" perhaps so! let us not be too sure that we are the only wise ones that roam this earth! well, the herd came on, the bulls moaning and switching and cocking up their short, tufted tails, and presently the coulee was full of the animals as far as we could see. we had drawn back from the edge of the shelf and sat motionless, only our heads in view, and so we remained until the head of the long column had passed out into the bottom. i then leaned forward, and red crow sprang to his feet, and we began shooting down, choosing always animals with the broadest, most rounding hips, and therefore the fattest meat. with my rifle, and one after the other my pistols, i shot three good cows, and red crow shot four with his bow and arrows. all seven of them fell close around the mouth of the coulee. those that had passed out into the bottom, unhurt, ran off down the valley. the rest, back up the coulee, turned and went up on the plain, in their hurry and scrambling raising such a cloud of dust that we nearly strangled in it. we got down from the shelf and began butchering our kills, taking only the best of the meat with the hides. we got into the camp before sundown, our horses staggering under their heavy loads. we had broiled tongue for our evening meal. yes, buffalo tongue, a whole one each of us, and some service berries, were what the women set before us that evening. how is it that i remember all those little details of the vanished years? i cannot remember what happened last year, or the year before, yet all of that long ago time is as plain to me as my hand before my face! the next morning, with pieces of dry meat and back fat in our hands for breakfast, red crow and i rode out of camp at daylight for a day on the cliffs. on the previous day we had seen numbers of bighorn along them, and, opposite the mouth of the coulee where we had killed the buffaloes, had discovered what we thought was the entrance to a cave. we wanted to see that. we had told mink woman that she could not go with us, but after going down the valley for a mile or more found her close at our heels. nor would she go back: "i want to see that cave as much as you do," she said. "i help you hunt, and butcher your kills; it is only fair that you do something for me now and then." it was a beautiful morning, clear, cool, windless. as we rode along we saw deer and elk dodging out of our way, a beaver now and then and coveys of sage hens and prairie grouse. while waiting for the buffaloes to come in, the day before, we had looked out a way by which we thought it would be possible to reach the cave, and now, leaving the horses a half mile or more above our stand on the shelf, we began the ascent of the cliffs. the cave was located at the back of a very long shelf about two thirds of the way up the canyon side, and we believed that we could reach its western end by climbing the series of small shelves and sleep slopes under that part of it. we climbed a fifty-foot slope of fallen boulders and came to the first shelf, a couple of feet higher than our heads, and red crow told me to use his back as a mount, and go up first. he leaned against the rock wall, bending over. i handed my gun to mink woman and, stepping up on his back and then on his shoulders, and steadying myself by keeping my hands against the wall, straightened up; and as my head rose above the level of the shelf i saw something that made me gasp. chapter vi camping on arrow river with flattened ears and a menacing snarl a mountain lion, not four feet back, was crouching and nervously shuffling her forefeet for a spring at me, and three or four small young ones behind her all had their backs arched and were spitting and growling too. i ducked down so quickly that i lost my balance and tumbled onto the rocks, but luckily the fall did not hurt me. i was up on my feet at once. "what was it?" red crow asked. "a big lion! it has little young ones. it was making ready to spring at me," i answered, and at that he became greatly excited. "quick! let me have your gun! help me up!" he exclaimed, and i went to the wall and bent over, and mink woman handed him the gun after he had gotten upon my back. he straightened up, and i expected to hear him shoot; but instead he called down to us: "they are gone!" and sprang upon the shelf and we heard a scuff or two of his moccasins as he ran off. at that mink woman helped me get upon the shelf, and i then drew her up, and we ran around a bend of it just in time to see red crow, farther on, lay down my gun, draw his bow and arrows, and begin shooting at something that seemed to be in a crevice of the cliff at the back of the shelf. we hurried on to him and found that he had killed the lion there where she had made her stand in front of her young, and as we came up to him he shot the last of the little ones. there were four of them. he was mightily pleased at what he had done, for the hide of a mountain lion was valued by the blackfeet tribes above that of any other animal. it was believed to bring good luck in hunting and in war to the owner, and was either fashioned into a bow case and quiver, or softly tanned and used as a saddle robe. while we were skinning the animals i asked my friend why he had not used my gun to kill the old one. "never the gun when the bow will do as well!" he answered. "the bow is silent. the gun goes whoom! and for far around all ears take notice of it." there was sound sense in what he said. i determined that i would no longer delay getting a bow and learning to use it. we little thought that we were to prove his saying on the height above us. if he had fired the gun at the lion it is likely that i would not be sitting here telling you my story of those vanished days. having skinned the lions we folded the hides flesh side together, so that they would not dry out, and would be fresh and soft to stretch properly when we got them to camp, and packed them with us; they were light and would not interfere with our climbing. we went back to where we had come up on the shelf, and then zigzagged our way up from shelf to shelf, all the time in a deep recess in the great cliff. on the shelf above the one on which we got the lions, were the remains of a yearling bighorn which the old lion had apparently killed that morning, and that explained, we thought, why we had seen none of the animals thereabout. on the previous day we had seen several small bands there. at last we climbed onto the cave shelf. from where we struck it, it ran out toward the valley and then circled around the projecting point of the formation, and ended in a recess similar to the one we had come up in. the cave was on our side of the point; about a hundred yards from it. we hurried out along the shelf, eager to get to the cave and explore it, but upon reaching the entrance our haste died right there; it was a mighty black hole we were looking into; a rank, damp, cold odor came from it; we could see in only a few yards; the darkness beyond might conceal something of great danger to us! a grizzly, i thought, and my companions' fears included ghosts; the shadows of the dead always lurking about to do the living harm. said red crow at last, and the set expression of his face belied his words: "ha! i am not afraid! let's go in!" "come on," i told him, and led the way. "i am afraid! i shall wait for you here!" mink woman told us. but she didn't. we had taken but a few steps when she was close behind us, feeling safest there. a few yards in, the cave narrowed to but little more than three feet, and then widened out again into a big, jagged-walled and high-roofed room. we could see but little of it at first, for we were blocking the light; but after leaving the narrow passage, and as our eyes became accustomed to the darkness, we saw that the room was the end of the cave. we stood still, hardly breathing, listening for any movement there; watching for shining eyes; and at last concluded that the place was harmless enough. then i, farthest in, saw something, a dim, white, queerly shaped object on the floor at the back of the room. i stared at it a long time, made sure that whatever it was it had no life, and then moved on. the others then saw it and red crow exclaimed: "what is it? what is it?" we moved on again, and saw at last that our find was a number of painted and fringed rawhide war cylinders, receptacles in which warriors carried their war bonnets and war clothes when on a raid. "ghosts' property! do not touch them!" mink woman exclaimed, but i was already lifting one of them, and as i did so it gave off a fresh odor of sweet grass smoke, a medicine--a sacred perfume of the blackfeet tribes, i knew. i held it under red crow's nose and he sniffed at it and exclaimed: "newly smoked!" he then took it and held it up in better light, and pointed to the painted design: "crow! crow painting!" he exclaimed, and turned quickly and stared out the way we had come; so did i. there was no one in sight. all was quiet; but we felt sure that the enemy was not far away! i turned back and counted the cylinders; there were seven, and with them were coils of rawhide rope, several bridles with spanish bits, the first that i had ever seen, and didn't then know were of that make, and three square-shaped rawhide pouches with slings for carrying. i put my hand into one of them and brought forth a piece of freshly roasted meat! that settled it; a crow war party was somewhere on the cliffs about us; they had perhaps slept here, and were now out on watch. i thought it strange that they had not seen us. said red crow: "they must be sitting out around the point. just think! if i had fired the gun at the lion we would now be without scalps!" and at that he gave a little laugh; a scared little laugh, his eyes all the time on the cave entrance, as were mine, and mink woman's. "what shall we do?" she whispered. "take these things and run," i said. "no!" said red crow, and took from me the pouch, put the roast meat back and laid it in its place in the pile. "come!" he said, and we followed him out. at the entrance we looked off along the length of the shelf as far as we could see its rounding curve; no one was in sight. we ran, ran for our lives back the way we had come, our backs twitching in expectation of arrow piercings. we reached the end of the shelf in the recess, halted a moment for a last look back, and seeing no one, went quickly down the slopes and over the shelves to the bottom, and thence to our picketed horses. not until we reached them did we feel really safe. "there! we survive!" red crow exclaimed. "i go for help! we shall wipe out those crows! hasten, you two; go down to the place of our buffalo killing and keep watch for them, but don't let them think that you know they are there on the cliffs. i shall come back as soon as i can." he left us, and mink woman and i rode down to the mouth of the deep coulee, picketed our horses just below it, and then got onto the shelf from which we had shot the buffaloes the day before; and not until then did we actually begin our watch. i sat facing the bottom of the coulee, looking up it the most of the time just as though i were waiting for a herd of buffaloes to come down for water, and mink woman pretended to be looking up and down the canyon, but most of the time her eyes were upon the high, rounding point of the cliff opposite us, and in particular the cave shelf. we felt sure that somewhere up there the enemy lay concealed and was watching us. it was likely that, coming across the plain in the early morning, they had seen some of our people riding out to hunt, and had taken refuge in the cliff with the expectation of finding our camp and raiding our horses when night came. it was mid-afternoon when we saw a number of riders, twenty or thirty, coming down the valley. they appeared to be in no haste, but when they had come close the sweat on their horses told us that they had ridden hard the most of the way down. lone walker was the leader of the party. he rode up close to our shelf and asked if we had seen the enemy while sitting there, and upon learning that we hadn't, said that red crow was guiding a big party to attack the crows from the top of the cliff. he then turned to his men and told one of them to ride up the coulee, and the rest to watch him, in order that the crows might not have the least suspicion that we were aware of their presence. it was hard for us all to do that, to stare up a coulee when we wanted to keep our eyes on the cliffs, but we had not to endure it long; we soon heard the whoom! whoom! whoom! of guns, and turning, saw our men on the top of the rounding point of the cliff, and shooting down at three men running along the shelf on which was the entrance to the cave. they disappeared around the bend and i knew that they were making for shelter there. but whoom! whoom! went two guns back in the recess, and soon one of the men came running back. in the meantime some of our party had found a way down to the other end of the shelf, and now came running along it out around the point. as soon as the lone enemy saw them he stopped short, fired an arrow at them that went wild, and then with a quick leap threw himself from the shelf. down, down he went, a sickening sight as he whirled through the air, and struck the rocks far below. "hai! hai! hai! a brave end!" cried lone walker, and all the party echoed his words, and several made a dash across to secure his scalp and weapons. meantime one of our men up on the extreme point of the cliff was signaling down to us, his signs plain as he stood outlined against the clear sky: "they are all wiped out! dead! we meet you at camp!" and at that we all got upon our horses and rode home. the cliff party, bearing the scalps and plunder they had taken from the enemy, arrived in camp at the same time we did and were hailed with great acclaim. as soon as the greeting was over red crow handed me one of the fringed and painted cylinders that we had discovered in the cave. "take it," he said, "it is yours. see, i also have one. we got them all." we went to our lodge then with lone walker, and red crow told us how he had guided the big party out, stationing a few men down at the cave, in the first place, and then leading the others out upon the point above the shelf where he thought the enemy would be sitting. upon looking over the edge they had found the seven crows lying flat on the rocky projection straight below, all intently watching our party across at the mouth of the coulee. four of them had been killed where they lay. two of the three that then ran for the cave had been shot down before they could reach it. the last man, rather than give the pi-kun-i the honor of killing him, had committed suicide by jumping from the cliff. "he was a coward! had i been in his place i would have fought to the last; i would have tried my best to make others die with me!" red crow concluded. "i like to hear you say that. fight to the last! that is the one thing to do!" lone walker told him. with no little eagerness red crow and i unlaced the round end covers of our crow war cylinders, and drew out the contents, and found that we each had a beautiful war suit and eagle tail feather war bonnet. the streaming ends of the bonnets were feathered all the way, and were so long that they would drag at our heels as we walked. then and there a visitor in the lodge offered me five horses for my costume. i would not have parted with it for any number of horses; i had nine head, all that i could possibly use while on the trail. we camped on arrow river all of a week, the women busily gathering choke-cherries for winter use. upon bringing them into camp they pounded them, pits and all, on flat rocks, and set the mass on clean rawhides to dry, and then stored it in rawhide pouches. there was never enough of it for daily use. in its raw state, or stewed, or mixed with finely pounded dry meat and marrow grease--pemmican--it was passed around as a side dish to a feast. i liked it, and always ate my share, although never without some misgivings as to the effect of the sharp and indigestible particles of pounded pits in my stomach. during our stay at this place an old, old man named kip-i-tai-su-yi-kak-i (old-woman-stretching-her-legs) came into our lodge one night, took his bow and quiver case from his back, passed it to me and said: "there, my son rising wolf! i heard that you wanted bow and arrows, so i give you this set, one that i took long ago in battle with the snake people. it is a good bow. the arrows are well feathered and fly straight. i hope that you will have good success with my present, and sometimes remember that i am fond of broiled tongue!" and at that he laughed, and we all laughed with him, and i said that he should not lack for tongues, and kept my word. i was very glad to get the bow. at first it was a little too stiff for the strength of my arms, but with daily use of it my muscles grew up to its requirement of strength, and i soon became a fair shot with the feathered shafts. i did not carry the bow all the time, but always used it for running buffaloes. on my first chase with it i killed three cows, and once, several years later, shot down thirteen cows with it in one run. but that was nothing. i once saw a man, named little otter, shoot twenty-seven buffaloes in one run! he was a big, powerfully built man, he rode a big, swift, well-trained, buffalo horse, and every time he let an arrow fly it slipped into an animal just back of the ribs and ranged forward into the heart and lungs. you ask how a man happened to be named old-woman-stretching-her-legs. when a child was born, a medicine man was called in to name it, and invariably the name he gave was of something he had seen, or of some incident, in one of his dreams, or, as he believed them to be, visions. thus, in a dream, the medicine man had seen an old woman at rest, or sleeping, and she had stretched down her legs to get more ease. hence the name. a woman generally retained through life the name given her at birth. a man, as i have explained, was entitled to take a new name every time he counted a big coup. some odd names that i remember are chewing-black-bones; back-coming-in-sight; tail-feathers-coming-in-sight-over-the-hill; falling bear; and he-talked-with-the-buffalo. during the time of our encampment on arrow river, red crow and i killed a number of fine bighorn rams along the cliffs, and the skins of these, tanned into soft leather and smoked by the women, were made into a shirt and leggings for me. it was time that i had them, for my one suit of company clothes was falling to pieces. also, my shoes had given out. attired now in leather clothes, breechclout, moccasins, and with a toga, or wrap of buffalo cow leather, i was all indian except in color. lone walker himself made the suit for me. men were their own tailors; the women made only their moccasins. in time i learned to cut out and sew my clothing. red crow had become the owner of one of the two huge spanish bits that we had found in the cave with the rest of the crow belongings. it was beautifully fashioned of hand-forged steel, its long shanks inlaid with silver, and he took good care of it, polishing and cleaning it frequently. as he was thus occupied one evening, lone walker pointed to the bit and asked me if i knew whence it had come. i didn't, of course, and said so, whereupon he told mink woman to take down a long, well-wrapped roll of buckskin that was invariably fastened to the lodge poles above his couch. i had often wondered what it might contain. he undid the fastenings, unrolled wrap after wrap of leather, and held up to my astonished gaze a shirt of mail, very fine meshed and light, and an exquisitely fashioned rapier. he passed them to me for examination, and i found etched on the rapier blade the legend: "francisco alvarez. barcelona. 1693." it was an old spanish blade. "the people who made the bit," he told me in signs and words, very slowly and carefully so that i would understand, "made these. they live in the far southland; the always-summer land. i went there once with a party of our people, traveling ever south all summer. we started from our country when the grass first started in the spring, and, counting the moons, arrived in that far southland in the first moon of winter here. we found there white men different from those who had come to the assiniboine river and built a fort. they were dark-skinned and black-haired, most of them. they had many horses. we went south to take their horses, and captured many of them. but not without a fight, several fights. in one of the fights i killed the man who wore this iron shirt and carried this big knife. we did not get back to our country until the middle of the next summer. that is a strong shirt. arrows cannot pierce it. it has saved my life three different times in battle with the enemy." well, that was news to me, that these people went so very far, all the way to mexico, on their raids. afterward i heard many interesting tales of raids into the far south, many parties going there in my time, and generally returning with great bands of horses and plunder taken from the spanish, and from different indian tribes. i learned that the crows had the first horses that the blackfeet tribes ever saw, and that they were almost paralyzed with astonishment when they saw men mount the strange, big animals and guide them in whatever direction they wished to go. but fear soon gave place to burning desire to own the useful animals, and they began raiding the herds of the crows, the snakes, and other southern tribes, and the spanish, and in time became owners of thousands of them through capture, and by natural increase. lone walker told me that his people first obtained horses when his father's father was a small boy, and as near as i could figure it, that was about 1680 to 1700. the acquisition of the horse caused a vast change in the life of the blackfeet tribes. before that time, with only their wolf-like dogs for beasts of burden, their wanderings had been limited to the forests of the slave lakes region, and the edge of the plains of the saskatchewan. with horses for riding and packing, and, later, a few guns obtained from the sieur de la vérendrie's company, they swept southward and conquered a vast domain and became the terror of all surrounding tribes. the blackfeet named the horse, po-no-ka-mi-ta (elk-dog), because, like the dog, it carried burdens, and was of large size, like the elk. one evening, there at arrow river, lone walker told me that we would ride out early the next morning, and he would show me a "white men's leavings,"--nap-i-kwaks o-kit-stuks-in, in his language. i asked him what it was, and was told to be patient; that i should see it. accordingly, we rode out on the plain on the trail by which we had come down to the river, then turned sharply to the right, following the general course of the big, walled valley, and after several hours' travel came to a pile of rocks set on top of a low ridge on the plain, and at the head of a very long coulee, heading there and running down to the river, several miles away. "there! that is white men's leavings!" the chief exclaimed. "we know not how long ago they piled those rocks. it was in my father's time that our people found the pile, just as you see it, except that at that time a white metal figure of a man against black, crossed sticks, his arms outstretched, was stuck in the top of it, so that it faced yonder belt mountains." i was tremendously interested. "what became of the man figure?" i asked. "the finder kept it for some time, and then sacrificed it to the sun; hung it to the roof of a medicine lodge," he answered, and it seemed strange to think that an image of jesus had been presented to a pagan god. "how long ago do you think it was that white men put up this pile?" i asked. "fifty, maybe sixty, maybe seventy winters. in my father's time white men came to the camp of the earth house people. it was in winter time. they rode horses; wore iron shirts; carried guns with big, flaring muzzles, and long knives. from the camp of the earth house people they went west, returned soon, and went back north, whence they had come. none of our tribes saw them." i said to myself: "the sieur de la vérendrie's party must have put up this monument, and yonder belt mountains must be those that they named the shining mountains!" well i knew the story of the brave and unfortunate sieur. my grandfather, who had had some interest in his ventures, had related it many times. because of enemies who had the favor of the court, in france, he had failed in his undertakings to establish a great fur trade in the west, and he had died of a broken heart! i must confess that i felt some disappointment upon learning that i was not, as i had thought, the first of my race to see this part of the country. however, the knowledge that i had been the first white person to traverse the great saskatchewan-missouri river country comforted me. as we rode homeward i learned from lone walker that a man named sees far had discovered the monument and taken the cross. he was long since dead. i was afraid to ask where the medicine lodge was built at which the cross had been sacrificed to the sun. the penalty for robbing the sun was death. the blackfeet tribes had too much reverence for their gods to do that, and war parties of other tribes, traveling through the country and coming upon a deserted medicine lodge, gave it a wide berth; they feared the power of the shining god for whom it had been built. i remember that the kai-na tribe of the blackfeet once came upon three free trappers (or were they the american company's _engagés_--i forget) robbing a medicine lodge, and killed them all! i come now to a part of my story that is not so very happy. on the morning that we broke the arrow river camp, the chiefs, and the guard that generally rode ahead of the column, remained on the camp ground, gathered here and there in little groups smoking and telling stories, until long after the people had packed up and were traveling up the long coulee through which the trail led to the plain on the south side of the valley. i went on with red crow and mink woman, and a young man named eagle plume, lone walker's nephew, helping them herd along the chief's big band of horses in which, of course, were those that he had given me. as soon as we got out of the narrow confine of the coulee we drove the herd at one side of the beaten travois and pack trail, keeping about even with lone walker's outfit of women and children riders, and their loaded horses. their place was at the head of the little robes band, and that had its place in the long line about a half mile from the lead band, which was that of the lone eaters. we had traveled three or four miles from the river, and were wending our way among a wide, long setting of rough hills, keeping ever in the low places between them, when, without the slightest warning, a large body of riders dashed out from behind a steep hill and made for the head of our column. far off as they were, we could hear them raise their war song, and could see that they were all decked out in their war finery. "crows! crows! they attack us!" i heard men crying as they urged their horses forward. "crows! we must help fight them!" red crow called to me, and like one in a dream i found myself with my companions riding madly for the front. chapter vii the crows attack the blackfeet all the men from the whole length of the line were rushing forward, even the old and weak who had scarce strength enough to string their bows. ahead, women and children were coming back as fast as they could make their horses run, and pack horses, travois horses, and those dragging lodge poles were running in all directions and scattering their loads upon the plain. it was a scene of awful confusion and of noise; women and children yelling and crying with fright, flying past us wild eyed, our men shouting to one another to hurry, to take courage, and above all, louder than all, the yells and shouts of the enemy and our few warriors there at the front. the crows were forcing our men back; they were fighting their best but were far outnumbered and, as we could see, were falling not a few. i looked back, and the sight of hundreds of our men coming on was encouraging. with my companions, and twenty or thirty more riders, i was now getting close to the fighting. the crows, in one big, long body, were riding full speed across the stand our men were making, shooting their arrows and few guns as they passed, and wheeling out and around for another charge by them. this they had done many times, and so far as i could see, but few of them had fallen. at last we were at the front, arriving there just as the crows were making another of their wheeling charges. they must have been all of four hundred men, and we there facing them were not two hundred. on they came, to pass close on our right, shouting their war cry, their long-tailed war bonnets, the fringe of their beautiful clothes, the plumes of their shields all a-flutter in the wind. a brave sight they were, and fearsome! as they swept past us they shot their arrows, the air was full of them, and we shot at them. several men on both sides went down, horses were wounded and became unmanageable in their fright, carrying their riders whither they willed. my horse was dancing with excitement and jerking on his bit, making it impossible for me to take steady aim, so i fired my gun at the thickest group of the passing riders and so far as i could see did them no harm. [illustration: as they swept past us they shot their arrows] this time, instead of wheeling out and around for another charge, the crow chief led his men straight on along the line of the fleeing women and children. swarms of our men were coming out, and he no doubt concluded to do all the damage that he could before he would have to give way before our superior numbers. upon seeing his intent, we, too, turned back, the men crying out to one another: "the women! the children! fight hard for them!" out where the crows had first struck our column there were dead and dying and wounded women and children, as well as men, and now more began to fall. the crows were without mercy. here were the people who had despoiled them; taken from them their vast hunting-ground; and now they should pay for it with their blood! they were so drunk with hatred that they were for the time reckless of harm to themselves. we followed them close. beyond, a great crowd of our men were riding at them, led by lone walker himself. i did not see what he did, i had eyes only for what was immediately around me, but i heard the tale of it many times afterward. he made straight for the crow chief, and the latter for him, and they brought their horses together with such a shock that both fell. as they went down both men sprang free and grappled one another, lone walker dropping his empty gun, and the crow letting go his bow and handful of arrows. a crowd surrounded them, the crows endeavoring to aid their chief, our men fighting them off. the crow chief had managed to get out his knife, but lone walker gave his arm such a sudden fierce twist that he dropped it, endeavored to recover it, and as he did so lone walker got out his own knife and stabbed him down through his back into his heart, and he fell and died! in the meantime we were in a terrible scrimmage; a thick mixup of riders. i had stuck my gun in under my belt, there was no time to reload it, and had fired one of my pistols, and now got out the other one. red crow and i were side by side. he had shot away his handful of arrows and was reaching into his quiver for more when a crow rode up beside him, reached out and grasped him by the arm, endeavoring to pull him over and knife him. i saw him just in time to poke my pistol over past red crow and fire, and down he went from his horse! the sight of him falling, his awful stare of hate--would you believe it, made me sick and sorry for him, enemy though he was! "i have killed a man! i have killed a man!" i said to myself as i replaced the pistol and got out my gun to use as a club, as i saw others doing. but just then i saw a wounded woman stagger to her feet, and then with a cry throw up her hands and fall dead, and i shouted with joy that i had killed, and with red crow dashed on, thirsting now to kill! kill! kill! right there, and for all time vanished my doubts, my tender-heartedness! the enemies of the pi-kun-i were my enemies so long as they tried to do me harm! their chief dead, and faced by ever-increasing numbers of our warriors, the crows now turned and fled, but we did not chase them far; our men were so anxious about their families, to learn if they were safe, or dead, that they had no heart for the pursuit. it was a terrible sight that met our eyes as we turned and went back to that part of the trail that had been the scene of the fight; everywhere along it were dead and wounded men and women and children and horses. i could not bear to look at them, and was glad when lone walker told a number of us to round up the pack and travois horses scattered out upon the plain, and drive them back to the river, where we would go into camp and bury the dead. we were a long time doing that, necessarily leaving the packs that had fallen for the owners to recover later. when we got back to the river with our drive we found many lodges already up, including our two. none of lone walker's great family had been harmed, nor had they met any loss of property. red crow and i got a hasty bite to eat, and catching fresh horses went with a strong guard that was to remain out on the plain until all the dead had been carried in for burial, and all the scattered property recovered. that was all done before sunset, and then a guard was placed about camp for the night, and another told off to herd the horses. that was a sad evening. everywhere in camp there was wailing for the dead; everywhere medicine men were praying for the wounded, chanting their sacred songs as they went through strange ceremonies for curing them. the chiefs gathered in our lodge to bitterly blame themselves for not having been out at the front, with the guard ahead of them, when camp was broken. they had taken count of our loss: forty-one men, thirty-two women and girls, and nine children were dead and buried--the trees in the near grove were full of them--and some of the wounded were sure to die. the crows had lost sixty-one of their number, and some of their wounded would undoubtedly die. not then, nor for many a night afterward, did anyone tell what he had particularly done in the fight against the enemy. it was surmised that, in wiping out the seven crows on the cliff, another member of the party, perhaps on watch elsewhere, had been overlooked; and that he had gone home and brought his people to attack us. there were two tribes of the enemy: the river crows and the mountain crows. if camping together, they were too strong for the pi-kun-i to attack. that very evening three messengers were selected to go north to the kai-na, camping somewhere in the bear paw mountains, and ask them to come down and join in a raid against the enemy. i pass over the ensuing days of sadness, in which seven of the wounded died. as soon as the others were well enough to travel we moved on, camped one night on o-to-kwi-tuk-tai, yellow river, or as lewis and clark named it, judith river, and the next day moved east to a small stream named it-tsis-ki-os-op (it-crushed-them). years later it was named armell's creek after an american fur company man who built a trading post at its junction with the missouri. the blackfoot name was given it for the reason that some women, when digging red paint in the foot of a high cutbank bordering the stream, had been killed by a heavy fall of the earth. the stream rises in the midst of some high, flat-topped buttes crowned with a sparse growth of scrub pine and juniper, and its valley is well timbered with pine and cottonwood. its head is only a few miles from the foot of the mut-si-kin-is-tuk-ists (moccasin mountains). on the morning after we went into camp i rode out to hunt with red crow, and he took me to the extreme head of the stream, which was a large spring under an overhang of wall rock. this sloped up from the sands of the floor on the right of the spring to a height of six or seven feet on the outside of the spring, and was of dark brown volcanic rock. originally very rough, as the extreme outer and inner portion attested, this roof had in the course of ages been rubbed smooth by the animals that had come there to drink at the spring. all that had come, from small antelopes to huge buffaloes, had found the right height of it against which to rub their backs, and they had rubbed and rubbed until the whole roof as high as they could touch it was as smooth and lustrous as glass. i could see my face in it. while standing there we heard some animals coming along one of the many trails in the surrounding timber, and presently saw that they were a file of bull elk. we had left our horses some distance back, so they saw nothing to alarm them. when they were within thirty feet of us red crow let fly an arrow at the leader, and the others stopped and stared at him as he fell, and struggled fruitlessly to regain his feet. that gave my companion time to slip an arrow into another one, and then i fired and dropped a third, and we had all the meat that we wanted. we butchered the three, and then went home and sent lone walker's nephew and some of the women out with pack horses for the meat. from the time that the crows made their terrible attack upon us, we kept a strong guard with the horses night and day, and kept scouting parties far out on the plains watching for the possible return of the enemy. some men who had been sent to trail the crows to their camp, returned in eight or nine days' time and reported that it was on the-other-side bear river (o-pum-ohst kyai-is-i-sak-ta), straight south from the pass in the moccasin mountains. this is the musselshell river of lewis and clark. the blackfoot name for it distinguishes it from their other bear river, the marias. the returning scouts said that the camp was very large, and in two parts, showing that both tribes of the crows were there. said lone walker when he got the news: "and so they have dared to come back into our land and hunt our game! ha! as soon as the kai-na come we shall make them pay dearly for that!" the talk now was all of war. in every tree about the camp were hung the warriors' offerings to the sun, placed there with prayers to the god to give them success in the coming battle. as i have said, the camp was always pitched in a big circle of the clan groups. inside this circle were nine lodges set in a smaller circle, each one painted with a sacred, or "medicine" design, no two of them alike. the one always set nearest to our small robes group of lodges was owned by a great warrior named mi-nik-sa-pwo-pi (mad plume), and had for its design a huge buffalo bull and a buffalo cow in black, the heart, and the life line running to it from the mouth, painted bright red. i had not thought that these lodges had any especial significance, but i was soon to know better. on the day after we killed the elk at the shining rock spring, red crow pointed to the buffalo medicine lodge and said to me: "just think; we are invited there to-night! we are asked to join the braves!" "he does not understand," said lone walker, standing near us. "let us sit here, white son, and i will explain." we sat there in front of our lodge, and the chief began: "those nine are the lodges of the chiefs of the all friends society. it has nine different bands: the braves, all-crazy-dogs, raven carriers, dogs, tails, horns, kit-foxes, siezers, and bulls. to become a member of one of the bands one has to be of good heart, of a straight tongue, generous, and of proved bravery; so you see that you are thought to be all that, else you would not be asked to join this band of braves, made up of our young warriors. i am a member of the bulls, our oldest warriors. all the bands are under the orders of myself and my brother clan chiefs. there! now you understand!" but i didn't. i learned in time, however, that this great i-kun-uh-kat-si, or all friends society, had for its main object the carrying out--under the direction of the chiefs--of the tribal laws. if a man or woman was to be punished, it was a band of the society that meted it out, after the chiefs decided what the punishment should be. in battle the members of a band hung close together, shouting the name of it, and encouraging one another to do their best. each band had its particular songs, and its own peculiar way of dancing. its chief's lodge was its headquarters, and there of an evening the members were wont to gather for a social time, for a little feast, singing, and story telling as the pipe went round the circle. when red crow and i went into the braves' lodge that evening, mad plume made us welcome, and indicated that we should sit at his left. that was the only space left; all the rest was occupied by his family, and members of the band, who also gave us pleasant greeting. "now, then, young men," mad plume said to us as soon as we were seated, "we have had our eyes upon you for some time, thinking to invite you to join us. we learned that you are good-hearted, generous, truthful, that you are good to the old. we but waited to learn what you would do before the enemy, and we learned; the other day when the crows attacked us you each did your best; you each did your share in driving them off, and each killed. so now we ask: would you like to become braves?" "yes! yes!" we exclaimed. "and will you always obey the orders of the tribes' chiefs, and the braves' chief?" "yes! yes!" "then you are braves!" he concluded. and all present signified their approval. i can't begin to tell you how pleased i was, how proud of this unexpected honor. and at last i felt absolutely safe with the pi-kun-i; felt that they considered me one of them in every respect. there were countless herds of game in all directions from our camp there on it-crushed-them. by day the hunters scattered it, but it was the mating season of the buffaloes, they were very uneasy, constantly on the move, and fresh herds took the place of those that were frightened away. one day when red crow and i were out after meat, with mink woman trailing us with a couple of pack horses, we saw a small band of buffaloes lying on a side hill, and leaving our horses in the shelter of the timber around the shining rock spring, approached them. we followed up a shallow coulee that headed close to the resting animals, in places crawling upon hands and knees in order to keep under the shelter of low banks. mink woman followed us close. we had asked her to remain with the horses, but she was determined to be right with us and see the shooting at close range. we were still several hundred yards from the buffaloes, much too far for red crow's arrows, and even my gun, when we heard the moaning bellow of bulls off to our left. we paid no attention to it; there had been no buffaloes in sight in that direction, and we thought that the animals making it were a long way off. that deep, muffled bellowing, however, was wonderfully deceiving; just by the sound of it, without looking, one could never determine if the animals making it were near by, or a mile or so away. but now we were suddenly warned that the bulls we heard were close; we could hear the rushing thud of their feet, and two appeared just a few yards ahead of us, attacking one another on the edge of the coulee and slipping sideways down the steep bank, head pressed against head. "they are mad! don't shoot, don't move, else they may attack us!" red crow told me, and mink woman, just back of us, heard him. but they were not all; only two of a band of thirty or forty, all bulls, all outcasts from different herds, mad at one another and at all the world. the two fighting incited others to fight, and the rest, moaning and tossing their heads, switching their short tails, were soon all around us. they presented a most frightful spectacle! their dark eyes seemed to shoot fire from under the overhanging shaggy hair; several more engaged in fights, and some of those afraid to do that attacked the bank of the coulee and with their sharp horns gouged out pieces of turf and tossed them in every direction. we dared not move; we hardly dared breathe; our suspense was almost unbearable. said mink woman at last: "brother, i am terribly frightened. i think that i shall have to run!" "don't you do it! no running unless we are about to be stepped upon!" he answered. an old bull standing not twenty feet from us heard the low talk, whirled around and stared at us. anyhow i thought that it was at us, but if it was, he likely did not distinguish us from the rocks and sage brush among which we were lying. if he charged us i intended to shoot him in the brain, and then we should have to take our chances running from the others. but just then a bellowing started off where the band was that we had been approaching, and he turned and went leaping out of the coulee toward it, others following, leaving but two sets fighting in front of us. at that mink woman, no longer able to stand the strain, sprang to her feet and ran down the coulee, we then following her and looking back to see if we were pursued. the fighters paid no attention to us, but we kept running and never stopped until we reached our horses. then, looking up the hill, we saw that the bulls had mingled with the band that we had been after, and all were traveling off to the south. "hai! we have had a narrow escape!" red crow exclaimed, and went on to tell me that outcast bulls were very dangerous. the hunters never tried to approach them on foot, and generally kept well away from them even when well mounted. mink woman listened, still shaking a little from the fright she had had, and then told me that only the summer before a mad bull had attacked a woman near camp and pierced her through the back with one of his horns, upon which she hung suspended despite his efforts to shake her off. becoming frightened then, and blinded by her wrap, he had rushed right into camp and into a lodge, upsetting it and trampling its contents until killed by the men. he fell with the woman still impaled upon his horn. she was dead! as we mounted and rode on, red crow told other instances of people being killed by outcast bulls. he said that bulls with a herd were not bad; that the cows would always run from the hunter, and they with them. we proved that in less than an hour, for we again approached the band that had been on the hillside, the outcast bulls now with it, and in a short run killed three cows, the bulls sprinting their best to outrun our horses. except for playing children and quarreling dogs, ours was a very quiet camp those days there on it-crushed-them. the people still mourned for their dead and, for that matter, did so for a year or more. those not mourning had no heart for social pleasure. all waited impatiently for the coming of the kai-na. day after day the medicine men got out their sacred pipes and smoked and prayed to the gods to give the warriors great success against the crows, still encamped upon the-other-side bear river, as the scouts kept reporting. i wondered if the crows had scouts out keeping equally close watch upon our camp. one morning lone walker sent red crow and me to the black butte, the extreme eastern end of the moccasin mountains, with dried meat and back fat for the four scouts stationed there. we started very early, arrived at the foot of the butte by something like ten o'clock, and there left our horses in a grove of cottonwoods, and began the ascent with our packs of meat. it was a long, steep, winding climb up around to its southern slope, and thence to its summit, and we did not attain it until mid-afternoon. we found two of the watchers asleep in a little enclosure of rocks just under the summit, and the two others sitting upon the highest point. they had seen us approaching the butte on our horses, and were expecting us. they had no word for us to take back; no enemies had appeared, the country seemed to be free from them. it was from this high point that i got my first good view of the bear paw, and wolf mountains, across on the north side of the missouri, and the great plains of the missouri-musselshell country. the plains were black with buffaloes as far out in all directions as the eye could distinguish them. i cannot begin to tell you how glad i was to be there on that high point looking out upon that vast buffalo plain, its grand mountains, its sentinel buttes, and deep-gashed river valleys. i had a sense of ownership in it all. white though my skin, and blue my eyes, i was a member of a blackfoot tribe, yes, even a member of its law and order society. and so, in common with my red people, an owner of this great hunting-ground! and even as i was thinking that, red crow turned from a long lookout upon it and said to me: "rising wolf, brother, what a rich, what a beautiful land is ours!" no, that doesn't express it; he said, "ki-sak-ow-an-on!" (your land and ours!) "ai! that is truth!" i answered, and we hastened down the steep butte, mounted our horses and went homeward across the plain. we arrived in camp to find the messengers returned from the north. with them had come several hundred warriors of the kai-na, and the whole tribe would be with us on the following day. for the first time since the fight with the crows our camp livened up; feasts were prepared in many lodges for our guests, and later in the evening several bands of the all friends society gave dances in which they joined. for the first time, i put on my crow war suit and joined in the dance of the braves. as i had been practicing the step all by myself in the brush, i did quite well, and even got some praise. the kai-na trailed in and set up their lodges just below us the next afternoon. i counted the lodges and found that there were eleven hundred and thirty, including twenty-five or thirty lodges of gros ventres. all together we were a camp of nearly three thousand lodges--about fifteen thousand people. i looked out at the horses grazing upon the plain; there was no estimating the number; there were thousands and thousands of them! that evening eagle ribs, head chief of the kai-na, came with his clan chiefs to our lodge to council with lone walker and his clan chiefs. they all used such big words to express what they had to say that i would never have known what the talk was about had they not also used signs, these for the benefit of the gros ventre clan chief, who did not understand the blackfoot language anywhere near as well as i did. the council lasted far into the night. when it broke up the decision was that we were to break camp early in the morning, travel all day on the trail to the crow camp, and on the following morning go on, the warriors as fast as possible, the rest at the usual pace. it was the general opinion that we could strike the crow camp early in the afternoon of the second day. chapter viii in the yellow river country on the following evening we camped upon a small stream flowing into the musselshell through a wide valley lying between the moccasin mountains, and another outlying shoot from the rockies, named kwun-is-tuk-ists (snow mountains). not so named because they were more snowy than other mountains, but for their white rock formation. from a distance large bare areas of this on the dark, timbered slopes have all the appearance of snow banks. the two great camps of us were certainly lively enough that evening. in the early part of it there was much dancing and feasting, many gatherings in the lodges of the medicine men for prayers, and sacrifices for success on the morrow, and later on the men laid out their war suits and war bonnets ready to put on in the morning. a big fire was lighted soon after dark to call in the watchers from the high points along the moccasins, and the snow mountains, all of them excepting those upon the trail in the gap of the latter, from which they kept watch upon the camp of the enemy. late in the evening, nearly midnight it was, one of these last came in and told lone walker that the crows seemed to be unaware of our approach, and at sundown their camp must still have been in the river valley, for they had not been seen trailing out from there. during the day movements of the buffaloes had shown that their hunters had been out from both sides of the valley for meat. on the following morning we were all up before daylight, eating hurried meals that the women set before us, looking over our weapons, and anxious to be on our way. and the women were just as anxious that we start, for they wanted to pack up and follow as fast as they could; they were expecting to become rich with crow property that day. soon after daylight we mounted our best horses and were off, the pi-kun-i and kai-na chiefs, and the ut-se-na, or gros ventre, chief with them in the lead, we following, band after band of the all friends society. all the blackfeet tribes had this society. at mid-forenoon, when we topped the pass in the snow mountains, we found there our watchers awaiting us with somewhat disturbing news; they had not that morning seen any movement of the crows out on the plain from their camp. other mornings they had appeared on the plains on both sides of the river, rounding up their horses, riding out to hunt. "maybe they have discovered what we are up to, and have struck out for their country off there across elk river," lone walker said to eagle ribs. "ai! one of their war parties may have seen us. if they did, they had plenty of time to get in with the news; we did not travel fast," said the kai-na chief. "well, let us hurry on!" lone walker cried, and away we went down the pass and out upon the plain. "it is just as i thought," i said to myself. "if we could keep a watch upon their camp, they could upon ours. they saw the kai-na joining us, and have fled!" it was a long way from the foot of the mountains out across the plain to the river; all of twenty miles, i should say. we made the length of it at a killing pace, and when, at last, we arrived at the rim of the valley our horses were covered with sweat, gasping for breath and about done for. here and there in the big, long bottom under us a number of scattered lodges and hundreds of standing pole sets, told of the hurried flight of the crows. we went down to the camp and examined it, and learned by raking out the fireplaces that it had been abandoned the previous evening. in the hurry of their going, they had left about all of their heavy property, all of their lodge pole sets, many lodges complete, and no end of _parflèches_ and pack pouches filled with dried meat and tongues, pemmican, and dried berries. there was also much other stuff scattered about: rolls of leather; tanned and partly tanned buffalo robes for winter use; moccasins, used, and new, and beautifully embroidered; and many pack saddles and ropes. "well, brothers, all this will make our women happy," said eagle ribs, with a wave of his hand around. "ai! some of them. it will not lighten the hearts of those who mourn!" said lone walker. "and we cannot now lighten them! the crows have a night's start of us, and our horses are so tired that we cannot overtake them," said mad plume. "before night they will cross elk river and fortify themselves so strongly in timber, or on hill, that it will be impossible for us to carry the position!" another exclaimed. all the chiefs agreed to that, and then lone walker said: "all that we can do is to keep parties out after their horses as long as we remain in this south part of our country. that, and the great loss of their property here, will teach them to remain upon their own hunting-ground." the whole party then dismounted, some gathering in groups for a smoke, others scattering out to wander in the deserted camp and gather up for their women whatever took their fancy. red crow and i rode to the upper camp and had great fun going from lodge to lodge and examining the heaps of stuff that the crows had abandoned. my quest was for fur, and i collected nine beaver and two otter skins. that evening the chiefs held another council. some were for giving the crows time to get over their scare, and then going down into their country--all the warriors of both our tribes, and taking them by surprise and wiping them out. lone walker said that to do that we would have to lose a great many men; that he thought his plan, to keep them poor in horses, was the best. finally, i was asked to give my opinion on the matter. i had been thinking a lot about it, and in signs, and with what words i could command, spoke right out: "when i saw the women killed by the crows, i was so angry that i wanted to help you fight until all the crows were dead, but i do not feel so now," i told them. "you have done great wrongs to the crows; back there on arrow river they did only what you have done to them. here is a great, rich country, large enough for all. i would like to see you make peace with the crows, they agreeing to remain on their side of elk river, and you on your side of it." "ha! your white son has a gentle heart!" a kai-na chief told lone walker. "if you mean that he has an afraid heart, you are mistaken. in the fight the other day, he killed an enemy who was about to kill my son, red crow," lone walker answered, and at that the chief clapped a hand to his mouth in surprise and approval, and his manner quickly changed to one of great friendliness to me. said lone walker to me then: "my son, what you propose cannot be done. we have twice made peace with the crows, the last time right here on this river, and both times they broke it within a moon. it was five summers back that we made the last peace with them. it was agreed that we should remain on the north side of elk river, they on the south side, and neither tribe should raid the other's horse herds. the two tribes of us camped here side by side for many days, making friends with one another. we gave feasts for the crows, they gave feasts for us. every day there was a big dance in their camp, or in ours. a young crow and one of our girls fell in love with one another, and we let him have her. well, at last we parted from the crows and started north, and had gone no farther than yellow river when one of their war parties, following us, fell upon some of our hunters and killed four, one escaping wounded. so you see how it is: the crows will not keep their word; it is useless to make peace with them." on the next evening a mixed party of our and kai-na warriors, about a hundred men, set out on foot to raid the crow horse herds. they were going to take no chances; their plan was to travel nights, to find the crows and watch for an opportunity to run off a large number of their stock. the two tribes of us were too many people to camp together, so many hunters scattering the game, so that after a few days we were obliged to go a long way from camp to get meat. another council was held and the chiefs decided that we, the pi-kun-i, should winter in the upper yellow river country, and the kai-na on the missouri, between the mouth of yellow river and the mouth of the stream upon which we were then camping. two days later we broke camp and went our way. we struck yellow river higher up than where we had crossed it coming out, and went into camp in a big, timbered bottom through which flowed a small stream named hot spring water. on the following day red crow took me to the head of it, only a few miles from its junction with yellow river, and there i saw my first hot spring. it was very large, and deep, and the water so hot that i could not put my hand in it. our camp here was at the foot, and east end of the yellow mountains. in the gap between them and the moccasin mountains, rose the hot spring in a beautiful, well grassed valley. never in all my wanderings have i seen quite so good a game country as that was, and for that matter continued to be for no less than sixty years from that time. as soon as we went into camp the chiefs put the hunting law into effect: from that time no one was allowed to hunt buffaloes when and where he willed. a watch was kept upon the herds, and when one came close to camp the chiefs' crier went all among the lodges calling out that the herd was near, and that all who wished to join in the chase should catch up their runners and gather at a certain place. from there the hunters would go out under the lead of some chief, approach the herd under cover, and then dash into it and make a big run, generally killing a large number of the animals. the strict observance of this law meant plenty of buffalo meat for all the people all the time, secured close to camp instead of far out on the winter plains. there was no law regarding the hunting of the mountain game, the elk, deer, and bighorns. they were not killed in any great number, for they became poor in winter, whereas the buffaloes retained their thick layer of fat until spring. and buffalo meat was by far the best, the most nutritious, the most easily digested. one never tired of it, as he did of the meat of other game. when the leaves began to fall the real work of the winter was started, the taking of beavers for trade at our mountain fort. the streams were alive with them, and so tame were they that numbers were killed with bow and arrow. i myself killed several in that way, lying in wait for them at dams they were building, or on their trails to their wood cutting and dragging operations. but when winter came, and the ponds and streams froze over and they retired to their snug houses in the ponds, and dens in the stream banks, the one way then to get them was by setting traps, through the ice, at the entrances to their homes; they came out daily to their sunken piles of food sticks, dragged back what they wanted and ate the bark, and then took the stripped sticks out into the water, where they drifted off with the current. by the time real winter set in, about all the beavers for miles around had been caught, and then most of the trappers rested. red crow, however, was so anxious to obtain pelts enough for the purchase of one of our company guns that he would not stop, and finally persuaded his father to allow us to go over on the head of arrow river and trap there for a time. red crow's mother, sis-tsa-ki, wanted to go with us, but lone walker said that he couldn't possibly spare his sits-beside-him wife, but another one, named ah-wun-a-ki (rattle woman), and red crow's sister, mink woman, were allowed to go along to look after our comfort. a small lodge, lining and all, was borrowed for our use, and we started out in fine shape, taking five pack and travois horses to carry our outfit, and each riding a good horse. we made arrow river that day, and camped pretty well on the head of it before noon the next day. "now, then, mother, and brother, and sister," said red crow after we had unpacked the horses, "we shall eat only the very best food here, and to begin, we will have stuffed entrail for our evening meal. put up the lodge, you two, and get plenty of wood for the night, and rising wolf and i will go kill a fat buffalo cow." there were a number of small bands of buffaloes in the breaks of the valley, and approaching the nearest one of them, i shot a fine young cow. we butchered it, took what meat we wanted, and a certain entrail that was streaked its whole length with threads of soft, snow-white fat. when we got to camp with our load, rattle woman took this entrail from us, washed it thoroughly in the stream, and brought it back to the lodge. she then cut some loin meat, or, as the whites call it, porterhouse steak, into small pieces about as large as hazel nuts and stuffed the entrail with it, the entrail being turned inside out in the process. both ends of the entrail were then tied fast with sinew thread, and she placed it on the coals to broil, frequently turning it to keep it from burning. it was broiled for about fifteen minutes, shrinking considerably in that time, and was then thrown into a kettle of water and boiled for about fifteen minutes, and then we each took a fourth of its length and had our feast. those who have never had meat cooked in this manner know not what good meat is! the threads of white fat on the entrail, it was turned inside out, you remember, gave it the required richness, and the tying of the ends kept in all the rich juices of the meat, something that cannot be done by any other method of cooking. the blackfoot name for this was is-sap-wot-sists (put-inside-entrail). their name for the crows was sap-wo, an abbreviation of the word, and i have often wondered if they did not learn this method of meat cooking from them during some time of peace between the two tribes. there were so many of us in lone walker's family that we never had enough is-sap-wot-sists, the highest achievement of the meat cooker's art. but here on arrow river the four of us in our snug lodge, with game all about us, had it every day, with good portions of dried berries that we had taken from the abandoned crow camp. we certainly lived high! red crow had four traps, i had five. we set them carefully in ponds and along the stream, and each morning made the round of them, skinned what beavers we caught, and took the hides to the woman and girl to flesh and stretch upon rude hoops to dry. we had success beyond my wildest dreams, our traps averaging six beavers a night. it was virgin ground; traps had never been set there, the beavers were very unsuspicious and tame, and very numerous. the days flew by; our eagerness for our work increased rather than diminished. i was to be no gainer by it in pounds, shillings, and pence; whatever fur i caught was the property of the company, but that made no difference; my ambition was to become an expert trapper and plainsman, and in that way get a good standing with the company. at the end of a month there we had a visit from lone walker's nephew. the chief had become uneasy about us, and had sent him to tell us to return. we were doing too well to go back then, and answered that we would trail in before the end of another month. we were really in no danger; the weather was cold, except for an occasional chinook wind, there was considerable snow on the ground, and even in mild winters war parties were seldom abroad. so we trapped on and on, killed what meat we wanted,--oh, it was a happy time to me. nor were our evenings around the lodge fire the least of it. my companions night after night told stories of the gods; stories of the adventures and the bravery of heroic blackfeet men and women, all very interesting and instructive to me. at last came a second summons from lone walker for us to return, and this time we heeded it; we had anyhow pretty well cleaned out the beavers, getting only one or two a night for some time back. but red crow had to go in for more horses before we could move, the horses we had with us not being enough to pack our catch, and the lodge and other things. we took in with us, in ten skin bales, two hundred and forty beaver skins and nine otter skins, of which a few more than half were mine! our big catch was the talk of the camp for several days. several evenings after our return to camp an old medicine man told me that, according to a vision he had had, he was collecting enough wolf skins for a big, wolf robe couch cover, and that i could go with him the next morning if i would like to see how he caught the animals. he had completed his trap the day before, and thought that there were already in it all the wolves that he needed. of course, i wanted to learn all i could about trapping, and so rode down the valley with him the next morning. about three miles below camp we entered a big, open bottom and he pointed to his trap, away out in the center of it. in the distance it appeared to be a round corral, and so it was, a corral of heavy eight-or nine-foot posts set closely together in the ground, and slanting inward at an angle of thirty or forty degrees. at the base the corral was about twelve feet in diameter. in one place a pile of rocks and earth was heaped against it, and when i saw that i did not need the old man's explanation of how he caught the wolves; they jumped into the corral from the earth slant to the top of it, enticed there by a pile of meat, and, once in, they could not jump high enough to get out. several wolves that were hanging about the corral ran away at our approach, and as we came close we could see that there were wolves in the corral. we dismounted, climbed the earth slope and looked in, and i could hardly believe my eyes when i saw that it held thirteen big wolves and a dead coyote. the latter had undoubtedly been the first to jump down for the bait, and the wolves had come later, and killed him. the wolves pretended to pay no attention to us, as we looked down upon them, milling around and sticking their noses into the interstices of the posts, but they had wary eyes upon us all the same. the old man got out his bow, and some all-wood arrows, the sharp tips fire hardened, and shot the wolves one by one without a miss, each shaft striking at one side of the backbone just back of the ribs and ranging down and forward into heart and lungs. some of the animals struggled a bit, but all died without a whimper. when the last one fell he removed two posts that had simply been tied to those set firmly in the ground, and dragged the animals out through the opening one by one. i helped him skin them. "there! i wanted eight, i have thirteen skins. my work is done; it is now for my woman to tan them and make the robe," he exclaimed. "you will not replace the two posts, and put in fresh bait for more wolves?" i asked. "no, i have all that i need," he answered. "eight are enough for a big robe. i shall lie upon it, sleep upon it, and the strength that is in the wolves will become my strength, so my vision told me. i am well satisfied." "and i am glad to have learned how to catch wolves," i told him, and we packed the skins upon our horses and went home. years afterward, along in the 60's and 70's, when wolf skins went up to five dollars each, i somewhat improved upon the old man's corral trap, making mine of logs laid up to form a hollow pyramid about ten by sixteen feet at the base, and four by ten feet at the top. this was much more quickly and easily built than the stake corral, which involved the digging of a deep trench in which to set the stakes, and the building of an incline to the top. the wolves did not hesitate to step up from one to another of the inslanting logs and jump down upon the quantities of meat i placed inside, and there i had them. during one winter at st. mary's lakes, the winter of 1872-73, my sons and i caught more than seven hundred wolves in our pyramid log trap! although we saw nothing more of the crows after their attack upon us, i kept thinking about them all the time. the big war party that had gone to raid their herds returned after a month or so without a single horse. they reported that the enemy was encamped some distance up the bighorn river, and that their horses were under so heavy a guard both night and day that they had not dared attempt to stampede them. before real winter set in another party of our warriors went out, and had no better success. the crows were still close herding their horses in the daytime, and keeping them in well guarded corrals at night. it was in our lone camp on arrow river that this thought came to me: if the blackfeet would only make peace with the crows, the latter might then accompany us north and trade at our post. i asked myself if it was in any way possible for me to accomplish this. well i knew what a grand coup it would be for me if i could ride into the post and say to the factor: "here i am, returned with a good knowledge of the blackfoot language. i have been far, and seen much. i have had the pi-kun-i and the crows, after a desperate fight, make peace with one another, and have induced that far tribe to come and trade with us. they are here!" well, when i thought that, i became so excited that it was long before i could sleep. i thought about it all the next day, and determined to speak to red crow about it. when evening came, and we had eaten our fill of is-sap-wot-sists, and were resting on our soft couches, i said to him: "brother, how is peace made with an enemy tribe? tell me all about it!" "ai! you shall know," he answered. "if there is much talk of peace, the chiefs get together and council about it, and if they decide that it will be good to make peace with the enemy, they send messengers with presents of pipes and tobacco to the enemy chiefs, asking that they smoke the pipe. if the enemy chiefs accept the pipe, and smoke the tobacco with it, then their answer is that they will be glad to make peace, and they tell the messengers where they and their people will meet our chiefs and our people, and make the peace." "if your father and the other chiefs will make peace with the crows, will you go with me to their camp?" i asked. "i don't know that i want peace with them! it is good to have enemies to fight and count coup upon; that is what makes us men, brave warriors!" he exclaimed. "yes! and oh, how many poor and unhappy widows and fatherless children!" mink woman put in, much to my surprise. "brother, you shall know my heart!" i went on. "i want this peace to be made for two reasons. first, for the sake of the women and children, and all the old, dependent upon the hunters for their food and shelter. second, i want the crows to go north with us and trade at our post. i want all this very much. now, say that you will help me; that you will do all that you can toward making the peace!" "oh, brother! as you love me, say yes!" mink woman cried. "we all want peace, we women! peace with all tribes!" said rattle woman. "well, i say yes. i will do what i can. not that i want peace, but because you ask me to help you!" he answered. so it was that, upon our return to camp, we began to urge lone walker to make peace with the crows. at first he just laughed at us. then got cross whenever we mentioned the subject, and went off visiting to be rid of us. but we kept at him, with a larger and larger following of women, and even men, and at last he called the council, and after long argument the chiefs decided to send peace messengers to the crow camp as soon as the first geese arrived in the spring. mad plume was to be the lead messenger, because it was his sister who had married into the crow tribe. another was ancient otter (mis-sum-am-un-is) and red crow and i the other two. lone walker at first declared that we should not go; that the mission was too dangerous for boys to undertake; far more dangerous than going on a raid. but in that, too, we had our way. on a sunny, although cold day in march, a flock of geese was seen flying north over the camp, and the next day we started, well mounted, with an extra robe each, and the peace pipe and tobacco in a roll upon mad plume's back, beside his bow and arrow case. yes! you shall know all: as we rode out of camp, and i looked back at my comfortable lodge home, my heart went way, way down! on the previous evening i had been told the tale of some peace messengers to the snakes some years before. upon entering the enemy camp and stating their mission, they had been set upon and all killed but one, he being told to go straight home and tell the pi-kun-i chiefs that that was the snakes' answer to their offer. that might be, i thought, the kind of answer that the crows would give us! chapter ix the coming of cold maker i well remember how warm and windless that march day was. there were patches of snow on the north side of the hills, and in the coulees, but otherwise the brown plains were bare and dry. the mountains, of course, were impassable, so we kept along the foot of them, traveling east, and that night camped at the foot of the black butte. the following morning we swung around the butte and headed south by a little east, a course that would take us to the junction of elk river and the bighorn, my companions said. we crossed the musselshell river at noon or a little earlier, and that night slept upon the open plain. the weather continued fine. the next morning also broke clear and warm and cloudless. we started on at sunrise and, topping a ridge, mad plume pointed to some dark breaks away off to the south, and told me that they marked the course of elk river. i estimated that we were about twenty miles from them. at about ten o'clock we marked a big wedge of gray geese coming north, and red crow, pointing to them, exclaimed: "see the sun's messengers! he sends them north to tell us that he is coming to drive cold maker back to his always-winter land!" he had no more than said that than the geese suddenly broke their well-ordered wedge lines and, shrilly honking, turned and went straight south on wild, uneven wings! "ha! they have seen cold maker coming! yes! he is coming; i can smell him!" mad plume exclaimed, and brought his horse to a stand and looked to the north. so did we, and saw a black belt of fog all across the horizon and right down upon the ground, and coming south with frightful speed. it had advanced as far as the north slope of the snowy mountains when we turned and saw it, and even as we looked they were lost in its blackness! the air suddenly became strong with the odor of burning grass. i had never seen anything like it. the swiftly moving, black fog bank, apparently turning over and over like a huge roller and blotting out the plain and mountains, frightened me, and i asked my companions what it meant. "fearful wind, cold, and snow! cold maker is bringing it! he hides himself in his black breath!" red crow told me. "we have to ride hard! unless we can get to the timber we are gone!" mad plume cried, and away we went as though we were trying to outride a big war party. and then suddenly that black fog bank struck us and instead of fog it was a terrific storm cloud! the wind all but tore us from our horses; fine, hard snow swirled and beat into our eyes, almost blinding us, and the air became bitterly cold. i marveled at the sudden change from sunny spring to a winter blizzard. like my companions, i had on a pair of soft leather moccasins, and over them a pair of buffalo robe moccasins, and on my hands were robe mittens, but for all their thickness and warmth both hands and feet began to numb in the terrible cold of the storm. mad plume led us, we following close in single file. in front of me, not ten feet away, red crow and his horse were but dim shadows in the driving snow. i saw him dismount and begin running beside his horse, and i got down and did likewise. and so, alternately on foot and riding we went on and on until it seemed to me that we had traveled thrice the distance to the river breaks that we had seen so plainly before the storm came up. at last mad plume stopped and we crowded around him. he had to shout to make himself heard. "what think you?" he asked. "is the wind still from the north?" we could not answer that. to me it seemed to be coming from all directions at once. "if cold maker has changed it we are sure to become lost and die. if he still blows it south we should soon get to shelter," he said, and led on. "we are lost!" i kept saying to myself as we ran, and rode, on and on for what seemed to me hours and hours, the snow at last becoming so deep that we were obliged to remain on our horses. but just as i felt that i was beginning to freeze, that there was no longer any use in trying to keep going, we began to descend a steep slope, and at the foot of it rode into a grove of big cottonwoods and out of the terrible wind! mad plume led us into a deep part of the woods where grew great clumps of tall willows, and we dismounted. "ha! we survive! and now for comfort: a lodge, fire, food! hobble your horses and get to work!" he cried. i couldn't hobble mine, my hands were so numb that i could do nothing with them; so i ran around swinging them and clapping them together until they became warm. i then cared for my horse, and with good will helped my companions gather material, dry poles, dead branches, brush, and armfuls of tall rye grass for a small lodge. we soon had it up and a good fire going. the cold air rushed in through a thousand little spaces between the poles; we made a lodge lining of our pishimores--pieces of buffalo robe that we used for saddle blankets--and sat back on our rye grass couches and were truly comfortable, and very thankful that cold maker had not overcome us! presently one of our horses nickered, and red crow went out to learn the cause of it. "a big herd of elk has come in!" he called to us, and we all ran out and followed him on their trail; they had passed within fifty yards of the lodge. we soon saw them standing in a thick patch of willows, heads down, and bodies all humped up with the cold. they paid no attention to our approach and we moved right up close to them and shot down four with bows and arrows. we skinned them all, taking the hides for more lodge covering, and cut a lot of meat from a fat, dry cow that i had killed, and then we were prepared to weather the storm, no matter how long it should last. the terrible wind and snow lasted all that night and far into the afternoon of the following day, and when it ceased the weather remained piercingly cold. when the sun came out i took up my gun and went for a walk, and going through the timber looked out upon a great river, the sieur de la vérendrie's _la roche jaune_, (the yellowstone). he had seen it, where it merged with the missouri, in 1744, and upon his return to montreal told of the mighty flow of its waters from the snows of the shining mountains. how many times i had heard my grandfather and others speak of it, and even talk of an expedition to explore its vast solitudes to its source. they were sure that they would be well rewarded with furs. the very name of the river suggested riches; rich mines of gold and silver! and here i was, actually upon the shore of this great river of the west, looking out upon its frozen stretches, and in quest of neither furs nor gold, but of peace between two warring tribes! i said to myself that the sieur de la vérendrie and his men, and lewis and clark and their men had seen the mouth of the river, but that mine was the honor of first seeing its upper reaches, and oh, how proud of that i was! i did not learn until long afterward that upon their return journey from the western ocean, a part of the lewis and clark expedition had struck across the plains to the river, and followed it down to the missouri. i returned to the lodge to find my companions roasting our evening meal of elk ribs, and was soon eating my large share of the fat meat. when that was over we made plans for continuing our journey. while i had been out at the river, mad plume had climbed to the rim of the plain for a look at the country, and found that we were not far above the mouth of the bighorn. said mad plume now: "no matter how cold it is in the morning, we must start on. the colder it is the safer we will be, for we will not likely be discovered by the crow hunters, and that is what i most fear, discovery of us while traveling, and sudden attack upon us. i think that if we can reach the edge of the camp without being seen, we can go on through it to the chief's lodge safely enough; the people will be so curious to know why we have come that they will not then fall upon us." "we can travel nights and escape being seen," said ancient otter. "but we can't cover up our tracks; this fall of snow will last for some days. well, we will make an early start, and anyhow keep traveling in the daytime if we find it possible," mad plume decided, and started to talk about other matters. after a time ancient otter said: "our camping here reminds me of the time that we made peace with the crows just below, at the mouth of the bighorn, and the young crow, little wolf, with whom i became very friendly. i wonder if he is still living? i did not see him when we had that fight, some moons back. if he is still alive i know that he will be with us for making peace. i must tell you about him: "on the evening of the day that we made peace, he invited me to dance with him and his friends, and i had a pleasant time. a day or two after that i asked him to one of our dances. then we visited often in his lodge and in mine, and we became close friends. one day he said to me, in signs, of course, the crows are fine sign talkers, 'we are five young men going south on a raid; you get together four of your friends and join us.' "two or three days after that we started, five crows and five of us, little wolf and i joint leaders of the party. we went on foot, traveling at night, taking our time; we had the whole summer before us. we followed up the bighorn almost to its head, then crossed a wide, high ridge and struck a stream heading in several mountain canyons, and running east into the great plain. at the mouth of one of the canyons we discovered a big camp of the enemy. we came upon it unexpectedly, soon after daylight, and after crossing a wide, level stretch of plain. looking down from the edge of the cliff we had come to, there was the camp right under us. people were already up and moving about, some of the men preparing to ride out to hunt. we dared not attempt to go back across the plain; there was but one thing for us to do; we wriggled down into a patch of cherry brush just below the top of the cliff and in a coulee that broke it, and felt safe enough except for the fact that the brush was heavy with ripe fruit; some women and children might come up to gather it. "the cliff was broken down in many places, more a steep slope of boulders than a cliff, and it was not high. from where we sat in the brush the nearest lodges of the camp were no more than long bow shot from us. we could see the people plainly and hear them talking. they were the spotted horses people.[1] [1] kish-tsi-pim-i-tup-i. spotted horses people. the cheyennes. "the lodge nearest us was very large, new, and evidently the lodge of a medicine man, for it was painted with figures of two long snakes with plumes on their heads. a number of women lived in it; they kept coming out and going back, but their man never once appeared. "the horses of the camp were grazing in the valley of the stream both above and below it and we looked at them with longing, for we could see that many of them were of the spotted breed. after a time a boy on a big, dancing, spotted stallion drove a large band of horses up in front of the snake medicine lodge and then the medicine man came out to look at them. he was a very tall and heavily built man. he wore a cow leather wrap, medicine painted. my crow friend nudged me, pointed to the big stallion and then signed to me: 'i shall take that horse to-night, and others with him!' "i laughed, and signed back, 'you don't know that for sure. i may be the one to seize him!' "the medicine man was talking to the boy on the stallion, louder and louder until his voice became like the roar of a wounded bear in our ears. he suddenly reached up and seized the boy by the arm, dragged him from the stallion, and then picking up a big stick began to beat him with it. we groaned at the awful sight; almost we cried out at it, we who never strike our sons. the women had come out of the lodge; they were crying, no doubt begging the man to let the boy go, but he paid no attention to them, nor to the crowd of people hurrying toward him from all parts of the camp. he beat and beat the boy, at last struck him on the head and he fell as though dead; and at that the women ran forward and lifted him and hurried him into a near-by lodge. the man watched them go, then took up his fallen wrap and went into his lodge. said my crow friend to me, in signs, 'we must make that man pay big for beating the boy. he shall lose his horses, all of them, and his medicine, too!' "'yes! let us, you and i, take all his horses, and our men take others as they will. but his medicine, no, not that; it would bring us bad luck,' i answered. "all that long, hot day, thirsty, hungry, we sat there in the patch of cliff brush watching the enemy camp and its horse herds. we saw nothing more of the beaten boy, and the medicine man did not appear again until nearly sunset. he then went down the valley to his herd, which had been allowed to graze back to its feeding ground, and caught out of it the stallion, rode it home and picketed it close to his lodge. other men brought in one or two of their horses for early morning use. the sun set. the moon came up. we climbed back to the top of the cliff, went along it for some distance, and then down into the valley below the camp to water. there, where we struck the river, was to be our meeting place. after a long wait we scattered out, little wolf and i going together after the medicine man's herd. we had kept constant watch on it, and now went straight to it and drove it to the meeting place. some of our companions were already there with their takings. we left the herd for them to hold, and struck out for the camp to get the big stallion. on the way up my friend again told me that he would take the medicine. i tried to get him to leave it alone, but his mind was set; the loss of the medicine, he said, should be the man's punishment for beating the boy. "the lodge fires had all died out and the people were asleep when we arrived at the edge of the camp. we kept close to the foot of the cliff and approached the medicine man's lodge. the stallion was picketed between it and the cliff. little wolf signed to me to go to it and wait for him while he took the medicine, which we could see was still hanging on a tripod just back of the lodge. again i signed him not to take it. i laid hold of his arm and tried to lead him with me toward the horse, but he signed that he _would_ have the medicine and i let him go, and went on toward the horse. "i don't know why i changed my course and followed my friend; something urged me to do so. i was about twenty steps behind him as he went up to the tripod and started to lift the medicine sacks from it. as he did so i saw the lodge skin suddenly raised and the medicine man sprang out from under it and seized him from behind. i ran to them as they struggled and struck the big man on the head with my gun and down he went and lay still. he had never seen me, and never knew what hit him. neither had he made any outcry. as soon as he fell we ran to the stallion, bridled him with his picket rope and sprang upon his back, little wolf behind me, and still hanging to the medicine sacks. it was my intention to make the stallion carry us out from the camp as fast as he could go, but there was nowhere any outcry--any one in sight, so i let him go at a walk until we were some distance down the valley, and then hurried him the rest of the way to the meeting place. our companions were all there with their takings, mounted and waiting for us. little wolf got down and caught a horse and away we went for the north, and it was a big band of horses that we drove ahead of us. "at daybreak we stopped to change to fresh horses, and as i turned loose the stallion i signed to little wolf: 'there! take your horse!' "'i shall never put a rope on him! you saved my life; that enemy would have killed me but for you. the horse is yours,' he signed back, and went away off our trail and hung the medicine sacks in the brush where any pursuers we might have would never see them. he gave them to the sun. "well, when we got back to the mouth of the bighorn we found that the pi-kun-i had started for the snow mountains several days before, so after one night in the crow camp we five took up their trail. i spent that last night in little wolf's lodge, and we planned to meet often again, and to go on more raids together. his last words, or signs, rather, to me were: 'do not forget that no matter what others may do, you and i shall always be friends!' "'yes! friends always,' i answered, and rode away. i have never seen him since that time." so ended ancient otter's story. it heartened me. if his friend was still alive--and he certainly had not been killed in the big fight--he would be with us for making peace, as well as mad plume's sister. said mad plume to me: "you now know why ancient otter is with us. he told the story to you; we knew it!" the next morning broke very cold; the air was full of fine frost flakes; the snow was drifted and in places very deep. we unhobbled our horses, saddled them and struck off through the timber toward the mouth of the bighorn soon after sunrise. an hour or so later we crossed the river on the ice, and turned up the valley of the bighorn. here i again said to myself that i was traversing country that people of my race had never seen, but i was mistaken. i learned years afterward that a lewis and clark man, named cotter, had come west again in 1807, and had trapped on the headwaters of the bighorn, and followed it down to its junction with the yellowstone. we saw great numbers of the different kinds of game that morning, and the sight that most impressed me was the trees full of grouse, or prairie chickens, as the whites call them. we passed hundreds of cottonwoods in which the birds were almost as plentiful as apples in an apple tree. they sat motionless upon their perches, their feathers all fluffed out, and paid not the slightest attention to us as we passed under them. "they are cold and unhappy now, but in the next moon they will be dancing, and happy enough," red crow said to me. he saw that i thought he was joking, and went on: "yes, dancing! they gather in a circle on the plain and the males dance and the females look on. oh, they have just as good times dancing as we do." he was right. many a time since then i have stopped and watched the birds dance for a long time. it is a very interesting sight. after the long years i have passed in the plains and mountains, studying the habits of all wild creatures, i become impatient when i hear people speak of them as dumb creatures. dumb! why, they have their racial languages as well as we! if they hadn't, do you think, for instance, that the grouse could have learned their peculiar dance? or the beavers how to build their wonderful dams and houses? the snow was so deep that we made no more than fifteen miles that day. we hobbled the tired horses long before sunset, and put up another war lodge and made ourselves as comfortable as was possible. we had seen no signs of the crows during the day. it was the next afternoon that we sighted them, or rather, one rider turning down into the valley from the plain, and several miles ahead of us. we happened at the time to be in the upper end of a long grove, and, while we could see him plainly, we were sure that the trees screened us from him, bare though they were. "the sun is almost down, he rides as if he were in no hurry; i think that the camp cannot be far away," said ancient otter. "ai! that is my thought," mad plume agreed, and led on, the rider having passed from our sight around a bend in the valley. we crossed a strip of open bottom, entered another grove which circled clear around the bend, and presently, looking out from the upper end of it, saw the great camp. it was pitched in a wide, open bottom about a mile from us and was in two sections, or circles, one, of course, that of the river crows, the other the mountain crows. looking out upon them, and the swarms of people passing in all directions among the lodges, i shivered a bit. not until that moment had i been even doubtful of the success of our mission. now a great fear came over me. many of those people i saw were mourning for the loss of some dear one in the attack upon us some months back. i doubted that they would ever give us time to state the reason of our coming; they would kill us as soon as they saw that we were the hated pi-kun-i! and then, to add to my fear, mad plume turned to ancient otter and asked: "brother, which one, think you, is the camp of the mountain crows?" "i can't make out for sure, but i think it is the first one. we have to make sure of that. if we enter the camp of the river crows we shall find no one there to help us; right there will be our end!" "your sister and little wolf are in the mountain crow camp?" i asked mad plume. "yes!" he answered, very shortly, and continued staring thoughtfully at the camps. said ancient otter: "oh, if we could only be a little nearer to the lodges, i could tell. little wolf's lodge is on the west side of the camp circle, and right next it, the first one to the south, is a lodge painted with two wolves. the crow wolf medicine." "yes, i remember that lodge. it is five lodges north of my sister's lodge," said mad plume. "well, one thing we can do! unless we freeze to death!" mad plume went on. "we can stay right here until night, then sneak into camp and find my sister and your friend and get them to help us, to protect us until we are in the chief's lodge." we all agreed that that was the only thing to do, and began our chilly wait. red crow pointed to the many bands of horses grazing between the camp and us, and on both slopes of the valley. "what a chance for us if we were raiders!" he exclaimed. "don't talk foolishness at this time!" mad plume told him. "it is best that you pray the gods for help in what we are about to undertake!" and with that he voiced a short, earnest prayer to the sun, to old man, and his own medicine animal--"thou little under water animal"--he called it, to preserve us from all the dangers that we were to face there in the enemy camp. and when he had finished i cried out even as the others did: "ai! spuhts-uh mut-tup-i, kim-o-ket-an-nan!" (yes! above people, pity have for us!) hai! hai! but it was cold! our horses stood humped up and miserable, the sweat freezing on their hair. "we have to hobble them and turn them loose to graze, else they will freeze to death," said mad plume. "yes, we may as well do that. if all goes well with us we shall find them safe enough hereabout, and if we never come back for them, why, they will live anyhow!" said ancient otter. so we turned them out, and set our saddles and ropes and pishimores in a little pile, and stamped about and swung our arms trying to keep warm. oh, how slowly, and yet how fast the sun went down that evening. but down it went at last, and as soon as the valley was really dark we started for the camp. as we neared it mad plume's last words were: "remember this: you are to expect abuse and you are to stand it until you see that there is no hope for us. then, _die fighting_!" cheering words, weren't they! chapter x making peace with the crows we approached the lower camp, the lodges all yellow glow from the cheerful fires within. and a cheerful camp it was; men and women singing here and there, several dances going on, children laughing and playing--and some squalling--men shouting out to their friends to come and smoke with them. we could see many dim figures hurrying through the cold and darkness from one lodge to another. we approached the west side of the circle at a swift walk, just as though we belonged there--knew where we were going; in that piercing cold to loiter, to hesitate, would be to proclaim that we were strangers in the camp. the circle was fifteen or twenty well separated lodges in width, so we had to go far into it in order to see the inside lodges. ancient otter led us, looking for the lodge of the painted wolves. we were well into the circle when a man came out of a lodge that we were just passing, and my heart gave a big jump when the door curtain was thrust aside and he stepped out. he saw us, of course, but turned and went off the way we had come, and i breathed more freely. but we had not gone two lodges farther when we saw some one coming straight toward us. we had to keep on. we drew our robes yet more closely about our faces. it was an anxious moment. we were due to meet the person right in front of a well-lighted lodge, and were within a few steps of it when a number of men inside struck up a song. when opposite our leader the person said something, and half stopped; but ancient otter pretended that he did not hear and kept right on, we following. then, just as i was passing the person, he did stop and stare at us! i dared not look back, and oh, how i wanted to! i expected every step i made to hear a shout of alarm that would arouse the camp. but no! we went peacefully on, and presently ancient otter led us out of the circle, and away out from the lodges, and when at a safe distance stopped and told us that we had been in the wrong camp; the camp of the river crows. "never mind! we have had two escapes! the gods are with us! lead on!" mad plume told him. "yes, i go! follow, brothers, and pray! pray for help!" he exclaimed. we made a wide circle around to the other camp to avoid any persons who might be going from one to the other of the two, and presently struck it on the west side of the circle. no one was in sight so we went straight in among the lodges and soon saw the one of the wolf medicine, the light of the fire within revealing plainly the big wolf painting on the right of the doorway. it had the appearance of great ferocity, the wide mouth showing long, sharp fangs. ancient otter stopped and pointed to the lodge and said to us in a low tone: "there it is, the wolf medicine lodge, and that one just to the north of it is my friend's lodge. come! we will go in!" "no! it is best that we go to my sister's lodge first. we will need some one to interpret for us at once, and i am sure that by this time she speaks crow," said mad plume. now, this should all have been arranged beforehand, for while we stood there talking a man suddenly came around a lodge behind us and called out to us something or other in his language. we pretended not to hear him. "you haven't time to get to your sister's lodge! follow me!" said ancient otter, and we started on at a swift walk. but the crow came faster; something in our appearance, and our silence when he addressed us had aroused his suspicions. as ancient otter raised the door curtain of the lodge and the light streamed out full in his face, the man recognized him as one of the hated pi-kun-i and shouted--as i afterwards learned--that the enemy were in the camp, and as we hurried into the lodge we heard on all sides of it the answering, rallying cry of the warriors. when ancient otter stepped into the lodge and the crow, little wolf, saw who it was, he sprang up and embraced and kissed him, then did the same to us and motioned us to seats. we took them, but it was hard to do so with the rallying cries of the warriors and screams of frightened women and children ringing in our ears. as soon as we were seated little wolf signed his friend: "you have come! i am glad!" "i am glad to see you! we are sent by our chiefs to propose peace to your chiefs. help us! first, send for the woman of the pi-kun-i, sister of the chief there, mad plume." "yes!" little wolf signed, and spoke to one of his women, and she hurried out. he spoke to another, and as she went out he signed to us, "i am sending that one for our chiefs! now, sit you here! i go to stand outside and keep the crazy warriors back." and with that he snatched up his bow case, drew out the bow and a handful of arrows, and ran outside, thrusting back a man entering as he reached the doorway. he went none too soon; a great crowd was gathering about the lodge, shouting angrily, crying for our scalps, no doubt. we held our weapons ready and kept our eyes on the lodge skin, expecting every moment that the warriors would raise it and pour in upon us. i tell you, that was an anxious time. i must have shown that i was terribly frightened, for mad plume gave my shoulder a pat and said to me: "take courage, younger brother, take courage!" just then the door curtain was thrust aside and a handsome young woman rushed in, and mad plume sprang up and embraced her. she clung to him, crying: "oh, my brother! what a risk for you to come here at this time! oh, i hope that all will be well with us! my man is out there with little wolf, holding back the warriors! oh, why don't the chiefs come! oh, they have come! listen!" the noise outside had suddenly died down; some one was addressing the crowd in a deep and powerful voice, and in a minute or two she said to us: "it is the head chief, spotted bull. he commands his head warriors to see that you are not harmed, and tells the others to all go home!" and then, a little later: "they are going; they are minding him! oh, i am glad! for the present you are safe!" again, the door curtain was raised and little wolf came in, followed by a young man who hurried to greet mad plume. red crow told me that it was his brother-in-law. in turn he gave us greeting. then little wolf's wives returned, and he ordered them to hurry and set food before us, which they presently did, big wooden bowls full of boiled boss ribs of buffalo. i should have been hungry; perhaps i was, but i was so excited and anxious that i ate only a few mouthfuls. presently we heard some one talking loudly outside the doorway. little wolf answered him, and then spoke to mad plume's sister, telling her to interpret, and she said to us: "spotted bull sends you word that the chiefs will council together to-morrow morning, and then have a talk with you." "yes. i told spotted bull that you were peace messengers from your chiefs," little wolf signed to us. after the meal was over there was some talk, mad plume's sister interpreting, and then it was decided that ancient otter should sleep in his friend's lodge, and that we three should be the guests of mad plume's brother-in-law. accordingly we went over to his lodge, big, and well fitted out with soft, robe couches, and mad plume and his sister fell to talking. she first had to hear all about her relatives and friends, who had died, and how the living were doing. she then told about the crows, and her life with them. she said that her man was very kind to her, that she was perfectly happy except for the fact that, owing to the continuous war between the crows and the pi-kun-i, she could not occasionally visit her relatives. as to the last fight, she said that a big war party had started out on the trail of some snakes, who had taken a large herd of horses, and while after them had discovered the pi-kun-i moving out from arrow river without the usual line of warriors in the lead of the column, and so had made the attack. and at that her man, who was listening, understanding considerable of her language, told her to tell us that the people who had lost relatives in the fight were still mourning, and he feared that they might win over the chiefs to refuse our peace pipe. she added that she thought most of the women would want peace, and that she would go among them early in the morning, and get them to urge their men to talk for it. that was about all red crow and i heard of the talk. tired out, and made drowsy by the comfortable heat of the lodge, a great change from the bitter cold that we had experienced, we fell asleep. and we slept soundly under the assurance that the crow chief's guards were in the lodges on either side of us. early the next morning, right after preparing food for us, mad plume's sister went out on her round of talks for peace, and soon afterward some of the crow men began to drop in for a chat and smoke, and especially ask about certain of the pi-kun-i with whom they had become very friendly in time of peace. i was surprised and pleased at the large number of these visitors; it was proof that there were many in the camp who would be on the side of peace. another thing that surprised me was the elegance of dress of these men. without exception they wore beautiful quill-embroidered shirts and leggings and moccasins, garments that our people put on only on great occasions. and if anything they were even taller, more graceful, and with more pride in their bearing than the men of the blackfeet tribes, and that is saying much. they were all apparently much interested in me, wanting to know all that my friends could tell them about my presence in the country, and why one so young should be a peace messenger. to that last question mad plume answered that, when the time for it came, i would probably tell my reason for being there. after a time ancient otter came in with his friend, little wolf, and we anxiously awaited the call from the council of chiefs. when noon came, and there was still no word from them, our anxiety increased. then mad plume's sister returned and told us to take courage. both spotted bull and lone runner, chief of the river crows, and some of the clan chiefs of both tribes, were for accepting the peace pipe, but that other clan chiefs, and a good number of warriors wanted the pipe sent back. the objectors to peace were mostly those who had lost relatives in the arrow river fight. she thought that these would eventually do as the head chiefs desired. it was not until late afternoon that a messenger called us to the council. we went over to the big lodge accompanied by little wolf, and mad plume's brother-in-law and sister, the latter to act as interpreter. there was an immense crowd in the camp, most of the river crows having come up to hear all about the peace talk, and many that we passed stared at us with anything but friendly eyes. had it not been for our guard of warriors coming right behind us, we might never have reached the council lodge. we were not greeted with smiles or any word of welcome when we entered the lodge and took the seats left vacant for us, but, not at all daunted, mad plume leaned forward and placed the peace pipe and tobacco in front of spotted bull, and said: "lone walker, your friend, sends you this pipe and tobacco, with these words: 'peace is good, and war is bad! let us smoke together and each declare that there shall be peace between the crow tribes and the blackfeet tribes.'" "ai! learning from our young man, little wolf, that you had come with an offer of peace from our good friend, lone walker, we have been considering the matter all day," spotted bull answered. "from the beginning my brother there, chief of our brother tribe, and i have talked for peace, and so have many of our clan chiefs. but a few still hold out that between us and the blackfeet tribes there can be no peace." "you mean me when you say that!" exclaimed one of the clan chiefs, a big, haughty appearing, flashing eyed man. "yes! i hold out for war, war always between us and the pi-kun-i! and i am not alone in that desire; i can go out in this camp and bring you many, very many men who think as i do!" now, when mad plume's sister had told us what this man said, mad plume then, much to my surprise, told her to say to the chief that he would like to have his friend, rising wolf, the white youth, speak a few words to the council. she did so, and spotted bull replied, "yes! let us hear what he has to say!" i considered a moment or two. my first thought was to tell the council that they were not powerful enough to fight the blackfeet tribes, and their gros ventre and sak-si allies. but i said to myself that that wouldn't do. nothing had even been said of the flight of the crows, their abandonment of much of their property after the arrow river fight. at last i said to the interpreter, "tell them this for me: "i would like to see peace made on account of the women and children! in war they suffer, not you men. i have been sick ever since that arrow river fight, for i then saw women and girls and even children killed as well as men! white men do not do that! they would sooner die than kill women! they believe that it is only cowards who kill women. "this is a great country. there is plenty of room in it for the crow tribes and the blackfeet tribes, and game enough upon the plains and in the mountains for all. then why fight? why keep the women and children mourning for loss of father and brother and son? now, my red coat chief wants the crows and the blackfeet and all different tribes to be friends with one another, and friendly with him. from the far east he has come with guns, and tobacco, and all kinds of goods, and built a white man's lodge on bow river, and he wants you all to come there and smoke and feast with him, and give him your beaver skins for his guns and other things. you crows can't do that if you are at war with the blackfeet. i say this: make peace, and be happy." while the woman was interpreting that i asked mad plume if it would not be well for him to offer to give back to the crows the lodges and things that we had taken after their flight. "no. about everything has been used up, and they have new lodges. and i don't think that they want to be reminded that they fled from us," he answered. just then the woman finished speaking and i happened to be looking across at the man who had declared that he was for war, always war! a great change had taken place in him as he listened. instead of hatred and defiance, his eyes now expressed great interest, intense desire; and leaning forward he said to spotted bull, as i afterward learned, "lift the pipe! fill, and light it!" spotted bull looked around at the circle and asked: "is that what you all say?" "yes! yes!" they answered, and he took the pipe from its wrappings, cut some of the tobacco, mixed it with dried red willow bark, filled the bowl, and after lighting the pipe and taking a few whiffs, passed it to mad plume, saying: "let us smoke together. tell my good friend, lone walker, that there shall be peace between him and me, between his children and mine, and that as soon as it is warm enough for us to travel we will go and camp beside him and hold the peace council with him and his chiefs." mad plume took a few whiffs of smoke, then started the pipe on the round of the circle, and answered: "i am glad to have that word to take back to him. all you chiefs here, remember this, when you come, my lodge is your lodge. we shall have many smokes together!" suitable replies were made to that. then the fierce chief asked many questions about the red coats' trading post, and the price in beaver skins of different articles. and then, a little later, the council broke up and we returned to little wolf's lodge, much pleased at the success of our mission. said mad plume's sister, "it was your talk that won them over, rising wolf." "i am glad of that! i hoped that my talk about the poor women would do some good," i answered. she laughed. "it was your talk about guns that they heard, not what you said about the women! more than anything else the crows want guns," she said. that very evening a chinook wind set in, so we decided to make an early start for home. we wanted to get across elk river, the yellowstone, before the ice went out. mad plume's sister was so anxious to see her people again that she prevailed upon her man to take her with us, lodge and all; and ancient otter's friend, little wolf, came with us with his lodge and outfit, so we were quite a party. the two crow tribes were to break camp three days later, and follow us. if there were any men still angry that the chiefs had accepted the peace pipe, we felt safe enough from them now that we had two lodges of their people with us, and accordingly we set out in high spirits, and, traveling leisurely, arrived in our own camp five days later. we were received with great acclaim, and as soon as it was learned that our mission was successful, that the crows would soon be with us, great preparations for their reception went forward. dearly they loved these opportunities for the spectacular, the dramatic incidents of life, and made the most of them. when the crows came, they halted some miles out from the river and put on all their finery, the men their war costumes, the women their beautiful, quill-embroidered, elk-tush-decorated gowns. our scouts reported that they were coming, so we all dressed in our best and mounting our most lively horses went out to meet them. lone walker and his bull band of the all friends society led, of course, all the other bands following. the women remained in camp, all but mad plume's sister, who rode in the rear of the bull band, ready to act as interpreter. we topped the slope up to the plain and found the great column of riders right close to us. they struck up a mighty song, a crow song of greeting and peace, suddenly halted it, and then we sang the blackfeet song of peace. and so, alternately singing, we approached one another, and at last met and the chiefs of both sides sprang from their horses and embraced one another. then said lone walker, the woman interpreting, "my brothers! because you and your children have come, this is a happy day for me and my children. we make you welcome. come. let us ride in to my lodge and smoke the pipe of peace together!" replying for both crow tribes, spotted bull then answered: "your words are straight. this is a happy day. we are glad to be with you, we shall be glad to smoke the peace pipe with you." "then let us mount and ride in. my lodge is your lodge. the pipe awaits you there," said lone walker, and they all mounted and led off, and we, holding back, fell in here and there with the long column of warriors and escorted them to our camp. in every lodge a feast and smokes awaited them, and while the chiefs counciled together, and smoked the peace pipe, and feasted, they were well entertained. and meantime, out in the big flat of warm spring creek, their women were putting up their camp. the lodges were soon set, and then, even as the men were doing, the women of both camps renewed friendships, and exchanged presents and gossip. they were all expert sign talkers, as well as their men. it was, indeed, a happy time. a number of dances were held that afternoon, and i joined in the one that my band gave, and some of lone walker's women told me that i was a very graceful dancer. well, i believe that i was. on the following morning lone walker dispatched messengers to the chief of the kai-na tribe, over on the missouri, advising him of the peace that had been made with the crows, and asking that he and some of his chiefs come over to meet the crow chiefs, and to make plans for the return to the fort of the red coats. they came in due time, and more feasts and smokes, and more dances were held in their honor. at the council it was decided that the kai-na, with the river crows, should follow up the missouri to the mountains, and trap northward along them, and that we, with the mountain crows, should go by the way of the gap between the bear paw and wolf mountains to little river, and follow that up to the main range, and thence north to the post. with the mountain crows, then, we crossed the missouri at a place later named by the whites, cow island, the place where, in 1877, the nez percés made one of their last stands. from there we followed up the stahk-tsi-kye-e-tuk-tai (river-in-the-middle), which heads in the low gap dividing the bear paw and the wolf mountains, and thence went down to little, or, as the whites say, milk river. and here again i was in country that none of my race had ever seen. spring had now come. the days were warm and sunny, green grass was sprouting, buffaloes and antelopes covered the plains on all sides of us, the stream was alive with beavers, and so we were happy. the crows had no traps, but nevertheless they kept gathering in nearly as many beaver pelts as we did with traps, simply by careful stalking, and long waiting, and good shooting with bow and arrows. we were more than a month following up the river to its head. we then dropped over onto the st. mary's lakes (the lakes inside), trapped there for a time, and then went slowly northward, and ahead of the kai-na and the river crows. when the camp was still two days travel from the fort, red crow and i hurried on and, on the morning of the second day, suddenly appeared before factor hardesty as he sat in the sun just outside the gate of the fort. "bless me! it is little hugh monroe!" he cried, springing up and grasping my hand as i slid from my horse. "well, well! tell me quick! did you get to the missouri plains--and saw you any traders there?" "i have been far beyond the missouri! away south of it to elk river, the sieur de la vérendrie's _la roche jaune_, you know, and seen not one trader!" i answered. but i could not wait for him to ask questions. i poured out my tale of the vast country i had seen, its wealth of furs, our trouble with the crows, and how we had made peace with them and they were coming to trade with us; and how he and the gathering of employees behind him did stare at me! "when are they coming--the crows and pi-kun-i?" he asked. "the river crows and the kai-na later on, the others, the mountain crows and the pi-kun-i, to-day," i answered. and at that he whirled upon the men and cried: "hear ye that, now! two tribes coming to-day. go get your women busy cooking pots of meat for a feast to the chiefs. put pipe and tobacco in my room! run up the flag! draw the shot from the cannon so that we can salute them and no one be hurt!" the men flew to do his bidding, and then he had me for an hour or more telling him my adventures, and even then i had hardly begun. "that will do for now! you have done well," he said at last, "so very well, my boy, that back you go with the pi-kun-i for another winter in the south!" and so ended my first year upon the plains. the end [illustration: hugh monroe in his old age _from a photograph_] the riverside press cambridge . massachusetts u . s . a juliet sutherland, thomas hutchinson and pg distributed proofreaders blackfoot lodge tales _the story of a prairie people_ george bird grinnell contents introduction indians and their stories _stories of adventure_ the peace with the snakes the lost woman adventures of bull turns round k[)u]t-o'-yis the bad wife the lost children mik-a'pi--red old man heavy collar and the ghost woman the wolf-man the fast runners two war trails _stories of ancient times_ scarface origin of the i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi origin of the medicine pipe the beaver medicine the buffalo rock origin of the worm pipe the ghosts' buffalo _stories of old man_ the blackfoot genesis the dog and the stick the bears the wonderful bird the race the bad weapons the elk old man doctors the rock the theft from the sun the fox old man and the lynx _the story of the three tribes_. the past and the present daily life and customs how the blackfoot lived social organization hunting the blackfoot in war religion medicine pipes and healing the blackfoot of to-day blackfoot lodge tales we were sitting about the fire in the lodge on two medicine. double runner, small leggings, mad wolf, and the little blackfoot were smoking and talking, and i was writing in my note-book. as i put aside the book, and reached out my hand for the pipe, double runner bent over and picked up a scrap of printed paper, which had fallen to the ground. he looked at it for a moment without speaking, and then, holding it up and calling me by name, said:-"_pi-nut-ú-ye is-tsím-okan,_ this is education. here is the difference between you and me, between the indians and the white people. you know what this means. i do not. if i did know, i should be as smart as you. if all my people knew, the white people would not always get the best of us." "_nísah_ (elder brother), your words are true. therefore you ought to see that your children go to school, so that they may get the white man's knowledge. when they are men, they will have to trade with the white people; and if they know nothing, they can never get rich. the times have changed. it will never again be as it was when you and i were young." "you say well, _pi-nut-ú-ye is-tsím-okan,_ i have seen the days; and i know it is so. the old things are passing away, and the children of my children will be like white people. none of them will know how it used to be in their father's days unless they read the things which we have told you, and which you are all the time writing down in your books." "they are all written down, _nísah_, the story of the three tribes, sík-si-kau, kaínah, and pik[)u]ni." indians and their stories the most shameful chapter of american history is that in which is recorded the account of our dealings with the indians. the story of our government's intercourse with this race is an unbroken narrative of injustice, fraud, and robbery. our people have disregarded honesty and truth whenever they have come in contact with the indian, and he has had no rights because he has never had the power to enforce any. protests against governmental swindling of these savages have been made again and again, but such remonstrances attract no general attention. almost every one is ready to acknowledge that in the past the indians have been shamefully robbed, but it appears to be believed that this no longer takes place. this is a great mistake. we treat them now much as we have always treated them. within two years, i have been present on a reservation where government commissioners, by means of threats, by bribes given to chiefs, and by casting fraudulently the votes of absentees, succeeded after months of effort in securing votes enough to warrant them in asserting that a tribe of indians, entirely wild and totally ignorant of farming, had consented to sell their lands, and to settle down each upon 160 acres of the most utterly arid and barren land to be found on the north american continent. the fraud perpetrated on this tribe was as gross as could be practised by one set of men upon another. in a similar way the southern utes were recently induced to consent to give up their reservation for another. americans are a conscientious people, yet they take no interest in these frauds. they have the anglo-saxon spirit of fair play, which sympathizes with weakness, yet no protest is made against the oppression which the indian suffers. they are generous; a famine in ireland, japan, or russia arouses the sympathy and calls forth the bounty of the nation, yet they give no heed to the distress of the indians, who are in the very midst of them. they do not realize that indians are human beings like themselves. for this state of things there must be a reason, and this reason is to be found, i believe, in the fact that practically no one has any personal knowledge of the indian race. the few who are acquainted with them are neither writers nor public speakers, and for the most part would find it easier to break a horse than to write a letter. if the general public knows little of this race, those who legislate about them are equally ignorant. from the congressional page who distributes the copies of a pending bill, up through the representatives and senators who vote for it, to the president whose signature makes the measure a law, all are entirely unacquainted with this people or their needs. many stories about indians have been written, some of which are interesting and some, perhaps, true. all, however, have been written by civilized people, and have thus of necessity been misleading. the reason for this is plain. the white person who gives his idea of a story of indian life inevitably looks at things from the civilized point of view, and assigns to the indian such motives and feelings as govern the civilized man. but often the feelings which lead an indian to perform a particular action are not those which would induce a white man to do the same thing, or if they are, the train of reasoning which led up to the indian's motive is not the reasoning of the white man. in a volume about the pawnees,[1] i endeavored to show how indians think and feel by letting some of them tell their own stories in their own fashion, and thus explain in their own way how they look at the every-day occurrences of their life, what motives govern them, and how they reason. [footnote 1: pawnee hero stories and folk-tales.] in the present volume, i treat of another race of indians in precisely the same way. i give the blackfoot stories as they have been told to me by the indians themselves, not elaborating nor adding to them. in all cases except one they were written down as they fell from the lips of the storyteller. sometimes i have transposed a sentence or two, or have added a few words of explanation; but the stories as here given are told in the words of the original narrators as nearly as it is possible to render those words into the simplest every-day english. these are indians' stories, pictures of indian life drawn by indian artists, and showing this life from the indian's point of view. those who read these stories will have the narratives just as they came to me from the lips of the indians themselves; and from the tales they can get a true notion of the real man who is speaking. he is not the indian of the newspapers, nor of the novel, nor of the eastern sentimentalist, nor of the western boomer, but the real indian as he is in his daily life among his own people, his friends, where he is not embarrassed by the presence of strangers, nor trying to produce effects, but is himself--the true, natural man. and when you are talking with your indian friend, as you sit beside him and smoke with him on the bare prairie during a halt in the day's march, or at night lie at length about your lonely camp fire in the mountains, or form one of a circle of feasters in his home lodge, you get very near to nature. some of the sentiments which he expresses may horrify your civilized mind, but they are not unlike those which your own small boy might utter. the indian talks of blood and wounds and death in a commonplace, matter-of-fact way that may startle you. but these things used to be a part of his daily life; and even to-day you may sometimes hear a dried-up, palsied survivor of the ancient wars cackle out his shrill laugh when he tells as a merry jest, a bloodcurdling story of the torture he inflicted on some enemy in the long ago. i have elsewhere expressed my views on indian character, the conclusions founded on an acquaintance with this race extending over more than twenty years, during which time i have met many tribes, with some of whom i have lived on terms of the closest intimacy. the indian is a man, not very different from his white brother, except that he is undeveloped. in his natural state he is kind and affectionate in his family, is hospitable, honest and straightforward with his fellows,--a true friend. if you are his guest, the best he has is at your disposal; if the camp is starving, you will still have set before you your share of what food there may be in the lodge. for his friend he will die, if need be. he is glad to perform acts of kindness for those he likes. while travelling in the heats of summer over long, waterless stretches of prairie, i have had an indian, who saw me suffering from thirst, leave me, without mentioning his errand, and ride thirty miles to fetch me a canteen of cool water. the indian is intensely religious. no people pray more earnestly nor more frequently. this is especially true of all indians of the plains. the indian has the mind and feelings of a child with the stature of a man; and if this is clearly understood and considered, it will readily account for much of the bad that we hear about him, and for many of the evil traits which are commonly attributed to him. civilized and educated, the indian of the better class is not less intelligent than the average white man, and he has every capacity for becoming a good citizen. this is the view held not only by myself, but by all of the many old frontiersmen that i have known, who have had occasion to live much among indians, and by most experienced army officers. it was the view held by my friend and schoolmate, the lamented lieutenant casey, whose good work in transforming the fierce northern cheyennes into united states soldiers is well known among all officers of the army, and whose sad death by an indian bullet has not yet, i believe, been forgotten by the public. it is proper that something should be said as to how this book came to be written. about ten years ago, mr. j.w. schultz of montana, who was then living in the blackfoot camp, contributed to the columns of the _forest and stream_, under the title "life among the blackfeet," a series of sketches of that people. these papers seemed to me of unusual interest, and worthy a record in a form more permanent than the columns of a newspaper; but no opportunity was then presented for filling in the outlines given in them. shortly after this, i visited the pi-k[)u]n-i tribe of the black-feet, and i have spent more or less time in their camps every year since. i have learned to know well all their principal men, besides many of the bloods and the blackfeet, and have devoted much time and effort to the work of accumulating from their old men and best warriors the facts bearing on the history, customs, and oral literature of the tribe, which are presented in this volume. in 1889 my book on the pawnees was published, and seemed to arouse so much interest in indian life, from the indian's standpoint, that i wrote to mr. schultz, urging him, as i had often done before, to put his observations in shape for publication, and offered to edit his work, and to see it through the press. mr. schultz was unwilling to undertake this task, and begged me to use all the material which i had gathered, and whatever he could supply, in the preparation of a book about the blackfeet. a portion of the material contained in these pages was originally made public by mr. schultz, and he was thus the discoverer of the literature of the blackfeet. my own investigations have made me familiar with all the stories here recorded, from original sources, but some of them he first published in the columns of the _forest and stream_. for this work he is entitled to great credit, for it is most unusual to find any one living the rough life beyond the frontier, and mingling in daily intercourse with indians, who has the intelligence to study their traditions, history, and customs, and the industry to reduce his observations to writing. besides the invaluable assistance given me by mr. schultz, i acknowledge with gratitude the kindly aid of miss cora m. ross, one of the school teachers at the blackfoot agency, who has furnished me with a version of the story of the origin of the medicine lodge; and of mrs. thomas dawson, who gave me help on the story of the lost children. william jackson, an educated half-breed, who did good service from 1874 to 1879, scouting under generals custer and miles, and william russell, half-breed, at one time government interpreter at the agency, have both given me valuable assistance. the latter has always placed himself at my service, when i needed an interpreter, while mr. jackson has been at great pains to assist me in securing several tales which i might not otherwise have obtained, and has helped me in many ways. the veteran prairie man, mr. hugh monroe, and his son, john monroe, have also given me much information. most of the stories i owe to blackfeet, bloods, and piegans of pure race. some of these men have died within the past few years, among them the kindly and venerable red eagle; almost-a-dog, a noble old man who was regarded with respect and affection by indians and whites; and that matchless orator, four bears. others, still living, to whom i owe thanks, are wolf calf, big nose, heavy runner, young bear chief, wolf tail, rabid wolf, running rabbit, white calf, all-are-his-children, double runner, lone medicine person, and many others. the stories here given cover a wide range of subjects, but are fair examples of the oral literature of the blackfeet. they deal with religion, the origin of things, the performances of medicine men, the bravery and single-heartedness of warriors. it will be observed that in more than one case two stories begin in the same way, and for a few paragraphs are told in language which is almost identical. in like manner it is often to be noted that in different stories the same incidents occur. this is all natural enough, when it is remembered that the range of the indians' experiences is very narrow. the incidents of camp life, of hunting and war excursions, do not offer a very wide variety of conditions; and of course the stories of the people deal chiefly with matters with which they are familiar. they are based on the every-day life of the narrators. the reader of these blackfoot stories will not fail to notice many curious resemblances to tales told among other distant and different peoples. their similarity to those current among the ojibwas, and other eastern algonquin tribes, is sufficiently obvious and altogether to be expected, nor is it at all remarkable that we should find, among the blackfeet, tales identical with those told by tribes of different stock far to the south; but it is a little startling to see in the story of the worm pipe a close parallel to the classical myth of orpheus and eurydice. in another of the stories is an incident which might have been taken bodily from the odyssey. well-equipped students of general folk-lore will find in these tales much to interest them, and to such may be left the task of commenting on this collection. stories of adventure the peace with the snakes i in those days there was a piegan chief named owl bear. he was a great chief, very brave and generous. one night he had a dream: he saw many dead bodies of the enemy lying about, scalped, and he knew that he must go to war. so he called out for a feast, and after the people had eaten, he said:-"i had a strong dream last night. i went to war against the snakes, and killed many of their warriors. so the signs are good, and i feel that i must go. let us have a big party now, and i will be the leader. we will start to-morrow night." then he told two old men to go out in the camp and shout the news, so that all might know. a big party was made up. two hundred men, they say, went with this chief to war. the first night they travelled only a little way, for they were not used to walking, and soon got tired. in the morning the chief got up early and went and made a sacrifice, and when he came back to the others, some said, "come now, tell us your dream of this night." "i dreamed good," said owl bear. "i had a good dream. we will have good luck." but many others said they had bad dreams. they saw blood running from their bodies. night came, and the party started on, travelling south, and keeping near the foot-hills; and when daylight came, they stopped in thick pine woods and built war lodges. they put up poles as for a lodge, and covered them very thick with pine boughs, so they could build fires and cook, and no one would see the light and smoke; and they all ate some of the food they carried, and then went to sleep. again the chief had a good dream, but the others all had bad dreams, and some talked about turning back; but owl bear laughed at them, and when night came, all started on. so they travelled for some nights, and all kept dreaming bad except the chief. he always had good dreams. one day after a sleep, a person again asked owl bear if he dreamed good. "yes," he replied. "i have again dreamed of good luck." "we still dream bad," the person said, "and now some of us are going to turn back. we will go no further, for bad luck is surely ahead." "go back! go back!" said owl bear. "i think you are cowards; i want no cowards with me." they did not speak again. many of them turned around, and started north, toward home. two more days' travel. owl bear and his warriors went on, and then another party turned back, for they still had bad dreams. all the men now left with him were his relations. all the others had turned back. they travelled on, and travelled on, always having bad dreams, until they came close to the elk river.[1] then the oldest relation said, "come, my chief, let us all turn back. we still have bad dreams. we cannot have good luck." [footnote 1: yellowstone river.] "no," replied owl bear, "i will not turn back." then they were going to seize him and tie his hands, for they had talked of this before. they thought to tie him and make him go back with them. then the chief got very angry. he put an arrow on his bow, and said: "do not touch me. you are my relations; but if any of you try to tie me, i will kill you. now i am ashamed. my relations are cowards and will turn back. i have told you i have always dreamed good, and that we would have good luck. now i don't care; i am covered with shame. i am going now to the snake camp and will give them my body. i am ashamed. go! go! and when you get home put on women's dresses. you are no longer men." they said no more. they turned back homeward, and the chief was all alone. his heart was very sad as he travelled on, and he was much ashamed, for his relations had left him. ii night was coming on. the sun had set and rain was beginning to fall. owl bear looked around for some place where he could sleep dry. close by he saw a hole in the rocks. he got down on his hands and knees and crept in. here it was very dark. he could see nothing, so he crept very slowly, feeling as he went. all at once his hand touched something strange. he felt of it. it was a person's foot, and there was a moccasin on it. he stopped, and sat still. then he felt a little further. yes, it was a person's leg. he could feel the cowskin legging. now he did not know what to do. he thought perhaps it was a dead person; and again, he thought it might be one of his relations, who had become ashamed and turned back after him. pretty soon he put his hand on the leg again and felt along up. he touched the person's belly. it was warm. he felt of the breast, and could feel it rise and fall as the breath came and went; and the heart was beating fast. still the person did not move. maybe he was afraid. perhaps he thought that was a ghost feeling of him. owl bear now knew this person was not dead. he thought he would try if he could learn who the man was, for he was not afraid. his heart was sad. his people and his relations had left him, and he had made up his mind to give his body to the snakes. so he began and felt all over the man,--of his face, hair, robe, leggings, belt, weapons; and by and by he stopped feeling of him. he could not tell whether it was one of his people or not. pretty soon the strange person sat up and felt all over owl bear; and when he had finished, he took the piegan's hand and opened it and held it up, waving it from side to side, saying by signs, "who are you?" owl bear put his closed hand against the person's cheek and rubbed it; he said in signs, "piegan!" and then he asked the person who he was. a finger was placed against his breast and moved across it _zigzag_. it was the sign for "snake." "_hai yah_!" thought owl bear, "a snake, my enemy." for a long time he sat still, thinking. by and by he drew his knife from his belt and placed it in the snake's hand, and signed, "kill me!" he waited. he thought soon his heart would be cut. he wanted to die. why live? his people had left him. then the snake took owl bear's hand and put a knife in it and motioned that owl bear should cut his heart, but the piegan would not do it. he lay down, and the snake lay down beside him. maybe they slept. likely not. so the night went and morning came. it was light, and they crawled out of the cave, and talked a long time together by signs. owl bear told the snake where he had come from, how his party had dreamed bad and left him, and that he was going alone to give his body to the snakes. then the snake said: "_i_ was going to war, too. i was going against the piegans. now i am done. are you a chief?" "i am the head chief," replied owl bear. "i lead. all the others follow." "i am the same as you," said the snake. "i am the chief. i like you. you are brave. you gave me your knife to kill you with. how is your heart? shall the snakes and the piegans make peace?" "your words are good," replied owl bear. "i am glad." "how many nights will it take you to go home and come back here with your people?" asked the snake. owl bear thought and counted. "in twenty-five nights," he replied, "the piegans will camp down by that creek." "my trail," said the snake, "goes across the mountains. i will try to be here in twenty-five nights, but i will camp with my people just behind that first mountain. when you get here with the piegans, come with one of your wives and stay all night with me. in the morning the snakes will move and put up their lodges beside the piegans." "as you say," replied the chief, "so it shall be done." then they built a fire and cooked some meat and ate together. "i am ashamed to go home," said owl bear. "i have taken no horses, no scalps. let me cut off your side locks?" "take them," said the snake. owl bear cut off the chiefs braids close to his head, and then the snake cut off the piegan's braids. then they exchanged clothes and weapons and started out, the piegan north, the snake south. iii "owl bear has come! owl bear has come!" the people were shouting. the warriors rushed to his lodge. _whish_! how quickly it was filled! hundreds stood outside, waiting to hear the news. for a long time the chief did not speak. he was still angry with his people. an old man was talking, telling the news of the camp. owl bear did not look at him. he ate some food and rested. many were in the lodge who had started to war with him. they were now ashamed. they did not speak, either, but kept looking at the fire. after a long time the chief said: "i travelled on alone. i met a snake. i took his scalp and clothes, and his weapons. see, here is his scalp!" and he held up the two braids of hair. no one spoke, but the chief saw them nudge each other and smile a little; and soon they went out and said to one another: "what a lie! that is not an enemy's scalp; there is no flesh on it he has robbed some dead person." some one told the chief what they said, but he only laughed and replied:-"_i_ do not care. they were too much afraid even to go on and rob a dead person. they should wear women's dresses." near sunset, owl bear called for a horse, and rode all through camp so every one could hear, shouting out: "listen! listen! to-morrow we move camp. we travel south. the piegans and snakes are going to make peace. if any one refuses to go, i will kill him. all must go." then an old medicine man came up to him and said: "_kyi_, owl bear! listen to me. why talk like this? you know we are not afraid of the snakes. have we not fought them and driven them out of this country? do you think we are afraid to go and meet them? no. we will go and make peace with them as you say, and if they want to fight, we will fight. now you are angry with those who started to war with you. don't be angry. dreams belong to the sun. he gave them to us, so that we can see ahead and know what will happen. the piegans are not cowards. their dreams told them to turn back. so do not be angry with them any more." "there is truth in what you say, old man," replied owl bear; "i will take your words." iv in those days the piegans were a great tribe. when they travelled, if you were with the head ones, you could not see the last ones, they were so far back. they had more horses than they could count, so they used fresh horses every day and travelled very fast. on the twenty-fourth day they reached the place where owl bear had told the snake they would camp, and put up their lodges along the creek. soon some young men came in, and said they had seen some fresh horse trails up toward the mountain. "it must be the snakes," said the chief; "they have already arrived, although there is yet one night." so he called one of his wives, and getting on their horses they set out to find the snake camp. they took the trail up over the mountain, and soon came in sight of the lodges. it was a big camp. every open place in the valley was covered with lodges, and the hills were dotted with horses; for the snakes had a great many more horses than the piegans. some of the snakes saw the piegans coming, and they ran to the chief, saying: "two strangers are in sight, coming this way. what shall be done?" "do not harm them," replied the chief. "they are friends of mine. i have been expecting them." then the snakes wondered, for the chief had told them nothing about his war trip. now when owl bear had come to the camp, he asked in signs for the chiefs lodge, and they pointed him to one in the middle. it was small and old. the piegan got off his horse, and the snake chief came out and hugged him and kissed him, and said: "i am glad you have come to-day to my lodge. so are my people. you are tired. enter my lodge and we will eat." so they went inside and many of the snakes came in, and they had a great feast. then the snake chief told his people how he had met the piegan, and how brave he was, and that now they were going to make a great peace; and he sent some men to tell the people, so that they would be ready to move camp in the morning. evening came. everywhere people were shouting out for feasts, and the chief took owl bear to them. it was very late when they returned. then the snake had one of his wives make a bed at the back of the lodge; and when it was ready he said: "now, my friend, there is your bed. this is now your lodge; also the woman who made the bed, she is now your wife; also everything in this lodge is yours. the parfleches, saddles, food, robes, bowls, everything is yours. i give them to you because you are my friend and a brave man." "you give me too much," replied owl bear. "i am ashamed, but i take your words. i have nothing with me but one wife. she is yours." next morning camp was broken early. the horses were driven in, and the snake chief gave owl bear his whole band,--two hundred head, all large, powerful horses. all were now ready, and the chiefs started ahead. close behind them were all the warriors, hundreds and hundreds, and last came the women and children, and the young men driving the loose horses. as they came in sight of the piegan camp, all the warriors started out to meet them, dressed in their war costumes and singing the great war song. there was no wind, and the sound came across the valley and up the hill like the noise of thunder. then the snakes began to sing, and thus the two parties advanced. at last they met. the piegans turned and rode beside them, and so they came to the camp. then they got off their horses and kissed each other. every piegan asked a snake into his lodge to eat and rest, and the snake women put up their lodges beside the piegan lodges. so the great peace was made. in owl bear's lodge there was a great feast, and when they had finished he said to his people: "here is the man whose scalp i took. did i say i killed him? no. i gave him my knife and told him to kill me. he would not do it; and he gave me his knife, but i would not kill him. so we talked together what we should do, and now we have made peace. and now (turning to the snake) this is your lodge, also all the things in it. my horses, too, i give you. all are yours." so it was. the piegan took the snake's wife, lodge, and horses, and the snake took the piegan's, and they camped side by side. all the people camped together, and feasted each other and made presents. so the peace was made. v for many days they camped side by side. the young men kept hunting, and the women were always busy drying meat and tanning robes and cowskins. buffalo were always close, and after a while the people had all the meat and robes they could carry. then, one day, the snake chief said to owl bear: "now, my friend, we have camped a long time together, and i am glad we have made peace. we have dug a hole in the ground, and in it we have put our anger and covered it up, so there is no more war between us. and now i think it time to go. to-morrow morning the snakes break camp and go back south." "your words are good," replied owl bear. "i too am glad we have made this peace. you say you must go south, and i feel lonesome. i would like you to go with us so we could camp together a long time, but as you say, so it shall be done. to-morrow you will start south. i too shall break camp, for i would be lonesome here without you; and the piegans will start in the home direction." the lodges were being taken down and packed. the men sat about the fireplaces, taking a last smoke together. they were now great friends. many snakes had married piegan women, and many piegans had married snake women. at last all was ready. the great chiefs mounted their horses and started out, and soon both parties were strung out on the trail. some young men, however, stayed behind to gamble a while. it was yet early in the morning, and by riding fast it would not take them long to catch up with their camps. all day they kept playing; and sometimes the piegans would win, and sometimes the snakes. it was now almost sunset. "let us have one horse race," they said, "and we will stop." each side had a good horse, and they ran their best; but they came in so close together it could not be told who won. the snakes claimed that their horse won, and the piegans would not allow it. so they got angry and began to quarrel, and pretty soon they began to fight and to shoot at each other, and some were killed. since that time the snakes and piegans have never been at peace. the lost woman i a long time ago the blackfeet were camped on backfat creek. there was in the camp a man who had but one wife, and he thought a great deal of her. he never wanted to have two wives. as time passed they had a child, a little girl. along toward the end of the summer, this man's wife wanted to get some berries, and she asked her husband to take her to a certain place where berries grew, so that she could get some. the man said to his wife: "at this time of the year, i do not like to go to that place to pick berries. there are always snake or crow war parties travelling about there." the woman wanted very much to go, and she coaxed her husband about it a great deal; and at last he said he would go, and they started, and many women followed them. when they came to where the berries grew, the man said to his wife: "there are the berries down in that ravine. you may go down there and pick them, and i will go up on this hill and stand guard. if i see any one coming, i will call out to you, and you must all get on your horses and run." so the women went down to pick berries. the man went up on the hill and sat down and looked over the country. after a little time, he looked down into another ravine not far off, and saw that it was full of horsemen coming. they started to gallop up towards him, and he called out in a loud voice, "run, run, the enemy is rushing on us." the women started to run, and he jumped on his horse and followed them. the enemy rushed after them, and he drew his bow and arrows, and got ready to fight and defend the women. after they had gone a little way, the enemy had gained so much that they were shooting at the blackfeet with their arrows, and the man was riding back and forth behind the women, and whipping up the horses, now of one, now of another, to make them go faster. the enemy kept getting closer, and at last they were so near that they were beginning to thrust at him with their lances, and he was dodging them and throwing himself down, now on one side of his horse, and then on the other. at length he found that he could no longer defend all the women, so he made up his mind to leave those that had the slowest horses to the mercy of the enemy, while he would go on with those that had the faster ones. when he found that he must leave the women, he was excited and rode on ahead; but as he passed, he heard some one call out to him, "don't leave me," and he looked to one side, and saw that he was leaving his wife. when he heard his wife call out thus to him, he said to her: "there is no life for me here. you are a fine-looking woman. they will not kill you, but there is no life for me." she answered: "no, take pity on me. do not leave me. my horse is giving out. let us both get on one horse and then, if we are caught, we will die together." when he heard this, his heart was touched and he said: "no, wife, i will not leave you. run up beside my horse and jump on behind me." the enemy were now so near that they had killed or captured some of the women, and they had come up close enough to the man so that they got ready to hit at him with their war clubs. his horse was now wounded in places with arrows, but it was a good, strong, fast horse. his wife rode up close to him, and jumped on his horse behind him. when he started to run with her, the enemy had come up on either side of him, and some were behind him, but they were afraid to shoot their arrows for fear of hitting their own people, so they struck at the man with their war clubs. but they did not want to kill the woman, and they did not hurt him. they reached out with their hands to try to pull the woman off the horse; but she had put her arms around her husband and held on tight, and they could not get her off, but they tore her clothing off her. as she held her husband, he could not use his arrows, and could not fight to defend himself. his horse was now going very slowly, and all the enemy had caught up to them, and were all around them. the man said to his wife: "never mind, let them take you: they will not kill you. you are too handsome a woman for them to kill you." his wife said, "no, it is no harm for us both to die together." when he saw that his wife would not get off the horse and that he could not fight, he said to her: "here, look out! you are crowding me on to the neck of the horse. sit further back." he began to edge himself back, and at last, when he got his wife pretty far back on the horse, he gave a great push and shoved her off behind. when she fell off, his horse had more speed and began to run away from the enemy, and he would shoot back his arrows; and now, when they would ride up to strike him with their hatchets, he would shoot them and kill them, and they began to be afraid of him, and to edge away from him. his horse was very long-winded; and now, as he was drawing away from the enemy, there were only two who were yet able to keep up with him. the rest were being left behind, and they stopped, and went back to where the others had killed or captured the women; and now only two men were pursuing. after a little while, the blackfoot jumped off his horse to fight on foot, and the two enemies rode up on either side of him, but a long way off, and jumped off their horses. when he saw the two on either side of him, he took a sheaf of arrows in his hand and began to rush, first toward the one on the right, and then toward the one on the left. as he did this, he saw that one of the men, when he ran toward him and threatened to shoot, would draw away from him, while the other would stand still. then he knew that one of them was a coward and the other a brave man. but all the time they were closing in on him. when he saw that they were closing in on him, he made a rush at the brave man. this one was shooting arrows all the time; but the blackfoot did not shoot until he got close to him, and then he shot an arrow into him and ran up to him and hit him with his stone axe and killed him. then he turned to the cowardly one and ran at him. the man turned to run, but the blackfoot caught him and hit him with his axe and killed him. after he had killed them, he scalped them and took their arrows, their horses, and the stone knives that they had. then he went home, and when he rode into the camp he was crying over the loss of his wife. when he came to his lodge and got off his horse, his friends went up to him and asked what was the matter. he told them how all the women had been killed, and how he had been pursued by two enemies, and had fought with them and killed them both, and he showed them the arrows and the horses and the scalps. he told the women's relations that they had all been killed; and all were in great sorrow, and crying over the loss of their friends. the next morning they held a council, and it was decided that a party should go out and see where the battle had been, and find out what had become of the women. when they got to the place, they found all the women there dead, except this man's wife. her they could not find. they also found the two indians that the man had said that he had killed, and, besides, many others that he had killed when he was running away. ii when he got back to the camp, this blackfoot picked up his child and put it on his back, and walked round the camp mourning and crying, and the child crying, for four days and four nights, until he was exhausted and worn out, and then he fell asleep. when the rest of the people saw him walking about mourning, and that he would not eat nor drink, their hearts were very sore, and they felt very sorry for him and for the child, for he was a man greatly thought of by the people. while he lay there asleep, the chief of the camp came to him and woke him, and said: "well, friend, what have you decided on? what is your mind? what are you going to do?" the man answered: "my child is lonely. it will not eat. it is crying for its mother. it will not notice any one. i am going to look for my wife." the chief said, "i cannot say anything." he went about to all the lodges and told the people that this man was going away to seek his wife. now there was in the camp a strong medicine man, who was not married and would not marry at all. he had said, "when i had my dream, it told me that i must never have a wife." the man who had lost his wife had a very beautiful sister, who had never married. she was very proud and very handsome. many men had wanted to marry her, but she would not have anything to do with any man. the medicine man secretly loved this handsome girl, the sister of the poor man. when he heard of this poor man's misfortune, the medicine man was in great sorrow, and cried over it. he sent word to the poor man, saying: "go and tell this man that i have promised never to take a wife, but that if he will give me his beautiful sister, he need not go to look for his wife. i will send my secret helper in search of her." when the young girl heard what this medicine man had said, she sent word to him, saying, "yes, if you bring my brother's wife home, and i see her sitting here by his side, i will marry you, but not before." but she did not mean what she said. she intended to deceive him in some way, and not to marry him at all. when the girl sent this message to him, the medicine man sent for her and her brother to come to his lodge. when they had come, he spoke to the poor man and said, "if i bring your wife here, are you willing to give me your sister for my wife?" the poor man answered, "yes." but the young girl kept quiet in his presence, and had nothing to say. then the medicine man said to them: "go. to-night in the middle of the night you will hear me sing." he sent everybody out of his lodge, and said to the people: "i will close the door of my lodge, and i do not want any one to come in to-night, nor to look through the door. a spirit will come to me to-night." he made the people know, by a sign put out before the door of his lodge, that no one must enter it, until such time as he was through making his medicine. then he built a fire, and began to get out all his medicine. he unwrapped his bundle and took out his pipe and his rattles and his other things. after a time, the fire burned down until it was only coals and his lodge was dark, and on the fire he threw sweet-scented herbs, sweet grass, and sweet pine, so as to draw his dream-helper to him. now in the middle of the night he was in the lodge singing, when suddenly the people heard a strange voice in the lodge say: "well, my chief, i have come. what is it?" the medicine man said, "i want you to help me." the voice said, "yes, i know it, and i know what you want me to do." the medicine man asked, "what is it?" the voice said, "you want me to go and get a woman." the medicine man answered: "that is what i want. i want you to go and get a woman--the lost woman." the voice said to him, "did i not tell you never to call me, unless you were in great need of my help?" the medicine man answered, "yes, but that girl that was never going to be married is going to be given to me through your help." then the voice said, "oh!" and it was silent for a little while. then it went on and said: "well, we have a good feeling for you, and you have been a long time not married; so we will help you to get that girl, and you will have her. yes, we have great pity on you. we will go and look for this woman, and will try to find her, but i cannot promise you that we will bring her; but we will try. we will go, and in four nights i will be back here again at this same time, and i think that i can bring the woman; but i will not promise. while i am gone, i will let you know how i get on. now i am going away." and then the people heard in the lodge a sound like a strong wind, and nothing more. he was gone. some people went and told the sister what the medicine man and the voice had been saying, and the girl was very down-hearted, and cried over the idea that she must be married, and that she had been forced into it in this way. iii when the dream person went away, he came late at night to the camp of the snakes, the enemy. the woman who had been captured was always crying over the loss of her man and her child. she had another husband now. the man who had captured her had taken her for his wife. as she was lying there, in her husband's lodge, crying for sorrow for her loss, the dream person came to her. her husband was asleep. the dream-helper touched her and pushed her a little, and she looked up and saw a person standing by her side; but she did not know who it was. the person whispered in her ear, "get up, i want to take you home." she began to edge away from her husband, and at length got up, and all the time the person was moving toward the door. she followed him out, and saw him walk away from the lodge, and she went after. the person kept ahead, and the woman followed him, and they went away, travelling very fast. after they had travelled some distance, she called out to the dream person to stop, for she was getting tired. then the person stopped, and when he saw the woman sitting, he would sit down, but he would not talk to her. as they travelled on, the woman, when she got tired, would sit down, and because she was very tired, she would fall asleep; and when she awoke and looked up, she always saw the person walking away from her, and she would get up and follow him. when day came, the shape would be far ahead of her, but at night it would keep closer. when she spoke to this person, the woman would call him "young man." at one time she said to him, "young man, my moccasins are all worn out, and my feet are getting very sore, and i am very tired and hungry." when she had said this, she sat down and fell asleep, and as she was falling asleep, she saw the person going away from her. he went back to the lodge of the medicine man. during this night the camp heard the medicine man singing his song, and they knew that the dream person must be back again, or that his chief must be calling him. the medicine man had unwrapped his bundle, and had taken out all his things, and again had a fire of coals, on which he burned sweet pine and sweet grass. those who were listening heard a voice say: "well, my chief, i am back again, and i am here to tell you something. i am bringing the woman you sent me after. she is very hungry and has no moccasins. get me those things, and i will take them back to her." the medicine man went out of the lodge, and called to the poor man, who was mourning for his wife, that he wanted to see him. the man came, carrying the child on his back, to hear what the medicine man had to say. he said to him: "get some moccasins and something to eat for your wife. i want to send them to her. she is coming." the poor man went to his sister, and told her to give him some moccasins and some pemmican. she made a bundle of these things, and the man took them to the medicine man, who gave them to the dream person; and again he disappeared out of the lodge like a wind. iv when the woman awoke in the morning and started to get up, she hit her face against a bundle lying by her, and when she opened it, she found in it moccasins and some pemmican; and she put on the moccasins and ate, and while she was putting on the moccasins and eating, she looked over to where she had last seen the person, and he was sitting there with his back toward her. she could never see his face. when she had finished eating, he got up and went on, and she rose and followed. they went on, and the woman thought, "now i have travelled two days and two nights with this young man, and i wonder what kind of a man he is. he seems to take no notice of me." so she made up her mind to walk fast and to try to overtake him, and see what sort of a man he was. she started to do so, but however fast she walked, it made no difference. she could not overtake him. whether she walked fast, or whether she walked slow, he was always the same distance from her. they travelled on until night, and then she lay down again and fell asleep. she dreamed that the young man had left her again. the dream person had really left her, and had gone back to the medicine man's lodge, and said to him: "well, my chief, i am back again. i am bringing the woman. you must tell this poor man to get on his horse, and ride back toward milk river (the teton). let him go in among the high hills on this side of the muddy, and let him wait there until daylight, and look toward the hills of milk river; and after the sun is up a little way, he will see a band of antelope running toward him, along the trail that the blackfeet travel. it will be his wife who has frightened these antelope. let him wait there for a while, and he will see a person coming. this will be his wife. then let him go to meet her, for she has no moccasins. she will be glad to see him, for she is crying all the time." the medicine man told the poor man this, and he got on his horse and started, as he had been told. he could not believe that it was true. but he went. at last he got to the place, and a little while after the sun had risen, as he was lying on a hill looking toward the hills of the milk river, he saw a band of antelope running toward him, as he had been told he would see. he lay there for a long time, but saw nothing else come in sight; and finally he got angry and thought that what had been told him was a lie, and he got up to mount his horse and ride back. just then he saw, away down, far off on the prairie, a small black speck, but he did not think it was moving, it was so far off,--barely to be seen. he thought maybe it was a rock. he lay down again and took sight on the speck by a straw of grass in front of him, and looked for a long time, and after a while he saw the speck pass the straw, and then he knew it was something. he got on his horse and started to ride up and find out what it was, riding way around it, through the hills and ravines, so that he would not be seen. he rode up in a ravine behind it, pretty near to it, and then he could see it was a person on foot. he got out his bow and arrows and held them ready to use, and then started to ride up to it. he rode toward the person, and at last he got near enough to see that it was his wife. when he saw this, he could not help crying; and as he rode up, the woman looked back, and knew first the horse, and then her husband, and she was so glad that she fell down and knew nothing. after she had come to herself and they had talked together, they got on the horse and rode off toward camp. when he came over the hill in sight of camp, all the people began to say, "here comes the man"; and at last they could see from a distance that he had some one on the horse behind him, and they knew that it must be his wife, and they were glad to see him bringing her back, for he was a man thought a great deal of, and everybody liked him and liked his wife and the way he was kind to her. then the handsome girl was given to the medicine man and became his wife. adventures of bull turns round i once the camp moved, but one lodge stayed. it belonged to wolf tail; and wolf tail's younger brother, bull turns round, lived with him. now their father loved both his sons, but he loved the younger one most, and when he went away with the big camp, he said to wolf tail: "take care of your young brother; he is not yet a strong person. watch him that nothing befall him." one day wolf tail was out hunting, and bull turns round sat in front of the lodge making arrows, and a beautiful strange bird lit on the ground before him. then cried one of wolf tail's wives, "oh, brother, shoot that little bird." "don't bother me, sister," he replied, "i am making arrows." again the woman said, "oh, brother, shoot that bird for me." then bull turns round fitted an arrow to his bow and shot the bird, and the woman went and picked it up and stroked her face with it, and her face swelled up so big that her eyes and nose could not be seen. but when bull turns round had shot the bird, he went off hunting and did not know what had happened to the woman's face. now when wolf tail came home and saw his wife's face, he said, "what is the matter?" and his wife replied: "your brother has pounded me so that i cannot see. go now and kill him." but wolf tail said, "no, i love my brother; i cannot kill him." then his wife cried and said: "i know you do not love me; you are glad your brother has beaten me. if you loved me, you would go and kill him." then wolf tail went out and looked for his brother, and when he had found him, he said: "come, let us get some feathers. i know where there is an eagle's nest;" and he took him to a high cliff, which overhung the river, and on the edge of this cliff was a dead tree, in the top of which the eagles had built their nest. then said wolf tail, "climb up, brother, and kill the eagles;" and when bull turns round had climbed nearly to the top, wolf tail called out, "i am going to push the tree over the cliff, and you will be killed." "oh, brother! oh, brother! pity me; do not kill me," said bull turns round. "why did you beat my wife's face so?" said wolf tail. "i didn't," cried the boy; "i don't know what you are talking about." "you lie," said wolf tail, and he pushed the tree over the cliff. he looked over and saw his brother fall into the water, and he did not come up again. then wolf tail went home and took down his lodge, and went to the main camp. when his father saw him coming with only his wives, he said to him, "where is your young brother?" and wolf tail replied: "he went hunting and did not come back. we waited four days for him. i think the bears must have killed him." ii now when bull turns round fell into the river, he was stunned, and the water carried him a long way down the stream and finally lodged him on a sand shoal. near this shoal was a lodge of under water people (_s[=u]'-y[=e]-t[)u]p'-pi_), an old man, his wife, and two daughters. this old man was very rich: he had great flocks of geese, swans, ducks, and other water-fowl, and a big herd of buffalo which were tame. these buffalo always fed near by, and the old man called them every evening to come and drink. but he and his family ate none of these. their only food was the bloodsucker.[1] [footnote 1: blackfoot--_est'-st[)u]k-ki_, suck-bite; from _est-ah-tope_, suck, and _i-sik-st[)u]k-ki_, bite.] now the old man's daughters were swimming about in the evening, and they found bull turns round lying on the shoal, dead, and they went home and told their father, and begged him to bring the person to life, and give him to them for a husband. "go, my daughters," he said, "and make four sweat lodges, and i will bring the person." he went and got bull turns round, and when the sweat lodges were finished, the old man took him into one of them, and when he had sprinkled water on the hot rocks, he scraped a great quantity of sand off bull turns round. then he took him into another lodge and did the same thing, and when he had taken him into the fourth sweat lodge and scraped all the sand off him, bull turns round came to life, and the old man led him out and gave him to his daughters. and the old man gave his son-in-law a new lodge and bows and arrows, and many good presents. then the women cooked some bloodsuckers, and gave them to their husband, but when he smelled of them he could not eat, and he threw them in the fire. then his wives asked him what he would eat. "buffalo," he replied, "is the only meat for men." "oh, father!" cried the girls, running to the old man's lodge, "our husband will not eat our food. he says buffalo is the only meat for men." "go then, my daughters," said the old man, "and tell your husband to kill a buffalo, but do not take nor break any bones, for i will make it alive again." then the old man called the buffalo to come and drink, and bull turns round shot a fat cow and took all the meat. and when he had roasted the tongue, he gave each of his wives a small piece of it, and they liked it, and they roasted and ate plenty of the meat. iii one day bull turns round went to the old man and said, "i mourn for my father." "how did you come to be dead on the sand shoal?" asked the old man. then bull turns round told what his brother had done to him. "take this piece of sinew," said the old man. "go and see your father. when you throw this sinew on the fire, your brother and his wife will roll, and twist up and die." then the old man gave him a herd of buffalo, and many dogs to pack the lodge, and other things; and bull turns round took his wives, and went to find his father. one day, just after sunset, they came in sight of the big camp, and they went and pitched the lodge on the top of a very high butte; and the buffalo fed close by, and there were so many of them that they covered the whole hill. now the people were starving, and some had died, for they had no buffalo. in the morning, early, a man arose whose son had starved to death, and when he went out and saw this lodge on the top of the hill, and all the buffalo feeding by it, he cried out in a loud voice; and the people all came out and looked at it, and they were afraid, for they thought it was _st[=o]n'-i-t[)a]p-i_.[1] then said the man whose son had died: "i am no longer glad to live. i will go up to this lodge, and find out what this is." now when he said this, all the men grasped their bows and arrows and followed him, and when they went up the hill, the buffalo just moved out of their path and kept on feeding; and just as they came to the lodge, bull turns round came out, and all the people said, "here is the one whom we thought the bears had killed." wolf tail ran up, and said, "oh, brother, you are not dead. you went to get feathers, but we thought you had been killed." then bull turns round called his brother into the lodge, and he threw the sinew on the fire; and wolf tail, and his wife, who was standing outside, twisted up and died. [footnote 1: there is no word in english which corresponds to this. it is used when speaking of things wonderful or supernatural.] then bull turns round told his father all that had happened to him; and when he learned that the people were starving, he filled his mouth with feathers and blew them out, and the buffalo ran off in every direction, and he said to the people, "there is food, go chase it." then the people were very glad, and they came each one and gave him a present. they gave him war shirts, bows and arrows, shields, spears, white robes, and many curious things. k[)u]t-o'-yis long ago, down where two medicine and badger creeks come together, there lived an old man. he had but one wife and two daughters. one day there came to his camp a young man who was very brave and a great hunter. the old man said: "ah! i will have this young man to help me. i will give him my daughters for wives." so he gave him his daughters. he also gave this son-in-law all his wealth, keeping for himself only a little lodge, in which he lived with his old wife. the son-in-law lived in a lodge that was big and fine. at first the son-in-law was very good to the old people. whenever he killed anything, he gave them part of the meat, and furnished plenty of robes and skins for their bedding and clothing. but after a while he began to be very mean to them. now the son-in-law kept the buffalo hidden under a big log jam in the river. whenever he wanted to kill anything, he would have the old man go to help him; and the old man would stamp on the log jam and frighten the buffalo, and when they ran out, the young man would shoot one or two, never killing wastefully. but often he gave the old people nothing to eat, and they were hungry all the time, and began to grow thin and weak. one morning, the young man called his father-in-law to go down to the log jam and hunt with him. they started, and the young man killed a fat buffalo cow. then he said to the old man, "hurry back now, and tell your children to get the dogs and carry this meat home, then you can have something to eat." and the old man did as he had been ordered, thinking to himself: "now, at last, my son-in-law has taken pity on me. he will give me part of this meat." when he returned with the dogs, they skinned the cow, cut up the meat and packed it on the dog travois, and went home. then the young man had his wives unload it, and told his father-in-law to go home. he did not give him even a piece of liver. neither would the older daughter give her parents anything to eat, but the younger took pity on the old people and stole a piece of meat, and when she got a chance threw it into the lodge to the old people. the son-in-law told his wives not to give the old people anything to eat. the only way they got food was when the younger woman would throw them a piece of meat unseen by her husband and sister. another morning, the son-in-law got up early, and went and kicked on the old man's lodge to wake him, and called him to get up and help him, to go and pound on the log jam to drive out the buffalo, so that he could kill some. when the old man pounded on the jam, a buffalo ran out, and the son-in-law shot it, but only wounded it. it ran away, but at last fell down and died. the old man followed it, and came to where it had lost a big clot of blood from its wound. when he came to where this clot of blood was lying on the ground, he stumbled and fell, and spilled his arrows out of his quiver; and while he was picking them up, he picked up also the clot of blood, and hid it in his quiver. "what are you picking up?" called out the son-in-law. "nothing," said the old man; "i just fell down and spilled my arrows, and am putting them back." "curse you, old man," said the son-in-law, "you are lazy and useless. go back and tell your children to come with the dogs and get this dead buffalo." he also took away his bow and arrows from the old man. the old man went home and told his daughters, and then went over to his own lodge, and said to his wife: "hurry now, and put the kettle on the fire. i have brought home something from the butchering." "ah!" said the old woman, "has our son-in-law been generous, and given us something nice?" "no," answered the old man; "hurry up and put the kettle on." when the water began to boil, the old man tipped his quiver up over the kettle, and immediately there came from the pot a noise as of a child crying, as if it were being hurt, burnt or scalded. they looked in the kettle, and saw there a little boy, and they quickly took it out of the water. they were very much surprised. the old woman made a lashing to put the child in, and then they talked about it. they decided that if the son-in-law knew that it was a boy, he would kill it, so they resolved to tell their daughters that the baby was a girl. then he would be glad, for he would think that after a while he would have it for a wife. they named the child k[)u]t-o'-yis (clot of blood). the son-in-law and his wives came home, and after a while he heard the child crying. he told his youngest wife to go and find out whether that baby was a boy or a girl; if it was a boy, to tell them to kill it. she came back and told them that it was a girl. he did not believe this, and sent his oldest wife to find out the truth of the matter. when she came back and told him the same thing, he believed that it was really a girl. then he was glad, for he thought that when the child had grown up he would have another wife. he said to his youngest wife, "take some pemmican over to your mother; not much, just enough so that there will be plenty of milk for the child." now on the fourth day the child spoke, and said, "lash me in turn to each one of these lodge poles, and when i get to the last one, i will fall out of my lashing and be grown up." the old woman did so, and as she lashed him to each lodge pole he could be seen to grow, and finally when they lashed him to the last pole, he was a man. after k[)u]t-o'-yis had looked about the inside of the lodge, he looked out through a hole in the lodge covering, and then, turning round, he said to the old people: "how is it there is nothing to eat in this lodge? i see plenty of food over by the other lodge." "hush up," said the old woman, "you will be heard. that is our son-in-law. he does not give us anything at all to eat." "well," said k[)u]t-o'-yis, "where is your pis'kun?" the old woman said, "it is down by the river. we pound on it and the buffalo come out." then the old man told him how his son-in-law abused him. "he has taken my weapons from me, and even my dogs; and for many days we have had nothing to eat, except now and then a small piece of meat our daughter steals for us." "father," said k[)u]t-o'-yis, "have you no arrows?" "no, my son," he replied; "but i have yet four stone points." "go out then and get some wood," said k[)u]t-o'-yis. "we will make a bow and arrows. in the morning we will go down and kill something to eat." early in the morning k[)u]t-o'-yis woke the old man, and said, "come, we will go down now and kill when the buffalo come out." when they had reached the river, the old man said: "here is the place to stand and shoot. i will go down and drive them out." as he pounded on the jam, a fat cow ran out, and k[)u]t-o'-yis killed it. meantime the son-in-law had gone out, and as usual knocked on the old man's lodge, and called to him to get up and go down to help him kill. the old woman called to him that her husband had already gone down. this made the son-in-law very angry. he said: "i have a good mind to kill you right now, old woman. i guess i will by and by." the son-in-law went on down to the jam, and as he drew near, he saw the old man bending over, skinning a buffalo. "old man," said he, "stand up and look all around you. look well, for it will be your last look." now when he had seen the son-in-law coming, k[)u]t-o'-yis had lain down and hidden himself behind the buffalo's carcass. he told the old man to say to his son-in-law, "you had better take your last look, for i am going to kill you, right now." the old man said this. "ah!" said the son-in-law, "you make me angrier still, by talking back to me." he put an arrow to his bow and shot at the old man, but did not hit him. k[)u]t-o'-yis told the old man to pick up the arrow and shoot it back at him, and he did so. now they shot at each other four times, and then the old man said to k[)u]t-o'-yis: "i am afraid now. get up and help me." so k[)u]t-o'-yis got up on his feet and said: "here, what are you doing? i think you have been badly treating this old man for a long time." then the son-in-law smiled pleasantly, for he was afraid of k[)u]t-o'-yis. "oh, no," he said, "no one thinks more of this old man than i do. i have always taken great pity on him." then k[)u]t-o'-yis said: "you lie. i am going to kill you now." he shot him four times, and the man died. then k[)u]t-o'-yis told the old man to go and bring down the daughter who had acted badly toward him. he did so, and k[)u]t-o'-yis killed her. then he went up to the lodges and said to the younger woman, "perhaps you loved your husband." "yes," she said, "i love him." so he killed her, too. then he said to the old people: "go over there now, and live in that lodge. there is plenty there to eat, and when it is gone i will kill more. as for myself, i will make a journey around about. where are there any people? in what direction?" "well," said the old man, "up above here on badger creek and two medicine, where the pis'kun is, there are some people." k[)u]t-o'-yis went up to where the pis'kun was, and saw there many lodges of people. in the centre of the camp was a large lodge, with a figure of a bear painted on it. he did not go into this lodge, but went into a very small one near by, where two old women lived; and when he went in, he asked them for something to eat. they set before him some lean dried meat and some belly fat. "how is this?" he asked. "here is a pis'kun with plenty of fat meat and back fat. why do you not give me some of that?" "hush," said the old women. "in that big lodge near by, lives a big bear and his wives and children. he takes all those nice things and leaves us nothing. he is the chief of this place." early in the morning, k[)u]t-o'-yis told the old women to get their dog travois, and harness it, and go over to the pis'kun, and that he was going to kill for them some fat meat. he reached there just about the time the buffalo were being driven in, and shot a cow, which looked very scabby, but was really very fat. then he helped the old women to butcher, and when they had taken the meat to camp, he said to them, "now take all the choice fat pieces, and hang them up so that those who live in the bear lodge will notice them." they did this, and pretty soon the old chief bear said to his children: "go out now, and look around. the people have finished killing by this time. see where the nicest pieces are, and bring in some nice back fat." a young bear went out of the lodge, stood up and looked around, and when it saw this meat close by, at the old women's lodge, it went over and began to pull it down. "hold on there," said k[)u]t-o'-yis. "what are you doing here, taking the old women's meat?" and he hit him over the head with a stick that he had. the young bear ran home crying, and said to his father, "a young man has hit me on the head." then all the bears, the father and mother, and uncles and aunts, and all the relations, were very angry, and all rushed out toward the old women's lodge. k[)u]t-o'-yis killed them all, except one little child bear, a female, which escaped. "well," said k[)u]t-o'-yis, "you can go and breed bears, so there will be more." then said k[)u]t-o'-yis to the old women: "now, grand-mothers, where are there any more people? i want to travel around and see them." the old women said: "the nearest ones are at the point of rocks (on sun river). there is a pis'kun there." so k[)u]t-o'-yis travelled off toward this place, and when he reached the camp, he entered an old woman's lodge. the old woman set before him a plate of bad food. "how is this?" he asked. "have you nothing better than this to set before a stranger? you have a pis'kun down there, and must get plenty of fat meat. give me some pemmican." "we cannot do that," the old woman replied, "because there is a big snake here, who is chief of the camp. he not only takes the best pieces, but often he eats a handsome young woman, when he sees one." when k[)u]t-o'-yis heard this he was angry, and went over and entered the snake's lodge. the women were cooking up some sarvis berries. he picked up the dish, and ate the berries, and threw the dish out of the door. then he went over to where the snake was lying asleep, pricked him with his knife, and said: "here, get up. i have come to see you." this made the snake angry. he partly raised himself up and began to rattle, when k[)u]t-o'-yis cut him into pieces with his knife. then he turned around and killed all his wives and children, except one little female snake, which escaped by crawling into a crack in the rocks. "oh, well," said k[)u]t-o'-yis, "you can go and breed young snakes, so there will be more. the people will not be afraid of little snakes." k[)u]t-o'-yis said to the old woman, "now you go into this snake's lodge and take it for yourself, and everything that is in it." then he asked them where there were some more people. they told him that there were some people down the river, and some up in the mountains. but they said: "do not go there, for it is bad, because ai-sin'-o-ko-ki (wind sucker) lives there. he will kill you." it pleased k[)u]t-o'-yis to know that there was such a person, and he went to the mountains. when he got to the place where wind sucker lived, he looked into his mouth, and could see many dead people there,--some skeletons and some just dead. he went in, and there he saw a fearful sight. the ground was white as snow with the bones of those who had died. there were bodies with flesh on them; some were just dead, and some still living. he spoke to a living person, and asked, "what is that hanging down above us?" the person answered that it was wind sucker's heart. then said k[)u]t-o'-yis: "you who still draw a little breath, try to shake your heads (in time to the song), and those who are still able to move, get up and dance. take courage now, we are going to have the ghost dance." so k[)u]t-o'-yis bound his knife, point upward, to the top of his head and began to dance, singing the ghost song, and all the others danced with him; and as he danced up and down, the point of the knife cut wind sucker's heart and killed him. k[)u]t-o'-yis took his knife and cut through wind sucker's ribs, and freed those who were able to crawl out, and said to those who could still travel to go and tell their people that they should come here for the ones who were still alive but unable to walk. then he asked some of these people: "where are there any other people? i want to visit all the people." they said to him: "there is a camp to the westward up the river, but you must not take the left-hand trail going up, because on that trail lives a woman, a handsome woman, who invites men to wrestle with her and then kills them. you must avoid her." this was what k[)u]t-o'-yis was looking for. this was his business in the world, to kill off all the bad things. so he asked the people just where this woman lived, and asked where it was best to go to avoid her. he did this, because he did not wish the people to know that he wanted to meet her. he started on his way, and at length saw this woman standing by the trail. she called out to him, "come here, young man, come here; i want to wrestle with you." "no," replied the young man, "i am in a hurry. i cannot stop." but the woman called again, "no, no, come now and wrestle once with me." when she had called him four times, k[)u]t-o'-yis went up to her. now on the ground, where this woman wrestled with people, she had placed many broken and sharp flints, partly hiding them by the grass. they seized each other, and began to wrestle over these broken flints, but k[)u]t-o'-yis looked at the ground and did not step on them. he watched his chance, and suddenly gave the woman a wrench, and threw her down on a large sharp flint, which cut her in two; and the parts of her body fell asunder. then k[)u]t-o'-yis went on, and after a while came to where a woman kept a sliding place; and at the far end of it there was a rope, which would trip people up, and when they were tripped, they would fall over a high cliff into deep water, where a great fish would eat them. when this woman saw him coming, she cried out, "come over here, young man, and slide with me." "no," he replied, "i am in a hurry." she kept calling him, and when she had called the fourth time, he went over to slide with her. "this sliding," said the woman, "is a very pleasant pastime." "ah!" said k[)u]t-o'-yis, "i will look at it." he looked at the place, and, looking carefully, he saw the hidden rope. so he started to slide, and took out his knife, and when he reached the rope, which the woman had raised, he cut it, and when it parted, the woman fell over backward into the water, and was eaten up by the big fish. again he went on, and after a while he came to a big camp. this was the place of a man-eater. k[)u]t-o'-yis called a little girl he saw near by, and said to her: "child, i am going into that lodge to let that man-eater kill and eat me. watch close, therefore, and when you can get hold of one of my bones, take it out and call all the dogs, and when they have all come up to you, throw it down and cry out, 'k[)u]t-o'-yis, the dogs are eating your bones!'" then k[)u]t-o'-yis entered the lodge, and when the man-eater saw him, he cried out, "_o'ki, o'ki,"_ and seemed glad to see him, for he was a fat young man. the man-eater took a large knife, and went up to k[)u]t-o'-yis, and cut his throat, and put him into a great stone kettle to cook. when the meat was cooked, he drew the kettle from the fire, and ate the body, limb by limb, until it was all eaten up. then the little girl, who was watching, came up to him, and said, "pity me, man-eater, my mother is hungry and asks you for those bones." so the old man bunched them up together and handed them to her. she took them out, and called all the dogs to her, and threw the bones down to the dogs, crying out, "look out, k[)u]t-o'-yis; the dogs are eating you!" and when she said that, k[)u]t-o'-yis arose from the pile of bones. again he went into the lodge, and when the man-eater saw him, he cried out, "how, how, how! the fat young man has survived," and seemed surprised. again he took his knife and cut k[)u]t-o'-yis' throat, and threw him into the kettle. again, when the meat was cooked, he ate it up, and again the little girl asked for the bones, which he gave her; and, taking them out, she threw them to the dogs, crying, "k[)u]t-o'-yis, the dogs are eating you!" and k[)u]t-o'-yis again arose from the bones. when the man-eater had cooked him four times, he again went into the lodge, and, seizing the man-eater, he threw him into the boiling kettle, and his wives and children too, and boiled them to death. the man-eater was the seventh and last of the bad animals and people who were destroyed by k[)u]t-o'-yis. the bad wife i there was once a man who had but one wife. he was not a chief, but a very brave warrior. he was rich, too, so he could have had plenty of wives if he wished; but he loved his wife very much, and did not want any more. he was very good to this woman. she always wore the best clothes that could be found. if any other woman had a fine buckskin dress, or something very pretty, the man would buy it for her. it was summer. the berries were ripe, and the woman kept saying to her husband, "let us go and pick some berries for winter." "no," replied the man. "it is dangerous now. the enemy is travelling all around." but still the woman kept teasing him to go. so one day he told her to get ready. some other women went, too. they all went on horseback, for the berries were a long way from camp. when they got to the place, the man told the women to keep near their horses all the time. he would go up on a butte near by and watch. "be careful," he said. "keep by your horses, and if you see me signal, throw away your berries, get on your horses and ride towards camp as fast as you can." they had not picked many berries before the man saw a war party coming. he signalled the women, and got on his horse and rode towards them. it happened that this man and his wife both had good horses, but the others, all old women, rode slow old travois horses, and the enemy soon overtook and killed them. many kept on after the two on good horses, and after a while the woman's horse began to get tired; so she asked her husband to let her ride on his horse with him. the woman got up behind him, and they went on again. the horse was a very powerful one, and for a while went very fast; but two persons make a heavy load, and soon the enemy began to gain on them. the man was now in a bad plight; the enemy were overtaking him, and the woman holding him bound his arms so that he could not use his bow. "get off," he said to her. "the enemy will not kill you. you are too young and pretty. some one of them will take you, and i will get a big party of our people and rescue you." "no, no," cried the woman; "let us die here together." "why die?" cried the man. "we are yet young, and may live a long time together. if you don't get off, they will soon catch us and kill me, and then they will take you anyhow. get off, and in only a short time i will get you back." "no, no," again cried the woman; "i will die here with you." "crazy person!" cried the man, and with a quick jerk he threw the woman off. as he said, the enemy did not kill her. the first one who came up counted _coup_ and took her. the man, now that his horse was lightened, easily ran away from the war party, and got safe to camp. ii then there was great mourning. the relatives of the old women who had been killed, cut their hair and cried. the man, too, cut off his hair and mourned. he knew that his wife was not killed, but he felt very badly because he was separated from her. he painted himself black, and walked all through the camp, crying. his wife had many relations, and some of them went to the man and said: "we pity you very much. we mourn, too, for our sister. but come. take courage. we will go with you, and try to get her back." "it is good," replied the man. "i feel as if i should die, stopping uselessly here. let us start soon." that evening they got ready, and at daylight started out on foot. there were seven of them in all. the husband, five middle-aged men, the woman's relations, and a young man, her own young brother. he was a very pretty boy. his hair was longer than any other person's in camp. they soon found the trail of the war party, and followed it for some days. at last they came to the big river,[1] and there, on the other side, they saw many lodges. they crept down a coulée into the valley, and hid in a small piece of timber just opposite the camp. toward evening the man said: "_kyi_, my brothers. to-night i will swim across and look all through the camp for my wife. if i do not find her, i will cache and look again to-morrow evening. but if i do not return before daylight of the second night, then you will know i am killed. then you will do as you think best. maybe you will want to take revenge. maybe you will go right back home. that will be as your hearts feel." [footnote 1: missouri river.] as soon as it was dark, he swam across the river and went all about through the camp, peeping in through the doorways of the lodges, but he did not see his wife. still, he knew she must be there. he had followed the trail of the party to this place. they had not killed her on the way. he kept looking in at the lodges until it was late, and the people let the fires go out and went to bed. then the man went down to where the women got their water from the river. everywhere along the stream was a cut bank, but in one place a path of steps had been made down to the water's edge. near this path, he dug a hole in the bank and crawled into it, closing up the entrance, except one small hole, through which he could look, and watch the people who came to the river. as soon as it was daylight, the women began to come for water. _tum, tum, tum, tum_, he could hear their footsteps as they came down the path, and he looked eagerly at every one. all day long the people came and went,--the young and old; and the children played about near him. he saw many strange people that day. it was now almost sunset, and he began to think that he would not see his wife there. _tum, tum, tum, tum_, another woman came down the steps, and stopped at the water's edge. her dress was strange, but he thought he knew the form. she turned her head and looked down the river, and he saw her face. it was his wife. he pushed away the dirt, crawled out, went to her and kissed her. "_kyi_," he said, "hurry, and let us swim across the river. five of your relations and your own young brother are waiting for us in that piece of timber." "wait," replied his wife. "these people have given me a great many pretty things. let me go back. when it is night i will gather them up, steal a horse, and cross over to you." "no, no," cried the man. "let the pretty things go; come, let us cross at once." "pity me," said the woman. "let me go and get my things. i will surely come to-night. i speak the truth." "how do you speak the truth?"[1] asked her husband. [footnote 1: blackfoot--_tsa-ki-an-ist-o-man-i?_ i.e., how you like truth?] "that my relations there across the river may be safe and live long, i speak the truth." "go then," said the man, "and get your things. i will cross the river now." he went up on the bank and walked down the river, keeping his face hidden. no one noticed him, or if they did, they thought he belonged to the camp. as soon as he had passed the first bend, he swam across the river, and soon joined his relations. "i have seen my wife," he said to them. "she will come over as soon as it is dark. i let her go back to get some things that were given her." "you are crazy," said one of the men, "very crazy. she already loves this new man she has, or she would not have wanted to go back." "stop that," said the husband; "do not talk bad of her. she will surely come." iii the woman went back to her lodge with the water, and, sitting down near the fireplace, she began to act very strangely. she took up pieces of charred wood, dirt, and ashes in her hands and ate them, and made queer noises. "what is it?" asked the man who had taken her for a wife. "what is the matter with you?" he spoke in signs. the woman also spoke in signs. she answered him: "the sun told me that there are seven persons across the river in that piece of timber. five of them are middle-aged, another is a young boy with very long hair, another is a man who mourns. his hair is cut short." the snake did not know what to do, so he called in some chiefs and old men to advise with him. they thought that the woman might be very strong medicine. at all events, it would be a good thing to go and look. so the news was shouted out, and in a short time all the warriors had mounted their best horses, and started across the river. it was then almost dark, so they surrounded the piece of timber, and waited for morning to begin the search. "_kyi_," said one of the woman's relations to her husband. "did i not speak the truth? you see now what that woman has done for us." at daylight the poor husband strung his bow, took a handful of arrows from his quiver, and said: "this is my fault. i have brought you to this. it is right that i should die first," and he started to go out of the timber. "wait," said the eldest relative. "it shall not be so. i am the first to go. i cannot stay back to see my brother die. you shall go out last." so he jumped out of the brush, and began shooting his arrows, but was soon killed. "my brother is too far on the road alone,"[1] cried another relation, and he jumped out and fought, too. what use, one against so many? the snakes soon had his scalp. [footnote 1: meaning that his brother's spirit, or shadow, was travelling alone the road to the sand hills, and that he must overtake him.] so they went out, one after another, and at last the husband was alone. he rushed out very brave, and shot his arrows as fast as he could. "hold!" cried the snake man to his people. "do not kill him; catch him. this is the one my wife said to bring back alive. see! his hair is cut short." so, when the man had shot away all his arrows, they seized and tied him, and, taking the scalps of the others, returned to camp. they took the prisoner into the lodge where his wife was. his hands were tied behind his back, and they tied his feet, too. he could not move. as soon as the man saw his wife, he cried. he was not afraid. he did not care now how soon he died. he cried because he was thinking of all the trouble and death this woman had caused. "what have i done to you," he asked his wife, "that you should treat me this way? did i not always use you well? i never struck you. i never made you work hard." "what does he say?" asked the snake man. "he says," replied the woman, "that when you are done smoking, you must knock the ashes and fire out of your pipe on his breast." the snake was not a bad-hearted man, but he thought now that this woman had strong medicine, that she had sun power; so he thought that everything must be done as she said. when the man had finished smoking, he emptied the pipe on the piegan's breast, and the fire burned him badly. then the poor man cried again, not from the pain, but to think what a bad heart this woman had. again he spoke to her. "you cannot be a person," he said. "i think you are some fearful animal, changed to look like a woman." "what is he saying now?" asked the snake. "he wants some boiling water poured on his head," replied the woman. "it shall be as he says," said the snake; and he had his women heat some water. when it was ready, one of them poured a little of it here and there on the captive's head and shoulders. wherever the hot water touched, the hair came out and the skin peeled off. the pain was so bad that the piegan nearly fainted. when he revived, he said to his wife: "pity me. i have suffered enough. let them kill me now. let me hurry to join those who are already travelling to the sand hills." the woman turned to the snake chief, and said, "the man says that he wants you to give him to the sun." "it is good," said the snake. "to-morrow we move camp. before we leave here, we will give him to the sun." there was an old woman in this camp who lived all alone, in a little lodge of her own. she had some friends and relations, but she said she liked to live by herself. she had heard that a piegan had been captured, and went to the lodge where he was. when she saw them pour the boiling water on him, she cried and felt badly. this old woman had a very good heart. she went home and lay down by her dog, and kept crying, she felt so sorry for this poor man. pretty soon she heard people shouting out the orders of the chief. they said: "listen! listen! to-morrow we move camp. get ready now and pack up everything. before we go, the piegan man will be given to the sun." then the old woman knew what to do. she tied a piece of buckskin around her dog's mouth, so he could not bark, and then she took him way out in the timber and tied him where he could not be seen. she also filled a small sack with pemmican, dried meat, and berries, and put it near the dog. in the morning the people rose early. they smoothed a cotton-wood tree, by taking off the bark, and painted it black. then they stood the piegan up against it, and fastened him there with a great many ropes. when they had tied him so he could not move, they painted his face black, and the chief snake made a prayer, and gave him to the sun. every one was now busy getting ready to move camp. this old woman had lost her dog, and kept calling out for him and looking all around. "_tsis'-i!_" she cried. "_tsis'-i!_ come here. knock the dog on the head![1] wait till i find him, and i'll break his neck." [footnote 1: a blackfoot curse.] the people were now all packed up, and some had already started on the trail. "don't wait for me," the old woman said. "go on, i'll look again for my dog, and catch up with you." when all were gone, the old woman went and untied her dog, and then, going up to where the piegan was tied, she cut the ropes, and he was free. but already the man was very weak, and he fell down on the ground. she rubbed his limbs, and pretty soon he felt better. the old woman was so sorry for him that she cried again, and kissed him. then the man cried, too. he was so glad that some one pitied him. by and by he ate some of the food the old woman had given him, and felt strong again. he said to her in signs: "i am not done. i shall go back home now, but i will come again. i will bring all the piegans with me, and we will have revenge." "you say well," signed the old woman. "help me," again said the man. "if, on the road you are travelling, this camp should separate, mark the trail my wife takes with a stick. you, too, follow the party she goes with, and always put your lodge at the far end of the village. when i return with my people, i will enter your lodge, and tell you what to do." "i take your speech," replied the old woman. "as you say, so it shall be." then she kissed him again, and started on after her people. the man went to the river, swam across, and started for the north. iv why are the people crying? why is all this mourning? ah! the poor man has returned home, and told how those who went with him were killed. he has told them the whole story. they are getting ready for war. every one able to fight is going with this man back to the snakes. only a few will be left to guard the camp. the mother of that bad woman is going, too. she has sharpened her axe, and told what she will do when she sees her daughter. all are ready. the best horses have been caught up and saddled, and the war party has started,--hundreds and hundreds of warriors. they are strung out over the prairie as far as you can see. when they got to the missouri river, the poor man showed them where the lodge in which they had tortured him had stood. he took them to see the tree, where he had been bound. the black paint was still on it. from here, they went slowly. some young men were sent far ahead to scout. the second day, they came back to the main body, and said they had found a camping place just deserted, and that there the trail forked. the poor man then went ahead, and at the forks he found a willow twig stuck in the ground, pointing to the left hand trail. when the others came up, he said to them: "take care of my horse now, and travel slowly. i will go ahead on foot and find the camp. it must be close. i will go and see that old woman, and find out how things are." some men did not want him to do this; they said that the old woman might tell about him, and then they could not surprise the camp. "no," replied the man. "it will not be so. that old woman is almost the same as my mother. i know she will help us." he went ahead carefully, and near sunset saw the camp. when it was dark, he crept near it and entered the old woman's lodge. she had placed it behind, and a little way off from, the others. when he went in the old woman was asleep, but the fire was still burning a little. he touched her, and she jumped up and started to scream; but he put his hand on her mouth, and when she saw who it was she laughed and kissed him. "the piegans have come," he told her. "we are going to have revenge on this camp to-night. is my wife here?" "still here," replied the old woman. "she is chief now. they think her medicine very strong." "tell your friends and relations," said the piegan, "that you have had a dream, and that they must move into the brush yonder. have them stay there with you, and they will not be hurt. i am going now to get my people." it was very late in the night. most of the snakes were in bed and asleep. all at once the camp was surrounded with warriors, shouting the war cry and shooting, stabbing, and knocking people on the head as fast as they came out of the lodges. that piegan woman cried out: "don't hurt me. i am a piegan. are any of my people here?" "many of your relations are here," some one said. "they will protect you." some young men seized and tied her, as her husband had said to do. they had hard work to keep her mother from killing her. "_hai yah_!" the old woman cried. "there is my snake woman daughter. let me split her head open." the fight was soon over. the piegans killed the people almost as fast as they came out of their lodges. some few escaped in the darkness. when the fight was over, the young warriors gathered up a great pile of lodge poles and brush, and set fire to it. then the poor man tore the dress off his bad wife, tied the scalp of her dead snake man around her neck, and told her to dance the scalp dance in the fire. she cried and hung back, calling out for pity. the people only laughed and pushed her into the fire. she would run through it, and then those on the other side would push her back. so they kept her running through the fire, until she fell down and died. the old snake woman had come out of the brush with her relations. because she had been so good, the piegans gave her, and those with her, one-half of all the horses and valuable things they had taken. "_kyi!_" said the piegan chief. "that is all for you, because you helped this poor man. to-morrow morning we start back north. if your heart is that way, go too and live with us." so these snakes joined the piegans and lived with them until they died, and their children married with the piegans, and at last they were no longer snake people.[1] [footnote 1: when the hudson's bay company first established a fort at edmonton, a daughter of one of these snakes married a white employee of the company, named, in blackfoot, _o-wai_, egg.] the lost children once a camp of people stopped on the bank of a river. there were but a few lodges of them. one day the little children in the camp crossed the river to play on the other side. for some time they stayed near the bank, and then they went up over a little hill, and found a bed of sand and gravel; and there they played for a long time. there were eleven of these children. two of them were daughters of the chief of the camp, and the smaller of these wanted the best of everything. if any child found a pretty stone, she would try to take it for herself. the other children did not like this, and they began to tease the little girl, and to take her things away from her. then she got angry and began to cry, and the more she cried, the more the children teased her; so at last she and her sister left the others, and went back to the camp. when they got there, they told their father what the other children had done to them, and this made the chief very angry. he thought for a little while, and then got up and went out of the lodge, and called aloud, so that everybody might hear, saying: "listen! listen! your children have teased my child and made her cry. now we will move away, and leave them behind. if they come back before we get started, they shall be killed. if they follow us and overtake the camp, they shall be killed. if the father and mother of any one of them take them into their lodge, i will kill that father and mother. hurry now, hurry and pack up, so that we can go. everybody tear down the lodges, as quickly as you can." when the people heard this, they felt very sorry, but they had to do as the chief said; so they tore down the lodges, and quickly packed the dog travois, and started off. they packed in such a hurry that they left many little things lying in camp,--knives and awls, bone needles and moccasins. the little children played about in the sand for a long time, but at last they began to get hungry; and one little girl said to the others, "i will go back to the camp, and get some dried meat and bring it here, so that we may eat." and she started to go to the camp. when she came to the top of the hill and looked across the river, she saw that there were no lodges there, and did not know what to think of it. she called down to the children, and said, "the camp has gone"; but they did not believe her, and went on playing. she kept on calling, and at last some of them came to her, and then all, and saw that it was as she had said. they went down to the river, and crossed it, and went to where the lodges had stood. when they got there, they saw on the ground the things that had been left out in packing; and as each child saw and knew something that had belonged to its own parents, it cried and sang a little song, saying: "mother, here is your bone needle; why did you leave your children?" "father, here is your arrow; why did you leave your children?" it was very mournful, and they all cried. there was among them a little girl who had on her back her baby brother, whom she loved dearly. he was very young, a nursing child, and already he was hungry and beginning to fret. this little girl said to the others: "we do not know why they have gone, but we know they have gone. we must follow the trail of the camp, and try to catch up with them." so the children started to follow the camp. they travelled on all day; and just at night they saw, near the trail, a little lodge. they had heard the people talk of a bad old woman who killed and ate persons, and some of the children thought that this old woman might live here; and they were afraid to go to the lodge. others said: "perhaps some person lives here who has a good heart. we are very tired and very hungry and have nothing to eat and no place to keep warm. let us go to this lodge." they went to it; and when they went in, they saw sitting by the fire an old woman. she spoke kindly to them, and asked them where they were travelling; and they told her that the camp had moved on and left them, and that they were trying to find their people, that they had nothing to eat, and were tired and hungry. the old woman fed them, and told them to sleep here to-night, and to-morrow they could go on and find their people. "the camp," she said, "passed here to-day when the sun was low. they have not gone far. to-morrow you will overtake them." she spread some robes on the ground and said: "now lie here and sleep. lie side by side with your heads toward the fire, and when morning comes, you can go on your journey." the children lay down and soon slept. in the middle of the night, the old woman got up, and built a big fire, and put on it a big stone kettle, full of water. then she took a big knife, and, commencing at one end of the row, began to cut off the heads of the children, and to throw them into the pot. the little girl with the baby brother lay at the other end of the row, and while the old woman was doing this, she awoke and saw what was taking place. when the old woman came near to her, she jumped up and began to beg that she would not kill her. "i am strong," she said. "i will work hard for you. i can bring your wood and water, and tan your skins. do not kill my little brother and me. take pity on us and save us alive. everybody has left us, but do you have pity. you shall see how quickly i will work, how you will always have plenty of wood. i can work quickly and well." the old woman thought for a little while, then she said: "well, i will let you live for a time, anyhow. you shall sleep safely to-night." the next day, early, the little girl took her brother on her back, and went out and gathered a big pile of wood, and brought it to the lodge before the old woman was awake. when she got up, she called to the girl, "go to the river and get a bucket of water." the girl put her brother on her back, and took the bucket to go. the old woman said to her: "why do you carry that child everywhere? leave him here." the girl said: "not so. he is always with me, and if i leave him he will cry and make a great noise, and you will not like that." the old woman grumbled, but the girl went on down to the river. when she got there, just as she was going to fill her bucket, she saw standing by her a great bull. it was a mountain buffalo, one of those who live in the timber; and the long hair of its head was all full of pine needles and sticks and branches, and matted together. (it was a _su'ye-st[)u]'mik_, a water bull.) when the girl saw him, she prayed him to take her across the river, and so to save her and her little brother from the bad old woman. the bull said, "i will take you across, but first you must take some of the sticks out of my head." the girl begged him to start at once; but the bull said, "no, first take the sticks out of my head." the girl began to do it, but before she had done much, she heard the old woman calling to her to bring the water. the girl called back, "i am trying to get the water clear," and went on fixing the buffalo's head. the old woman called again, saying, "hurry, hurry with that water." the girl answered, "wait, i am washing my little brother." pretty soon the old woman called out, "if you don't bring that water, i will kill you and your brother." by this time the girl had most of the sticks out of the bull's head, and he told her to get on his back, and went into the water and swam with her across the river. as he reached the other bank, the girl could see the old woman coming from her lodge down to the river with a big stick in her hand. when the bull reached the bank, the girl jumped off his back and started off on the trail of the camp. the bull swam back again to the other side of the river, and there stood the old woman. this bull was a sort of servant of the old woman. she said to him: "why did you take those children across the river? take me on your back now and carry me across quickly, so that i can catch them." the bull said, "first take these sticks out of my head." "no," said the old woman; "first take me across, then i will take the sticks out." the bull repeated, "first take the sticks out of my head, then i will take you across." this made the old woman very mad, and she hit him with the stick she had in her hand; but when she saw that he would not go, she began to pull the sticks out of his head very roughly, tearing out great handfuls of hair, and every moment ordering him to go, and threatening what she would do to him when she got back. at last the bull took her on his back, and began to swim across with her, but he did not swim fast enough to please her, so she began to pound him with her club to make him go faster; and when the bull got to the middle of the river, he rolled over on his side, and the old woman slipped off, and was carried down the river and drowned. the girl followed the trail of the camp for several days, feeding on berries and roots that she dug; and at last one night after dark she overtook the camp. she went into the lodge of an old woman, who was camped off at one side, and the old woman pitied her and gave her some food, and told her where her father's lodge was. the girl went to it, but when she went in, her parents would not receive her. she had tried to overtake them for the sake of her little brother, who was growing thin and weak because he had not nursed; and now her mother was afraid to have her stay with them. she even went and told the chief that her children had come back. now when the chief heard that these two children had come back, he was angry; and he ordered that the next day they should be tied to a post in the camp, and that the people should move on and leave them here. "then," he said, "they cannot follow us." the old woman who had pitied the children, when she heard what the chief had ordered, made up a bundle of dried meat, and hid it in the grass near the camp. then she called her dog to her,--a little curly dog. she said to the dog:-"now listen. to-morrow when we are ready to start, i will call you to come to me, but you must pay no attention to what i say. run off, and pretend to be chasing squirrels. i will try to catch you, and if i do so, i will pretend to whip you; but do not follow me. stay behind, and when the camp has passed out of sight, chew off the strings that bind those children; and when you have done this, show them where i have hidden that food. then you can follow the camp and catch up to us." the dog stood before the old woman, and listened to all that she said, turning his head from side to side, as if paying close attention. next morning it was done as the chief had said. the children were tied to the tree with raw hide strings, and the people tore down all the lodges and moved off. the old woman called her dog to follow her, but he was digging at a gopher hole and would not come. then she went up to him and struck at him hard with her whip, but he dodged and ran away, and then stood looking at her. then the old woman got very mad and cursed him, but he paid no attention; and finally she left him, and followed the camp. when the people had all passed out of sight, the dog went to the children, and gnawed the strings which tied them, until he had bitten them through. so the children were free. then the dog was glad, and danced about and barked and ran round and round. pretty soon he came up to the little girl, and looked up in her face, and then started away, trotting. every little while he would stop and look back. the girl thought he wanted her to follow him. she did so, and he took her to where the bundle of dried meat was, and showed it to her. then, when he had done this, he jumped up on her, and licked the baby's face, and then started off, running as hard as he could along the trail of the camp, never stopping to look back. the girl did not follow him. she now knew that it was no use to go to the camp again. their parents would not receive them, and the chief would perhaps order them to be killed. she went on her way, carrying her little brother and the bundle of dried meat. she travelled for many days, and at last came to a place where she thought she would stop. here she built a little lodge of poles and brush, and stayed there. one night she had a dream, and an old woman came to her in the dream, and said to her, "to-morrow take your little brother, and tie him to one of the lodge poles, and the next day tie him to another, and so every day tie him to one of the poles, until you have gone all around the lodge and have tied him to each pole. then you will be helped, and will no more have bad luck." when the girl awoke in the morning, she remembered what the dream had told her, and she bound her little brother to one of the lodge poles; and each day after this she tied him to one of the poles. each day he grew larger, until, when she had gone all around the lodge, he was grown to be a fine young man. now the girl was glad, and proud of her young brother who was so large and noble-looking. he was quiet, not speaking much, and sometimes for days he would not say anything. he seemed to be thinking all the time. one morning he told the girl that he had a dream and that he wished her to help him build a pis'kun. she was afraid to ask him about the dream, for she thought if she asked questions he might not like it. so she just said she was ready to do what he wished. they built the pis'kun, and when it was finished, the boy said to his sister: "the buffalo are to come to us, and you are not to see them. when the time comes, you are to cover your head and to hold your face close to the ground; and do not lift your head nor look, until i throw a piece of kidney to you." the girl said, "it shall be as you say." when the time came, the boy told her where to go; and she went to the place, a little way from the lodge, not far from the corral, and sat down on the ground, and covered her head, holding her face close to the earth. after she had sat there a little while, she heard the sound of animals running, and she was excited and curious, and raised her head to look; but all she saw was her brother, standing near, looking at her. before he could speak, she said to him: "i thought i heard buffalo coming, and because i was anxious for food, i forgot my promise and looked. forgive me this time, and i will try again." again she bent her face to the ground, and covered her head. soon she heard again the sound of animals running, at first a long way off, and then coming nearer and nearer, until at last they seemed close, and she thought they were going to run over her. she sprang up in fright and looked about, but there was nothing to be seen but her brother, looking sadly at her. she went close to him and said: "pity me. i was afraid, for i thought the buffalo were going to run over me." he said: "this is the last time. if again you look, we will starve; but if you do not look, we will always have plenty, and will never be without meat." the girl looked at him, and said, "i will try hard this time, and even if those animals run right over me, i will not look until you throw the kidney to me." again she covered her head, pressing her face against the earth and putting her hands against her ears, so that she might not hear. suddenly, sooner than she thought, she felt the blow from the meat thrown at her, and, springing up, she seized the kidney and began to eat it. not far away was her brother, bending over a fat cow; and, going up to him, she helped him with the butchering. after that was done, she kindled a fire and cooked the best parts of the meat, and they ate and were satisfied. the boy became a great hunter. he made fine arrows that went faster than a bird could fly, and when he was hunting, he watched all the animals and all the birds, and learned their ways, and how to imitate them when they called. while he was hunting, the girl dressed buffalo hides and the skins of deer and other animals. she made a fine new lodge, and the boy painted it with figures of all the birds and the animals he had killed. one day, when the girl was bringing water, she saw a little way off a person coming. when she went in the lodge, she told her brother, and he went out to meet the stranger. he found that he was friendly and was hunting, but had had bad luck and killed nothing. he was starving and in despair, when he saw this lone lodge and made up his mind to go to it. as he came near it, he began to be afraid, and to wonder if the people who lived there were enemies or ghosts; but he thought, "i may as well die here as starve," so he went boldly to it. the strange person was very much surprised to see this handsome young man with the kind face, who could speak his own language. the boy took him into the lodge, and the girl put food before him. after he had eaten, he told his story, saying that the game had left them, and that many of his people were dying of hunger. as he talked, the girl listened; and at last she remembered the man, and knew that he belonged to her camp. she asked him questions, and he talked about all the people in the camp, and even spoke of the old woman who owned the dog. the boy advised the stranger, after he had rested, to return to his camp, and tell the people to move up to this place, that here they would find plenty of game. after he had gone, the boy and his sister talked of these things. the girl had often told him what she had suffered, what the chief had said and done, and how their own parents had turned against her, and that the only person whose heart had been good to her was this old woman. as the young man heard all this again, he was angry at his parents and the chief, but he felt great kindness for the old woman and her dog. when he learned that those bad people were living, he made up his mind that they should suffer and die. when the strange person reached his own camp, he told the people how well he had been treated by these two persons, and that they wished him to bring the whole camp to where they were, and that there they should have plenty. this made great joy in the camp, and all got ready to move. when they reached the lost children's camp, they found everything as the stranger had said. the brother gave a feast; and to those whom he liked he gave many presents, but to the old woman and the dog he gave the best presents of all. to the chief nothing at all was given, and this made him very much ashamed. to the parents no food was given, but the boy tied a bone to the lodge poles above the fire, and told the parents to eat from it without touching it with their hands. they were very hungry, and tried to eat from this bone; and as they were stretching out their necks to reach it--for it was above them--the boy cut off their heads with his knife. this frightened all the people, the chief most of all; but the boy told them how it all was, and how he and his sister had survived. when he had finished speaking, the chief said he was sorry for what he had done, and he proposed to his people that this young man should be made their chief. they were glad to do this. the boy was made the chief, and lived long to rule the people in that camp. mik-a'pi--red old man i it was in the valley of "it fell on them"[1] creek, near the mountains, that the pik[)u]n'i were camped when mik-a'pi went to war. it was far back, in the days of stone knives, long before the white people had come. this was the way it happened. [footnote 1: armells creek in northern montana is called _et-tsis-ki-ots-op_, "it fell on them." a longtime ago a number of blackfeet women were digging in a bank near this creek for the red clay which they use for paint, when the bank gave way and fell on them, burying and killing them.] early in the morning a band of buffalo were seen in the foot-hills of the mountains, and some hunters went out to get meat. carefully they crawled along up the coulées and drew near to the herd; and, when they had come close to them, they began to shoot, and their arrows pierced many fat cows. but even while they were thus shooting, they were surprised by a war party of snakes, and they began to run back toward the camp. there was one hunter, named fox-eye, who was very brave. he called to the others to stop, saying: "they are many and we are few, but the snakes are not brave. let us stop and fight them." but the other hunters would not listen. "we have no shields," they said, "nor our war medicine. there are many of the enemy. why should we foolishly die?" they hurried on to camp, but fox-eye would not turn back. he drew his arrows from the quiver, and prepared to fight. but, even as he placed an arrow, a snake had crawled up by his side, unseen. in the still air, the piegan heard the sharp twang of a bow string, but, before he could turn his head, the long, fine-pointed arrow pierced him through and through. the bow and arrows dropped from his hands, he swayed, and then fell forward on the grass, dead. but now the warriors came pouring from the camp to aid him. too late! the snakes quickly scalped their fallen enemy, scattered up the mountain, and were lost to sight. now fox-eye had two wives, and their father and mother and all their near relations were dead. all fox-eye's relatives, too, had long since gone to the sand hills[1]. so these poor widows had no one to avenge them, and they mourned deeply for the husband so suddenly taken from them. through the long days they sat on a near hill and mourned, and their mourning was very sad. [footnote 1: sand hills: the shadow land; place of ghosts; the blackfoot future world.] there was a young warrior named mik-a'pi. every morning he was awakened by the crying of these poor widows, and through the day his heart was touched by their wailing. even when he went to rest, their mournful cries reached him through the darkness, and he could not sleep. so he sent his mother to them. "tell them," he said, "that i wish to speak to them." when they had entered, they sat close by the door-way, and covered their heads. "_kyi!"_ said mik-a'pi. "for days and nights i have heard your mourning, and i too have silently mourned. my heart has been very sad. your husband was my near friend, and now he is dead and no relations are left to avenge him. so now, i say, i will take the load from your hearts. i will avenge him. i will go to war and take many scalps, and when i return, they shall be yours. you shall paint your faces black, and we will all rejoice that fox-eye is avenged." when the people heard that mik-a'pi was going to war, many warriors wished to join him, but he refused them; and when he had taken a medicine sweat, and got a medicine-pipe man to make medicine for him during his absence, he started from the camp one evening, just after sunset. it is only the foolish warrior who travels in the day; for other war parties may be out, or some camp-watcher sitting on a hill may see him from far off, and lay plans to destroy him. mik-a'pi was not one of these. he was brave but cautious, and he had strong medicine. some say that he was related to the ghosts, and that they helped him. having now started to war against the snakes, he travelled in hidden places, and at sunrise would climb a hill and look carefully in all directions, and during the long day would lie there, and watch, and take short sleeps. now, when mik-a'pi had come to the great falls (of the missouri), a heavy rain set in; and, seeing a hole in the rocks, he crawled in and lay down in the farther end to sleep. the rain did not cease, and when night came he could not travel because of the darkness and storm; so he lay down to sleep again. but soon he heard something coming into the cave toward him, and then he felt a hand laid on his breast, and he put out his hand and touched a person. then mik-a'pi put the palm of his hand on the person's breast and jerked it to and fro, and then he touched the person with the point of his finger, which, in the sign language, means, "who are you?" the strange person then took mik-a'pi's hand, and made him feel of his own right hand. the thumb and all the fingers were closed except the forefinger, which was extended; and when mik-a'pi touched it the person moved his hand forward with a zigzag motion, which means "snake." then mik-a'pi was glad. here had come to him one of the tribe he was seeking. but he thought it best to wait for daylight before attacking him. so, when the snake in signs asked him who he was, he replied, by making the sign for paddling a canoe, that he was a pend d'oreille, or river person. for he knew that the snakes and the pend d'oreilles were at peace. then they both lay down to sleep, but mik-a'pi did not sleep. through the long night he watched for the first dim light, so that he might kill his enemy. the snake slept soundly; and just at daybreak mik-a'pi quietly strung his bow, fitted an arrow, and, taking aim, sent the thin shaft through his enemy's heart. the snake quivered, half rose up, and with a groan fell back dead. then mik-a'pi took his scalp and his bow and arrows, and also his bundle of moccasins; and as daylight had come, he went out of the cave and looked all about. no one was in sight. probably the snake, like himself, had gone alone to war. but, ever cautious, he travelled only a short distance, and waited for night before going on. the rain had ceased and the day was warm. he took a piece of dried meat and back fat from his pouch and ate them, and, after drinking from the river, he climbed up on a high rock wall and slept. now in his dream he fought with a strange people, and was wounded. he felt blood trickling from his wounds, and when he awoke, he knew that he had been warned to turn back. the signs also were bad. he saw an eagle rising with a snake, which dropped from its claws and escaped. the setting sun, too, was painted[1],--a sure warning to people that danger is near. but, in spite of all these things, mik-a'pi determined to go on. he thought of the poor widows mourning and waiting for revenge. he thought of the glad welcome of the people, if he should return with many scalps; and he thought also of two young sisters, whom he wanted to marry. surely, if he could return and bring the proofs of brave deeds, their parents would be glad to give them to him. [footnote 1: sun dogs.] ii it was nearly night. the sun had already disappeared behind the sharp-pointed gray peaks. in the fading light the far-stretching prairie was turning dark. in a valley, sparsely timbered with quaking aspens and cotton-woods, stood a large camp. for a long distance up and down the river rose the smoke of many lodges. seated on a little hill overlooking the valley, was a single person. with his robe drawn tightly around him, he sat there motionless, looking down on the prairie and valley below. slowly and silently something was crawling through the grass toward him. but he heard nothing. still he gazed eastward, seeking to discover any enemy who might be approaching. still the dark object crawled slowly onward. now it was so close to him that it could almost touch him. the person thought he heard a sound, and started to turn round. too late! too late! a strong arm grasped him about the neck and covered his mouth. a long jagged knife was thrust into his breast again and again, and he died without a cry. strange that in all that great camp no one should have seen him killed! still extended on the ground, the dark figure removed the scalp. slowly he crawled back down the hill, and was lost in the gathering darkness. it was mik-a'pi, and he had another snake scalp tied to his belt. his heart was glad, yet he was not satisfied. some nights had passed since the bad signs had warned him, yet he had succeeded. "one more," he said. "one more scalp i must have, and then i will go back." so he went far up on the mountain, and hid in some thick pines and slept. when daylight came, he could see smoke rise as the women started their fires. he also saw many people rush up on the hill, where the dead watcher lay. he was too far off to hear their angry shouts and mournful cries, but he sung to himself a song of war and was happy. once more the sun went to his lodge behind the mountains, and as darkness came mik-a'pi slowly descended the mountain and approached the camp. this was the time of danger. behind each bush, or hidden in a bunch of the tall rye grass, some person might be watching to warn the camp of an approaching enemy. slowly and like a snake, he crawled around the outskirts of the camp, listening and looking. he heard a cough and saw a movement of a bush. there was a snake. could he kill him and yet escape? he was close to him now. so he sat and waited, considering how to act. for a long time he sat there waiting. the moon rose and travelled high in the sky. the seven persons[1] slowly swung around, and pointed downward. it was the middle of the night. then the person in the bush stood up and stretched out his arms and yawned, for he was tired of watching, and thought that no danger was near; but as he stood thus, an arrow pierced his breast. he gave a loud yell and tried to run, but another arrow struck him and he fell. [footnote 1: the constellation of the great bear.] at the sound the warriors rushed forth from the lodges and the outskirts of the camp; but as they came, mik-a'pi tore the scalp from his fallen enemy, and started to run toward the river. close behind him followed the snakes. arrows whizzed about him. one pierced his arm. he plucked it out. another struck his leg, and he fell. then a great shout arose from the snakes. their enemy was down. now they would be revenged for two lately taken lives. but where mik-a'pi fell was the verge of a high rock wall; below rushed the deep river, and even as they shouted, he rolled from the wall, and disappeared in the dark water far below. in vain they searched the shores and bars. they did not find him. mik-a'pi had sunk deep in the water. the current was swift, and when at last he rose to the surface, he was far below his pursuers. the arrow in his leg pained him, and with difficulty he crawled out on a sand-bar. luckily the arrow was lance-shaped instead of barbed, so he managed to draw it out. near by on the bar was a dry pine log, lodged there by the high spring water. this he managed to roll into the stream; and, partly resting on it, he again drifted down with the current. all night he floated down the river, and when morning came he was far from the camp of the snakes. benumbed with cold and stiff from the arrow wounds, he was glad to crawl out on the bank, and lie down in the warm sunshine. soon he slept. iii the sun was already in the middle when he awoke. his wounds were swollen and painful; yet he hobbled on for a time, until the pain became so great he could go no further, and he sat down, tired and discouraged. "true the signs," he said. "how crazy i was to go against them! useless now my bravery, for here i must stay and die. the widows will still mourn; and in their old age who will take care of my father and my mother? pity me now, oh sun! help me, oh great above medicine person! look down on your wounded and suffering child. help me to survive!" what was that crackling in the brush near by? was it the snakes on his trail? mik-a'pi strung his bow and drew out his arrows. no; it was not a snake. it was a bear. there he stood, a big grizzly bear, looking down at the wounded man. "what does my brother here?" he said. "why does he pray to survive?" "look at my leg," said mik-a'pi, "swollen and sore. look at my wounded arm. i can hardly draw the bow. far the home of my people, and my strength is gone. surely here i must die, for i cannot travel and i have no food." "now courage, my brother," said the bear. "now not faint heart, my brother, for i will help you, and you shall survive." when he had said this, he lifted mik-a'pi and carried him to a place of thick mud; and here he took great handfuls[1] of the mud and plastered the wounds, and he sung a medicine song while putting on the mud. then he carried mik-a'pi to a place where were many sarvis berries, and broke off great branches of the fruit, and gave them to him, saying, "eat, my brother, eat!" and he broke off more branches, full of large ripe berries, for him; but already mik-a'pi was satisfied and could eat no more. then said the bear, "lie down, now, on my back, and hold tight by my hair, and we will travel on." and when mik-a'pi had got on and was ready, he started off on a long swinging trot. [footnote 1: the bear's paws are called _o-kits-iks,_ the term also for a person's hands. the animal itself is regarded as almost human.] all through the night he travelled on without stopping. when morning came, they rested awhile, and ate more berries; and again the bear plastered his wounds with mud. in this way they travelled on, until, on the fourth day, they came close to the lodges of the pik[)u]n'i; and the people saw them coming and wondered. "get off, my brother, get off," said the bear. "there are your people. i must leave you." and without another word, he turned and went off up the mountain. all the people came out to meet the warrior, and they carried him to the lodge of his father. he untied the three scalps from his belt and gave them to the widows, saying: "you are revenged. i wipe away your tears." and every one rejoiced. all his female relations went through the camp, shouting his name and singing, and every one prepared for the scalp dance. first came the widows. their faces were painted black, and they carried the scalps tied on poles. then came the medicine men, with their medicine pipes unwrapped; then the bands of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, all dressed in war costume; then came the old men; and last the women and children. they all sang the war song and danced. they went all through the village in single file, stopping here and there to dance, and mik-a'pi sat outside the lodge, and saw all the people dance by him. he forgot his pain and was proud, and although he could not dance, he sang with them. soon they made the medicine lodge, and, first of all the warriors, mik-a'pi was chosen to cut the raw-hide which binds the poles, and as he cut the strands, he counted the _coups_ he had made. he told of the enemies he had killed, and all the people shouted his name and praised him. the father of those two young sisters gave them to him. he was glad to have such a son-in-law. long lived mik-a'pi. of all the great chiefs who have lived and died, he was the greatest. he did many other great and daring things. it must be true, as the old men have said, that he was helped by the ghosts, for no one can do such things without help from those fearful and unknown persons. heavy collar and the ghost woman the blood camp was on old man's river, where fort mcleod now stands. a party of seven men started to war toward the cypress hills. heavy collar was the leader. they went around the cypress mountains, but found no enemies and started back toward their camp. on their homeward way, heavy collar used to take the lead. he would go out far ahead on the high hills, and look over the country, acting as scout for the party. at length they came to the south branch of the saskatchewan river, above seven persons' creek. in those days there were many war parties about, and this party travelled concealed as much as possible in the coulées and low places. as they were following up the river, they saw at a distance three old bulls lying down close to a cut bank. heavy collar left his party, and went out to kill one of these bulls, and when he had come close to them, he shot one and killed it right there. he cut it up, and, as he was hungry, he went down into a ravine below him, to roast a piece of meat; for he had left his party a long way behind, and night was now coming on. as he was roasting the meat, he thought,--for he was very tired,--"it is a pity i did not bring one of my young men with me. he could go up on that hill and get some hair from that bull's head, and i could wipe out my gun." while he sat there thinking this, and talking to himself, a bunch of this hair came over him through the air, and fell on the ground right in front of him. when this happened, it frightened him a little; for he thought that perhaps some of his enemies were close by, and had thrown the bunch of hair at him. after a little while, he took the hair, and cleaned his gun and loaded it, and then sat and watched for a time. he was uneasy, and at length decided that he would go on further up the river, to see what he could discover. he went on, up the stream, until he came to the mouth of the st. mary's river. it was now very late in the night, and he was very tired, so he crept into a large bunch of rye-grass to hide and sleep for the night. the summer before this, the blackfeet _(sik-si-kau)_ had been camped on this bottom, and a woman had been killed in this same patch of rye-grass where heavy collar had lain down to rest. he did not know this, but still he seemed to be troubled that night. he could not sleep. he could always hear something, but what it was he could not make out. he tried to go to sleep, but as soon as he dozed off he kept thinking he heard something in the distance. he spent the night there, and in the morning when it became light, there he saw right beside him the skeleton of the woman who had been killed the summer before. that morning he went on, following up the stream to belly river. all day long as he was travelling, he kept thinking about his having slept by this woman's bones. it troubled him. he could not forget it. at the same time he was very tired, because he had walked so far and had slept so little. as night came on, he crossed over to an island, and determined to camp for the night. at the upper end of the island was a large tree that had drifted down and lodged, and in a fork of this tree he built his fire, and got in a crotch of one of the forks, and sat with his back to the fire, warming himself, but all the time he was thinking about the woman he had slept beside the night before. as he sat there, all at once he heard over beyond the tree, on the other side of the fire, a sound as if something were being dragged toward him along the ground. it sounded as if a piece of a lodge were being dragged over the grass. it came closer and closer. heavy collar was scared. he was afraid to turn his head and look back to see what it was that was coming. he heard the noise come up to the tree in which his fire was built, and then it stopped, and all at once he heard some one whistling a tune. he turned around and looked toward the sound, and there, sitting on the other fork of the tree, right opposite to him, was the pile of bones by which he had slept, only now all together in the shape of a skeleton. this ghost had on it a lodge covering. the string, which is tied to the pole, was fastened about the ghost's neck; the wings of the lodge stood out on either side of its head, and behind it the lodge could be seen, stretched out and fading away into the darkness. the ghost sat on the old dead limb and whistled its tune, and as it whistled, it swung its legs in time to the tune. when heavy collar saw this, his heart almost melted away. at length he mustered up courage, and said: "oh ghost, go away, and do not trouble me. i am very tired; i want to rest." the ghost paid no attention to him, but kept on whistling, swinging its legs in time to the tune. four times he prayed to her, saying: "oh ghost, take pity on me! go away and leave me alone. i am tired; i want to rest." the more he prayed, the more the ghost whistled and seemed pleased, swinging her legs, and turning her head from side to side, sometimes looking down at him, and sometimes up at the stars, and all the time whistling. when he saw that she took no notice of what he said, heavy collar got angry at heart, and said, "well, ghost, you do not listen to my prayers, and i shall have to shoot you to drive you away." with that he seized his gun, and throwing it to his shoulder, shot right at the ghost. when he shot at her, she fell over backward into the darkness, screaming out: "oh heavy collar, you have shot me, you have killed me! you dog, heavy collar! there is no place on this earth where you can go that i will not find you; no place where you can hide that i will not come." as she fell back and said this, heavy collar sprang to his feet, and ran away as fast as he could. she called after him: "i have been killed once, and now you are trying to kill me again. oh heavy collar!" as he ran away, he could still hear her angry words following him, until at last they died away in the distance. he ran all night long, and whenever he stopped to breathe and listen, he seemed to hear in the distance the echoes of her voice. all he could hear was, "oh heavy collar!" and then he would rush away again. he ran until he was all tired out, and by this time it was daylight. he was now quite a long way below fort mcleod. he was very sleepy, but dared not lie down, for he remembered that the ghost had said that she would follow him. he kept walking on for some time, and then sat down to rest, and at once fell asleep. before he had left his party, heavy collar had said to his young men: "now remember, if any one of us should get separated from the party, let him always travel to the belly river buttes. there will be our meeting-place." when their leader did not return to them, the party started across the country and went toward the belly river buttes. heavy collar had followed the river up, and had gone a long distance out of his way; and when he awoke from his sleep he too started straight for the belly river buttes, as he had said he would. when his party reached the buttes, one of them went up on top of the hill to watch. after a time, as he looked down the river, he saw two persons coming, and as they came nearer, he saw that one of them was heavy collar, and by his side was a woman. the watcher called up the rest of the party, and said to them: "here comes our chief. he has had luck. he is bringing a woman with him. if he brings her into camp, we will take her away from him." and they all laughed. they supposed that he had captured her. they went down to the camp, and sat about the fire, looking at the two people coming, and laughing among themselves at the idea of their chief bringing in a woman. when the two persons had come close, they could see that heavy collar was walking fast, and the woman would walk by his side a little way, trying to keep up, and then would fall behind, and then trot along to catch up to him again. just before the pair reached camp there was a deep ravine that they had to cross. they went down into this side by side, and then heavy collar came up out of it alone, and came on into the camp. when he got there, all the young men began to laugh at him and to call out, "heavy collar, where is your woman?" he looked at them for a moment, and then said: "why, i have no woman. i do not understand what you are talking about." one of them said: "oh, he has hidden her in that ravine. he was afraid to bring her into camp." another said, "where did you capture her, and what tribe does she belong to?" heavy collar looked from one to another, and said: "i think you are all crazy. i have taken no woman. what do you mean?" the young man said: "why, that woman that you had with you just now: where did you get her, and where did you leave her? is she down in the coulée? we all saw her, and it is no use to deny that she was with you. come now, where is she?" when they said this, heavy collar's heart grew very heavy, for he knew that it must have been the ghost woman; and he told them the story. some of the young men could not believe this, and they ran down to the ravine, where they had last seen the woman. there they saw in the soft dirt the tracks made by heavy collar, when he went down into the ravine, but there were no other tracks near his, where they had seen the woman walking. when they found that it was a ghost that had come along with heavy collar, they resolved to go back to their main camp. the party had been out so long that their moccasins were all worn out, and some of them were footsore, so that they could not travel fast, but at last they came to the cut banks, and there found their camp--seven lodges. that night, after they had reached camp, they were inviting each other to feasts. it was getting pretty late in the night, and the moon was shining brightly, when one of the bloods called out for heavy collar to come and eat with him. heavy collar shouted, "yes, i will be there pretty soon." he got up and went out of the lodge, and went a little way from it, and sat down. while he was sitting there, a big bear walked out of the brush close to him. heavy collar felt around him for a stone to throw at the bear, so as to scare it away, for he thought it had not seen him. as he was feeling about, his hand came upon a piece of bone, and he threw this over at the bear, and hit it. then the bear spoke, and said: "well, well, well, heavy collar; you have killed me once, and now here you are hitting me. where is there a place in this world where you can hide from me? i will find you, i don't care where you may go." when heavy collar heard this, he knew it was the ghost woman, and he jumped up and ran toward his lodge, calling out, "run, run! a ghost bear is upon us!" all the people in the camp ran to his lodge, so that it was crowded full of people. there was a big fire in the lodge, and the wind was blowing hard from the west. men, women, and children were huddled together in the lodge, and were very much afraid of the ghost. they could hear her walking toward the lodge, grumbling, and saying: "i will kill all these dogs. not one of them shall get away." the sounds kept coming closer and closer, until they were right at the lodge door. then she said, "i will smoke you to death." and as she said this, she moved the poles, so that the wings of the lodge turned toward the west, and the wind could blow in freely through the smoke hole. all this time she was threatening terrible things against them. the lodge began to get full of smoke, and the children were crying, and all were in great distress--almost suffocating. so they said, "let us lift one man up here inside, and let him try to fix the ears, so that the lodge will get clear of smoke." they raised a man up, and he was standing on the shoulders of the others, and, blinded and half strangled by the smoke, was trying to turn the wings. while he was doing this, the ghost suddenly hit the lodge a blow, and said, "_un_!" and this scared the people who were holding the man, and they jumped and let him go, and he fell down. then the people were in despair, and said, "it is no use; she is resolved to smoke us to death." all the time the smoke was getting thicker in the lodge. heavy collar said: "is it possible that she can destroy us? is there no one here who has some strong dream power that can overcome this ghost?" his mother said: "i will try to do something. i am older than any of you, and i will see what i can do." so she got down her medicine bundle and painted herself, and got out a pipe and filled it and lighted it, and stuck the stem out through the lodge door, and sat there and began to pray to the ghost woman. she said: "oh ghost, take pity on us, and go away. we have never wronged you, but you are troubling us and frightening our children. accept what i offer you, and leave us alone." a voice came from behind the lodge and said: "no, no, no; you dogs, i will not listen to you. every one of you must die." the old woman repeated her prayer: "ghost, take pity on us. accept this smoke and go away." then the ghost said: "how can you expect me to smoke, when i am way back here? bring that pipe out here. i have no long bill to reach round the lodge." so the old woman went out of the lodge door, and reached out the stem of the pipe as far as she could reach around toward the back of the lodge. the ghost said: "no, i do not wish to go around there to where you have that pipe. if you want me to smoke it, you must bring it here." the old woman went around the lodge toward her, and the ghost woman began to back away, and said, "no, i do not smoke that kind of a pipe." and when the ghost started away, the old woman followed her, and she could not help herself. she called out, "oh my children, the ghost is carrying me off!" heavy collar rushed out, and called to the others, "come, and help me take my mother from the ghost." he grasped his mother about the waist and held her, and another man took him by the waist, and another him, until they were all strung out, one behind the other, and all following the old woman, who was following the ghost woman, who was walking away. all at once the old woman let go of the pipe, and fell over dead. the ghost disappeared, and they were troubled no more by the ghost woman. the wolf-man there was once a man who had two bad wives. they had no shame. the man thought if he moved away where there were no other people, he might teach these women to become good, so he moved his lodge away off on the prairie. near where they camped was a high butte, and every evening about sundown, the man would go up on top of it, and look all over the country to see where the buffalo were feeding, and if any enemies were approaching. there was a buffalo skull on the hill, which he used to sit on. "this is very lonesome," said one woman to the other, one day. "we have no one to talk with nor to visit." "let us kill our husband," said the other. "then we will go back to our relations and have a good time." early in the morning, the man went out to hunt, and as soon as he was out of sight, his wives went up on top of the butte. there they dug a deep pit, and covered it over with light sticks, grass, and dirt, and placed the buffalo skull on top. in the afternoon they saw their husband coming home, loaded down with meat he had killed. so they hurried to cook for him. after eating, he went up on the butte and sat down on the skull. the slender sticks gave way, and he fell into the pit. his wives were watching him, and when they saw him disappear, they took down the lodge, packed everything on the dog travois, and moved off, going toward the main camp. when they got near it, so that the people could hear them, they began to cry and mourn. "why is this?" they were asked. "why are you mourning? where is your husband?" "he is dead," they replied. "five days ago he went out to hunt, and he never came back." and they cried and mourned again. when the man fell into the pit, he was hurt. after a while he tried to get out, but he was so badly bruised he could not climb up. a wolf, travelling along, came to the pit and saw him, and pitied him. _ah-h-w-o-o-o-o! ah-h-w-o-o-o-o!_ he howled, and when the other wolves heard him they all came running to see what was the matter. there came also many coyotes, badgers, and kit-foxes. "in this hole," said the wolf, "is my find. here is a fallen-in man. let us dig him out, and we will have him for our brother." they all thought the wolf spoke well, and began to dig. in a little while they had a hole close to the man. then the wolf who found him said, "hold on; i want to speak a few words to you." all the animals listening, he continued, "we will all have this man for our brother, but i found him, so i think he ought to live with us big wolves." all the others said that this was well; so the wolf went into the hole, and tearing down the rest of the dirt, dragged the almost dead man out. they gave him a kidney to eat, and when he was able to walk a little, the big wolves took him to their home. here there was a very old blind wolf, who had powerful medicine. he cured the man, and made his head and hands look like those of a wolf. the rest of his body was not changed. in those days the people used to make holes in the pis'kun walls and set snares, and when wolves and other animals came to steal meat, they were caught by the neck. one night the wolves all went down to the pis'kun to steal meat, and when they got close to it, the man-wolf said: "stand here a little while. i will go down and fix the places, so you will not be caught." he went on and sprung all the snares; then he went back and called the wolves and others,--the coyotes, badgers, and foxes,--and they all went in the pis'kun and feasted, and took meat to carry home. in the morning the people were surprised to find the meat gone, and their nooses all drawn out. they wondered how it could have been done. for many nights the nooses were drawn and the meat stolen; but once, when the wolves went there to steal, they found only the meat of a scabby bull, and the man-wolf was angry, and cried out: "bad-you-give-us-o-o-o! bad-you-give-us-o-o-o-o!" the people heard him, and said: "it is a man-wolf who has done all this. we will catch him." so they put pemmican and nice back fat in the pis'kun, and many hid close by. after dark the wolves came again, and when the man-wolf saw the good food, he ran to it and began eating. then the people all rushed in and caught him with ropes and took him to a lodge. when they got inside to the light of the fire, they knew at once who it was. they said, "this is the man who was lost." "no," said the man, "i was not lost. my wives tried to kill me. they dug a deep hole, and i fell into it, and i was hurt so badly that i could not get out; but the wolves took pity on me and helped me, or i would have died there." when the people heard this, they were angry, and they told the man to do something. "you say well," he replied. "i give those women to the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi;_ they know what to do." after that night the two women were never seen again. the fast runners once, long ago, the antelope and the deer met on the prairie. at this time both of them had galls and both dew claws. they began to talk together, and each was telling the other what he could do. each one told how fast he could run, and before long they were disputing as to which could run the faster. neither would allow that the other could beat him, so they agreed that they would have a race to decide which was the swifter, and they bet their galls on the race. when they ran, the antelope proved the faster runner, and beat the deer and took his gall. then the deer said: "yes, you have beaten me on the prairie, but that is not where i live. i only go out there sometimes to feed, or when i am travelling around. we ought to have another race in the timber. that is my home, and there i can run faster than you can." the antelope felt very big because he had beaten the deer in the race, and he thought wherever they might be, he could run faster than the deer. so he agreed to race in the timber, and on this race they bet their dew claws. they ran through the thick timber, among the brush and over fallen logs, and this time the antelope ran slowly, because he was not used to this kind of travelling, and the deer easily beat him, and took his dew claws. since then the deer has had no gall, and the antelope no dew claws. [note. a version of the first portion of this story is current among the pawnees, and has been printed in pawnee hero stories and folk tales.] two war trails i many years ago there lived in the blood camp a boy named screech owl (a'-tsi-tsi). he was rather a lonely boy, and did not care to go with other boys. he liked better to be by himself. often he would go off alone, and stay out all night away from the camp. he used to pray to all kinds of birds and animals that he saw, and ask them to take pity on him and help him, saying that he wanted to be a warrior. he never used paint. he was a fine looking young man, and he thought it was foolish to use paint to make oneself good looking. when screech owl was about fourteen years old, a large party of blackfeet were starting to war against the crees and the assinaboines. the young man said to his father: "father, with this war party many of my cousins are going. i think that now i am old enough to go to war, and i would like to join them." his father said, "my son, i am willing; you may go." so he joined the party. his father gave his son his own war horse, a black horse with a white spot on its side--a very fast horse. he offered him arms, but the boy refused them all, except a little trapping axe. he said, "i think this hatchet will be all that i shall need." just as they were about to start, his father gave the boy his own war headdress. this was not a war bonnet, but a plume made of small feathers, the feathers of thunder birds, for the thunder bird was his father's medicine. he said to the boy, "now, my son, when you go into battle, put this plume in your head, and wear it as i have worn it." the party started and travelled north-east, and at length they came to where fort pitt now stands, on the saskatchewan river. when they had got down below fort pitt, they saw three riders, going out hunting. these men had not seen the war party. the blackfeet started around the men, so as to head them off when they should run. when they saw the men, the screech owl got off his horse, and took off all his clothes, and put on his father's war plume, and began to ride around, singing his father's war song. the older warriors were getting ready for the attack, and when they saw this young boy acting in this way, they thought he was making fun of the older men, and they said: "here, look at this boy! has he no shame? he had better stay behind." when they got on their horses, they told him to stay behind, and they charged the crees. but the boy, instead of staying behind, charged with them, and took the lead, for he had the best horse of all. he, a boy, was leading the war party, and still singing his war song. the three crees began to run, and the boy kept gaining on them. they did not want to separate, they kept together; and as the boy was getting closer and closer, the last one turned in his saddle and shot at the screech owl, but missed him. as the cree fired, the boy whipped up his horse, and rode up beside the cree and struck him with his little trapping axe, and knocked him off his horse. he paid no attention to the man that he had struck, but rode on to the next cree. as he came up with him, the cree raised his gun and fired, but just as he did so, the blackfoot dropped down on the other side of his horse, and the ball passed over him. he straightened up on his horse, rode up by the cree, and as he passed, knocked him off his horse with his axe. when he knocked the second cree off his horse, the blackfeet, who were following, whooped in triumph and to encourage him, shouting, "_a-wah-heh'_" (take courage). the boy was still singing his father's war song. by this time, the main body of the blackfeet were catching up with him. he whipped his horse on both sides, and rode on after the third cree, who was also whipping his horse as hard as he could, and trying to get away. meantime, some of the blackfeet had stopped to count _coup_ on and scalp the two dead crees, and to catch the two ponies. screech owl at last got near to the third cree, who kept aiming his gun at him. the boy did not want to get too close, until the cree had fired his gun, but he was gaining a little, and all the time was throwing himself from side to side on his horse, so as to make it harder for the cree to hit him. when he had nearly overtaken the enemy, the cree turned, raised his gun and fired; but the boy had thrown himself down behind his horse, and again the ball passed over him. he raised himself up on his horse, and rushed on the cree, and struck him in the side of the body with his axe, and then again, and with the second blow, he knocked him off his horse. the boy rode on a little further, stopped, and jumped off his horse, while the rest of the blackfeet had come up and were killing the fallen man. he stood off to one side and watched them count _coup_ on and scalp the dead. the blackfeet were much surprised at what the young man had done. after a little while, the leader decided that they would go back to the camp from which they had come. when he had returned from this war journey this young man's name was changed from a'-tsi-tsi to e-k[=u]s'-kini (low horn). this was his first war path. from that time on the name of e-k[=u]s'-kini was often heard as that of one doing some great deed. ii e-k[=u]s'-kini started on his last war trail from the black-foot crossing _(su-yoh-pah'-wah-ku)_. he led a party of six sarcees. he was the seventh man. on the second day out, they came to the red deer's river. when they reached this river, they found it very high, so they built a raft to cross on. they camped on the other side. in crossing, most of their powder got wet. the next morning, when they awoke, e-k[=u]s'-kini said: "well, trouble is coming for us. we had better go back from here. we started on a wrong day. i saw in my sleep our bodies lying on the prairie, dead." some of the young men said: "oh well, we have started, we had better go on. perhaps it is only a mistake. let us go on and try to take some horses anyhow." e-k[=u]s'-kini said: "yes, that is very true. to go home is all foolishness; but remember that it is by your wish that we are going on." he wanted to go back, not on his own account, but for the sake of his young men--to save his followers. from there they went on and made another camp, and the next morning he said to his young men: "now i am sure. i have seen it for certain. trouble is before us." they camped two nights at this place and dried some of their powder, but most of it was caked and spoilt. he said to his young men: "here, let us use some sense about this. we have no ammunition. we cannot defend ourselves. let us turn back from here." so they started across the country for their camp. they crossed the red deer's river, and there camped again. the next morning e-k[=u]s'-kini said: "i feel very uneasy to-day. two of you go ahead on the trail and keep a close lookout. i am afraid that to-day we are going to see our enemy." two of the young men went ahead, and when they had climbed to the top of a ridge and looked over it on to sarvis berry (saskatoon) creek, they came back and told e-k[=u]s'-kini that they had seen a large camp of people over there, and that they thought it was the piegans, bloods, blackfeet, and sarcees, who had all moved over there together. saskatoon creek was about twenty miles from the blackfoot camp. he said: "no, it cannot be our people. they said nothing about moving over here; it must be a war party. it is only a few days since we left, and there was then no talk of their leaving that camp. it cannot be they." the two young men said: "yes, they are our people. there are too many of them for a war party. we think that the whole camp is there." they discussed this for some little time, e-k[=u]s'-kini insisting that it could not be the blackfoot camp, while the young men felt sure that it was. these two men said, "well, we are going on into the camp now." low horn said: "well, you may go. tell my father that i will come into the camp to-night. i do not like to go in in the daytime, when i am not bringing back anything with me." it was now late in the afternoon, and the two young men went ahead toward the camp, travelling on slowly. a little after sundown, they came down the hill on to the flat of the river, and saw there the camp. they walked down toward it, to the edge of the stream, and there met two women, who had come down after water. the men spoke to them in sarcee, and said, "where is the sarcee camp?" the women did not understand them, so they spoke again, and asked the same question in blackfoot. then these two women called out in the cree language, "here are two blackfeet, who have come here and are talking to us." when these men heard the women talk cree, and saw what a mistake they had made, they turned and ran away up the creek. they ran up above camp a short distance, to a place where a few willow bushes were hanging over the stream, and pushing through these, they hid under the bank, and the willows above concealed them. the people in the camp came rushing out, and men ran up the creek, and down, and looked everywhere for the two enemies, but could find nothing of them. now when these people were running in all directions, hunting for these two men, e-k[=u]s'-kini was coming down the valley slowly with the four other sarcees. he saw some indians coming toward him, and supposed that they were some of his own people, coming to meet him, with horses for him to ride. at length, when they were close to him, and e-k[=u]s'-kini could see that they were the enemy, and were taking the covers off their guns, he jumped to one side and stood alone and began to sing his war song. he called out, "children of the crees, if you have come to try my manhood, do your best." in a moment or two he was surrounded, and they were shooting at him from all directions. he called out again, "people, you can't kill me here, but i will take my body to your camp, and there you shall kill me." so he advanced, fighting his way toward the cree camp, but before he started, he killed two of the crees there. his enemies kept coming up and clustering about him: some were on foot and some on horseback. they were thick about him on all sides, and they could not shoot much at him, for fear of killing their own people on the other side. one of the sarcees fell. e-k[=u]s'-kini said to his men, "_a-wah-heh'_" (take courage). "these people cannot kill us here. where that patch of choke-cherry brush is, in the very centre of their camp, we will go and take our stand." another sarcee fell, and now there were only three of them. e-k[=u]s'-kini said to his remaining men: "go straight to that patch of brush, and i will fight the enemy off in front and at the sides, and so will keep the way open for you. these people cannot kill us here. there are too many of their own people. if we can get to that brush, we will hurt them badly." all this time they were killing enemies, fighting bravely, and singing their war songs. at last they gained the patch of brush, and then with their knives they began to dig holes in the ground, and to throw up a shelter. in the cree camp was k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s (round), the chief of the crees, who could talk blackfoot well. he called out: "e-k[=u]s'-kini, there is a little ravine running out of that brush patch, which puts into the hills. crawl out through that, and try to get away. it is not guarded." e-k[=u]s'-kini replied: "no, children of the crees, i will not go. you must remember that it is e-k[=u]s'-kini that you are fighting with--a man who has done much harm to your people. i am glad that i am here. i am sorry for only one thing; that is, that my ammunition is going to run out. to-morrow you may kill me." all night long the fight was kept up, the enemy shooting all the time, and all night long e-k[=u]s'-kini sang his death song. k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s called to him several times: "e-k[=u]s'-kini, you had better do what i tell you. try to get away." but he shouted back, "no," and laughed at them. he said: "you have killed all my men. i am here alone, but you cannot kill me." k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s, the chief, said: "well, if you are there at daylight in the morning, i will go into that brush and will catch you with my hands. i will be the man who will put an end to you." e-k[=u]s'-kini said: "k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s, do not try to do that. if you do, you shall surely die." the patch of brush in which he had hidden had now been all shot away, cut off by the bullets of the enemy. when day came, e-k[=u]s'-kini called out: "eh, k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s, it is broad daylight now. i have run out of ammunition. i have not another grain of powder in my horn. now come and take me in your hands, as you said you would." k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s answered: "yes, i said that i was the one who was going to catch you this morning. now i am coming." he took off all his clothes, and alone rushed for the breastworks. e-k[=u]s'-kini's ammunition was all gone, but he still had one load in his gun, and his dagger. k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s came on with his gun at his shoulder, and e-k[=u]s'-kini sat there with his gun in his hand, looking at the man who was coming toward him with the cocked gun pointed at him. he was singing his death song. as k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s got up close, and just as he was about to fire, e-k[=u]s'-kini threw up his gun and fired, and the ball knocked off the cree chiefs forefinger, and going on, entered his right eye and came out at the temple, knocking the eye out. k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s went down, and his gun flew a long way. when k[)o]m-in'-[)a]-k[=u]s fell, the whole camp shouted the war whoop, and cried out, "this is his last shot," and they all charged on him. they knew that he had no more ammunition. the head warrior of the crees was named bunch of lodges. he was the first man to jump inside the breastworks. as he sprang inside, e-k[=u]s'-kini met him, and thrust his dagger through him, and killed him on the spot. then, as the enemy threw themselves on him, and he began to feel the knives stuck into him from all sides, he gave a war whoop and laughed, and said, "only now i begin to think that i am fighting." all the time he was cutting and stabbing, jumping backward and forward, and all the time laughing. when he was dead, there were fifteen dead crees lying about the earthworks. e-k[=u]s'-kini body was cut into small pieces and scattered all over the country, so that he might not come to life again. iii that morning, before it was daylight, the two sarcees who had hidden in the willows left their hiding-place and made their way to the blackfoot camp. when they got there, they told that when they had left the cree camp e-k[=u]s'kini was surrounded, and the firing was terrible. when e-k[=u]s'-kini's father heard this, he got on his horse and rode through the camp, calling out: "my boy is surrounded; let us turn out and go to help him. i have no doubt they are many tens to one, but he is powerful, and he may be fighting yet." no time was lost in getting ready, and soon a large party started for the cree camp. when they came to the battle-ground, the camp had been moved a long time. the old man looked about, trying to gather up his son's body, but it was found only in small pieces, and not more than half of it could be gathered up. after the fight was over, the crees started on down to go to their own country. one day six crees were travelling along on foot, scouting far ahead. as they were going down into a little ravine, a grizzly bear jumped up in front of them and ran after them. the bear overtook, and tore up, five of them, one after another. the sixth got away, and came home to camp. the crees and the blackfeet believe that this was the spirit of e-k[=u]s'-kini, for thus he comes back. they think that he is still on the earth, but in a different shape. e-k[=u]s'-kini was killed about forty years ago. when he was killed, he was still a boy, not married, only about twenty-four years old. stories of ancient times scarface origin of the medicine lodge i in the earliest times there was no war. all the tribes were at peace. in those days there was a man who had a daughter, a very beautiful girl. many young men wanted to marry her, but every time she was asked, she only shook her head and said she did not want a husband. "how is this?" asked her father. "some of these young men are rich, handsome, and brave." "why should i marry?" replied the girl. "i have a rich father and mother. our lodge is good. the parfleches are never empty. there are plenty of tanned robes and soft furs for winter. why worry me, then?" the raven bearers held a dance; they all dressed carefully and wore their ornaments, and each one tried to dance the best. afterwards some of them asked for this girl, but still she said no. then the bulls, the kit-foxes, and others of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ held their dances, and all those who were rich, many great warriors, asked this man for his daughter, but to every one of them she said no. then her father was angry, and said: "why, now, this way? all the best men have asked for you, and still you say no. i believe you have a secret lover." "ah!" said her mother. "what shame for us should a child be born and our daughter still unmarried!" "father! mother!" replied the girl, "pity me. i have no secret lover, but now hear the truth. that above person, the sun, told me, 'do not marry any of those men, for you are mine; thus you shall be happy, and live to great age'; and again he said, 'take heed. you must not marry. you are mine.'" "ah!" replied her father. "it must always be as he says." and they talked no more about it. there was a poor young man, very poor. his father, mother, all his relations, had gone to the sand hills. he had no lodge, no wife to tan his robes or sew his moccasins. he stopped in one lodge to-day, and to-morrow he ate and slept in another; thus he lived. he was a good-looking young man, except that on his cheek he had a scar, and his clothes were always old and poor. after those dances some of the young men met this poor scarface, and they laughed at him, and said: "why don't you ask that girl to marry you? you are so rich and handsome!" scarface did not laugh; he replied: "ah! i will do as you say. i will go and ask her." all the young men thought this was funny. they laughed a great deal. but scarface went down by the river. he waited by the river, where the women came to get water, and by and by the girl came along. "girl," he said, "wait. i want to speak with you. not as a designing person do i ask you, but openly where the sun looks down, and all may see." "speak then," said the girl. "i have seen the days," continued the young man "you have refused those who are young, and rich, and brave. now, to-day, they laughed and said to me, 'why do you not ask her?' i am poor, very poor. i have no lodge, no food, no clothes, no robes and warm furs. i have no relations; all have gone to the sand hills; yet, now, to-day, i ask you, take pity, be my wife." the girl hid her face in her robe and brushed the ground with the point of her moccasin, back and forth, back and forth; for she was thinking. after a time she said: "true. i have refused all those rich young men, yet now the poor one asks me, and i am glad. i will be your wife, and my people will be happy. you are poor, but it does not matter. my father will give you dogs. my mother will make us a lodge. my people will give us robes and furs. you will be poor no longer." then the young man was happy, and he started to kiss her, but she held him back, and said: "wait! the sun has spoken to me. he says i may not marry; that i belong to him. he says if i listen to him, i shall live to great age. but now i say: go to the sun. tell him, 'she whom you spoke with heeds your words. she has never done wrong, but now she wants to marry. i want her for my wife.' ask him to take that scar from your face. that will be his sign. i will know he is pleased. but if he refuses, or if you fail to find his lodge, then do not return to me." "oh!" cried the young man, "at first your words were good. i was glad. but now it is dark. my heart is dead. where is that far-off lodge? where the trail, which no one yet has travelled?" "take courage, take courage!" said the girl; and she went to her lodge. ii scarface was very sad. he sat down and covered his head with his robe and tried to think what to do. after a while he got up, and went to an old woman who had been kind to him. "pity me," he said. "i am very poor. i am going away now on a long journey. make me some moccasins." "where are you going?" asked the old woman. "there is no war; we are very peaceful here." "i do not know where i shall go," replied scarface. "i am in trouble, but i cannot tell you now what it is." so the old woman made him some moccasins, seven pairs, with parfleche soles, and also she gave him a sack of food,--pemmican of berries, pounded meat, and dried back fat; for this old woman had a good heart. she liked the young man. all alone, and with a sad heart, he climbed the bluffs and stopped to take a last look at the camp. he wondered if he would ever see his sweetheart and the people again. "_ hai'-yu!_ pity me, o sun," he prayed, and turning, he started to find the trail. for many days he travelled on, over great prairies, along timbered rivers and among the mountains, and every day his sack of food grew lighter; but he saved it as much as he could, and ate berries, and roots, and sometimes he killed an animal of some kind. one night he stopped by the home of a wolf. "_hai-yah!_" said that one; "what is my brother doing so far from home?" "ah!" replied scarface, "i seek the place where the sun lives; i am sent to speak with him." "i have travelled far," said the wolf. "i know all the prairies, the valleys, and the mountains, but i have never seen the sun's home. wait; i know one who is very wise. ask the bear. he may tell you." the next day the man travelled on again, stopping now and then to pick a few berries, and when night came he arrived at the bear's lodge. "where is your home?" asked the bear. "why are you travelling alone, my brother?" "help me! pity me!" replied the young man; "because of her words[1] i seek the sun. i go to ask him for her." [footnote 1: a blackfoot often talks of what this or that person said, without mentioning names.] "i know not where he stops," replied the bear. "i have travelled by many rivers, and i know the mountains, yet i have never seen his lodge. there is some one beyond, that striped-face, who is very smart. go and ask him." the badger was in his hole. stooping over, the young man shouted: "oh, cunning striped-face! oh, generous animal! i wish to speak with you." "what do you want?" said the badger, poking his head out of the hole. "i want to find the sun's home," replied scarface. "i want to speak with him." "i do not know where he lives," replied the badger. "i never travel very far. over there in the timber is a wolverine. he is always travelling around, and is of much knowledge. maybe he can tell you." then scarface went to the woods and looked all around for the wolverine, but could not find him. so he sat down to rest "_hai'-yu! hai'-yu!_" he cried. "wolverine, take pity on me. my food is gone, my moccasins worn out. now i must die." "what is it, my brother?" he heard, and looking around, he saw the animal sitting near. "she whom i would marry," said scarface, "belongs to the sun; i am trying to find where he lives, to ask him for her." "ah!" said the wolverine. "i know where he lives. wait; it is nearly night. to-morrow i will show you the trail to the big water. he lives on the other side of it." early in the morning, the wolverine showed him the trail, and scarface followed it until he came to the water's edge. he looked out over it, and his heart almost stopped. never before had any one seen such a big water. the other side could not be seen, and there was no end to it. scarface sat down on the shore. his food was all gone, his moccasins worn out. his heart was sick. "i cannot cross this big water," he said. "i cannot return to the people. here, by this water, i shall die." not so. his helpers were there. two swans came swimming up to the shore. "why have you come here?" they asked him. "what are you doing? it is very far to the place where your people live." "i am here," replied scarface, "to die. far away, in my country, is a beautiful girl. i want to marry her, but she belongs to the sun. so i started to find him and ask for her. i have travelled many days. my food is gone. i cannot go back. i cannot cross this big water, so i am going to die." "no," said the swans; "it shall not be so. across this water is the home of that above person. get on our backs, and we will take you there." scarface quickly arose. he felt strong again. he waded out into the water and lay down on the swans' backs, and they started off. very deep and black is that fearful water. strange people live there, mighty animals which often seize and drown a person. the swans carried him safely, and took him to the other side. here was a broad hard trail leading back from the water's edge. "_kyi_" said the swans. "you are now close to the sun's lodge. follow that trail, and you will soon see it." iii scarface started up the trail, and pretty soon he came to some beautiful things, lying in it. there was a war shirt, a shield, and a bow and arrows. he had never seen such pretty weapons; but he did not touch them. he walked carefully around them, and travelled on. a little way further on, he met a young man, the handsomest person he had ever seen. his hair was very long, and he wore clothing made of strange skins. his moccasins were sewn with bright colored feathers. the young man said to him, "did you see some weapons lying on the trail?" "yes," replied scarface; "i saw them." "but did you not touch them?" asked the young man. "no; i thought some one had left them there, so i did not take them." "you are not a thief," said the young man. "what is your name?" "scarface." "where are you going?" "to the sun." "my name," said the young man, "is a-pi-su'-ahts[1]. the sun is my father; come, i will take you to our lodge. my father is not now at home, but he will come in at night." [footnote 1: early riser, i.e. the morning star.] soon they came to the lodge. it was very large and handsome; strange medicine animals were painted on it. behind, on a tripod, were strange weapons and beautiful clothes--the sun's. scarface was ashamed to go in, but morning star said, "do not be afraid, my friend; we are glad you have come." they entered. one person was sitting there, ko-ko-mik'-e-is[2], the sun's wife, morning star's mother. she spoke to scarface kindly, and gave him something to eat. "why have you come so far from your people?" she asked. [footnote 2: night red light, the moon.] then scarface told her about the beautiful girl he wanted to marry. "she belongs to the sun," he said. "i have come to ask him for her." when it was time for the sun to come home, the moon hid scarface under a pile of robes. as soon as the sun got to the doorway, he stopped, and said, "i smell a person." "yes, father," said morning star; "a good young man has come to see you. i know he is good, for he found some of my things on the trail and did not touch them." then scarface came out from under the robes, and the sun entered and sat down. "i am glad you have come to our lodge," he said. "stay with us as long as you think best. my son is lonesome sometimes; be his friend." the next day the moon called scarface out of the lodge, and said to him: "go with morning star where you please, but never hunt near that big water; do not let him go there. it is the home of great birds which have long sharp bills; they kill people. i have had many sons, but these birds have killed them all. morning star is the only one left." so scarface stayed there a long time and hunted with morning star. one day they came near the water, and saw the big birds. "come," said morning star; "let us go and kill those birds." "no, no!" replied scarface; "we must not go there. those are very terrible birds; they will kill us." morning star would not listen. he ran towards the water, and scarface followed. he knew that he must kill the birds and save the boy. if not, the sun would be angry and might kill him. he ran ahead and met the birds, which were coming towards him to fight, and killed every one of them with his spear: not one was left. then the young men cut off their heads, and carried them home. morning star's mother was glad when they told her what they had done, and showed her the birds' heads. she cried, and called scarface "my son." when the sun came home at night, she told him about it, and he too was glad. "my son," he said to scarface, "i will not forget what you have this day done for me. tell me now, what can i do for you?" "_hai'-yu_" replied scarface. "_hai'-yu_, pity me. i am here to ask you for that girl. i want to marry her. i asked her, and she was glad; but she says you own her, that you told her not to marry." "what you say is true," said the sun. "i have watched the days, so i know it. now, then, i give her to you; she is yours. i am glad she has been wise. i know she has never done wrong. the sun pities good women. they shall live a long time. so shall their husbands and children. now you will soon go home. let me tell you something. be wise and listen: i am the only chief. everything is mine. i made the earth, the mountains, prairies, rivers, and forests. i made the people and all the animals. this is why i say i alone am the chief. i can never die. true, the winter makes me old and weak, but every summer i grow young again." then said the sun: "what one of all animals is smartest? the raven is, for he always finds food. he is never hungry. which one of all the animals is most _nat-o'-ye_[1]? the buffalo is. of all animals, i like him best. he is for the people. he is your food and your shelter. what part of his body is sacred? the tongue is. that is mine. what else is sacred? berries are. they are mine too. come with me and see the world." he took scarface to the edge of the sky, and they looked down and saw it. it is round and flat, and all around the edge is the jumping-off place [or walls straight down]. then said the sun: "when any man is sick or in danger, his wife may promise to build me a lodge, if he recovers. if the woman is pure and true, then i will be pleased and help the man. but if she is bad, if she lies, then i will be angry. you shall build the lodge like the world, round, with walls, but first you must build a sweat house of a hundred sticks. it shall be like the sky [a hemisphere], and half of it shall be painted red. that is me. the other half you will paint black. that is the night." [footnote 1: this word may be translated as "of the sun," "having sun power," or more properly, something sacred.] further said the sun: "which is the best, the heart or the brain? the brain is. the heart often lies, the brain never." then he told scarface everything about making the medicine lodge, and when he had finished, he rubbed a powerful medicine on his face, and the scar disappeared. then he gave him two raven feathers, saying: "these are the sign for the girl, that i give her to you. they must always be worn by the husband of the woman who builds a medicine lodge." the young man was now ready to return home. morning star and the sun gave him many beautiful presents. the moon cried and kissed him, and called him "my son." then the sun showed him the short trail. it was the wolf road (milky way). he followed it, and soon reached the ground. iv it was a very hot day. all the lodge skins were raised, and the people sat in the shade. there was a chief, a very generous man, and all day long people kept coming to his lodge to feast and smoke with him. early in the morning this chief saw a person sitting out on a butte near by, close wrapped in his robe. the chief's friends came and went, the sun reached the middle, and passed on, down towards the mountains. still this person did not move. when it was almost night, the chief said: "why does that person sit there so long? the heat has been strong, but he has never eaten nor drunk. he may be a stranger; go and ask him in." so some young men went up to him, and said: "why do you sit here in the great heat all day? come to the shade of the lodges. the chief asks you to feast with him." then the person arose and threw off his robe, and they were surprised. he wore beautiful clothes. his bow, shield, and other weapons were of strange make. but they knew his face, although the scar was gone, and they ran ahead, shouting, "the scarface poor young man has come. he is poor no longer. the scar on his face is gone." all the people rushed out to see him. "where have you been?" they asked. "where did you get all these pretty things?" he did not answer. there in the crowd stood that young woman; and taking the two raven feathers from his head, he gave them to her, and said: "the trail was very long, and i nearly died, but by those helpers, i found his lodge. he is glad. he sends these feathers to you. they are the sign." great was her gladness then. they were married, and made the first medicine lodge, as the sun had said. the sun was glad. he gave them great age. they were never sick. when they were very old, one morning, their children said: "awake! rise and eat." they did not move. in the night, in sleep, without pain, their shadows had departed for the sand hills. origin of the i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi[1] i the bull band [footnote 1: an account of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, with a list of its different bands or societies and their duties, will be found in the chapter on social organization.] the people had built a great pis'kun, very high and strong, so that no buffalo could escape; but somehow the buffalo would not jump over the cliff. when driven toward it, they would run nearly to the edge, and then, swerving to the right or left, they would go down the sloping hills and cross the valley in safety. so the people were hungry, and began to starve. one morning, early, a young woman went to get water, and she saw a herd of buffalo feeding on the prairie, right on the edge of the cliff above the pis'kun. "oh!" she cried out, "if you will only jump off into the pis'kun, i will marry one of you." this she said for fun, not meaning it, and great was her wonder when she saw the buffalo come jumping, tumbling, falling over the cliff. now the young woman was scared, for a big bull with one bound cleared the pis'kun walls and came toward her. "come," he said, taking hold of her arm. "no, no!" she replied pulling back. "but you said if the buffalo would jump over, you would marry one; see, the pis'kun is filled." and without more talk he led her up over the bluff, and out on to the prairie. when the people had finished killing the buffalo and cutting up the meat, they missed this young woman, and her relations were very sad, because they could not find her. then her father took his bow and quiver, and said, "i will go and find her." and he went up over the bluff and out on the prairie. after he had travelled some distance he came to a wallow, and a little way off saw a herd of buffalo. while sitting by the wallow,--for he was tired--and thinking what he should do, a magpie came and lit near him. "ha! _ma-me-at-si-kim-i"_ he said, "you are a beautiful bird; help me. look everywhere as you travel about, and if you see my daughter, tell her, 'your father waits by the wallow.'" the magpie flew over by the herd of buffalo, and seeing the young woman, he lit on the ground near her, and commenced picking around, turning his head this way and that way, and, when close to her, he said, "your father waits by the wallow." "sh-h-h! sh-h-h!" replied the girl, in a whisper, looking around scared, for her bull husband was sleeping near by. "don't speak so loud. go back and tell him to wait." "your daughter is over there with the buffalo. she says 'wait!'" said the magpie, when he had flown back to the man. by and by the bull awoke, and said to his wife, "go and get me some water." then the woman was glad, and taking a horn from his head she went to the wallow. "oh, why did you come?" she said to her father. "you will surely be killed." "i came to take my daughter home; come, let us hurry." "no, no!" she replied; "not now. they would chase us and kill us. wait till he sleeps again, and i will try to get away," and, filling the horn with water, she went back. the bull drank a swallow of the water. "ha!" said he, "a person is close by here." "no one," replied the woman; but her heart rose up. the bull drank a little more, and then he stood up and bellowed, "_bu-u-u! m-m-ah-oo!"_ oh, fearful sound! up rose the bulls, raised their short tails and shook them, tossed their great heads, and bellowed back. then they pawed the dirt, rushed about here and there, and coming to the wallow, found that poor man. there they trampled him with their great hoofs, hooked him and trampled him again, and soon not even a small piece of his body could be seen. then his daughter cried, "_oh! ah! ni-nah-ah! oh! ah! ni-nah-ah!_" (my father! my father!) "ah!" said her bull husband, "you mourn for your father. you see now how it is with us. we have seen our mothers, fathers, many of our relations, hurled over the rocky walls, and killed for food by your people. but i will pity you. i will give you one chance. if you can bring your father to life, you and he can go back to your people." then the woman said to the magpie: "pity me. help me now; go and seek in the trampled mud; try and find a little piece of my father's body, and bring it to me." the magpie flew to the place. he looked in every hole, and tore up the mud with his sharp nose. at last he found something white; he picked the mud from around it, and then pulling hard, he brought out a joint of the backbone, and flew with it back to the woman. she placed it on the ground, covered it with her robe, and then sang. removing the robe, there lay her father's body as if just dead. once more she covered it with the robe and sang, and when she took away the robe, he was breathing, and then he stood up. the buffalo were surprised; the magpie was glad, and flew round and round, making a great noise. "we have seen strange things this day," said her bull husband. "he whom we trampled to death, even into small pieces, is alive again. the people's medicine is very strong. now, before you go, we will teach you our dance and our song. you must not forget them."[1] when the dance was over, the bull said: "go now to your home, and do not forget what you have seen. teach it to the people. the medicine shall be a bull's head and a robe. all the persons who are to be 'bulls' shall wear them when they dance." [footnote 1: here the narrator repeated the song and showed the dance. as is fitting to the dance of such great beasts, the air is slow and solemn, and the step ponderous and deliberate.] great was the joy of the people, when the man returned with his daughter. he called a council of the chiefs, and told them all that had happened. then the chiefs chose certain young men, and this man taught them the dance and song of the bulls, and told them what the medicine should be. this was the beginning of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_. ii the other bands for a long time the buffalo had not been seen. the pis'kun was useless, and the hunters could find no food for the people. then a man who had two wives, a daughter, and two sons, said: "i shall not stop here to die. to-morrow we will move toward the mountains, where we shall perhaps find deer and elk, sheep and antelope, or, if not, at least we shall find plenty of beaver and birds. thus we shall survive." when morning came, they packed the travois, lashed them on the dogs, and then moved out. it was yet winter, and they travelled slowly. they were weak, and could go but a little way in a day. the fourth night came, and they sat in their lodge, very tired and hungry. no one spoke, for those who are hungry do not care for words. suddenly the dogs began to bark, and soon, pushing aside the door-curtain, a young man entered. "_o'kyi!_" said the old man, and he motioned the stranger to a sitting-place. they looked at this person with surprise and fear, for there was a black wind[1] which had melted the snow, and covered the prairie with water, yet this person's leggings and moccasins were dry. they sat in silence a long time. [footnote 1: the "chinook."] then said he: "why is this? why do you not give me some food?" "ah!" replied the old man, "you behold those who are truly poor. we have no food. for many days the buffalo did not come in sight, and we shot deer and other animals which people eat, and when all these had been killed, we began to starve. then said i, 'we will not stay here to starve to death'; and we started for the mountains. this is the fourth night of our travels." "ah!" said the young man. "then your travels are ended. close by here, we are camped by our pis'kun. many buffalo have been run in, and our parfleches are filled with dried meat. wait; i will go and bring you some." as soon as he went out, they began to talk about this strange person. they were very much afraid of him, and did not know what to do. the children began to cry, and the women were trying to quiet them, when the young man returned, bringing some meat and three _pis-tsi-ko'-an._[2] [footnote 2: unborn buffalo calves.] "_kyi!_" said he. "to-morrow move over to our lodges. do not be afraid. no matter what strange things you see, do not fear. all will be your friends. now, one thing i caution you about. in this be careful. if you should find an arrow lying about, in the pis'kun, or outside, no matter where, do not touch it; neither you, nor your wives nor children." having said this, he went out. then the old man took his pipe and smoked and prayed, saying: "hear now, sun! listen, above people. listen, under water people. now you have taken pity. now you have given us food. we are going to those strange ones, who walk through water with dry moccasins. protect us among those to-be-feared people. let us survive. man, woman, child, give us long life; give us long life!" once more the smell of roasting meat. the children played. they talked and laughed who had so long been silent. they ate plenty and lay down and slept. early in the morning, as soon as the sun rose, they took down their lodge, packed up, and started for the strange camp. they found it was a wonderful place. there by the pis'kun, and far up and down the valley were the lodges of meat-eaters. they could not see them all, but close by they saw the lodges of the bear band, the fox band, and the badger band. the father of the young man who had given them meat was chief of the wolf band, and by that band they pitched their lodge. ah! that was a happy place. food there was plenty. all day people shouted out for feasts, and everywhere was heard the sound of drums and song and dancing. the new-comers went to the pis'kun for meat, and one of the children found an arrow lying on the ground. it was a beautiful arrow, the stone point long and sharp, the shaft round and straight. all around the people were busy; no one was looking. the boy picked up the arrow and hid it under his robe. then there was a fearful noise. all the animals howled and growled, and ran toward him. but the chief wolf said: "hold! we will let him go this time; for he is young yet, and not of good sense." so they let him go. when night came, some one shouted out for a feast, saying: "_wo'-ka-hit! wo'-ka-hit! mah-kwe'-i-ke-tum-ok-ah-wah-hit. ke-t[)u]k'-ka-p[)u]k'-si-pim."_ ("listen! listen! wolf, you are to feast. enter with your friend.") "we are asked," said the chief wolf to his new friend, and together they went to the lodge. within, the fire burned brightly, and many men were already there, the old and wise of the raven band. hanging behind the seats were the writings[1] of many deeds. food was placed before them,--pemmican of berries and dried back fat; and when they had eaten, a pipe was lighted. then spoke the raven chief: "now, wolf, i am going to give our new friend a present. what say you?" [footnote 1: that is, the painting on cowskin of the various battles and adventures in which the owner of the lodge had taken part.] "it is as you say," replied the wolf. "our new friend will be glad." then the raven chief took from the long parfleche sack a slender stick, beautifully dressed with many colored feathers; and on the end of it was fastened the skin of a raven, head, wings, feet, and all. "we," he said, "are the _mas-to-pah'-ta-kiks_ (raven carriers, or those who bear the raven). of all the above animals, of all the flyers, where is one so smart? none. the raven's eyes are sharp. his wings are strong. he is a great hunter and never hungry. far, far off on the prairie he sees his food, and deep hidden in the pines it does not escape his eye. now the song and the dance." when he had finished singing and dancing, he gave the stick to the man, and said: "take it with you, and when you have returned to your people, you shall say: now there are already the bulls, and he who is the raven chief says: 'there shall be more, there shall be the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, so that the people may survive, and of them shall be the raven carriers.' you will call a council of the chiefs and wise old men, and they will choose the persons. teach them the song and the dance, and give them the medicine. it shall be theirs forever." soon they heard another person shouting for a feast, and, going, they entered the lodge of the _sin-o-pah_ chief. here, too, were the old men assembled. after they had eaten of that set before them, the chief said: "those among whom you are newly arrived are generous. they do not look at their possessions, but give to the stranger and pity the poor. the kit-fox is a little animal, but what one is smarter? none. his hair is like the dead prairie grass. his eyes are sharp, his feet noiseless, his brain cunning. his ears receive the far-off sound. here is our medicine, take it." and he gave the stick. it was long, crooked at one end, wound with fur, and tied here and there to it were eagle feathers. at the end was a fox's skin. again the chief said: "hear our song. do not forget it; and the dance, too, you must remember. when you get home, teach them to the people." again they heard the feast shout, and he who called was the bear chief. now when they had smoked, the chief said: "what say you, friend wolf? shall we give our new friend something?" "as you say," replied the wolf. "it is yours to give." then said the bear: "there are many animals, and some of them are powerful. but the bear is the strongest and bravest of all. he fears nothing, and is always ready to fight." then he put on a necklace of bear claws, a belt of bear fur, and around his head a band of the fur; and sang and danced. when he had finished, he gave them to the man, saying: "teach the people our song and dance, and give them this medicine. it is powerful." it was now very late. the seven persons had arrived at midnight, yet again they heard the feast shout from the far end of camp. in this lodge the men were painted with streaks of red and their hair was all brushed to one side. after the feast the chief said: "we are different from all the others here. we are called the _mût-siks[1]_ we are death. we know not fear. even if our enemies are in number like the grass, we do not turn away, but fight and conquer. bows are good weapons. spears are better, but our weapon is the knife." then the chief sang and danced, and afterwards he gave the wolf's friend the medicine. it was a long knife, and many scalps were tied on the handle. "this," he said, "is for the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_." [footnote 1: brave, courageous.] once more they were called to a feast and entered the badger chief's lodge. he taught the man the badger song and dance and gave him the medicine. it was a large rattle, ornamented with beaver claws and bright feathers. they smoked two pipes in the badger's lodge, and then went home and slept. early next day, the man and his family took down their lodge, and prepared to move camp. many women came and made them presents of dried meat, pemmican, and berries. they were given so much they could not take it all with them. it was many days before they joined the main camp, for the people, too, had moved to the south after buffalo. as soon as the lodge was pitched, the man called all the chiefs to come and feast, and he told them all he had seen, and showed them the medicines. the chiefs chose certain young men for the different bands, and this man taught them the songs and dances, and gave each band their medicine. origin of the medicine pipe thunder--you have heard him, he is everywhere. he roars in the mountains, he shouts far out on the prairie. he strikes the high rocks, and they fall to pieces. he hits a tree, and it is broken in slivers. he strikes the people, and they die. he is bad. he does not like the towering cliff, the standing tree, or living man. he likes to strike and crush them to the ground. yes! yes! of all he is most powerful; he is the one most strong. but i have not told you the worst: he sometimes steals women. long ago, almost in the beginning, a man and his wife were sitting in their lodge, when thunder came and struck them. the man was not killed. at first he was as if dead, but after a while he lived again, and rising looked about him. his wife was not there. "oh, well," he thought, "she has gone to get some water or wood," and he sat a while; but when the sun had under-disappeared, he went out and inquired about her of the people. no one had seen her. he searched throughout the camp, but did not find her. then he knew that thunder had stolen her, and he went out on the hills alone and mourned. when morning came, he rose and wandered far away, and he asked all the animals he met if they knew where thunder lived. they laughed, and would not answer. the wolf said: "do you think we would seek the home of the only one we fear? he is our only danger. from all others we can run away; but from him there is no running. he strikes, and there we lie. turn back! go home! do not look for the dwelling-place of that dreadful one." but the man kept on, and travelled far away. now he came to a lodge,--a queer lodge, for it was made of stone; just like any other lodge, only it was made of stone. here lived the raven chief. the man entered. "welcome, my friend," said the chief of ravens. "sit down, sit down." and food was placed before him. then, when he had finished eating, the raven said, "why have you come?" "thunder has stolen my wife," replied the man. "i seek his dwelling-place that i may find her." "would you dare enter the lodge of that dreadful person?" asked the raven. "he lives close by here. his lodge is of stone, like this; and hanging there, within, are eyes,--the eyes of those he has killed or stolen. he has taken out their eyes and hung them in his lodge. now, then, dare you enter there?" "no," replied the man. "i am afraid. what man could look at such dreadful things and live?" "no person can," said the raven. "there is but one old thunder fears. there is but one he cannot kill. it is i, it is the ravens. now i will give you medicine, and he shall not harm you. you shall enter there, and seek among those eyes your wife's; and if you find them, tell that thunder why you came, and make him give them to you. here, now, is a raven's wing. just point it at him, and he will start back quick; but if that fail, take this. it is an arrow, and the shaft is made of elk-horn. take this, i say, and shoot it through the lodge." "why make a fool of me?" the poor man asked. "my heart is sad. i am crying." and he covered his head with his robe, and wept. "oh," said the raven, "you do not believe me. come out, come out, and i will make you believe." when they stood outside, the raven asked, "is the home of your people far?" "a great distance," said the man. "can you tell how many days you have travelled?" "no," he replied, "my heart is sad. i did not count the days. the berries have grown and ripened since i left." "can you see your camp from here?" asked the raven. the man did not speak. then the raven rubbed some medicine on his eyes and said, "look!" the man looked, and saw the camp. it was close. he saw the people. he saw the smoke rising from the lodges. "now you will believe," said the raven. "take now the arrow and the wing, and go and get your wife." so the man took these things, and went to the thunder's lodge. he entered and sat down by the door-way. the thunder sat within and looked at him with awful eyes. but the man looked above, and saw those many pairs of eyes. among them were those of his wife. "why have you come?" said the thunder in a fearful voice. "i seek my wife," the man replied, "whom you have stolen. there hang her eyes." "no man can enter my lodge and live," said the thunder; and he rose to strike him. then the man pointed the raven wing at the thunder, and he fell back on his couch and shivered. but he soon recovered, and rose again. then the man fitted the elk-horn arrow to his bow, and shot it through the lodge of rock; right through that lodge of rock it pierced a jagged hole, and let the sunlight in. "hold," said the thunder. "stop; you are the stronger. yours the great medicine. you shall have your wife. take down her eyes." then the man cut the string that held them, and immediately his wife stood beside him. "now," said the thunder, "you know me. i am of great power. i live here in summer, but when winter comes, i go far south. i go south with the birds. here is my pipe. it is medicine. take it, and keep it. now, when i first come in the spring, you shall fill and light this pipe, and you shall pray to me, you and the people. for i bring the rain which makes the berries large and ripe. i bring the rain which makes all things grow, and for this you shall pray to me, you and all the people." thus the people got the first medicine pipe. it was long ago. the beaver medicine this story goes back many years, to a time before the indians went to war against each other. then there was peace among all the tribes. they met, and did not kill each other. they had no guns and they had no horses. when two tribes met, the head chiefs would take each a stick and touch each other. each had counted a _coup_ on the other, and they then went back to their camps. it was more a friendly than a hostile ceremony. oftentimes, when a party of young men had gone to a strange camp, and had done this to those whom they had visited, they would come back to their homes and would tell the girls whom they loved that they had counted a _coup_ on this certain tribe of people. after the return of such a party, the young women would have a dance. each one would wear clothing like that of the man she loved, and as she danced, she would count a _coup_, saying that she herself had done the deed which her young lover had really done. such was the custom of the people. there was a chief in a camp who had three wives, all very pretty women. he used to say to these women, whenever a dance was called: "why do not you go out and dance too? perhaps you have some one in the camp that you love, and for whom you would like to count a _coup_" then the women would say, "no, we do not wish to join the dance; we have no lovers." there was in the camp a poor young man, whose name was ápi-kunni. he had no relations, and no one to tan robes or furs for him, and he was always badly clad and in rags. whenever he got some clothing, he wore it as long as it would hold together. this young man loved the youngest wife of the chief, and she loved him. but her parents were not rich, and they could not give her to ápi-k[)u]nni, and when the chief wanted her for a wife, they gave her to him. sometimes ápi-k[)u]nni and this girl used to meet and talk together, and he used to caution her, saying, "now be careful that you do not tell any one that you see me." she would say, "no, there is no danger; i will not let it be known." one evening, a dance was called for the young women to dance, and the chief said to his wives: "now, women, you had better go to this dance. if any of you have persons whom you love, you might as well go and dance for them." two of them said: "no, we will not go. there is no one that we love." but the third said, "well, i think i will go and dance." the chief said to her, "well, go then; your lover will surely dress you up for the dance." the girl went to where ápi-k[)u]nni as living in an old woman's lodge, very poorly furnished, and told him what she was going to do, and asked him to dress her for the dance. he said to her: "oh, you have wronged me by coming here, and by going to the dance. i told you to keep it a secret." the girl said: "well, never mind; no one will know your dress. fix me up, and i will go and join the dance anyway." "why," said api-k[)u]nni, "i never have been to war. i have never counted any _coups_. you will go and dance and will have nothing to say. the people will laugh at you." but when he found that the girl wanted to go, he painted her forehead with red clay, and tied a goose skin, which he had, about her head, and lent her his badly tanned robe, which in spots was hard like a parfleche. he said to her, "if you will go to the dance, say, when it comes your turn to speak, that when the water in the creeks gets warm, you are going to war, and are going to count a _coup_ on some people." the woman went to the dance, and joined in it. all the people were laughing at her on account of her strange dress,--a goose skin around her head, and a badly tanned robe about her. the people in the dance asked her: "well, what are you dancing for? what can you tell?" the woman said, "i am dancing here to-day, and when the water in the streams gets warm next spring, i am going to war; and then i will tell you what i have done to any people." the chief was standing present, and when he learned who it was that his young wife loved, he was much ashamed and went to his lodge. when the dance was over, this young woman went to the lodge of the poor young man to give back his dress to him. now, while she had been gone, ápi-k[)u]nni had been thinking over all these things, and he was very much ashamed. he took his robe and his goose skin and went away. he was so ashamed that he went away at once, travelling off over the prairie, not caring where he went, and crying all the time. as he wandered away, he came to a lake, and at the foot of this lake was a beaver dam, and by the dam a beaver house. he walked out on the dam and on to the beaver house. there he stopped and sat down, and in his shame cried the rest of the day, and at last he fell asleep on the beaver house. while he slept, he dreamed that a beaver came to him--a very large beaver--and said: "my poor young man, come into my house. i pity you, and will give you something that will help you." so ápi-k[)u]nni got up, and followed the beaver into the house. when he was in the house, he awoke, and saw sitting opposite him a large white beaver, almost as big as a man. he thought to himself, "this must be the chief of all the beavers, white because very old." the beaver was singing a song. it was a very strange song, and he sang it a long time. then he said to ápi-k[)u]nni, "my son, why are you mourning?" and the young man told him everything that had happened, and how he had been shamed. then the beaver said: "my son, stay here this winter with me. i will provide for you. when the time comes, and you have learned our songs and our ways, i will let you go. for a time make this your home." so ápi-k)u]nni stayed there with the beaver, and the beaver taught him many strange things. all this happened in the fall. now the chief in the camp missed this poor young man, and he asked the people where he had gone. no one knew. they said that the last that had been seen of him he was travelling toward the lake where the beaver dam was. ápi-k[)u]nni had a friend, another poor young man named wolf tail, and after a while, wolf tail started out to look for his friend. he went toward this lake, looking everywhere, and calling out his name. when he came to the beaver house, he kicked on the top and called, "oh, my brother, are you here?" ápi-k[)u]nni answered him, and said: "yes, i am here. i was brought in while i was asleep, and i cannot give you the secret of the door, for i do not know it myself." wolf tail said to him, "brother, when the weather gets warm a party is going to start from camp to war." ápi-k[)u]nni said: "go home and try to get together all the moccasins you can, but do not tell them that i am here. i am ashamed to go back to the camp. when the party starts, come this way and bring me the moccasins, and we two will start from here." he also said: "i am very thin. the beaver food here does not agree with me. we are living on the bark of willows." wolf tail went back to the camp and gathered together all the moccasins that he could, as he had been asked to do. when the spring came, and the grass began to start, the war party set out. at this time the beaver talked to ápikunni a long time, and told him many things. he dived down into the water, and brought up a long stick of aspen wood, cut off from it a piece as long as a man's arm, trimmed the twigs off it, and gave it to the young man. "keep this," the beaver said, "and when you go to war take it with you." the beaver also gave him a little sack of medicine, and told him what he must do. when the party started out, wolf tail came to the beaver house, bringing the moccasins, and his friend came out of the house. they started in the direction the party had taken and travelled with them, but off to one side. when they stopped at night, the two young men camped by themselves. they travelled for many days, until they came to bow river, and found that it was very high. on the other side of the river, they saw the lodges of a camp. in this camp a man was making a speech, and api-k[)u]nni said to his friend, "oh, my brother, i am going to kill that man to-day, so that my sweetheart may count _coup_ on him." these two were at a little distance from the main party, above them on the river. the people in the camp had seen the blackfeet, and some had come down to the river. when api-kunni had said this to wolf tail, he took his clothes off and began to sing the song the beaver had taught him. this was the song:-i am like an island, for on an island i got my power. in battle i live while people fall away from me. while he sang this, he had in his hand the stick which the beaver had given him. this was his only weapon. he ran to the bank, jumped in and dived, and came up in the middle of the river, and started to swim across. the rest of the blackfeet saw one of their number swimming across the river, and they said to each other: "who is that? why did not some one stop him?" while he was swimming across, the man who had been making the speech saw him and went down to meet him. he said: "who can this man be, swimming across the river? he is a stranger. i will go down and meet him, and kill him." as the boy was getting close to the shore, the man waded out in the stream up to his waist, and raised his knife to stab the swimmer. when ápi-k[)u]nni got near him, he dived under the water and came up close to the man, and thrust the beaver stick through his body, and the man fell down in the water and died. ápi-k[)u]nni caught the body, and dived under the water with it, and came up on the other side where he had left his friend. then all the blackfeet set up the war whoop, for they were glad, and they could hear a great crying in the camp. the people there were sorry for the man who was killed. people in those days never killed one another, and this was the first man ever killed in war. they dragged the man up on the bank, and ápi-k[)u]nni said to his brother, "cut off those long hairs on the head." the young man did as he was told. he scalped him and counted _coup_ on him; and from that time forth, people, when they went to war, killed one another and scalped the dead enemy, as this poor young man had done. two others of the main party came to the place, and counted _coup_ on the dead body, making four who had counted _coup_. from there, the whole party turned about and went back to the village whence they had come. when they came in sight of the lodges, they sat down in a row facing the camp. the man who had killed the enemy was sitting far in front of the others. behind him sat his friend, and behind wolf tail, sat the two who had counted _coup_ on the body. so these four were strung out in front of the others. the chief of the camp was told that some people were sitting on a hill near by, and when he had gone out and looked, he said: "there is some one sitting way in front. let somebody go out and see about it." a young man ran out to where he could see, and when he had looked, he ran back and said to the chief, "why, that man in front is the poor young man." the old chief looked around, and said: "where is that young woman, my wife? go and find her." they went to look for her, and found her out gathering rosebuds, for while the young man whom she loved was away, she used to go out and gather rosebuds and dry them for him. when they found her, she had her bosom full of them. when she came to the lodge, the chief said to her: "there is the man you love, who has come. go and meet him." she made ready quickly and ran out and met him. he said: "give her that hair of the dead man. here is his knife. there is the coat he had on, when i killed him. take these things back to the camp, and tell the people who made fun of you that this is what you promised them at the time of that dance." the whole party then got up and walked to the camp. the woman took the scalp, knife and coat to the lodge, and gave them to her husband. the chief invited ápi-kûnni to come to his lodge to visit him. he said: "i see that you have been to war, and that you have done more than any of us have ever done. this is a reason why you should be a chief. now take my lodge and this woman, and live here. take my place and rule these people. my two wives will be your servants." when ápi-kûnni heard this, and saw the young woman sitting there in the lodge, he could not speak. something seemed to rise up in his throat and choke him. so this young man lived in the camp and was known as their chief. after a time, he called his people together in council and told them of the strange things the beaver had taught him, and the power that the beaver had given him. he said: "this will be a benefit to us while we are a people now, and afterward it will be handed down to our children, and if we follow the words of the beaver we will be lucky. this seed the beaver gave me, and told me to plant it every year. when we ask help from the beaver, we will smoke this plant." this plant was the indian tobacco, and it is from the beaver that the blackfeet got it. many strange things were taught this man by the beaver, which were handed down and are followed till to-day. the buffalo rock a small stone, which is usually a fossil shell of some kind, is known by the blackfeet as i-nis'-kim, the buffalo stone. this object is strong medicine, and, as indicated in some of these stories, gives its possessor great power with buffalo. the stone is found on the prairie, and the person who succeeds in obtaining one is regarded as very fortunate. sometimes a man, who is riding along on the prairie, will hear a peculiar faint chirp, such as a little bird might utter. the sound he knows is made by a buffalo rock. he stops and searches on the ground for the rock, and if he cannot find it, marks the place and very likely returns next day, either alone or with others from the camp, to look for it again. if it is found, there is great rejoicing. how the first buffalo rock was obtained, and its power made known, is told in the following story. long ago, in the winter time, the buffalo suddenly disappeared. the snow was so deep that the people could not move in search of them, for in those days they had no horses. so the hunters killed deer, elk, and other small game along the river bottoms, and when these were all killed off or driven away, the people began to starve. one day, a young married man killed a jack-rabbit. he was so hungry that he ran home as fast as he could, and told one of his wives to hurry and get some water to cook it. while the young woman was going along the path to the river, she heard a beautiful song. it sounded close by, but she looked all around and could see no one. the song seemed to come from a cotton-wood tree near the path. looking closely at this tree she saw a queer rock jammed in a fork, where the tree was split, and with it a few hairs from a buffalo, which had rubbed there. the woman was frightened and dared not pass the tree. pretty soon the singing stopped, and the i-nis'-kim [buffalo rock] spoke to the woman and said: "take me to your lodge, and when it is dark, call in the people and teach them the song you have just heard. pray, too, that you may not starve, and that the buffalo may come back. do this, and when day comes, your hearts will be glad." the woman went on and got some water, and when she came back, took the rock and gave it to her husband, telling him about the song and what the rock had said. as soon as it was dark, the man called the chiefs and old men to his lodge, and his wife taught them this song. they prayed, too, as the rock had said should be done. before long, they heard a noise far off. it was the tramp of a great herd of buffalo coming. then they knew that the rock was very powerful, and, ever since that, the people have taken care of it and prayed to it. [note.--i-nis'-kims are usually small _ammonites_, or sections of _baculites,_ or sometimes merely oddly shaped nodules of flint. it is said of them that if an i-nis'-kim is wrapped up and left undisturbed for a long time, it will have young ones; two small stones similar in shape to the original one will be found in the package with it.] origin of the worm pipe there was once a man who was very fond of his wife. after they had been married for some time they had a child, a boy. after that, the woman got sick, and did not get well. the young man did not wish to take a second woman. he loved his wife so much. the woman grew worse and worse. doctoring did not seem to do her any good. at last she died. the man used to take his baby on his back and travel out, walking over the hills crying. he kept away from the camp. after some time, he said to the little child: "my little boy, you will have to go and live with your grandmother. i am going to try and find your mother, and bring her back." he took the baby to his mother's lodge, and asked her to take care of it, and left it with her. then he started off, not knowing where he was going nor what he was going to do. he travelled toward the sand hills. the fourth night out he had a dream. he dreamed that he went into a little lodge, in which lived an old woman. this old woman said to him, "why are you here, my son?" he said: "i am mourning day and night, crying all the while. my little son, who is the only one left me, also mourns." "well," said the old woman, "for whom are you mourning?" he said: "i am mourning for my wife. she died some time ago. i am looking for her." "oh!" said the old woman, "i saw her. she passed this way. i myself am not powerful medicine, but over by that far butte lives another old woman. go to her, and she will give you power to enable you to continue your journey. you could not go there by yourself without help. beyond the next butte from her lodge, you will find the camp of the ghosts." the next morning he awoke and went on to the next butte. it took him a long day to get there, but he found no lodge there, so he lay down and went to sleep. again he dreamed. in his dream, he saw a little lodge, and an old woman came to the door-way and called him. he went in, and she said to him: "my son, you are very poor. i know why you have come this way. you are seeking your wife, who is now in the ghost country. it is a very hard thing for you to get there. you may not be able to get your wife back, but i have great power, and i will do all i can for you. if you do exactly as i tell you, you may succeed." she then spoke to him with wise words, telling him what he should do. also she gave him a bundle of medicine, which would help him on his journey. then she said: "you stay here for a while, and i will go over there [to the ghosts' camp], and try to bring some of your relations; and if i am able to bring them back, you may return with them, but on the way you must shut your eyes. if you should open them and look about you, you would die. then you would never come back. when you get to the camp, you will pass by a big lodge, and they will say to you, 'where are you going, and who told you to come here?' you will reply, 'my grandmother, who is standing out here with me, told me to come.' they will try to scare you. they will make fearful noises, and you will see strange and terrible things; but do not be afraid." then the old woman went away, and after a time came back with one of the man's relations. he went with this relation to the ghosts' camp. when they came to the big lodge, some one called out and asked the man what he was doing, and he answered as the old woman had told him to do. as he passed on through the camp, the ghosts tried to scare him with all kinds of fearful sights and sounds, but he kept up a brave heart. he came to another lodge, and the man who owned it came out, and asked him where he was going. he said: "i am looking for my dead wife, i mourn for her so much that i cannot rest. my little boy, too, keeps crying for his mother. they have offered to give me other wives, but i do not want them. i want the one for whom i am searching." the ghost said to him: "it is a fearful thing that you have come here. it is very likely that you will never go away. there never was a person here before." the ghost asked him to come into the lodge, and he went. now this chief ghost said to him: "you will stay here four nights, and you will see your wife; but you must be very careful or you will never go back. you will die right here." then the chief went outside and called out for a feast, inviting this man's father-in-law and other relations, who were in the camp, saying, "your son-in-law invites you to a feast," as if to say that their son-in-law was dead, and had become a ghost, and had arrived at the ghost camp. now when these invited people, the relations and some of the principal men of the camp, had reached the lodge, they did not like to go in. they called out, "there is a person here." it seems as if there was something about him that they could not bear the smell of. the ghost chief burned sweet pine in the fire, which took away this smell, and the people came in and sat down. then the host said to them: "now pity this son-in-law of yours. he is seeking his wife. neither the great distance nor the fearful sights that he has seen here have weakened his heart. you can see for yourselves he is tender-hearted. he not only mourns for his wife, but mourns because his little boy is now alone with no mother; so pity him and give him back his wife." the ghosts consulted among themselves, and one said to the person, "yes, you will stay here four nights; then we will give you a medicine pipe, the worm pipe, and we will give you back your wife, and you may return to your home." now, after the third night, the chief ghost called together all the people, and they came, the man's wife with them. one of them came beating a drum; and following him was another ghost, who carried the worm pipe, which they gave to him. then said the chief ghost: "now, be very careful. tomorrow you and your wife will start on your homeward journey. your wife will carry the medicine pipe, and some of your relations are going along with you for four days. during this time, you must not open your eyes, or you will return here and be a ghost forever. you see that your wife is not now a person; but in the middle of the fourth day you will be told to look, and when you have opened your eyes, you will see that your wife has become a person, and that your ghost relations have disappeared." his father-in-law spoke to him before he went away, and said: "when you get near home, you must not go at once into the camp. let some of your relations know that you have arrived, and ask them to build a sweat house for you. go into this sweat house and wash your body thoroughly, leaving no part of it, however small, uncleansed; for if you do you will be nothing [will die]. there is something about us ghosts difficult to remove. it is only by a thorough sweat that you can remove it. take care, now, that you do as i tell you. do not whip your wife, nor strike her with a knife, nor hit her with fire; for if you do, she will vanish before your eyes and return to the sand hills." now they left the ghost country to go home, and on the fourth day, the wife said to her husband, "open your eyes." he looked about him and saw that those who had been with them had vanished, but he found that they were standing in front of the old woman's lodge by the butte. she came out and said: "here, give me back those mysterious medicines of mine, which enabled you to accomplish your purpose." he returned them to her, and became then fully a person once more. now, when they drew near to the camp, the woman went on ahead, and sat down on a butte. then some curious persons came out to see who it might be. as they approached, the woman called out to them: "do not come any nearer. go tell my mother and my relations to put up a lodge for us, a little way from camp, and to build a sweat house near by it." when this had been done, the man and his wife went in and took a thorough sweat, and then they went into the lodge, and burned sweet grass and purified their clothing and the worm pipe; and then their relations and friends came in to see them. the man told them where he had been, and how he had managed to get back his wife, and that the pipe hanging over the door-way was a medicine pipe, the worm pipe, presented to him by his ghost father-in-law. that is how the people came to possess the worm pipe. this pipe belongs to that band of the piegans known as _esk'-sin-i-tup'piks,_ the worm people. not long after this, in the night, this man told his wife to do something; and when she did not begin at once, he picked up a brand from the fire, not that he intended to strike her with it, but he made as if he would hit her, when all at once she vanished, and was never seen again. the ghosts' buffalo a long time ago there were four blackfeet, who went to war against the crees. they travelled a long way, and at last their horses gave out, and they started back toward their homes. as they were going along they came to the sand hills; and while they were passing through them, they saw in the sand a fresh travois trail, where people had been travelling. one of the men said: "let us follow this trail until we come up with some of our people. then we will camp with them." they followed the trail for a long way, and at length one of the blackfeet, named e-k[=u]s'-kini,--a very powerful person,--said to the others: "why follow this longer? it is just nothing." the others said: "not so. these are our people. we will go on and camp with them." they went on, and toward evening, one of them found a stone maul and a dog travois. he said: "look at these things. i know this maul and this travois. they belonged to my mother, who died. they were buried with her. this is strange." he took the things. when night overtook the men, they camped. early in the morning, they heard, all about them, sounds as if a camp of people were there. they heard a young man shouting a sort of war cry, as young men do; women chopping wood; a man calling for a feast, asking people to come to his lodge and smoke,--all the different sounds of the camp. they looked about, but could see nothing; and then they were frightened and covered their heads with their robes. at last they took courage, and started to look around and see what they could learn about this strange thing. for a little while they saw nothing, but pretty soon one of them said: "look over there. see that pis'kun. let us go over and look at it." as they were going toward it, one of them picked up a stone pointed arrow. he said: "look at this. it belonged to my father. this is his place." they started to go on toward the pis'kun, but suddenly they could see no pis'kun. it had disappeared all at once. a little while after this, one of them spoke up, and said: "look over there. there is my father running buffalo. there! he has killed. let us go over to him." they all looked where this man pointed, and they could see a person on a white horse, running buffalo. while they were looking, the person killed the buffalo, and got off his horse to butcher it. they started to go over toward him, and saw him at work butchering, and saw him turn the buffalo over on its back; but before they got to the place where he was, the person got on his horse and rode off, and when they got to where he had been skinning the buffalo, they saw lying on the ground only a dead mouse. there was no buffalo there. by the side of the mouse was a buffalo chip, and lying on it was an arrow painted red. the man said: "that is my father's arrow. that is the way he painted them." he took it up in his hands; and when he held it in his hands, he saw that it was not an arrow but a blade of spear grass. then he laid it down, and it was an arrow again. another blackfoot found a buffalo rock, i-nis'-kim. some time after this, the men got home to their camp. the man who had taken the maul and the dog travois, when he got home and smelled the smoke from the fire, died, and so did his horse. it seems that the shadow of the person who owned the things was angry at him and followed him home. two others of these blackfeet have since died, killed in war; but e-k[=u]s'-kini is alive yet. he took a stone and an iron arrow point that had belonged to his father, and always carried them about with him. that is why he has lived so long. the man who took the stone arrow point found near the pis'kun, which had belonged to his father, took it home with him. this was his medicine. after that he was badly wounded in two fights, but he was not killed; he got well. the one who took the buffalo rock, i-nis'-kim, it afterward made strong to call the buffalo into the pis'kun. he would take the rock and put it in his lodge close to the fire, where he could look at it, and would pray over it and make medicine. sometimes he would ask for a hundred buffalo to jump into the pis'kun, and the next day a hundred would jump in. he was powerful. stories of old man the blackfoot genesis all animals of the plains at one time heard and knew him, and all birds of the air heard and knew him. all things that he had made understood him, when he spoke to them,--the birds, the animals, and the people. old man was travelling about, south of here, making the people. he came from the south, travelling north, making animals and birds as he passed along. he made the mountains, prairies, timber, and brush first. so he went along, travelling northward, making things as he went, putting rivers here and there, and falls on them, putting red paint here and there in the ground,--fixing up the world as we see it to-day. he made the milk river (the teton) and crossed it, and, being tired, went up on a little hill and lay down to rest. as he lay on his back, stretched out on the ground, with arms extended, he marked himself out with stones,--the shape of his body, head, legs, arms, and everything. there you can see those rocks to-day. after he had rested, he went on northward, and stumbled over a knoll and fell down on his knees. then he said, "you are a bad thing to be stumbling against"; so he raised up two large buttes there, and named them the knees, and they are called so to this day. he went on further north, and with some of the rocks he carried with him he built the sweet grass hills. old man covered the plains with grass for the animals to feed on. he marked off a piece of ground, and in it he made to grow all kinds of roots and berries,--camas, wild carrots, wild turnips, sweet-root, bitter-root, sarvis berries, bull berries, cherries, plums, and rosebuds. he put trees in the ground. he put all kinds of animals on the ground. when he made the bighorn with its big head and horns, he made it out on the prairie. it did not seem to travel easily on the prairie; it was awkward and could not go fast. so he took it by one of its horns, and led it up into the mountains, and turned it loose; and it skipped about among the rocks, and went up fearful places with ease. so he said, "this is the place that suits you; this is what you are fitted for, the rocks and the mountains." while he was in the mountains, he made the antelope out of dirt, and turned it loose, to see how it would go. it ran so fast that it fell over some rocks and hurt itself. he saw that this would not do, and took the antelope down on the prairie, and turned it loose; and it ran away fast and gracefully, and he said, "this is what you are suited to." one day old man determined that he would make a woman and a child; so he formed them both--the woman and the child, her son--of clay. after he had moulded the clay in human shape, he said to the clay, "you must be people," and then he covered it up and left it, and went away. the next morning he went to the place and took the covering off, and saw that the clay shapes had changed a little. the second morning there was still more change, and the third still more. the fourth morning he went to the place, took the covering off, looked at the images, and told them to rise and walk; and they did so. they walked down to the river with their maker, and then he told them that his name was _na'pi,_ old man. as they were standing by the river, the woman said to him, "how is it? will we always live, will there be no end to it?" he said: "i have never thought of that. we will have to decide it. i will take this buffalo chip and throw it in the river. if it floats, when people die, in four days they will become alive again; they will die for only four days. but if it sinks, there will be an end to them." he threw the chip into the river, and it floated. the woman turned and picked up a stone, and said: "no, i will throw this stone in the river; if it floats we will always live, if it sinks people must die, that they may always be sorry for each other."[1] the woman threw the stone into the water, and it sank. "there," said old man, "you have chosen. there will be an end to them." [footnote 1: that is, that their friends who survive may always remember them.] it was not many nights after, that the woman's child died, and she cried a great deal for it. she said to old man: "let us change this. the law that you first made, let that be a law." he said: "not so. what is made law must be law. we will undo nothing that we have done. the child is dead, but it cannot be changed. people will have to die." that is how we came to be people. it is he who made us. the first people were poor and naked, and did not know how to get a living. old man showed them the roots and berries, and told them that they could eat them; that in a certain month of the year they could peel the bark off some trees and eat it, that it was good. he told the people that the animals should be their food, and gave them to the people, saying, "these are your herds." he said: "all these little animals that live in the ground--rats, squirrels, skunks, beavers--are good to eat. you need not fear to eat of their flesh." he made all the birds that fly, and told the people that there was no harm in their flesh, that it could be eaten. the first people that he created he used to take about through the timber and swamps and over the prairies, and show them the different plants. of a certain plant he would say, "the root of this plant, if gathered in a certain month of the year, is good for a certain sickness." so they learned the power of all herbs. in those days there were buffalo. now the people had no arms, but those black animals with long beards were armed; and once, as the people were moving about, the buffalo saw them, and ran after them, and hooked them, and killed and ate them. one day, as the maker of the people was travelling over the country, he saw some of his children, that he had made, lying dead, torn to pieces and partly eaten by the buffalo. when he saw this he was very sad. he said: "this will not do. i will change this. the people shall eat the buffalo." he went to some of the people who were left, and said to them, "how is it that you people do nothing to these animals that are killing you?" the people said: "what can we do? we have no way to kill these animals, while they are armed and can kill us." then said the maker: "that is not hard. i will make you a weapon that will kill these animals." so he went out, and cut some sarvis berry shoots, and brought them in, and peeled the bark off them. he took a larger piece of wood, and flattened it, and tied a string to it, and made a bow. now, as he was the master of all birds and could do with them as he wished, he went out and caught one, and took feathers from its wing, and split them, and tied them to the shaft of wood. he tied four feathers along the shaft, and tried the arrow at a mark, and found that it did not fly well. he took these feathers off, and put on three; and when he tried it again, he found that it was good. he went out and began to break sharp pieces off the stones. he tried them, and found that the black flint stones made the best arrow points, and some white flints. then he taught the people how to use these things. then he said: "the next time you go out, take these things with you, and use them as i tell you, and do not run from these animals. when they run at you, as soon as they get pretty close, shoot the arrows at them, as i have taught you; and you will see that they will run from you or will run in a circle around you." now, as people became plenty, one day three men went out on to the plain to see the buffalo, but they had no arms. they saw the animals, but when the buffalo saw the men, they ran after them and killed two of them, but one got away. one day after this, the people went on a little hill to look about, and the buffalo saw them, and said, "_saiyah_, there is some more of our food," and they rushed on them. this time the people did not run. they began to shoot at the buffalo with the bows and arrows _na'pi_ had given them, and the buffalo began to fall; but in the fight a person was killed. at this time these people had flint knives given them, and they cut up the bodies of the dead buffalo. it is not healthful to eat the meat raw, so old man gathered soft dry rotten driftwood and made punk of it, and then got a piece of hard wood, and drilled a hole in it with an arrow point, and gave them a pointed piece of hard wood, and taught them how to make a fire with fire sticks, and to cook the flesh of these animals and eat it. they got a kind of stone that was in the land, and then took another harder stone and worked one upon the other, and hollowed out the softer one, and made a kettle of it. this was the fashion of their dishes. also old man said to the people: "now, if you are overcome, you may go and sleep, and get power. something will come to you in your dream, that will help you. whatever these animals tell you to do, you must obey them, as they appear to you in your sleep. be guided by them. if anybody wants help, if you are alone and travelling, and cry aloud for help, your prayer will be answered. it may be by the eagles, perhaps by the buffalo, or by the bears. whatever animal answers your prayer, you must listen to him." that was how the first people got through the world, by the power of their dreams. after this, old man kept on, travelling north. many of the animals that he had made followed him as he went. the animals understood him when he spoke to them, and he used them as his servants. when he got to the north point of the porcupine mountains, there he made some more mud images of people, and blew breath upon them, and they became people. he made men and women. they asked him, "what are we to eat?" he made many images of clay, in the form of buffalo. then he blew breath on these, and they stood up; and when he made signs to them, they started to run. then he said to the people, "those are your food." they said to him, "well, now, we have those animals; how are we to kill them?" "i will show you," he said. he took them to the cliff, and made them build rock piles like this; and he made the people hide behind these piles of rock, and said, "when i lead the buffalo this way, as i bring them opposite to you, rise up." after he had told them how to act, he started on toward a herd of buffalo. he began to call them, and the buffalo started to run toward him, and they followed him until they were inside the lines. then he dropped back; and as the people rose up, the buffalo ran in a straight line and jumped over the cliff. he told the people to go and take the flesh of those animals. they tried to tear the limbs apart, but they could not. they tried to bite pieces out, and could not. so old man went to the edge of the cliff, and broke some pieces of stone with sharp edges, and told them to cut the flesh with these. when they had taken the skins from these animals, they set up some poles and put the hides on them, and so made a shelter to sleep under. there were some of these buffalo that went over the cliff that were not dead. their legs were broken, but they were still alive. the people cut strips of green hide, and tied stones in the middle, and made large mauls, and broke in the skulls of the buffalo, and killed them. after he had taught those people these things, he started off again, travelling north, until he came to where bow and elbow rivers meet. there he made some more people, and taught them the same things. from here he again went on northward. when he had come nearly to the red deer's river, he reached the hill where the old man sleeps. there he lay down and rested himself. the form of his body is to be seen there yet. when he awoke from his sleep, he travelled further northward and came to a fine high hill. he climbed to the top of it, and there sat down to rest. he looked over the country below him, and it pleased him. before him the hill was steep, and he said to himself, "well, this is a fine place for sliding; i will have some fun," and he began to slide down the hill. the marks where he slid down are to be seen yet, and the place is known to all people as the "old man's sliding ground." this is as far as the blackfeet followed old man. the crees know what he did further north. in later times once, _na'pi_ said, "here i will mark you off a piece of ground," and he did so.[1] then he said: "there is your land, and it is full of all kinds of animals, and many things grow in this land. let no other people come into it. this is for you five tribes (blackfeet, bloods, piegans, gros ventres, sarcees). when people come to cross the line, take your bows and arrows, your lances and your battle axes, and give them battle and keep them out. if they gain a footing, trouble will come to you." [footnote 1: the boundaries of this land are given as running east from a point in the summit of the rocky mountains west of fort edmonton, taking in the country to the east and south, including the porcupine hills, cypress mountains, and little rocky mountains, down to the mouth of the yellowstone on the missouri; then west to the head of the yellowstone, and across the rocky mountains to the beaverhead; thence to the summit of the rocky mountains and north along them to the starting-point.] our forefathers gave battle to all people who came to cross these lines, and kept them out. of late years we have let our friends, the white people, come in, and you know the result. we, his children, have failed to obey his laws. the dog and the stick this happened long ago. in those days the people were hungry. no buffalo nor antelope were seen on the prairie. the deer and the elk trails were covered with grass and leaves; not even a rabbit could be found in the brush. then the people prayed, saying: "oh, old man, help us now, or we shall die. the buffalo and deer are gone. uselessly we kindle the morning fires; useless are our arrows; our knives stick fast in the sheaths." then old man started out to find the game, and he took with him a young man, the son of a chief. for many days they travelled the prairies and ate nothing but berries and roots. one day they climbed a high ridge, and when they had reached the top, they saw, far off by a stream, a single lodge. "what kind of a person can it be," said the young man, "who camps there all alone, far from friends?" "that," said old man, "is the one who has hidden all the buffalo and deer from the people. he has a wife and a little son." then they went close to the lodge, and old man changed himself into a little dog, and he said, "that is i." then the young man changed himself into a root-digger,[1] and he said, "that is i." [footnote 1: a carved and painted stick about three feet long, shaped like a sacking needle, used by women to unearth roots.] now the little boy, playing about, found the dog, and he carried it to his father, saying, "look! see what a pretty little dog i have found." "throw it away," said his father; "it is not a dog." and the little boy cried, but his father made him carry the dog away. then the boy found the root-digger; and, again picking up the dog, he carried them both to the lodge, saying, "look, mother! see the pretty root-digger i have found!" "throw them both away," said his father; "that is not a stick, that is not a dog." "i want that stick," said the woman; "let our son have the little dog." "very well," said her husband, "but remember, if trouble comes, you bring it on yourself and on our son." then he sent his wife and son off to pick berries; and when they were out of sight, he went out and killed a buffalo cow, and brought the meat into the lodge and covered it up, and the bones, skin and offal he threw in the creek. when his wife returned, he gave her some of the meat to roast; and while they were eating, the little boy fed the dog three times, and when he gave it more, his father took the meat away, saying, "that is not a dog, you shall not feed it more." in the night, when all were asleep, old man and the young man arose in their right shapes, and ate of the meat. "you were right," said the young man; "this is surely the person who has hidden the buffalo from us." "wait," said old man; and when they had finished eating, they changed themselves back into the stick and the dog. in the morning the man sent his wife and son to dig roots, and the woman took the stick with her. the dog followed the little boy. now, as they travelled along in search of roots, they came near a cave, and at its mouth stood a buffalo cow. then the dog ran into the cave, and the stick, slipping from the woman's hand, followed, gliding along like a snake. in this cave they found all the buffalo and other game, and they began to drive them out; and soon the prairie was covered with buffalo and deer. never before were seen so many. pretty soon the man came running up, and he said to his wife, "who now drives out my animals?" and she replied, "the dog and the stick are now in there." "did i not tell you," said he, "that those were not what they looked like? see now the trouble you have brought upon us," and he put an arrow on his bow and waited for them to come out. but they were cunning, for when the last animal--a big bull--was about to go out, the stick grasped him by the hair under his neck, and coiled up in it, and the dog held on by the hair beneath, until they were far out on the prairie, when they changed into their true shapes, and drove the buffalo toward camp. when the people saw the buffalo coming, they drove a big band of them to the pis'kun; but just as the leaders were about to jump off, a raven came and flapped its wings in front of them and croaked, and they turned off another way. every time a band of buffalo was driven near the pis'kun, this raven frightened them away. then old man knew that the raven was the one who had kept the buffalo cached. so he went and changed himself into a beaver, and lay stretched out on the bank of the river, as if dead; and the raven, which was very hungry, flew down and began to pick at him. then old man caught it by the legs and ran with it to camp, and all the chiefs came together to decide what should be done with it. some said to kill it, but old man said, "no! i will punish it," and he tied it over the lodge, right in the smoke hole. as the days went by, the raven grew poor and weak, and his eyes were blurred with the thick smoke, and he cried continually to old man to pity him. one day old man untied him, and told him to take his right shape, saying: "why have you tried to fool old man? look at me! i cannot die. look at me! of all peoples and tribes i am the chief. i cannot die. i made the mountains. they are standing yet. i made the prairies and the rocks. you see them yet. go home, then, to your wife and your child, and when you are hungry hunt like any one else, or you shall die." the bears now old man was walking along, and far off he saw many wolves; and when he came closer, he saw there the chief of the wolves, a very old one, and sitting around him were all his children. old man said, "pity me, wolf chief; make me into a wolf, that i may live your way and catch deer and everything that runs fast." "come near then," said the wolf chief, "that i may rub your body with my hands, so that hair will cover you." "hold," said old man; "do not cover my body with hair. on my head, arms, and legs only, put hair." when the chief wolf had done so, he said to old man: "you shall have three companions to help you, one is a very swift runner, another a good runner, and the last is not very fast. take them with you now, and others of my younger children who are learning to hunt, but do not go where the wind blows; keep in the shelter, or the young ones will freeze to death." then they went hunting, and old man led them on the high buttes, where it was very cold. at night, they lay down to sleep, and old man nearly froze; and he said to the wolves, "cover me with your tails." so all the wolves lay down around him, and covered his body with their tails, and he soon got warm and slept. before long he awoke and said angrily, "take off those tails," and the wolves moved away; but after a little time he again became cold, and cried out, "oh my young brothers, cover me with your tails or i shall freeze." so they lay down by him again and covered his body with their tails. when it was daylight, they all rose and hunted. they saw some moose, and, chasing them, killed three. now, when they were about to eat, the chief wolf came along with many of his children, and one wolf said, "let us make pemmican of those moose"; and every one was glad. then said the one who made pemmican, "no one must look, everybody shut his eyes, while i make the pemmican"; but old man looked, and the pemmican-maker threw a round bone and hit him on the nose, and it hurt. then old man said, "let me make the pemmican." so all the wolves shut their eyes, and old man took the round bone and killed the wolf who had hit him. then the chief wolf was angry, and he said, "why did you kill your brother?" "i didn't mean to," replied old man. "he looked and i threw the round bone at him, but i only meant to hurt him a little." then said the chief wolf: "you cannot live with us any longer. take one of your companions, and go off by yourselves and hunt." so old man took the swift runner, and they went and lived by themselves a long time; and they killed all the elk, and deer, and antelope, and moose they wanted. one morning they awoke, and old man said: "oh my young brother, i have had a bad dream. hereafter, when you chase anything, if it jumps a stream, you must not follow it. even a little spring you must not jump." and the wolf promised not to jump over water. now one day the wolf was chasing a moose, and it ran on to an island. the stream about it was very small; so the wolf thought: "this is such a little stream that i must jump it. that moose is very tired, and i don't think it will leave the island." so he jumped on to the island, and as soon as he entered the brush, a bear caught him, for the island was the home of the chief bear and his two brothers. old man waited a long time for the wolf to come back, and then went to look for him. he asked all the birds he met if they had seen him, but they all said they had not. at last he saw a kingfisher, who was sitting on a limb overhanging the water. "why do you sit there, my young brother?" said old man. "because," replied the kingfisher, "the chief bear and his brothers have killed your wolf; they have eaten the meat and thrown the fat into the river, and whenever i see a piece come floating along, i fly down and get it." then said old man, "do the bear chief and his brothers often come out? and where do they live?" "they come out every morning to play," said the kingfisher; "and they live upon that island." old man went up there and saw their tracks on the sand, where they had been playing, and he turned himself into a rotten tree. by and by the bears came out, and when they saw the tree, the chief bear said: "look at that rotten tree. it is old man. go, brothers, and see if it is not." so the two brothers went over to the tree, and clawed it; and they said, "no, brother, it is only a tree." then the chief bear went over and clawed and bit the tree, and although it hurt old man, he never moved. then the bear chief was sure it was only a tree, and he began to play with his brothers. now while they were playing, and all were on their backs, old man leaned over and shot an arrow into each one of them; and they cried out loudly and ran back on the island. then old man changed into himself, and walked down along the river. pretty soon he saw a frog jumping along, and every time it jumped it would say, "_ni'-nah o-kyai'-yu_!" and sometimes it would stop and sing:-"_ni'-nah o-kyai'-yu! ni'-nah o-kyai'-yu!_ chief bear! chief bear! _nap'-i i-nit'-si-wah ni'-nah o-kyai'-yu!"_ old man kill him chief bear! "what do you say?" cried old man. the frog repeated what he had said. "ah!" exclaimed old man, "tell me all about it." "the chief bear and his brothers," replied the frog, "were playing on the sand, when old man shot arrows into them. they are not dead, but the arrows are very near their hearts; if you should shove ever so little on them, the points would cut their hearts. i am going after medicine now to cure them." then old man killed the frog and skinned her, and put the hide on himself and swam back to the island, and hopped up toward the bears, crying at every step, "_ni'-nah o-kyai'-yu!_" just as the frog had done. "hurry," cried the chief bear. "yes," replied old man, and he went up and shoved the arrow into his heart. "i cured him; he is asleep now," he cried, and he went up and shoved the arrow into the biggest brother's heart. "i cured them; they are asleep now"; and he went up and shoved the arrow into the other bear's heart. then he built a big fire and skinned the bears, and tried out the fat and poured it into a hollow in the ground; and he called all the animals to come and roll in it, that they might be fat. and all the animals came and rolled in it. the bears came first and rolled in it, that is the reason they get so fat. last of all came the rabbits, and the grease was almost all gone; but they filled their paws with it and rubbed it on their backs and between their hind legs. that is the reason why rabbits have two such large layers of fat on their backs, and that is what makes them so fat between the hind legs. [note.--the four preceding stories show the serious side of old man's character. those which follow represent him as malicious, foolish, and impotent.] the wonderful bird one day, as old man was walking about in the woods, he saw something very queer. a bird was sitting on the limb of a tree making a strange noise, and every time it made this noise, its eyes would go out of its head and fasten on the tree; then it would make another kind of a noise, and its eyes would come back to their places. "little brother," cried old man, "teach me how to do that." "if i show you how to do that," replied the bird, "you must not let your eyes go out of your head more than three times a day. if you do, you will be sorry." "just as you say, little brother. the trick is yours, and i will listen to you." when the bird had taught old man how to do it, he was very glad, and did it three times right away. then he stopped. "that bird has no sense," he said. "why did he tell me to do it only three times? i will do it again, anyhow." so he made his eyes go out a fourth time; but now he could not call them back. then he called to the bird, "oh little brother, come help me get back my eyes." the little bird did not answer him. it had flown away. then old man felt all over the trees with his hands, but he could not find his eyes; and he wandered about for a long time, crying and calling the animals to help him. a wolf had much fun with him. the wolf had found a dead buffalo, and taking a piece of the meat which smelled bad, he would hold it close to old man. "i smell something dead," old man would say. "i wish i could find it; i am nearly starved to death." and he would feel all around for it. once, when the wolf was doing this, old man caught him, and, plucking out one of his eyes, he put it in his own head. then he could see, and was able to find his own eyes; but he could never again do the trick the little bird had taught him. the race once old man was travelling around, when he heard some very queer singing. he had never heard anything like this before, and looked all around to see who it was. at last he saw it was the cottontail rabbits, singing and making medicine. they had built a fire, and got a lot of hot ashes, and they would lie down in these ashes and sing while one covered them up. they would stay there only a short time though, for the ashes were very hot. "little brothers," said old man, "that is very wonderful, how you lie in those hot ashes and coals without burning. i wish you would teach me how to do it." "come on, old man," said the rabbits, "we will show you how to do it. you must sing our song, and only stay in the ashes a short time." so old man began to sing, and he lay down, and they covered him with coals and ashes, and they did not burn him at all. "that is very nice," he said. "you have powerful medicine. now i want to know it all, so you lie down and let me cover you up." so the rabbits all lay down in the ashes, and old man covered them up, and then he put the whole fire over them. one old rabbit got out, and old man was about to put her back when she said, "pity me, my children are about to be born." "all right," replied old man. "i will let you go, so there will be some more rabbits; but i will roast these nicely and have a feast." and he put more wood on the fire. when the rabbits were cooked, he cut some red willow brush and laid them on it to cool. the grease soaked into these branches, so, even to-day if you hold red willow over a fire, you will see the grease on the bark. you can see, too, that ever since, the rabbits have a burnt place on their backs, where the one that got away was singed. old man sat down, and was waiting for the rabbits to cool a little, when a coyote came along, limping very badly. "pity me, old man," he said, "you have lots of cooked rabbits; give me one of them." "go away," exclaimed old man. "if you are too lazy to catch your food, i will not help you." "my leg is broken," said the coyote. "i can't catch anything, and i am starving. just give me half a rabbit." "i don't care if you die," replied old man. "i worked hard to cook all these rabbits, and i will not give any away. but i will tell you what we will do. we will run a race to that butte, way out there, and if you beat me you can have a rabbit." "all right," said the coyote. so they started. old man ran very fast, and the coyote limped along behind, but close to him, until they got near to the butte. then the coyote turned round and ran back very fast, for he was not lame at all. it took old man a long time to go back, and just before he got to the fire, the coyote swallowed the last rabbit, and trotted off over the prairie. the bad weapons once old man was fording a river, when the current carried him down stream, and he lost his weapons. he was very hungry, so he took the first wood he could find, and made a bow and arrows, and a handle for his knife and spear. when he had finished them, he started up a mountain. pretty soon he saw a bear digging roots, and he thought he would have some fun, so he hid behind a log and called out, "no-tail animal, what are you doing?" the bear looked up, but, seeing no one, kept on digging. then old man called out again, "hi! you dirt-eater!" and then he dodged back out of sight. then the bear sat up again, and this time he saw old man and ran after him. old man began shooting arrows at him, but the points only stuck in the skin, for the shafts were rotten and snapped off. then he threw his spear, but that too was rotten, and broke. he tried to stab the bear, but his knife handle was also rotten and broke, so he turned and ran; and the bear pursued him. as he ran, he looked about for some weapon, but there was none, not even a rock. he called out to the animals to help him, but none came. his breath was almost gone, and the bear was very close to him, when he saw a bull's horn lying on the ground. he picked it up, placed it on his head, and, turning around, bellowed so loudly that the bear was scared and ran away. the elk old man was very hungry. he had been a long time without food, and was thinking how he could get something to eat, when he saw a band of elk on a ridge. so he went up to them and said, "oh, my brothers, i am lonesome because i have no one to follow me." "go on, old man," said the elk, "we will follow you." old man led them about a long time, and when it was dark, he came near a high-cut bank. he ran around to one side where there was a slope, and he went down and then stood right under the steep bluff, and called out, "come on, that is a nice jump, you will laugh." so the elk jumped off, all but one cow, and were killed. "come on," said old man, "they have all jumped but you, it is nice." "take pity on me," replied the cow. "my child is about to be born, and i am very heavy. i am afraid to jump." "go on, then," answered old man; "go and live; then there will be plenty of elk again some day." now old man built a fire and cooked some ribs, and then he skinned all the elk, cut up the meat to dry, and hung the tongues up on a pole. next day he went off, and did not come back until night, when he was very hungry again. "i'll roast some ribs," he said, "and a tongue, and i'll stuff a marrow gut and cook that. i guess that will be enough for to-night." but when he got to the place, the meat was all gone. the wolves had eaten it. "i was smart to hang up those tongues," he said, "or i would not have had anything to eat." but the tongues were all hollow. the mice had eaten the meat out, leaving only the skin. so old man starved again. old man doctors a pis'kun had been built, and many buffalo had been run in and killed. the camp was full of meat. great sheets of it hung in the lodges and on the racks outside; and now the women, having cut up all the meat, were working on the hides, preparing some for robes, and scraping the hair from others, to make leather. about this time, old man came along. he had come from far and was very tired, so he entered the first lodge he came to and sat down. now this lodge belonged to three old women. their husbands had died or been killed in war, and they had no relations to help them, so they were very poor. after old man had rested a little, they set a dish of food before him. it was dried bull meat, very tough, and some pieces of belly fat. "_hai'-yah ho_!" cried old man, after he had tasted a piece. "you treat me badly. a whole pis'kun of fat buffalo just killed; the camp red with meat, and here these old women give me tough bull meat and belly fat to eat. hurry now! roast me some ribs and a piece of back fat." "alas!" exclaimed one old woman. "we have no good food. all our helpers are dead, and we take what others leave. bulls and poor cows are all the people leave us." "ah!" said old man, "how poor! you are very poor. take courage now. i will help you. to-morrow they will run another band into the pis'kun. i will be there. i will kill the fattest cow, and you can have it all." then the old women were glad. they talked to one another, saying, "very good heart, old man. he helps the poor. now we will live. we will have marrow guts and liver. we will have paunch and fat kidneys." old man said nothing more. he ate the tough meat and belly fat, and rolled up in his robe and went to sleep. morning came. the people climbed the bluffs and went out on to the prairie, where they hid behind the piles of rock and bushes, which reached far out from the cliff in lines which were always further and further apart. after a while, he who leads the buffalo was seen coming, bringing a large band after him. soon they were inside the lines. the people began to rise up behind them, shouting and waving their robes. now they reached the edge of the bluff. the leaders tried to stop and turn, but those behind kept pushing on, and nearly the whole band dashed down over the rocks, only a few of the last ones turning aside and escaping. the lodges were now deserted. all the people were gone to the pis'kun to kill the buffalo and butcher them. where was old man? did he take his bow and arrows and go to the pis'kun to kill a fat cow for the poor old women? no. he was sneaking around, lifting the door-ways of the lodges and looking in. bad person, old man. in the chiefs lodge he saw a little child, a girl, asleep. outside was a buffalo's gall, and taking a long stick he dipped the end of it in the gall; and then, reaching carefully into the lodge, he drew it across the lips of the child asleep. then he threw the stick away, and went in and sat down. soon the girl awoke and began to cry. the gall was very bitter and burned her lips. "pity me, old man," she said. "take this fearful thing from my lips." "i do not doctor unless i am paid," he replied. then said the girl: "see all my father's weapons hanging there. his shield, war head-dress, scalps, and knife. cure me now, and i will give you some of them." "i have more of such things than i want," he replied. (what a liar! he had none at all.) again said the girl, "pity me, help me now, and i will give you my father's white buffalo robe." "i have plenty of white robes," replied old man. (again he lied, for he never had one.) "old man," again said the girl, "in this lodge lives a widow woman, my father's relation. remove this fearful thing from my lips, and i will have my father give her to you." "now you speak well," replied old man. "i am a little glad. i have many wives" (he had none), "but i would just as soon have another one." so he went close to the child and pretended to doctor her, but instead of that, he killed her and ran out. he went to the old women's lodge, and wrapped a strip of cowskin about his head, and commenced to groan, as if he was very sick. now the people began to come from the pis'kun, carrying great loads of meat. this dead girl's mother came, and when she saw her child lying dead, and blood on the ground, she ran back crying out: "my daughter has been killed! my daughter has been killed!" then all the people began to shout out and run around, and the warriors and young men looked in the lodges, and up and down the creek in the brush, but they could find no one who might have killed the child. then said the father of the dead girl: "now, to-day, we will find out who killed this child. every man in this camp--every young man, every old man--must come and jump across the creek; and if any one does not jump across, if he falls in the water, that man is the one who did the killing." all heard this, and they began to gather at the creek, one behind another; and the women and children went to look on, for they wanted to see the person who had killed the little child. now they were ready. they were about to jump, when some one cried out, "old man is not here." "true," said the chief, looking around, "old man is not here." and he sent two young men to bring him. "old man!" they cried out, when they came to the lodge, "a child has been killed. we have all got to jump to find out who did it. the chief has sent for you. you will have to jump, too." "_ki'-yo!_" exclaimed the old women. "old man is very sick. go off, and let him alone. he is so sick he could not kill meat for us to-day." "it can't be helped," the young men replied. "the chief says every one must jump." so old man went out toward the creek very slowly, and very much scared. he did not know what to do. as he was going along he saw a _ni'-po-muk-i_[1] and he said: "oh my little brother, pity me. give me some of your power to jump the creek, and here is my necklace. see how pretty it is. i will give it to you." [footnote 1: the chickadee.] so they traded; old man took some of the bird's power, and the bird took old man's necklace and put it on. now they jump. _wo'-ka-hi!_ they jump way across and far on to the ground. now they jump; another! another! another! now it comes old man's turn. he runs, he jumps, he goes high, and strikes the ground far beyond any other person's jump. now comes the _ni'-po-muk-i. "wo'-ka-hi!_" the men shout. "_ki'-yo!_" cry the women, "the bird has fallen in the creek." the warriors are running to kill him. "wait! hold on!" cries the bird. "let me speak a few words. every one knows i am a good jumper. i can jump further than any one; but old man asked me for some of my power, and i gave it to him, and he gave me this necklace. it is very heavy and pulled me down. that is why i fell into the creek." then the people began to shout and talk again, some saying to kill the bird, and some not, when old man shouted out: "wait, listen to me. what's the use of quarrelling or killing anybody? let us go back, and i will doctor the child alive." good words. the people were glad. so they went back, and got ready for the doctoring. first, old man ordered a large fire built in the lodge where the dead girl was lying. two old men were placed at the back of the lodge, facing each other. they had spears, which they held above their heads and were to thrust back and forth at each other in time to the singing. near the door-way were placed two old women, facing each other. each one held a _puk'-sah-tchis,_[1]--a maul,--with which she was to beat time to the singing. the other seats in the lodge were taken by people who were to sing. now old man hung a big roll of belly fat close over the fire, so that the hot grease began to drip, and everything was ready, and the singing began. this was old man's song:-[footnote 1: a round or oblong stone, to which a handle was bound by rawhide thongs, used for breaking marrow bones, etc.] [illustration:] ahk-sa'-k[=e]-wah, ahk-sa'-k[=e]-wah, ahk-sa'-k[=e]-wah, etc. i don't care, i don't care, i don't care. and so they sung for a long time, the old men jabbing their spears at each other, and the old women pretending to hit each other with their mauls. after a while they rested, and old man said: "now i want every one to shut their eyes. no one can look. i am going to begin the real doctoring." so the people shut their eyes, and the singing began again. then old man took the dripping hot fat from the fire, gave it a mighty swing around the circle in front of the people's faces, jumped out the door-way, and ran off. every one was burned. the two old men wounded each other with their spears. the old women knocked each other on the head with their mauls. the people cried and groaned, wiped their burned faces, and rushed out the door; but old man was gone. they saw him no more. the rock once old man was travelling, and becoming tired he sat down on a rock to rest. after a while he started to go on, and because the sun was hot he threw his robe over the rock, saying: "here, i give you my robe, because you are poor and have let me rest on you. always keep it." he had not gone very far, when it began to rain, and meeting a coyote he said: "little brother, run back to that rock, and ask him to lend me his robe. we will cover ourselves with it and keep dry." so the coyote ran back to the rock, but returned without the robe. "where is the robe?" asked old man. "_sai-yah!"_ replied the coyote. "the rock said you gave him the robe, and he was going to keep it." then old man was very angry, and went back to the rock and jerked the robe off it, saying: "i only wanted to borrow this robe until the rain was over, but now that you have acted so mean about it, i will keep it. you don't need a robe anyhow. you have been out in the rain and snow all your life, and it will not hurt you to live so always." with the coyote he went off into a coulée, and sat down. the rain was falling, and they covered themselves with the robe and were very comfortable. pretty soon they heard a loud noise, and old man told the coyote to go up on the hill and see what it was. soon he came running back, saying, "run! run! the big rock is coming"; and they both ran away as fast as they could. the coyote tried to crawl into a badger hole, but it was too small for him and he stuck fast, and before he could get out, the rock rolled over him and crushed his hind parts. old man was scared, and as he ran he threw off his robe and what clothes he could, so that he might run faster. the rock kept gaining on him all the time. not far off was a band of buffalo bulls, and old man cried out to them, saying, "oh my brothers, help me, help me. stop that rock." the bulls ran and tried to stop it, but it crushed their heads. some deer and antelope tried to help old man, but they were killed, too. a lot of rattlesnakes formed themselves into a lariat, and tried to catch it; but those at the noose end were all cut to pieces. the rock was now close to old man, so close that it began to hit his heels; and he was about to give up, when he saw a flock of bull bats circling over his head. "oh my little brothers," he cried, "help me. i am almost dead." then the bull bats flew down, one after another, against the rock; and every time one of them hit it he chipped off a piece, and at last one hit it fair in the middle and broke it into two pieces. then old man was very glad. he went to where there was a nest of bull bats, and made the young ones' mouths very wide and pinched off their bills, to make them pretty and queer looking. that is the reason they look so to-day. the theft from the sun once old man was travelling around, when he came to the sun's lodge, and the sun asked him to stay a while. old man was very glad to do so. one day the meat was all gone, and the sun said, "_kyi_! old man, what say you if we go and kill some deer?" "you speak well," replied old man. "i like deer meat." the sun took down a bag and pulled out a beautiful pair of leggings. they were embroidered with porcupine quills and bright feathers. "these," said the sun, "are my hunting leggings. they are great medicine. all i have to do is to put them on and walk around a patch of brush, when the leggings set it on fire and drive the deer out so that i can shoot them." "_hai-yah_!" exclaimed old man. "how wonderful!" he made up his mind he would have those leggings, if he had to steal them. they went out to hunt, and the first patch of brush they came to, the sun set on fire with his hunting leggings. a lot of white-tail deer ran out, and they each shot one. that night, when they went to bed, the sun pulled off his leggings and placed them to one side. old man saw where he put them, and in the middle of the night, when every one was asleep, he stole them and went off. he travelled a long time, until he had gone far and was very tired, and then, making a pillow of the leggings, lay down and slept. in the morning, he heard some one talking. the sun was saying, "old man, why are my leggings under your head?" he looked around, and saw he was in the sun's lodge, and thought he must have wandered around and got lost, and returned there. again the sun spoke and said, "what are you doing with my leggings?" "oh," replied old man, "i couldn't find anything for a pillow, so i just put these under my head." night came again, and again old man stole the leggings and ran off. this time he did not walk at all; he just kept running until pretty near morning, and then lay down and slept. you see what a fool he was. he did not know that the whole world is the sun's lodge. he did not know that, no matter how far he ran, he could not get out of the sun's sight. when morning came, he found himself still in the sun's lodge. but this time the sun said: "old man, since you like my leggings so much, i will give them to you. keep them." then old man was very glad and went away. one day his food was all gone, so he put on the medicine leggings and set fire to a piece of brush. he was just going to kill some deer that were running out, when he saw that the fire was getting close to him. he ran away as fast as he could, but the fire gained on him and began to burn his legs. his leggings were all on fire. he came to a river and jumped in, and pulled off the leggings as soon as he could. they were burned to pieces. perhaps the sun did this to him because he tried to steal the leggings. the fox one day old man went out hunting and took the fox with him. they hunted for several days, but killed nothing. it was nice warm weather in the late fall. after they had become very hungry, as they were going along one day, old man went up over a ridge and on the other side he saw four big buffalo bulls lying down; but there was no way by which they could get near them. he dodged back out of sight and told the fox what he had seen, and they thought for a long time, to see if there was no way by which these bulls might be killed. at last old man said to the fox: "my little brother, i can think of only one way to get these bulls. this is my plan, if you agree to it. i will pluck all the fur off you except one tuft on the end of your tail. then you go over the hill and walk up and down in sight of the bulls, and you will seem so funny to them that they will laugh themselves to death." the fox did not like to do this, but he could think of nothing better, so he agreed to what old man proposed. old man plucked him perfectly bare, except the end of his tail, and the fox went over the ridge and walked up and down. when he had come close to the bulls, he played around and walked on his hind legs and went through all sorts of antics. when the bulls first saw him, they got up on their feet, and looked at him. they did not know what to make of him. then they began to laugh, and the more they looked at him, the more they laughed, until at last one by one they fell down exhausted and died. then old man came over the hill, and went down to the bulls, and began to butcher them. by this time it had grown a little colder. "ah, little brother," said old man to the fox, "you did splendidly. i do not wonder that the bulls laughed themselves to death. i nearly died myself as i watched you from the hill. you looked very funny." while he was saying this, he was working away skinning off the hides and getting the meat ready to carry to camp, all the time talking to the fox, who stood about, his back humped up and his teeth chattering with the cold. now a wind sprang up from the north and a few snowflakes were flying in the air. it was growing colder and colder. old man kept on talking, and every now and then he would say something to the fox, who was sitting behind him perfectly still, with his jaw shoved out and his teeth shining. at last old man had the bulls all skinned and the meat cut up, and as he rose up he said: "it is getting pretty cold, isn't it? well, we do not care for the cold. we have got all our winter's meat, and we will have nothing to do but feast and dance and sing until spring." the fox made no answer. then old man got angry, and called out: "why don't you answer me? don't you hear me talking to you?" the fox said nothing. then old man was mad, and he said, "can't you speak?" and stepped up to the fox and gave him a push with his foot, and the fox fell over. he was dead, frozen stiff with the cold. old man and the lynx old man was travelling round over the prairie, when he saw a lot of prairie-dogs sitting in a circle. they had built a fire, and were sitting around it. old man went toward them, and when he got near them, he began to cry, and said, "let me, too, sit by that fire." the prairie-dogs said: "all right, old man. don't cry. come and sit by the fire." old man sat down, and saw that the prairie-dogs were playing a game. they would put one of their number in the fire and cover him up with the hot ashes; and then, after he had been there a little while, he would say _sk, sk_, and they would push the ashes off him, and pull him out. old man said, "teach me how to do that"; and they told him what to do, and put him in the fire, and covered him up with the ashes, and after a little while he said _sk, sk_, like a prairie-dog, and they pulled him out again. then he did it to the prairie-dogs. at first he put them in one at a time, but there were many of them, and pretty soon he got tired, and said, "come, i will put you all in at once." they said, "very well, old man," and all got in the ashes; but just as old man was about to cover them up, one of them, a female heavy with young, said, "do not cover me up; the heat may hurt my children, which are about to be born." old man said: "very well. if you do not want to be covered up, you can sit over by the fire and watch the rest." then he covered up all the others. at length the prairie-dogs said _sk, sk_, but old man did not sweep the ashes off and pull them out of the fire. he let them stay there and die. the old she one ran off to a hole and, as she went down in it, said _sk, sk_. old man chased her, but he got to the hole too late to catch her. so he said: "oh, well, you can go. there will be more prairie-dogs by and by." when the prairie-dogs were roasted, old man cut a lot of red willow brush to lay them on, and then sat down and began to eat. he ate until he was full, and then felt sleepy. he said to his nose: "i am going to sleep now. watch for me and wake me up in case anything comes near." then old man slept. pretty soon his nose snored, and he woke up and said, "what is it?" the nose said, "a raven is flying over there." old man said, "that is nothing," and went to sleep again. soon his nose snored again. old man said, "what is it now?" the nose said, "there is a coyote over there, coming this way." old man said, "a coyote is nothing," and again went to sleep. presently his nose snored again, but old man did not wake up. again it snored, and called out, "wake up, a bob-cat is coming." old man paid no attention. he slept on. the bob-cat crept up to where the fire was, and ate up all the roast prairie-dogs, and then went off and lay down on a flat rock, and went to sleep. all this time the nose kept trying to wake old man up, and at last he awoke, and the nose said: "a bob-cat is over there on that flat rock. he has eaten all your food." then old man called out loud, he was so angry. he went softly over to where the bob-cat lay, and seized it, before it could wake up to bite or scratch him. the bob-cat cried out, "hold on, let me speak a word or two." but old man would not listen; he said, "i will teach you to steal my food." he pulled off the lynx's tail, pounded his head against the rock so as to make his face flat, pulled him out long, so as to make him small-bellied, and then threw him away into the brush. as he went sneaking off, old man said, "there, that is the way you bob-cats shall always be." that is the reason the lynxes look so today. old man went back to the fire, and looked at the red willow sticks where his food had been, and it made him mad at his nose. he said, "you fool, why did you not wake me?" he took the willow sticks and thrust them in the coals, and when they took fire, he burned his nose. this pained him greatly, and he ran up on a hill and held his nose to the wind, and called on it to blow hard and cool him. a hard wind came, and it blew him away down to birch creek. as he was flying along, he caught at the weeds and brush to try to stop himself, but nothing was strong enough to hold him. at last he seized a birch tree. he held on to this, and it did not give way. although the wind whipped him about, this way and that, and tumbled him up and down, the tree held him. he kept calling to the wind to blow gently, and finally it listened to him and went down. so he said: "this is a beautiful tree. it has kept me from being blown away and knocked all to pieces. i will ornament it and it shall always be like that." so he gashed it across with his stone knife, as you see it to-day. the story of the three tribes the past and the present fifty years ago the name blackfoot was one of terrible meaning to the white traveller who passed across that desolate buffalo-trodden waste which lay to the north of the yellowstone river and east of the rocky mountains. this was the blackfoot land, the undisputed home of a people which is said to have numbered in one of its tribes--the pi-k[)u]n'-i--8000 lodges, or 40,000 persons. besides these, there were the blackfeet and the bloods, three tribes of one nation, speaking the same language, having the same customs, and holding the same religious faith. but this land had not always been the home of the blackfeet. long ago, before the coming of the white men, they had lived in another country far to the north and east, about lesser slave lake, ranging between peace river and the saskatchewan, and having for their neighbors on the north the beaver indians. then the blackfeet were a timber people. it is said that about two hundred years ago the chippeweyans from the east invaded this country and drove them south and west. whether or no this is true, it is quite certain that not many generations back the blackfeet lived on the north saskatchewan river and to the north of that stream.[1] gradually working their way westward, they at length reached the rocky mountains, and, finding game abundant, remained there until they obtained horses, in the very earliest years of the present century. when they secured horses and guns, they took courage and began to venture out on to the plains and to go to war. from this time on, the blackfeet made constant war on their neighbors to the south, and in a few years controlled the whole country between the saskatchewan on the north and the yellowstone on the south. [footnote 1: for a more extended account of this migration, see _american anthropologist_, april, 1892, p. 153.] it was, indeed, a glorious country which the blackfeet had wrested from their southern enemies. here nature has reared great mountains and spread out broad prairies. along the western border of this region, the rocky mountains lift their snow-clad peaks above the clouds. here and there, from north to south, and from east to west, lie minor ranges, black with pine forests if seen near at hand, or in the distance mere gray silhouettes against a sky of blue. between these mountain ranges lies everywhere the great prairie; a monotonous waste to the stranger's eye, but not without its charm. it is brown and bare; for, except during a few short weeks in spring, the sparse bunch-grass is sear and yellow, and the silver gray of the wormwood lends an added dreariness to the landscape. yet this seemingly desert waste has a beauty of its own. at intervals it is marked with green winding river valleys, and everywhere it is gashed with deep ravines, their sides painted in strange colors of red and gray and brown, and their perpendicular walls crowned with fantastic columns and figures of stone or clay, carved out by the winds and the rains of ages. here and there, rising out of the plain, are curious sharp ridges, or square-topped buttes with vertical sides, sometimes bare, and sometimes dotted with pines,--short, sturdy trees, whose gnarled trunks and thick, knotted branches have been twisted and wrung into curious forms by the winds which blow unceasingly, hour after hour, day after day, and month after month, over mountain range and prairie, through gorge and coulée. these prairies now seem bare of life, but it was not always so. not very long ago, they were trodden by multitudinous herds of buffalo and antelope; then, along the wooded river valleys and on the pine-clad slopes of the mountains, elk, deer, and wild sheep fed in great numbers. they are all gone now. the winter's wind still whistles over montana prairies, but nature's shaggy-headed wild cattle no longer feel its biting blasts. where once the scorching breath of summer stirred only the short stems of the buffalo-grass, it now billows the fields of the white man's grain. half-hidden by the scanty herbage, a few bleached skeletons alone remain to tell us of the buffalo; and the broad, deep trails, over which the dark herds passed by thousands, are now grass-grown and fast disappearing under the effacing hand of time. the buffalo have disappeared, and the fate of the buffalo has almost overtaken the blackfeet. as known to the whites, the blackfeet were true prairie indians, seldom venturing into the mountains, except when they crossed them to war with the kutenais, the flatheads, or the snakes. they subsisted almost wholly on the flesh of the buffalo. they were hardy, untiring, brave, ferocious. swift to move, whether on foot or horseback, they made long journeys to war, and with telling force struck their enemies. they had conquered and driven out from the territory which they occupied the tribes who once inhabited it, and maintained a desultory and successful warfare against all invaders, fighting with the crees on the north, the assinaboines on the east, the crows on the south, and the snakes, kalispels, and kutenais on the southwest and west. in those days the blackfeet were rich and powerful. the buffalo fed and clothed them, and they needed nothing beyond what nature supplied. this was their time of success and happiness. crowded into a little corner of the great territory which they once dominated, and holding this corner by an uncertain tenure, a few blackfeet still exist, the pitiful remnant of a once mighty people. huddled together about their agencies, they are facing the problem before them, striving, helplessly but bravely, to accommodate themselves to the new order of things; trying in the face of adverse surroundings to wrench themselves loose from their accustomed ways of life; to give up inherited habits and form new ones; to break away from all that is natural to them, from all that they have been taught--to reverse their whole mode of existence. they are striving to earn their living, as the white man earns his, by toil. the struggle is hard and slow, and in carrying it on they are wasting away and growing fewer in numbers. but though unused to labor, ignorant of agriculture, unacquainted with tools or seeds or soils, knowing nothing of the ways of life in permanent houses or of the laws of health, scantily fed, often utterly discouraged by failure, they are still making a noble fight for existence. only within a few years--since the buffalo disappeared--has this change been going on; so recently has it come that the old order and the new meet face to face. in the trees along the river valleys, still quietly resting on their aerial sepulchres, sleep the forms of the ancient hunter-warrior who conquered and held this broad land; while, not far away, blackfoot farmers now rudely cultivate their little crops, and gather scanty harvests from narrow fields. it is the meeting of the past and the present, of savagery and civilization. the issue cannot be doubtful. old methods must pass away. the blackfeet will become civilized, but at a terrible cost. to me there is an interest, profound and pathetic, in watching the progress of the struggle. daily life and customs indians are usually represented as being a silent, sullen race, seldom speaking, and never laughing nor joking. however true this may be in regard to some tribes, it certainly was not the case with most of those who lived upon the great plains. these people were generally talkative, merry, and light-hearted; they delighted in fun, and were a race of jokers. it is true that, in the presence of strangers, they were grave, silent, and reserved, but this is nothing more than the shyness and embarrassment felt by a child in the presence of strangers. as the indian becomes acquainted, this reserve wears off; he is at his ease again and appears in his true colors, a light-hearted child. certainly the blackfeet never were a taciturn and gloomy people. before the disappearance of the buffalo, they were happy and cheerful. why should they not have been? food and clothing were to be had for the killing and tanning. all fur animals were abundant, and thus the people were rich. meat, really the only food they cared for, was plenty and cost nothing. their robes and furs were exchanged with the traders for bright-colored blankets and finery. so they wanted nothing. it is but nine years since the buffalo disappeared from the land. only nine years have passed since these people gave up that wild, free life which was natural to them, and ah! how dear! let us go back in memory to those happy days and see how they passed the time. the sun is just rising. thin columns of smoke are creeping from the smoke holes of the lodges, and ascending in the still morning air. everywhere the women are busy, carrying water and wood, and preparing the simple meal. and now we see the men come out, and start for the river. some are followed by their children; some are even carrying those too small to walk. they have reached the water's edge. off drop their blankets, and with a plunge and a shivering _ah-h-h_ they dash into the icy waters. winter and summer, storm or shine, this was their daily custom. they said it made them tough and healthy, and enabled them to endure the bitter cold while hunting on the bare bleak prairie. by the time they have returned to the lodges, the women have prepared the early meal. a dish of boiled meat--some three or four pounds--is set before each man; the children are served as much as they can eat, and the wives take the rest. the horses are now seen coming in, hundreds and thousands of them, driven by boys and young men who started out after them at daylight. if buffalo are close at hand, and it has been decided to make a run, each hunter catches his favorite buffalo horse, and they all start out together; they are followed by women, on the travois or pack horses, who will do most of the butchering, and transport the meat and hides to camp. if there is no band of buffalo near by, they go off, singly or by twos and threes, to still-hunt scattering buffalo, or deer, or elk, or such other game as may be found. the women remaining in camp are not idle. all day long they tan robes, dry meat, sew moccasins, and perform a thousand and one other tasks. the young men who have stayed at home carefully comb and braid their hair, paint their faces, and, if the weather is pleasant, ride or walk around the camp so that the young women may look at them and see how pretty they are. feasting began early in the morning, and will be carried on far into the night. a man who gives a feast has his wives cook the choicest food they have, and when all is ready, he goes outside the lodge and shouts the invitation, calling out each guest's name three times, saying that he is invited to eat, and concludes by announcing that a certain number of pipes--generally three--will be smoked. the guests having assembled, each one is served with a dish of food. be the quantity large or small, it is all that he will get. if he does not eat it all, he may carry home what remains. the host does not eat with his guests. he cuts up some tobacco, and carefully mixes it with _l'herbe_, and when all have finished eating, he fills and lights a pipe, which is smoked and passed from one to another, beginning with the first man on his left. when the last person on the left of the host has smoked, the pipe is passed back around the circle to the one on the right of the door, and smoked to the left again. the guests do not all talk at once. when a person begins to speak, he expects every one to listen, and is never interrupted. during the day the topics for conversation are about the hunting, war, stories of strange adventures, besides a good deal of good-natured joking and chaffing. when the third and last pipeful of tobacco has been smoked, the host ostentatiously knocks out the ashes and says "_kyi"_ whereupon all the guests rise and file out. seldom a day passed but each lodge-owner in camp gave from one to three feasts. in fact almost all a man did, when in camp, was to go from one of these gatherings to another. a favorite pastime in the day was gambling with a small wheel called _it-se'-wah._ this wheel was about four inches in diameter, and had five spokes, on which were strung different-colored beads, made of bone or horn. a level, smooth piece of ground was selected, at each end of which was placed a log. at each end of the course were two men, who gambled against each other. a crowd always surrounded them, betting on the sides. the wheel was rolled along the course, and each man at the end whence it started, darted an arrow at it. the cast was made just before the wheel reached the log at the opposite end of the track, and points were counted according as the arrow passed between the spokes, or when the wheel, stopped by the log, was in contact with the arrow, the position and nearness of the different beads to the arrow representing a certain number of points. the player who first scored ten points won. it was a very difficult game, and one had to be very skilful to win. another popular game was what with more southern tribes is called "hands"; it is like "button, button, who's got the button?" two small, oblong bones were used, one of which had a black ring around it. those who participated in this game, numbering from two to a dozen, were divided into two equal parties, ranged on either side of the lodge. wagers were made, each person betting with the one directly opposite him. then a man took the bones, and, by skilfully moving his hands and changing the objects from one to the other, sought to make it impossible for the person opposite him to decide which hand held the marked one. ten points were the game, counted by sticks, and the side which first got the number took the stakes. a song always accompanied this game, a weird, unearthly air,--if it can be so called,--but when heard at a little distance, very pleasant and soothing. at first a scarcely audible murmur, like the gentle soughing of an evening breeze, it gradually increased in volume and reached a very high pitch, sank quickly to a low bass sound, rose and fell, and gradually died away, to be again repeated. the person concealing the bones swayed his body, arms, and hands in time to the air, and went through all manner of graceful and intricate movements for the purpose of confusing the guesser. the stakes were sometimes very high, two or three horses or more, and men have been known to lose everything they possessed, even to their clothing. the children, at least the boys, played about and did as they pleased. not so with the girls. their duties began at a very early age. they carried wood and water for their mothers, sewed moccasins, and as soon as they were strong enough, were taught to tan robes and furs, make lodges, travois, and do all other woman's--and so menial--work. the boys played at mimic warfare, hunted around in the brush with their bows and arrows, made mud images of animals, and in summer spent about half their time in the water. in winter, they spun tops on the ice, slid down hill on a contrivance made of buffalo ribs, and hunted rabbits. shortly after noon, the hunters began to return, bringing in deer, antelope, buffalo, elk, occasionally bear, and, sometimes, beaver which they had trapped. the camp began to be more lively. in all directions persons could be heard shouting out invitations to feasts. here a man was lying back on his couch singing and drumming; there a group of young men were holding a war dance; everywhere the people were eating, singing, talking, and joking. as the light faded from the western sky and darkness spread over the camp, the noise and laughter increased. in many lodges, the people held social dances, the women, dressed in their best gowns, ranged on one side, the men on the other; all sung, and three or four drummers furnished an accompaniment; the music was lively if somewhat jerky. at intervals the people rose and danced, the "step" being a bending of the knees and swinging of the body, the women holding their arms and hands in various graceful positions. with the night came the rehearsal of the wondrous doings of the gods. these tales may not be told in the daytime. old man would not like that, and would cause any one who narrated them while it was light to become blind. all indians are natural orators, but some far exceed others in their powers of expression. their attitudes, gestures, and signs are so suggestive that they alone would enable one to understand the stories they relate. i have seen these story-tellers so much in earnest, so entirely carried away by the tale they were relating, that they fairly trembled with excitement. they held their little audiences spell-bound. the women dropped their half-sewn moccasin from their listless hands, and the men let the pipe go out. these stories for the most part were about the ancient gods and their miraculous doings. they were generally related by the old men, warriors who had seen their best days. many of them are recorded in this book. they are the explanations of the phenomena of life, and contain many a moral for the instruction of youth. the _i-k[)u]n-[)u]h'-kah-tsi_ contributed not a little to the entertainment of every-day life. frequent dances were held by the different bands of the society, and the whole camp always turned out to see them. the animal-head masks, brightly painted bodies, and queer performances were dear to the indian heart. such was the every-day life of the blackfeet in the buffalo days. when the camp moved, the women packed up their possessions, tore down the lodges, and loaded everything on the backs of the ponies or on the travois. meantime the chiefs had started on, and the soldiers--the brave band of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_--followed after them. after these leaders had gone a short distance, a halt was made to allow the column to close up. the women, children, horses, and dogs of the camp marched in a disorderly, straggling fashion, often strung out in a line a mile or two long. many of the men rode at a considerable distance ahead, and on each side of the marching column, hunting for any game that might be found, or looking over the country for signs of enemies. before the blackfeet obtained horses in the very first years of the present century, and when their only beasts of burden were dogs, their possessions were transported by these animals or on men's backs. we may imagine that in those days the journeys made were short ones, the camp travelling but a few miles. in moving the camp in ancient days, the heaviest and bulkiest things to be transported were the lodges. these were sometimes very large, often consisting of thirty cow-skins, and, when set up, containing two or three fires like this [illustration:] or in ground plan like this [illustration:]. the skins of these large lodges were sewn together in strips, of which there would be sometimes as many as four; and, when the lodge was set up, these strips were pinned together as the front of a common lodge is pinned to-day. the dogs carried the provisions, tools, and utensils, sometimes the lodge strips, if these were small enough, or anything that was heavy, and yet could be packed in small compass; for since dogs are small animals, and low standing, they cannot carry bulky burdens. still, some of the dogs were large enough to carry a load of one hundred pounds. dogs also hauled the travois, on which were bundles and sometimes babies. this was not always a safe means of transportation for infants, as is indicated by an incident related by john monroe's mother as having occurred in her father's time. the camp, on foot of course, was crossing a strip of open prairie lying between two pieces of timber, when a herd of buffalo, stampeding, rushed through the marching column. the loaded dogs rushed after the buffalo, dragging the travois after them and scattering their loads over the prairie. among the lost chattels were two babies, dropped off somewhere in the long grass, which were never found. there were certain special customs and beliefs which were a part of the every-day life of the people. in passing the pipe when smoking, it goes from the host, who takes the first smoke, to the left, passing from hand to hand to the door. it may not be passed across the door to the man on the other side, but must come back,--no one smoking,--pass the host, and go round to the man across the door from the last smoker. this man smokes and passes it to the one on his left, and so it goes on until it reaches the host again. a person entering a lodge where people are smoking must not pass in front of them, that is, between the smokers and the fire. a solemn form of affirmation, the equivalent of the civilized oath, is connected with smoking, which, as is well known, is with many tribes of indians a sacred ceremony. if a man sitting in a lodge tells his companions some very improbable story, something that they find it very hard to believe, and they want to test him, to see if he is really telling the truth, the pipe is given to a medicine man, who paints the stem red and prays over it, asking that if the man's story is true he may have long life, but if it is false his life may end in a short time. the pipe is then filled and lighted, and passed to the man, who has seen and overheard what has been done and said. the medicine man says to him: "accept this pipe, but remember that, if you smoke, your story must be as sure as that there is a hole through this pipe, and as straight as the hole through this stem. so your life shall be long and you shall survive, but if you have spoken falsely your days are counted." the man may refuse the pipe, saying, "i have told you the truth; it is useless to smoke this pipe." if he declines to smoke, no one believes what he has said; he is looked upon as having lied. if, however, he takes the pipe and smokes, every one believes him. it is the most solemn form of oath. the blackfoot pipes are usually made of black or green slate or sandstone. the blackfeet do not whip their children, but still they are not without some training. children must be taught, or they will not know anything; if they do not know anything, they will have no sense; and if they have no sense they will not know how to act. they are instructed in manners, as well as in other more general and more important matters. if a number of boys were in a lodge where older people were sitting, very likely the young people would be talking and laughing about their own concerns, and making so much noise that the elders could say nothing. if this continued too long, one of the older men would be likely to get up and go out and get a long stick and bring it in with him. when he had seated himself, he would hold it up, so that the children could see it and would repeat a cautionary formula, "i will give you gum!" this was a warning to them to make less noise, and was always heeded--for a time. after a little, however, the boys might forget and begin to chatter again, and presently the man, without further warning, would reach over and rap one of them on the head with the stick, when quiet would again be had for a time. in the same way, in winter, when the lodge was full of old and young people, and through lack of attention the fire died down, some older person would call out, "look out for the skunk!" which would be a warning to the boys to put some sticks on the fire. if this was not done at once, the man who had called out might throw a stick of wood across the lodge into the group of children, hitting and hurting one or more of them. it was taught also that, if, when young and old were in the lodge and the fire had burned low, an older person were to lay the unburned ends of the sticks upon the fire, all the children in the lodge would have the scab, or itch. so, at the call "look out for the scab!" some child would always jump to the fire, and lay up the sticks. there were various ways of teaching and training the children. men would make long speeches to groups of boys, playing in the camps, telling them what they ought to do to be successful in life. they would point out to them that to accomplish anything they must be brave and untiring in war; that long life was not desirable; that the old people always had a hard time, were given the worst side of the lodge and generally neglected; that when the camp was moved they suffered from cold; that their sight was dim, so that they could not see far; that their teeth were gone, so that they could not chew their food. only discomfort and misery await the old. much better, while the body is strong and in its prime, while the sight is clear, the teeth sound, and the hair still black and long, to die in battle fighting bravely. the example of successful warriors would be held up to them, and the boys urged to emulate their brave deeds. to such advice some boys would listen, while others would not heed it. the girls also were instructed. all indians like to see women more or less sober and serious-minded, not giggling all the time, not silly. a blackfoot man who had two or three girls would, as they grew large, often talk to them and give them good advice. after watching them, and taking the measure of their characters, he would one day get a buffalo's front foot and ornament it fantastically with feathers. when the time came, he would call one of his daughters to him and say to her: "now i wish you to stand here in front of me and look me straight in the eye without laughing. no matter what i may do, do not laugh." then he would sing a funny song, shaking the foot in the girl's face in time to the song, and looking her steadily in the eye. very likely before he had finished, she would begin to giggle. if she did this, the father would stop singing and tell her to finish laughing; and when she was serious again, he would again warn her not to laugh, and then would repeat his song. this time perhaps she would not laugh while he was singing. he would go through with this same performance before all his daughters. to such as seemed to have the steadiest characters, he would give good advice. he would talk to each girl of the duties of a woman's life and warn her against the dangers which she might expect to meet. at the time of the medicine lodge, he would take her to the lodge and point out to her the medicine lodge woman. he would say: "there is a good woman. she has built this medicine lodge, and is greatly honored and respected by all the people. once she was a girl just like you; and you, if you are good and live a pure life, may some day be as great as she is now. remember this, and try to live a worthy life." at the time of the medicine lodge, the boys in the camp also gathered to see the young men count their _coups_. a man would get up, holding in one hand a bundle of small sticks, and, taking one stick from the bundle, he would recount some brave deed, throwing away a stick as he completed the narrative of each _coup_, until the sticks were all gone, when he sat down, and another man stood up to begin his recital. as the boys saw and heard all this, and saw how respected those men were who had done the most and bravest things, they said to themselves, "that man was once a boy like us, and we, if we have strong hearts, may do as much as he has done." so even the very small boys used often to steal off from the camp, and follow war parties. often they went without the knowledge of their parents, and poorly provided, without food or extra moccasins. they would get to the enemy's camp, watch the ways of the young men, and so learn about going to war, how to act when on the war trail so as to be successful. also they came to know the country. the blackfeet men often went off by themselves to fast and dream for power. by no means every one did this, and, of those who attempted it, only a few endured to the end,--that is, fasted the whole four days,--and obtained the help sought. the attempt was not usually made by young boys before they had gone on their first war journey. it was often undertaken by men who were quite mature. those who underwent this suffering were obliged to abstain from food or drink for four days and four nights, resting for two nights on the right side, and for two nights on the left. it was deemed essential that the place to which a man resorted for this purpose should be unfrequented, where few or no persons had walked; and it must also be a place that tried the nerve, where there was some danger. such situations were mountain peaks; or narrow ledges on cut cliffs, where a careless movement might cause a man to fall to his death on the rocks below; or islands in lakes, which could only be reached by means of a raft, and where there was danger that a person might be seized and carried off by the _s[=u]'-y[=e] t[)u]p'-pi_, or under water people; or places where the dead had been buried, and where there was much danger from ghosts. or a man might lie in a well-worn buffalo trail, where the animals were frequently passing, and so he might be trodden on by a travelling band of buffalo; or he might choose a locality where bears were abundant and dangerous. wherever he went, the man built himself a little lodge of brush, moss, and leaves, to keep off the rain; and, after making his prayers to the sun and singing his sacred songs, he crept into the hut and began his fast. he was not allowed to take any covering with him, nor to roof over his shelter with skins. he always had with him a pipe, and this lay by him, filled, so that, when the spirit, or dream, came, it could smoke. they did not appeal to any special class of helpers, but prayed to all alike. often by the end of the fourth day, a secret helper--usually, but by no means always, in the form of some animal--appeared to the man in a dream, and talked with him, advising him, marking out his course through life, and giving him its power. there were some, however, on whom the power would not work, and a much greater number who gave up the fast, discouraged, before the prescribed time had been completed, either not being able to endure the lack of food and water, or being frightened by the strangeness or loneliness of their surroundings, or by something that they thought they saw or heard. it was no disgrace to fail, nor was the failure necessarily known, for the seeker after power did not always, nor perhaps often, tell any one what he was going to do. three modes of burial were practised by the blackfeet. they buried their dead on platforms placed in trees, on platforms in lodges, and on the ground in lodges. if a man dies in a lodge, it is never used again. the people would be afraid of the man's ghost. the lodge is often used to wrap the body in, or perhaps the man may be buried in it. as soon as a person is dead, be it man, woman, or child, the body is immediately prepared for burial, by the nearest female relations. until recently, the corpse was wrapped in a number of robes, then in a lodge covering, laced with rawhide ropes, and placed on a platform of lodge poles, arranged on the branches of some convenient tree. some times the outer wrapping--the lodge covering--was omitted. if the deceased was a man, his weapons, and often his medicine, were buried with him. with women a few cooking utensils and implements for tanning robes were placed on the scaffolds. when a man was buried on a platform in a lodge, the platform was usually suspended from the lodge poles. sometimes, when a great chief or noted warrior died, his lodge would be moved some little distance from the camp, and set up in a patch of brush. it would be carefully pegged down all around, and stones piled on the edges to make it additionally firm. for still greater security, a rope fastened to the lodge poles, where they come together at the smoke hole, came down, and was securely tied to a peg in the ground in the centre of the lodge, where the fireplace would ordinarily be. then the beds were made up all around the lodge, and on one of them was placed the corpse, lying as if asleep. the man's weapons, pipe, war clothing, and medicine were placed near him, and the door then closed. no one ever again entered such a lodge. outside the lodge, a number of his horses, often twenty or more, were killed, so that he might have plenty to ride on his journey to the sand hills, and to use after arriving there. if a man had a favorite horse, he might order it to be killed at his grave, and his order was always carried out. in ancient times, it is said, dogs were killed at the grave. women mourn for deceased relations by cutting their hair short. for the loss of a husband or son (but not a daughter), they not only cut their hair, but often take off one or more joints of their fingers, and always scarify the calves of their legs. besides this, for a month or so, they daily repair to some place near camp, generally a hill or little rise of ground, and there cry and lament, calling the name of the deceased over and over again. this may be called a chant or song, for there is a certain tune to it. it is in a minor key and very doleful. any one hearing it for the first time, even though wholly unacquainted with indian customs, would at once know that it was a mourning song, or at least was the utterance of one in deep distress. there is no fixed period for the length of time one must mourn. some keep up this daily lament for a few weeks only, and others much longer. i once came across an old wrinkled woman, who was crouched in the sage brush, crying and lamenting for some one, as if her heart would break. on inquiring if any one had lately died, i was told she was mourning for a son she had lost more than twenty years before. men mourn by cutting a little of their hair, going without leggings, and for the loss of a son, sometimes scarify their legs. this last, however, is never done for the loss of a wife, daughter, or any relative except a son. many blackfeet change their names every season. whenever a blackfoot counts a new _coup_, he is entitled to a new name. a blackfoot will never tell his name if he can avoid it. he believes that if he should speak his name, he would be unfortunate in all his undertakings. it was considered a gross breach of propriety for a man to meet his mother-in-law, and if by any mischance he did so, or what was worse, if he spoke to her, she demanded a very heavy payment, which he was obliged to make. the mother-in-law was equally anxious to avoid meeting or speaking to her son-in-law. how the blackfoot lived the primitive clothing of the blackfeet was made of the dressed skins of certain animals. women seldom wore a head covering. men, however, in winter generally used a cap made of the skin of some small animal, such as the antelope, wolf, badger, or coyote. as the skin from the head of these animals often formed part of the cap, the ears being left on, it made a very odd-looking head-dress. sometimes a cap was made of the skin of some large bird, such as the sage-hen, duck, owl, or swan. the ancient dress of the women was a shirt of cowskin, with long sleeves tied at the wrist, a skirt reaching half-way from knees to ankles, and leggings tied above the knees, with sometimes a supporting string running from the belt to the leggings. in more modern times, this was modified, and a woman's dress consisted of a gown or smock, reaching from the neck to below the knees. there were no sleeves, the armholes being provided with top coverings, a sort of cape or flap, which reached to the elbows. leggings were of course still worn. they reached to the knee, and were generally made, as was the gown, of the tanned skins of elk, deer, sheep, or antelope. moccasins for winter use were made of buffalo robe, and of tanned buffalo cowskin for summer wear. the latter were always made with parfleche soles, which greatly increased their durability, and were often ornamented over the instep or toes with a three-pronged figure, worked in porcupine quills or beads, the three prongs representing, it is said, the three divisions or tribes of the nation. the men wore a shirt, breech-clout, leggings which reached to the thighs, and moccasins. in winter both men and women wore a robe of tanned buffalo skin, and sometimes of beaver. in summer a lighter robe was worn, made of cowskin or buckskin, from which the hair had been removed. both sexes wore belts, which supported and confined the clothing, and to which were attached knife-sheaths and other useful articles. necklaces and ear-rings were worn by all, and were made of shells, bone, wood, and the teeth and claws of animals. elk tushes were highly prized, and were used for ornamenting women's dresses. a gown profusely decorated with them was worth two good horses. eagle feathers were used by the men to make head-dresses and to ornament shields and also weapons. small bunches of owl or grouse feathers were sometimes tied to the scalp locks. it is doubtful if the women ever took particular care of their hair. the men, however, spent a great deal of time brushing, braiding, and ornamenting their scalp locks. their hair was usually worn in two braids, one on each side of the head. less frequently, four braids were made, one behind and in front of each ear. sometimes, the hair of the forehead was cut off square, and brushed straight up; and not infrequently it was made into a huge topknot and wound with otter fur. often a slender lock, wound with brass wire or braided, hung down from one side of the forehead over the face. as a rule, the men are tall, straight, and well formed. their features are regular, the eyes being large and well set, and the nose generally moderately large, straight, and thin. their chests are splendidly developed. the women are quite tall for their sex, but, as a rule, not so good-looking as the men. their hands are large, coarse, and knotted by hard labor; and they early become wrinkled and careworn. they generally have splendid constitutions. i have known them to resume work a day after childbirth; and once, when travelling, i knew a woman to halt, give birth to a child, and catch up with the camp inside of four hours. as a rule, children are hardy and vigorous. they are allowed to do about as they please from the time they are able to walk. i have often seen them playing in winter in the snow, and spinning tops on the ice, barefooted and half-naked. under such conditions, those which have feeble constitutions soon die. only the hardiest reach maturity and old age. it is said that very long ago the people made houses of mud, sticks, and stones. it is not known what was their size or shape, and no traces of them are known to have been found. for a very long time, the lodge seems to have been their only dwelling. in ancient times, before they had knives of metal, stones were used to hold down the edges of the lodge, to keep it from being blown away. these varied in size from six inches to a foot or more in diameter. everywhere on the prairie, one may now see circles of these stones, and, within these circles, the smaller ones, which surrounded the fireplace. some of them have lain so long that only the tops now project above the turf, and undoubtedly many of them are buried out of sight. lodges were always made of tanned cowskin, nicely cut and sewn together, so as to form an almost perfect cone. at the top were two large flaps, called ears, which were kept extended or closed, according to the direction and strength of the wind, to create a draft and keep the lodge free from smoke. the lodge covering was supported by light, straight pine or spruce poles, about eighteen of which were required. twelve cowskins made a lodge about fourteen feet in diameter at the base, and ten feet high. i have heard of a modern one which contained forty skins. it was over thirty feet in diameter, and was so heavy that the skins were sewn in two pieces which buttoned together. an average-sized dwelling of this kind contained eighteen skins and was about sixteen feet in diameter. the lower edge of the lodge proper was fastened, by wooden pegs, to within an inch or two of the ground. inside, a lining, made of brightly painted cowskin, reached from the ground to a height of five or six feet. an air space of the thickness of the lodge poles--two or three inches--was thus left between the lining and the lodge covering, and the cold air, rushing up through it from the outside, made a draft, which aided the ears in freeing the lodge of smoke. the door was three or four feet high and was covered by a flap of skin, which hung down on the outside. thus made, with plenty of buffalo robes for seats and bedding, and a good stock of firewood, a lodge was very comfortable, even in the coldest weather. it was not uncommon to decorate the outside of the lodge with buffalo tails and brightly painted pictures of animals. inside, the space around was partitioned off into couches, or seats, each about six feet in length. at the foot and head of every couch, a mat, made of straight, peeled willow twigs, fastened side by side, was suspended on a tripod at an angle of forty-five degrees, so that between the couches spaces were left like an inverted v, making convenient places to store articles which were not in use. the owner of the lodge always occupied the seat or couch at the back of the lodge, directly opposite the door-way, the places on his right being occupied by his wives and daughters; though sometimes a blackfoot had so many wives that they occupied the whole lodge. the places on his left were reserved for his sons and visitors. when a visitor entered a lodge, he was assigned a seat according to his rank,--the nearer to the host, the greater the honor. bows were generally made of ash wood, which grows east of the mountains toward the sand hills. when for any reason they could not obtain ash, they used the wood of the choke-cherry tree, but this had not strength nor spring enough to be of much service. i have been told also that sometimes they used hazle wood for bows. arrows were made of shoots of the sarvis berry wood, which was straight, very heavy, and not brittle. they were smoothed and straightened by a stone implement. the grooves were made by pushing the shafts through a rib or other flat bone in which had been made a hole, circular except for one or two projections on the inside. these projections worked out the groove. the object of these grooves is said to have been to allow the blood to flow freely. each man marked his arrows by painting them, or by some special combination of colored feathers. the arrow heads were of two kinds,--barbed slender points for war, and barbless for hunting. knives were originally made of stone, as were also war clubs, mauls, and some of the scrapers for fleshing and graining hides. some of the flint knives were long, others short. a stick was fitted to them, forming a wooden handle. the handles of mauls and war clubs were usually made of green sticks fitted as closely as possible into a groove made in the stone, the whole being bound together by a covering of hide put on green, tightly fitted and strongly sewed. this, as it shrunk in drying, bound the different parts of the implement together in the strongest possible manner. short, heavy spears were used, the points being of stone or bone, barbed. i have heard no explanation among the blackfeet of the origin of fire. in ancient times, it was obtained by means of fire sticks, as described elsewhere. the starting of the spark with these sticks is said to have been hard work. at almost their first meeting with the whites, they obtained flints and steels, and learned how to use them. in ancient times,--in the days of fire sticks and even later, within the memory of men now living,--fire used to be carried from place to place in a "fire horn." this was a buffalo horn slung by a string over the shoulder like a powderhorn. the horn was lined with moist, rotten wood, and the open end had a wooden stopper or plug fitted to it. on leaving camp in the morning, the man who carried the horn took from the fire a small live coal and put it in the horn, and on this coal placed a piece of punk, and then plugged up the horn with the stopper. the punk smouldered in this almost air-tight chamber, and, in the course of two or three hours, the man looked at it, and if it was nearly consumed, put another piece of punk in the horn. the first young men who reached the appointed camping ground would gather two or three large piles of wood in different places, and as soon as some one who carried a fire horn reached camp, he turned out his spark at one of these piles of wood, and a little blowing and nursing gave a blaze which started the fire. the other fires were kindled from this first one, and when the women reached camp and had put the lodges up, they went to these fires, and got coals with which to start those in their lodges. this custom of borrowing coals persisted up to the last days of the buffalo, and indeed may even be noticed still. the punk here mentioned is a fungus, which grows on the birch tree. the indians used to gather this in large quantities and dry it. it was very abundant at the touchwood hills (whence the name) on beaver creek, a tributary of the saskatchewan from the south. the blackfeet made buckets, cups, basins, and dishes from the lining of the buffalo's paunch. this was torn off in large pieces, and was stretched over a flattened willow or cherry hoop at the bottom and top. these hoops were sometimes inside and sometimes outside the bucket or dish. in the latter case, the hoop at the bottom was often sewed to the paunch, which came down over it, double on the outside, the needle holes being pitched with gum or tallow. the hoop at the upper edge was also sewed to the paunch, and a rawhide bail passed under it, to carry it by. these buckets were shaped somewhat like our wooden ones, and were of different sizes, some of them holding four or five gallons. they were more or less flexible, and when carried in a pack, they could be flattened down like a crush hat, and so took up but little room. if set on the ground when full, they would stand up for a while, but as they soon softened and fell down, they were usually hung up by the bail on a little tripod. cups were made in the same way as buckets, but on a smaller scale and without the bail. of course, nothing hot could be placed in these vessels. it is doubtful if the blackfeet ever made any pottery or basket ware. they, however, made bowls and kettles of stone. there is an ancient children's song which consists of a series of questions asked an elk, and its replies to the same. in one place, the questioner sings, "elk, what is your bowl (or dish)?" and the elk answers, "_ok-wi-tok-so-ka_," stone bowl. on this point, wolf calf, a very old man, states that in early days the blackfeet sometimes boiled their meat in a stone bowl made out of a hard clayey rock.[1] choosing a fragment of the right size and shape, they would pound it with another heavier rock, dealing light blows until a hollow had been made in the top. this hollow was made deeper by pounding and grinding; and when it was deep enough, they put water in it, and set it on the fire, and the water would boil. these pots were strong and would last a long time. i do not remember that any other tribe of plains indians made such stone bowls or mortars, though, of course, they were commonly made, and in singular perfection, by the pacific coast tribes; and i have known of rare cases in which basalt mortars and small soapstone ollas have been found on the central plateau of the continent in southern wyoming. these articles, however, had no doubt been obtained by trade from western tribes. [footnote 1: see the blackfoot genesis, p. 141.] serviceable ladles and spoons were made of wood and of buffalo and mountain sheep horn. basins or flat dishes were sometimes made of mountain sheep horn, boiled, split, and flattened, and also of split buffalo horn, fitted and sewn together with sinew, making a flaring, saucer-shaped dish. these were used as plates or eating dishes. of course, they leaked a little, for the joints were not tight. wooden bowls and dishes were made from knots and protuberances of trees, dug out and smoothed by fire and the knife or by the latter alone. it is not known that these people ever made spears, hooks, or other implements for capturing fish. they appear never to have used boats of any kind, not even "bull boats." their highest idea of navigation was to lash together a few sticks or logs, on which to transport their possessions across a river. red, brown, yellow, and white paints were made by burning clays of these colors, which were then pulverized and mixed with a little grease. black paint was made of charred wood. bags and sacks were made of parfleche, usually ornamented with buckskin fringe, and painted with various designs in bright colors. figures having sharp angles are most common. the diet of the blackfeet was more varied than one would think. large quantities of sarvis berries (_amelanchier alnifolia_) were gathered whenever there was a crop (which occurs every other year), dried, and stored for future use. these were gathered by women, who collected the branches laden with ripe fruit, and beat them over a robe spread upon the ground. choke-cherries were also gathered when ripe, and pounded up, stones and all. a bushel of the fruit, after being pounded up and dried, was reduced to a very small quantity. this food was sometimes eaten by itself, but more often was used to flavor soups and to mix with pemmican. bull berries (_shepherdia argentea_) were a favorite fruit, and were gathered in large quantities, as was also the white berry of the red willow. this last is an exceedingly bitter, acrid fruit, and to the taste of most white men wholly unpleasant and repugnant. the blackfeet, however, are very fond of it; perhaps because it contains some property necessary to the nourishment of the body, which is lacking in their every-day food. the camas root, which grows abundantly in certain localities on the east slope of the rockies, was also dug, cooked, and dried. the bulbs were roasted in pits, as by the indians on the west side of the rocky mountains, the kalispels, and others. it is gathered while in the bloom--june 15 to july 15. a large pit is dug in which a hot fire is built, the bottom being first lined with flat stones. after keeping up this fire for several hours, until the stones and earth are thoroughly heated, the coals and ashes are removed. the pit is then lined with grass, and is filled almost to the top with camas bulbs. over these, grass is laid, then twigs, and then earth to a depth of four inches. on this a fire is built, which is kept up for from one to three days, according to the quantity of the bulbs in the pit. when the pit is opened, the small children gather about it to suck the syrup, which has collected on the twigs and grass, and which is very sweet. the fresh-roasted camas tastes something like a roasted chestnut, with a little of the flavor of the sweet potato. after being cooked, the roots are spread out in the sun to dry, and are then put in sacks to be stored away. sometimes a few are pounded up with sarvis berries, and dried. bitter-root is gathered, dried, and boiled with a little sugar. it is a slender root, an inch or two long and as thick as a goose quill, white in color, and looking like short lengths of spaghetti. it is very starchy. in the spring, a certain root called _mats_ was eaten in great quantities. this plant was known to the early french employees of the hudson's bay and american fur companies as _pomme blanche (psoralea esculenta)_. all parts of such animals as the buffalo, elk, deer, etc., were eaten, save only the lungs, gall, and one or two other organs. a favorite way of eating the paunch or stomach was in the raw state. liver, too, was sometimes eaten raw. the unborn calf of a fresh-killed animal, especially buffalo, was considered a great delicacy. the meat of this, when boiled, is white, tasteless, and insipid. the small intestines of the buffalo were sometimes dried, but more often were stuffed with long, thin strips of meat. during the stuffing process, the entrail was turned inside out, thus confining with the meat the sweet white fat that covers the intestine. the next step was to roast it a little, after which the ends were tied to prevent the escape of the juices, and it was thoroughly boiled in water. this is a very great delicacy, and when properly prepared is equally appreciated by whites and indians. as a rule, there were but two ways of cooking meat,--boiling and roasting. if roasted, it was thoroughly cooked; but if boiled, it was only left in the water long enough to lose the red color, say five or ten minutes. before they got kettles from the whites, the blackfeet often boiled meat in a green hide. a hole was dug in the ground, and the skin, flesh side up, was laid in it, being supported about the edges of the hole by pegs. the meat and water having been placed in this hollow, red-hot stones were dropped in the water until it became hot and the meat was cooked. in time of plenty, great quantities of dried meat were prepared for use when fresh meat could not be obtained. in making dried meat, the thicker parts of an animal were cut in large, thin sheets and hung in the sun to dry. if the weather was not fine, the meat was often hung up on lines or scaffolds in the upper part of the lodge. when properly cured and if of good quality, the sheets were about one-fourth of an inch thick and very brittle. the back fat of the buffalo was also dried, and eaten with the meat as we eat butter with bread. pemmican was made of the flesh of the buffalo. the meat was dried in the usual way; and, for this use, only lean meat, such as the hams, loin, and shoulders, was chosen. when the time came for making the pemmican, two large fires were built of dry quaking aspen wood, and these were allowed to burn down to red coals. the old women brought the dried meat to these fires, and the sheets of meat were thrown on the coals of one of them, allowed to heat through, turned to keep them from burning, and then thrown on the flesh side of a dry hide, that lay on the ground near by. after a time, the roasting of this dried meat caused a smoke to rise from the fire in use, which gave the meat a bitter taste, if cooked in it. they then turned to the other fire, and used that until the first one had burned clear again. after enough of the roasted meat had been thrown on the hide, it was flailed out with sticks, and being very brittle was easily broken up, and made small. it was constantly stirred and pounded until it was all fine. meantime, the tallow of the buffalo had been melted in a large kettle, and the pemmican bags prepared. these were made of bull's hide, and were in two pieces, cut oblong, and with the corners rounded off. two such pieces sewed together made a bag which would hold one hundred pounds. the pounded meat and tallow--the latter just beginning to cool--were put in a trough made of bull's hide, a wooden spade being used to stir the mixture. after it was thoroughly mixed, it was shovelled into one of the sacks, held open, and rammed down and packed tight with a big stick, every effort being made to expel all the air. when the bag was full and packed as tight as possible, it was sewn up. it was then put on the ground, and the women jumped on it to make it still more tight and solid. it was then laid away in the sun to cool and dry. it usually took the meat of two cows to make a bag of one hundred pounds; a very large bull might make a sack of from eighty to one hundred pounds. a much finer grade of pemmican was made from the choicest parts of the buffalo with marrow fat. to this dried berries and pounded choke-cherries were added, making a delicious food, which was extremely nutritious. pemmican was eaten either dry as it came from the sack, or stewed with water. in the spring, the people had great feasts of the eggs of ducks and other water-fowl. a large quantity having been gathered, a hole was dug in the ground, and a little water put in it. at short intervals above the water, platforms of sticks were built, on which the eggs were laid. a smaller hole was dug at one side of the large hole, slanting into the bottom of it. when all was ready, the top of the larger hole was covered with mud, laid upon cross sticks, and red-hot stones were dropped into the slant, when they rolled down into the water, heating it, and so cooking the eggs by steam. fish were seldom eaten by these people in early days, but now they seem very fond of them. turtles, frogs, and lizards are considered creatures of evil, and are never eaten. dogs, considered a great delicacy by the crees, gros ventres, sioux, assinaboines, and other surrounding tribes, were never eaten by the blackfeet. no religious motive is assigned for this abstinence. i once heard a piegan say that it was wrong to eat dogs. "they are our true friends," he said. "men say they are our friends and then turn against us, but our dogs are always true. they mourn when we are absent, and are always glad when we return. they keep watch for us in the night when we sleep. so pity the poor dogs." snakes, grasshoppers, worms, and other insects were never eaten. salt was an unknown condiment. many are now very fond of it, but i know a number, especially old people, who never eat it. social organization the social organization of the blackfeet is very simple. the three tribes acknowledged a blood relationship with each other, and, while distinct, still considered themselves a nation. in this confederation, it was understood that there should be no war against each other. however, between 1860 and 1870, when the whiskey trade was in its height, the three tribes were several times at swords' points on account of drunken brawls. once, about sixty or seventy years ago, the bloods and piegans had a quarrel so serious that men were killed on both sides and horses stolen; yet this was hardly a real war, for only a part of each tribe was involved, and the trouble was not of long duration. each one of the blackfoot tribes is subdivided into gentes, a gens being a body of consanguineal kindred in the male line. it is noteworthy that the blackfeet, although algonquins, have this system of subdivision, and it may be that among them the gentes are of comparatively recent date. no special duties are assigned to any one gens, nor has any gens, so far as i know, any special "medicine" or "totem." below is a list of the gentes of each tribe. blackfeet _(sik'-si-kau)_ gentes: _puh-ksi-nah'-mah-yiks_ flat bows. _mo-tah'-tos-iks_ many medicines. _siks-in'-o-kaks_ black elks. _e'-mi-tah-pahk-sai-yiks_ dogs naked. _sa'-yiks_ liars. _ai-sik'-stuk-iks_ biters. _tsin-ik-tsis'-tso-yiks_ early finished eating. _ap'-i-kai-yiks_ skunks. bloods (_kai'-nah_) _siksin'-o-kaks_ black elks. _ah-kwo'-nis-tsists_ many lodge poles. _ap-ut'-o-si'kai-nah_ north bloods. _is-ts'-kai-nah_ woods bloods. _in-uhk!-so-yi-stam-iks_ long tail lodge poles. _nit'-ik-skiks_ lone fighters. _siks-ah'-pun-iks_ blackblood. _ah-kaik'-sum-iks_ _i-sis'-o-kas-im-iks_ hair shirts. _ak-kai'-po-kaks_ many children. _sak-si-nah'-mah-yiks_ short bows. _ap'-i-kai-yiks_ skunks. _ahk-o'-tash-iks_ many horses. piegans _(pi-kun'-i)_ _ah'-pai-tup-iks_ blood people. _ah-kai-yi-ko-ka'-kin-iks_ white breasts. _ki'yis_ dried meat. _sik-ut'-si-pum-aiks_ black patched moccasins. _sik-o-pok'-si-maiks_ blackfat roasters. _tsin-ik-sis'-tso-yiks_ early finished eating. _kut'-ai-im-iks_ they don't laugh. _i'-pok-si-maiks_ fat roasters. _sik'-o-kit-sim-iks_ black doors. _ni-taw'-yiks_ lone eaters. _ap'-i-kai-yiks_ skunks. _mi-ah-wah'-pit-siks_ seldom lonesome. _nit'-ak-os-kit-si-pup-iks_ obstinate. _nit'-ik-skiks_ lone fighters. _i-nuks'-iks_ small robes. _mi-aw'-kin-ai-yiks_ big topknots. _esk'-sin-ai-tup-iks_ worm people. _i-nuk-si'-kah-ko-pwa-iks_ small brittle fat. _kah'-mi-taiks_ buffalo dung. _kut-ai-sot'-si-man_ no parfleche. _ni-tot'-si-ksis-stan-iks_ kill close by. _mo-twai'-naiks_ all chiefs. _mo-kum'-iks_ red round robes. _mo-tah'-tos-iks_ many medicines. it will be readily seen from the translations of the above that each gens takes its name from some peculiarity or habit it is supposed to possess. it will also be noticed that each tribe has a few gentes common to one or both of the other tribes. this is caused by persons leaving their own tribe to live with another one, but, instead of uniting with some gens of the adopted tribe, they have preserved the name of their ancestral gens for themselves and their descendants. the blackfoot terms of relationship will be found interesting. the principal family names are as follows:-my father _ni'-nah._ my mother _ni-kis'-ta._ my elder brother _nis'-ah_ my younger brother _nis-kun'._ my older sister _nin'-sta._ my younger sister _ni-sis'-ah._ my uncle _nis'-ah._ my aunt _ni-kis'-ta._ my cousin, male same as brother. my cousin, female same as sister. my grandfather _na-ahks'._ my grandmother _na-ahks'._ my father-in-law _na-ahks'._ my mother-in-law _na-ahks'._ my son _no-ko'-i._ my daughter _ni-tun'._ my son-in-law _nis'-ah._ my daughter-in-law _ni-tot'-o-ke-man._ my brother-in-law older than self _nis-tum-o'._ my brother-in-law younger than self _nis-tum-o'-kun._ my sister-in-law _ni-tot'-o-ke-man._ my second cousin _nimp'-sa._ my wife _nit-o-ke'-man._ my husband _no'-ma._ as the members of a gens were all considered as relatives, however remote, there was a law prohibiting a man from marrying within his gens. originally this law was strictly enforced, but like many of the ancient customs it is no longer observed. lately, within the last forty or fifty years, it has become not uncommon for a man and his family, or even two or three families, on account of some quarrel or some personal dislike of the chief of their own gens, to leave it and join another band. thus the gentes often received outsiders, who were not related by blood to the gens; and such people or their descendants could marry within the gens. ancestry became no longer necessary to membership. as a rule, before a young man could marry, he was required to have made some successful expeditions to war against the enemy, thereby proving himself a brave man, and at the same time acquiring a number of horses and other property, which would enable him to buy the woman of his choice, and afterwards to support her. marriages usually took place at the instance of the parents, though often those of the young man were prompted by him. sometimes the father of the girl, if he desired to have a particular man for a son-in-law, would propose to the father of the latter for the young man as a husband for his daughter. the marriage in the old days was arranged after this wise: the chief of one of the bands may have a marriageable daughter, and he may know of a young man, the son of a chief of another band, who is a brave warrior, of good character, sober-minded, steadfast, and trustworthy, who he thinks will make a good husband for his daughter and a good son-in-law. after he has made up his mind about this, he is very likely to call in a few of his close relations, the principal men among them, and state to them his conclusions, so as to get their opinions about it. if nothing is said to change his mind, he sends to the father of the boy a messenger to state his own views, and ask how the father feels about the matter. on receiving this word, the boy's father probably calls together his close relations, discusses the matter with them, and, if the match is satisfactory to him, sends back word to that effect. when this message is received, the relations of the girl proceed to fit her out with the very best that they can provide. if she is the daughter of well-to-do or wealthy people, she already has many of the things that are needed, but what she may lack is soon supplied. her mother makes her a new cowskin lodge, complete, with new lodge poles, lining, and back rests. a chiefs daughter would already have plenty of good clothing, but if the girl lacks anything, it is furnished. her dress is made of antelope skin, white as snow, and perhaps ornamented with two or three hundred elk tushes. her leggings are of deer skin, heavily beaded and nicely fringed, and often adorned with bells and brass buttons. her summer blanket or sheet is an elk skin, well tanned, without the hair and with the dew-claws left on. her moccasins are of deer skin, with parfleche soles and worked with porcupine quills. the marriage takes place as soon as these things can be provided. during the days which intervene between the proposal and the marriage, the young woman each day selects the choicest parts of the meat brought to the lodge,--the tongue, "boss ribs," some choice berry pemmican or what not,--cooks these things in the best style, and, either alone, or in company with a young sister, or a young friend, goes over to the lodge where the young man lives, and places the food before him. he eats some of it, little or much, and if he leaves anything, the girl offers it to his mother, who may eat of it. then the girl takes the dishes and returns to her father's lodge. in this way she provides him with three meals a day, morning, noon, and night, until the marriage takes place. every one in camp who sees the girl carrying the food in a covered dish to the young man's lodge, knows that a marriage is to take place; and the girl is watched by idle persons as she passes to and fro, so that the task is quite a trying one for people as shy and bashful as indians are. when the time for the marriage has come,--in other words, when the girl's parents are ready,--the girl, her mother assisting her, packs the new lodge and her own things on the horses, and moves out into the middle of the circle--about which all the lodges of the tribe are arranged--and there the new lodge is unpacked and set up. in front of the lodge are tied, let us say, fifteen horses, the girl's dowry given by her father. very likely, too, the father has sent over to the young man his own war clothing and arms, a lance, a fine shield, a bow and arrows in otter-skin case, his war bonnet, war shirt, and war leggings ornamented with scalps,--his complete equipment. this is set up on a tripod in front of the lodge. the gift of these things is an evidence of the great respect felt by the girl's father for his son-in-law. as soon as the young man has seen the preparations being made for setting up the girl's lodge in the centre of the circle, he sends over to his father-in-law's lodge just twice the number of horses that the girl brought with her,--in this supposed case, thirty. as soon as this lodge is set up, and the girl's mother has taken her departure and gone back to her own lodge, the young man, who, until he saw these preparations, had no knowledge of when the marriage was to take place, leaves his father's lodge, and, going over to the newly erected one, enters and takes his place at the back of it. probably during the day he will order his wife to take down the lodge, and either move away from the camp, or at least move into the circle of lodges; for he will not want to remain with his young wife in the most conspicuous place in the camp. often, on the same day, he will send for six or eight of his friends, and, after feasting them, will announce his intention of going to war, and will start off the same night. if he does so, and is successful, returning with horses or scalps, or both, he at once, on arrival at the camp, proceeds to his father-in-law's lodge and leaves there everything he has brought back, returning to his own lodge on foot, as poor as he left it. we have supposed the proposal in this case to come from the father of the girl, but if a boy desires a particular girl for his wife, the proposal will come from his father; otherwise matters are managed in the same way. this ceremony of moving into the middle of the circle was only performed in the case of important people. the custom was observed in what might be called a fashionable wedding among the blackfeet. poorer, less important people married more quietly. if the girl had reached marriageable age without having been asked for as a wife, she might tell her mother that she would like to marry a certain young man, that he was a man she could love and respect. the mother communicates this to the father of the girl, who invites the young man to the lodge to a feast, and proposes the match. the young man returns no answer at the time, but, going back to his father's lodge, tells him of the offer, and expresses his feelings about it. if he is inclined to accept, the relations are summoned, and the matter talked over. a favorable answer being returned, a certain number of horses--what the young man or his father, or both together, can spare--are sent over to the girl's father. they send as many as they can, for the more they send, the more they are thought of and looked up to. the girl, unless her parents are very poor, has her outfit, a saddle horse and pack horse with saddle and pack saddle, parfleches, etc. if the people are very poor, she may have only a riding horse. her relations get together, and do all in their power to give her a good fitting out, and the father, if he can possibly do so, is sure to pay them back what they have given. if he cannot do so, the things are still presented; for, in the case of a marriage, the relations on both sides are anxious to do all that they can to give the young people a good start in life. when all is ready, the girl goes to the lodge where her husband lives, and goes in. if this lodge is too crowded to receive the couple, the young man will make arrangements for space in the lodge of a brother, cousin, or uncle, where there is more room. these are all his close relations, and he is welcome in any of their lodges, and has rights there. sometimes, if two young people are fond of each other, and there is no prospect of their being married, they may take riding horses and a pack horse, and elope at night, going to some other camp for a while. this makes the girl's father angry, for he feels that he has been defrauded of his payments. the young man knows that his father-in-law bears him a grudge, and if he afterwards goes to war and is successful, returning with six or seven horses, he will send them all to the camp where his father-in-law lives, to be tied in front of his lodge. this at once heals the breach, and the couple may return. even if he has not been successful in war and brought horses, which of course he does not always accomplish, he from time to time sends the old man a present, the best he can. notwithstanding these efforts at conciliation, the parents feel very bitterly against him. the girl has been stolen. the union is no marriage at all. the old people are ashamed and disgraced for their daughter. until the father has been pacified by satisfactory payments, there is no marriage. moreover, unless the young man had made a payment, or at least had endeavored to do so, he would be little thought of among his fellows, and looked down on as a poor creature without any sense of honor. the blackfeet take as many wives as they wish; but these ceremonies are only carried out in the case of the first wife, the "sits-beside-him" woman. in the case of subsequent marriages, if the man had proved a good, kind husband to his first wife, other men, who thought a good deal of their daughters, might propose to give them to him, so that they would be well treated. the man sent over the horses to the new father-in-law's lodge, and the girl returned to his, bringing her things with her. or if the man saw a girl he liked, he would propose for her to her father. among the blackfeet, there was apparently no form of courtship, such as prevails among our southern indians. young men seldom spoke to young girls who were not relations, and the girls were carefully guarded. they never went out of the lodge after dark, and never went out during the day, except with the mother or some other old woman. the girl, therefore, had very little choice in the selection of a husband. if a girl was told she must marry a certain man, she had to obey. she might cry, but her father's will was law, and she might be beaten or even killed by him, if she did not do as she was ordered. as a consequence of this severity, suicide was quite common among the blackfoot girls. a girl ordered to marry a man whom she did not like would often watch her chance, and go out in the brush and hang herself. the girl who could not marry the man she wanted to was likely to do the same thing. the man had absolute power over his wife. her life was in his hands, and if he had made a payment for her, he could do with her about as he pleased. on the whole, however, women who behaved themselves were well treated and received a good deal of consideration. those who were light-headed, or foolish, or obstinate and stubborn were sometimes badly beaten. those who were unfaithful to their husbands usually had their noses or ears, or both, cut off for the first offence, and were killed either by the husband or some relation, or by the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ for the second. many of the doctors of the highest reputation in the tribe were women. it is a common belief among some of those who have investigated the subject that the wife in indian marriage was actually purchased, and became the absolute property of her husband. though i have a great respect for some of the opinions which have been expressed on this subject, i am obliged to take an entirely different view of the matter. i have talked this subject over many times with young men and old men of a number of tribes, and i cannot learn from them, or in any other way, that in primitive times the woman was purchased from her father. the husband did not have property rights in his wife. she was not a chattel that he could trade away. he had all personal rights, could beat his wife, or, for cause, kill her, but he could not sell her to another man. all the younger sisters of a man's wife were regarded as his potential wives. if he was not disposed to marry them, they could not be disposed of to any other man without his consent. not infrequently, a man having a marriageable daughter formally gave her to some young man who had proved himself brave in war, successful in taking horses, and, above all, of a generous disposition. this was most often done by men who had no sons to support them in their old age. it is said that in the old days, before they had horses, young men did not expect to marry until they had almost reached middle life,--from thirty-five to forty years of age. this statement is made by wolf calf, who is now very old, almost one hundred years, he believes, and can remember back nearly or quite to the time when the blackfeet obtained their first horses. in those days, young women did not marry until they were grown up, while of late years fathers not infrequently sell their daughters as wives when they are only children. the first woman a man marries is called his sits-beside-him wife. she is invested with authority over all the other wives, and does little except to direct the others in their work, and look after the comfort of her husband. her place in the lodge is on his right-hand side, while the others have their places or seats near the door-way. this wife is even allowed at informal gatherings to take a whiff at the pipe, as it is passed around the circle, and to participate in the conversation. in the old days, it was a very poor man who did not have three wives. many had six, eight, and some more than a dozen. i have heard of one who had sixteen. in those times, provided a man had a good-sized band of horses, the more wives he had, the richer he was. he could always find young men to hunt for him, if he furnished the mounts, and, of course, the more wives he had, the more robes and furs they would tan for him. if, for any cause, a man wished to divorce himself from a woman, he had but to send her back to her parents and demand the price paid for her, and the matter was accomplished. the woman was then free to marry again, provided her parents were willing. when a man dies, his wives become the potential wives of his oldest brother. unless, during his life, he has given them outright horses and other property, at his death they are entitled to none of his possessions. if he has sons, the property is divided among them, except a few horses, which are given to his brothers. if he has no sons, all the property goes to his brothers, and if there are no brothers, it goes to the nearest male relatives on the father's side. the blackfeet cannot be said to have been slave-holders. it is true that the crees call the blackfeet women "little slaves." but this, as elsewhere suggested, may refer to the region whence they originally came, though it is often explained that it is on account of the manner in which the blackfeet treat their women, killing them or mutilating their features for adultery and other serious offences. although a woman, all her life, was subject to some one's orders, either parent, relative, or husband, a man from his earliest childhood was free and independent. his father would not punish him for any misconduct, his mother dared not. at an early age he was taught to ride and shoot, and horses were given to him. by the time he was twelve, he had probably been on a war expedition or two. as a rule in later times, young men married when they were seventeen or eighteen years of age; and often they resided for several years with their fathers, until the family became so large that there was not room for them all in the lodge. there were always in the camp a number of boys, orphans, who became the servants of wealthy men for a consideration; that is, they looked after their patron's horses and hunted, and in return they were provided with suitable food and clothing. among the blackfeet, all men were free and equal, and office was not hereditary. formerly each gens was governed by a chief, who was entitled to his office by virtue of his bravery and generosity. the head chief was chosen by the chiefs of the gentes from their own number, and was usually the one who could show the best record in war, as proved at the medicine lodge,[1] at which time he was elected; and for the ensuing year he was invested with the supreme power. but no matter how brave a man might have been, or how successful in war, he could not hope to be the chief either of a gens or of the tribe, unless he was kind-hearted, and willing to share his prosperity with the poor. for this reason, a chief was never a wealthy man, for what he acquired with one hand he gave away with the other. it was he who decided when the people should move camp, and where they should go. but in this, as in all other important affairs, he generally asked the advice of the minor chiefs. [footnote 1: see chapter on religion.] the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ (all comrades) were directly under the authority of the head chief, and when any one was to be punished, or anything else was to be done which came within their province as the tribal police, it was he who issued the orders. the following were the crimes which the blackfeet considered sufficiently serious to merit punishment, and the penalties which attached to them. murder: a life for a life, or a heavy payment by the murderer or his relatives at the option of the murdered man's relatives. this payment was often so heavy as absolutely to strip the murderer of all property. theft: simply the restoration of the property. adultery: for the first offence the husband generally cut off the offending wife's nose or ears; for the second offence she was killed by the all comrades. often the woman, if her husband complained of her, would be killed by her brothers or first cousins, and this was more usual than death at the hands of the all comrades. however, the husband could have her put to death for the first offence, if he chose. treachery (that is, when a member of the tribe went over to the enemy or gave them any aid whatever): death at sight. cowardice: a man who would not fight was obliged to wear woman's dress, and was not allowed to marry. if a man left camp to hunt buffalo by himself, thereby driving away the game, the all comrades were sent after him, and not only brought him back by main force, but often whipped him, tore his lodge to shreds, broke his travois, and often took away his store of dried meat, pemmican, and other food. the tradition of the origin of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ has elsewhere been given. this association of the all comrades consisted of a dozen or more secret societies, graded according to age, the whole constituting an association which was in part benevolent and helpful, and in part military, but whose main function was to punish offences against society at large. all these societies were really law and order associations. the m[)u]t'-s[)i]ks, or braves, was the chief society, but the others helped the braves. a number of the societies which made up the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ have been abandoned in recent years, but several of them still exist. among the pi-kun'-i, the list--so far as i have it--is as follows, the societies being named in order from those of boyhood to old age:-societies of the all comrades _ts[)i]-st[=i]ks'_, little birds, includes boys from 15 to 20 years old. _k[)u]k-k[=u][=i]cks'_, pigeons, men who have been to war several times. _t[)u]is-k[)i]s-t[=i]ks_, mosquitoes, men who are constantly going to war _m[)u]t'-s[)i]ks_, braves, tried warriors. _kn[)a]ts-o-mi'-ta_, all crazy dogs, about forty years old. _ma-stoh'-pa-ta-k[=i]ks_ raven bearers. _e'-mi-taks_, dogs, old men. dogs and tails are different societies, _is'-sui_, tails, but they dress alike and dance together and alike. _[)e]ts-[=a]i'-nah_, horns, bloods, obsolete among the piegans, _sin'-o-pah_, kit-foxes, piegans, but still exists with bloods. _[)e]-[)i]n'-a-ke_, catchers or soldiers, obsolete for 25-30 years, perhaps longer. _st[)u]'m[=i]ks_, bulls, obsolete for 50 years. there may be other societies of the all comrades, but these are the only ones that i know of at present. the m[=u]t'-s[)i]ks, braves, and the knats-o-mi'-ta, all crazy dogs, still exist, but many of the others are being forgotten. since the necessity for their existence has passed, they are no longer kept up. they were a part of the old wild life, and when the buffalo disappeared, and the blackfeet came to live about an agency, and to try to work for a subsistence, the societies soon lost their importance. the societies known as little birds, mosquitoes, and doves are not really bands of the all comrades, but are societies among the boys and young men in imitation of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, but of comparatively recent origin. men not more than fifty years old can remember when these societies came into existence. of all the societies of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi,_ the sin'-o-pah, or kit-fox band, has the strongest medicine. this corresponds to the horns society among the bloods. they are the same band with different names. they have certain peculiar secret and sacred ceremonies, not to be described here. the society of the stum'-[=i]ks, or bulls, became obsolete more than fifty years ago. their dress was very fine,--bulls' heads and robes. the members of the younger society purchased individually, from the next older one, its rights and privileges, paying horses for them. for example, each member of the mosquitoes would purchase from some member of the braves his right of membership in the latter society. the man who has sold his rights is then a member of no society, and if he wishes to belong to one, must buy into the one next higher. each of these societies kept some old men as members, and these old men acted as messengers, orators, and so on. the change of membership from one society to another was made in the spring, after the grass had started. two, three, or more lodge coverings were stretched over poles, making one very large lodge, and in this the ceremonies accompanying the changes took place. in later times, the braves were the most important and best known of any of the all comrades societies. the members of this band were soldiers or police. they were the constables of the camp, and it was their duty to preserve order, and to punish offenders. sometimes young men would skylark in camp at night, making a great noise when people wanted to sleep, and would play rough practical jokes, that were not at all relished by those who suffered from them. one of the forms which their high spirits took was to lead and push a young colt up to the door of a lodge, after people were asleep, and then, lifting the door, to shove the animal inside and close the door again. of course the colt, in its efforts to get out to its mother, would run round and round the lodge, trampling over the sleepers and roughly awakening them, knocking things down and creating the utmost confusion, while the mare would be whinnying outside the lodge, and the people within, bewildered and confused, did not know what the disturbance was all about. the braves would punish the young men who did such things,--if they could catch them,--tearing up their blankets, taking away their property, and sometimes whipping them severely. they were the peace officers of the camp, like the _lari p[=u]k'[=u]s_ among the pawnees. among the property of the brave society were two stone-pointed arrows, one "shield you don't sit down with," and one rattle. the man who carried this rattle was known as brave dog, and if it passed from one member of the society to another, the new owner became known as brave dog. the man who received the shield could not sit down for the next four days and four nights, but for all that time was obliged to run about the camp, or over the prairie, whistling like a rabbit. the societies known as soldiers and bulls had passed out of existence before the time of men now of middle age. the pipe of the soldier society is still in existence, in the hands of double runner. the bull's head war bonnet, which was the insignia of the bulls society, was formerly in the possession of young bear chief, at present chief of the don't laugh band of the piegans. he gave it to white calf, who presented it to a recent agent. in the old days, and, indeed, down to the time of the disappearance of the buffalo, the camp was always arranged in the form of a circle, the lodges standing at intervals around the circumference, and in the wide inner space there was another circle of lodges occupied by the chief of certain bands of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_. when all the gentes of the tribe were present, each had its special position in the circle, and always occupied it. the lodge of the chief of the gens stood just within the circle, and about it his people camped. the order indicated in the accompanying diagram represents the piegan camp as it used to stand thirty-five or forty years ago. a number of the gentes are now extinct, and it is not altogether certain just what the position of those should be; for while all the older men agree on the position to be assigned to certain of the gentes, there are others about which there are differences of opinion or much uncertainty. it is stated that the gentes known as seldom lonesome, dried meat, and no parfleche belong to that section of the tribe known as north piegans, which, at the time of the first treaty, separated from the pi-kun'-i, and elected to live under british rule. the lodges of the chiefs of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ which were within the circle served as lounging and eating places for such members of the bands as were on duty, and were council lodges or places for idling, as the occasion demanded. when the camp moved, the blood gens moved first and was followed by the white breast gens, and so on around the circle to number 24. on camping, the bloods camped first, and the others after them in the order indicated, number 24 camping last and closing up the circle. diagram of old-time piegan camp, say 1850 to 1855. twenty-four lodges of chiefs of the gentes about the outer circle. the inner circle shows lodges of chiefs of certain bands of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi._ [illustration] gentes of the pi-kun'-i 1. blood people. 2. white breasts. 3. dried meat. 4. black patched moccasins. 5. black fat roasters. 6. early finished eating. 7. don't laugh. 8. fat roasters. 9. black doors. 10. lone eaters. 11. skunks. 12. seldom lonesome. 13. obstinate. 14. lone fighters. 15. small robes. 16. big topknots. 17. worm people. 18. small brittle fat. 19. buffalo dung. 20. no parfleche. 21. kill close bye 22. all chiefs. 23. red round robes. 24. many medicines. bands of the i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi a. all crazy dogs. b. dogs. c. tails. d. kit-foxes. e. raven bearers. f. braves. g. mosquitoes. h. soldiers. i. doves. hunting the blackfoot country probably contained more game and in greater variety than any other part of the continent. theirs was a land whose physical characteristics presented sharp contrasts. there were far-stretching grassy prairies, affording rich pasturage for the buffalo and the antelope; rough breaks and bad lands for the climbing mountain sheep; wooded buttes, loved by the mule deer; timbered river bottoms, where the white-tailed deer and the elk could browse and hide; narrow, swampy valleys for the moose; and snow-patched, glittering pinnacles of rock, over which the sure-footed white goat took his deliberate way. the climate varied from arid to humid; the game of the prairie, the timber, and the rocks, found places suited to their habits. fur-bearing animals abounded. noisy hordes of wild fowl passed north and south in their migrations, and many stopped here to breed. the blackfoot country is especially favored by the warm chinook winds, which insure mild winters with but little snow; and although on the plains there is usually little rain in summer, the short prairie grasses are sweet and rich. all over this vast domain, the buffalo were found in countless herds. elk, deer, antelope, mountain sheep, and bear without number were there. in those days, sheep were to be found on every ridge, and along the rough bad lands far from the mountains. now, except a few in the "breaks" of the missouri, they occur only on the highest and most inaccessible mountains, along with the white goats, which, although pre-eminently mountain animals, were in early days sometimes found far out on the prairie. buffalo the blackfeet were a race of meat-eaters, and, while they killed large quantities of other game, they still depended for subsistence on the buffalo. this animal provided them with almost all that they needed in the way of food, clothing, and shelter, and when they had an abundance of the buffalo they lived in comfort. almost every part of the beast was utilized. the skin, dressed with the hair on, protected them from the winter's cold; freed from the hair, it was used for a summer sheet or blanket, for moccasins, leggings, shirts, and women's dresses. the tanned cowskins made their lodges, the warmest and most comfortable portable shelters ever devised. from the rawhide, the hair having been shaved off, were made parfleches, or trunks, in which to pack small articles. the tough, thick hide of the bull's neck, spread out and allowed to shrink smooth, made a shield for war which would stop an arrow, and turn a lance thrust or the ball from an old-fashioned, smooth-bore gun. the green hide served as a kettle, in which to boil meat. the skin of the hind leg, cut off above the pastern and again some distance above the hock, was sometimes used as a moccasin or boot, the lower opening being sewed up for the toe. a variety of small articles, such as cradles, gun covers, whips, mittens, quivers, bow cases, knife-sheaths, etc., were made from the hide. braided strands of hide furnished them with ropes and lines. the hair was used to stuff cushions and, later, saddles, and parts of the long black flowing beard to ornament wearing apparel and implements of war, such as shields and quivers. the horns gave them spoons and ladles--sometimes used as small dishes--and ornamented their war bonnets. from the hoofs they made a glue, which they used in fastening the heads and feathers on their arrows, and the sinew backs on their bows. the sinews which lie along the back and on the belly were used as thread and string, and as backing for bows to give them elasticity and strength. from the ribs were made scrapers used in dressing hides, and runners for small sledges drawn by dogs; and they were employed by the children in coasting down hill on snow or ice. the shoulder-blades, lashed to a wooden handle, formed axes, hoes, and fleshers. from the cannon bones (metatarsals and metacarpals) were made scrapers for dressing hides. the skin of the tail, fitted on a stick, was used as a fly brush. these are but a few of the uses to which the product of the buffalo was put. as has been said, almost every part of the flesh was eaten. now it must be remembered that in early days the hunting weapons of this people consisted only of stone-pointed arrows, and with such armament the capture of game of the larger sorts must have been a matter of some uncertainty. to drive a rude stone-headed arrow through the tough hide and into the vitals of the buffalo, could not have been--even under the most favorable circumstances--other than a difficult matter; and although we may assume that, in those days, it was easy to steal up to within a few yards of the unsuspicious animals, we can readily conceive that many arrows must have been shot without effect, for one that brought down the game. certain ingenious methods were therefore devised to insure the taking of game in large numbers at one time. this was especially the case with the buffalo, which were the food and raiment of the people. one of these contrivances was called pis'kun, deep-kettle; or, since the termination of the word seems to indicate the last syllable of the word _ah'-pun,_ blood, it is more likely deep-blood-kettle. this was a large corral, or enclosure, built out from the foot of a perpendicular cliff or bluff, and formed of natural banks, rocks, and logs or brush,--anything in fact to make a close, high barrier. in some places the enclosure might be only a fence of brush, but even here the buffalo did not break it down, for they did not push against it, but ran round and round within, looking for a clear space through which they might pass. from the top of the bluff, directly over the pis'kun, two long lines of rock piles and brush extended far out on the prairie, ever diverging from each other like the arms of the letter v, the opening over the pis'kun being at the angle. in the evening of the day preceding a drive of buffalo into the pis'kun a medicine man, usually one who was the possessor of a buffalo rock, in-is'-kim, unrolled his pipe, and prayed to the sun for success. next morning the man who was to call the buffalo arose very early, and told his wives that they must not leave the lodge, nor even look out, until he returned; that they should keep burning sweet grass, and should pray to the sun for his success and safety. without eating or drinking, he then went up on the prairie, and the people followed him, and concealed themselves behind the rocks and bushes which formed the v, or chute. the medicine man put on a head-dress made of the head of a buffalo, and a robe, and then started out to approach the animals. when he had come near to the herd, he moved about until he had attracted the attention of some of the buffalo, and when they began to look at him, he walked slowly away toward the entrance of the chute. usually the buffalo followed, and, as they did so, he gradually increased his pace. the buffalo followed more rapidly, and the man continually went a little faster. finally, when the buffalo were fairly within the chute, the people began to rise up from behind the rock piles which the herd had passed, and to shout and wave their robes. this frightened the hinder-most buffalo, which pushed forward on the others, and before long the whole herd was running at headlong speed toward the precipice, the rock piles directing them to the point over the enclosure. when they reached it, most of the animals were pushed over, and usually even the last of the band plunged blindly down into the pis'kun. many were killed outright by the fall; others had broken legs or broken backs, while some perhaps were uninjured. the barricade, however, prevented them from escaping, and all were soon killed by the arrows of the indians. it is said that there was another way to get the buffalo into this chute. a man who was very skilful in arousing the buffalo's curiosity, might go out without disguise, and by wheeling round and round in front of the herd, appearing and disappearing, would induce them to move toward him, when it was easy to entice them into the chute. once there, the people began to rise up behind them, shouting and waving their robes, and the now terror-stricken animals rushed ahead, and were driven over the cliff into the pis'kun, where all were quickly killed and divided among the people, the chiefs and the leading warrior getting the best and fattest animals. the pis'kun was in use up to within thirty-five or forty years, and many men are still living who have seen the buffalo driven over the cliff. such men even now speak with enthusiasm of the plenty that successful drives brought to the camp. the pis'kuns of the sik'-si-kau, or blackfoot tribe, differed in some particulars from those constructed by the bloods and the piegans, who live further to the south, nearer to the mountains, and so in a country which is rougher and more broken. the sik'-si-kau built their pis'kuns like the crees, on level ground and usually near timber. a large pen or corral was made of heavy logs about eight feet high. on the side where the wings of the chute come together, a bridge, or causeway, was built, sloping gently up from the prairie to the walls of the corral, which at this point were cut away to the height of the bridge above the ground,--here about four feet,--so that the animals running up the causeway could jump down into the corral. the causeway was fenced in on either side by logs, so that the buffalo could not run off it. after they had been lured within the wings of the chute, they were driven toward the corral as already described. when they reached the end of the >, they ran up the bridge, and jumped down into the pen. when it was full, or all had entered, indians, who had lain hidden near by, ran upon the bridge, and placed poles, prepared beforehand, across the opening through which the animals had entered, and over these poles hung robes, so as entirely to close the opening. the buffalo will not dash themselves against a barrier which is entirely closed, even though it be very frail; but if they can see through it to the outside, they will rush against it, and their great weight and strength make it easy for them to break down any but a heavy wall. mr. hugh monroe tells me that he has seen a pis'kun built of willow brush; and the cheyennes have stated to me that their buffalo corrals were often built of brush. sometimes, if the walls of the pis'kun were not high, the buffalo tried to jump or climb over them, and, in doing this, might break them down, and some or all escape. as soon, however, as the animals were in the corral, the people--women and children included--ran up and showed themselves all about the walls, and by their cries kept the buffalo from pressing against the walls. the animals ran round and round within, and the men standing on the walls shot them down as they passed. the butchering was done in the pis'kun, and after this was over, the place was cleaned out, the heads, feet, and least perishable offal being removed. wolves, foxes, badgers, and other small carnivorous animals visited the pis'kun, and soon made away with the entrails. in winter, when the snow was on the ground, and the buffalo were to be led to the pis'kun, the following method was adopted to keep the herd travelling in the desired direction after they had got between the wings of the chute. a line of buffalo chips, each one supported on three small sticks, so that it stood a few inches above the snow, was carried from the mouth of the pis'kun straight out toward the prairie. the chips were about thirty feet apart, and ran midway between the wings of the chute. this line was, of course, conspicuous against the white snow, and when the buffalo were running down the chute, they always followed it, never turning to the right nor to the left. in the latter days of the pis'kun, the man who led the buffalo was often mounted on a white horse. often, when they drove the buffalo over a high vertical cliff, no corral was built beneath. most of those driven over were killed or disabled by the fall, and only a few got away. the pis'kuns, as a rule, were built under low-cut bluffs, and sometimes the buffalo were driven in by moonlight. in connection with the subject of leading or decoying the buffalo, another matter not generally known may be mentioned. sometimes, as a matter of convenience, a herd was brought from a long distance close up to the camp. this was usually done in the spring of the year, when the horses were thin in flesh and not in condition to stand a long chase. i myself have never seen this; but my friend, william jackson, was once present at such a drive by the red river half-breeds, and has described to me the way in which it was done. the camp was on box elder creek near the musselshell river. it was in the spring of 1881, and the horses were all pretty well run down and thin, so that their owners wished to spare them as much as possible. the buffalo were seven or eight miles distant, and two men were sent out to bring them to the camp. other men, leading fresh horses, went with them, and hid themselves among the hills at different points along the course that the buffalo were expected to take, at intervals of a mile and a half. they watched the herd, and were on hand to supply the fresh horses to the men who were bringing it. the buffalo were on a wide flat, and the men rode over the hill and advanced toward the herd at a walk. at length the buffalo noticed them, and began to huddle up together and to walk about, and at length to walk away. then the men turned, and rode along parallel to the buffalo's course, and at the same gait that these were taking. when the buffalo began to trot, the men trotted, and when the herd began to lope, the men loped, and at length they were all running pretty fast. the men kept about half a mile from the herd, and up even with the leaders. as they ran, the herd kept constantly edging a little toward the riders, as if trying to cross in front of them. this inclination toward the men was least when they were far off, and greatest when they drew nearer to them. at no time were the men nearer to the herd than four hundred yards. if the buffalo edged too much toward the riders, so that the course they were taking would lead them away from camp, the men would drop back and cross over behind the herd to the other side, and then, pushing their horses hard, would come up with the leaders,--but still at a distance from them,--and then the buffalo would begin to edge toward them, and the herd would be brought back again to the desired course. if necessary, this was repeated, and so the buffalo were kept travelling in a course approximately straight. by the time the buffalo had got pretty near to the camp, they were pretty well winded, and the tongues of many of them were hanging out. this herd was led up among the rolling hills about a mile from the camp, and there the people were waiting for them, and charged them, when the herd broke up, the animals running in every direction. occasionally it would happen that for a long time the buffalo would not be found in a place favorable for driving over the cliff or into a pen. in such cases, the indians would steal out on foot, and, on a day when there was no wind, would stealthily surround the herd. then they would startle the buffalo, and yet would keep them from breaking through the circle. the buffalo would "mill" around until exhausted, and at length, when worn out, would be shot down by the indians. this corresponds almost exactly with one of the methods employed in killing buffalo by the pawnees in early days before they had horses.[1] in those days the pi-k[)u]n'-i were very numerous, and sometimes when a lot of buffalo were found in a favorable position, and there was no wind, the people would surround them, and set up their lodges about them, thus practically building a corral of lodges. after all preparations had been made, they would frighten the buffalo, which, being afraid to pass through between the lodges, would run round and round in a great circle, and when they were exhausted the people would kill them. [footnote 1: pawnee hero stories and folk-tales, p. 250.] then they always had plenty of buffalo--if not fresh meat, that which they had dried. for in winter they would kill large numbers of buffalo, and would prepare great stores of dried meat. as spring opened, the buffalo would move down to the more flat prairie country away from the pis'kuns. then the blackfeet would also move away. as winter drew near, the buffalo would again move up close to the mountains, and the indians, as food began to become scarce, would follow them toward the pis'kuns. in the last of the summer and early autumn, they always had runners out, looking for the buffalo, to find where they were, and which way they were moving. in the early autumn, all the pis'kuns were repaired and strengthened, so as to be in good order for winter. in the days before they had horses, and even in later times when the ground was of such a character as to prevent running the buffalo, an ingenious method of still-hunting them was practised. a story told by hugh monroe illustrates it. he said: "i was often detailed by the hudson's bay company to go out in charge of a number of men, to kill meat for the fort. when the ground was full of holes and wash-outs, so that running was dangerous, i used to put on a big timber wolf's skin, which i carried for the purpose, tying it at my neck and waist, and then to sneak up to the buffalo. i used a bow and arrows, and generally shot a number without alarming them. if one looked suspiciously at me, i would howl like a wolf. sometimes the smell of the blood from the wounded and dying would set the bulls crazy. they would run up and lick the blood, and sometimes toss the dead ones clear from the ground. then they would bellow and fight each other, sometimes goring one another so badly that they died. the great bulls, their tongues covered with blood, their eyes flashing, and tails sticking out straight, roaring and fighting, were terrible to see; and it was a little dangerous for me, because the commotion would attract buffalo from all directions to see what was going on. at such times, i would signal to my men, and they would ride up and scare the buffalo away." in more modern times, the height of pleasure to a blackfoot was to ride a good horse and run buffalo. when bows and arrows, and, later, muzzle-loading "fukes" were the only weapons, no more buffalo were killed than could actually be utilized. but after the winchester repeater came in use, it seemed as if the different tribes vied with each other in wanton slaughter. provided with one of these weapons and a couple of belts of cartridges, the hunters would run as long as their horses could keep up with the band, and literally cover the prairie with carcasses, many of which were never even skinned. antelope it is said that once in early times the men determined that they would use antelope skins for their women's dresses, instead of cowskins. so they found a place where antelope were plenty, and set up on the prairie long lines of rock piles, or of bushes, so as to form a chute like a >. near the point where the lines joined, they dug deep pits, which they roofed with slender poles, and covered these with grass and a little dirt. then the people scattered out, and while most of them hid behind the rock piles and bushes, a few started the antelope toward the mouth of the chute. as they ran by them, the people showed themselves and yelled, and the antelope ran down the chute and finally reached the pits, and falling into them were taken, when they were killed and divided among the hunters. afterward, this was the common method of securing antelopes up to the coming of the whites. eagles before the whites came to the blackfoot country, the indian standard of value was eagle tail-feathers. they were used to make war head-dresses, to tie on the head, and to ornament shields, lances, and other weapons. besides this, the wings were used for fans, and the body feathers for arrow-making. always a wary bird, the eagle could seldom be approached near enough for killing with the bow and arrow; and, in fact, it seems as if it was considered improper to kill it in that way. the capture of these birds appears to have had about it something of a sacred nature, and, as was always the case among wild indians when anything important was to be undertaken, it was invariably preceded by earnest prayers to the deity for help and for success. there are still living many men who have caught eagles in the ancient method, and, from several of these, accounts have been received, which, while essentially similar, yet differ in certain particulars, especially in the explanations of certain features of the ceremony. wolf calf's account of this ceremony is as follows:-"a man who started out to catch eagles moved his lodge and his family away from the main camp, to some place where the birds were abundant. a spot was chosen on top of a mound or butte within a few miles of his lodge, and here he dug a pit in the ground as long as his body and somewhat deeper. the earth removed was carried away to a distance, and scattered about so as to make no show. when the pit had been made large enough, it was roofed over with small willow sticks, on which grass was scattered, and over the grass a little earth and stones were laid, so as to give the place a natural look, like the prairie all about it. "the bait was a piece of bloody neck of a buffalo. this, of course, could be seen a long way off, and by the meat a stuffed wolf skin was often placed, standing up, as if the animal were eating. to the piece of neck was tied a rope, which passed down through the roof of the pit and was held in the watcher's hand. "after all had been made ready, the next day the man rose very early, before it was light, and, after smoking and praying, left his camp, telling his wives and children not to use an awl while he was gone. he endeavored to reach the pit early in the morning, before it became light, and lay down in it, taking with him a slender stick about six feet long, a human skull, and a little pemmican. then he waited. "when the morning came, and the eagles were flying, one of them would see the meat and descend to take it away from the wolf. finding it held fast by the rope, the bird began to feed on it; and while it was pecking at the bait, the watcher seized it by the legs, and drew it into the pit, where he killed it, either by twisting its neck, or by crushing it with his knees. then he laid it to one side, first opening the bill and putting a little piece of pemmican in its mouth. this was done to make the other eagles hungry. while he was in the pit, the man neither ate, drank, nor slept. he had a sleeping-place not far off, to which he repaired each night after dark, and there he ate and drank. "the reason for taking the skull into the hole with the catcher was, in part, for his protection. it was believed that the ghost of the person to whom the skull had belonged would protect the watcher against harm from the eagle, and besides that, the skull, or ghost, would make the watcher invisible, like a ghost. the eagle would not see him. "the stick was used to poke or drive away smaller birds, such as magpies, crows, and ravens, which might alight on the roof of the pit, and try to feed on the bait. it was used, also, to drive away the white-headed eagle, which they did not care to catch. these are powerful birds; they could almost kill a person. "there are two sacred things connected with the catching of eagles,--two things which must be observed if the eagle-catcher is to have good luck. the man who is watching must not eat rosebuds. if he does, the eagle, when he comes down and alights by the bait, will begin to scratch himself and will not attack the bait. the rosebuds will make him itch. neither the man nor his wife must use an awl while he is absent from his lodge, and is trying to catch the birds. if this is done, the eagles will scratch the catcher. sometimes one man would catch a great many eagles." in his day, john monroe was a famous eagle-catcher, and he has given me the following account of the method as he has practised it. the pit is dug, six feet long, three wide, and four deep, on top of the highest knoll that can be found near a stream. the earth taken out is carried a long way off. over the pit they put two long poles, one on each side, running lengthwise of the pit, and other smaller sticks are laid across, resting on the poles. the smaller sticks are covered with juniper twigs and long grass. the skin of a wolf, coyote, or fox, is stuffed with grass, and made to look as natural as possible. a hole is cut in the wolf skin and a rope is passed through it, one end being tied to a large piece of meat which lies by the skin, and the other passing through the roof down into the pit. the bait is now covered with grass, and the man returns to his lodge for the night. during the night, he sings his eagle songs and burns sweet grass for the eagles, rubbing the smoke over his own body to purify himself, so that on the morrow he will give out no scent. before day he leaves his lodge without eating or drinking, goes to the pit and lies down in it. he uncovers the bait, arranges the roof, and sits there all day holding the rope. crows and other birds alight by the bait and peck at it, but he pays no attention to them. the eagle, sailing about high in air, sees the bait, and settles down slowly. it takes it a long time to make up its mind to come to the bait. in the pit, the man can hear the sound of the eagle coming. when the bird settles on the ground, it does not alight on the bait, but at one side of it, striking the ground with a thud--heavily. the man never mistakes anything else for that sound. the eagle walks toward the bait, and all the other birds fly away. it walks on to the roof; and, through the crevices that have been left between the sticks, the man can see in which direction the bird's head is. he carefully pushes the stick aside and, reaching out, grasps the eagle by the two feet. the bird does not struggle much. it is drawn down into the pit, and the man wrings its neck. then the opening is closed, and the roof arranged as before. so the man waits and catches the eagles that come through the day. sometimes he sits all day and gets nothing; again he may get eight or ten in a day. when darkness comes, the man leaves his hiding-place, takes his eagles, and goes home. he carries the birds to a special lodge, prepared outside of the camp, which is called the eagles' lodge. he places them on the ground in a row, and raises their heads, resting them on a stick laid in front of the row. in the mouth of each one is put a piece of pemmican, so that they may not be afraid of the people. the object of feeding the eagles is that their spirits may tell other eagles how they are being treated--that they are being fed by the people. in the lodge is a human skull, and they pray to it, asking the ghost to help them get the eagles. it is said that in one pit, once, forty eagles were killed in a day. the larger hawks were caught, as well as eagles, though the latter were the most highly valued. five eagles used to be worth a good horse, a valuation which shows that, in the blackfoot country, eagles were more plenty, or horses more valuable, than farther south, where, in old times, two eagles would purchase a horse. other game they had no special means of capturing deer in any numbers. these were usually killed singly. the hunters used to creep up on elk and deer in the brush, and when they had come close to them, they could drive even their stone-pointed arrows deep in the flesh. often their game was killed dead on the spot, but if not, they left it alone until the next day, when, on going back to the place, it was usually found near by, either dead or so desperately wounded that they could secure it. deadfalls were used to catch wolves, foxes, and other fur animals, and small apertures in the pis'kun walls were provided with nooses and snares for the same purpose. another way to catch wolves and coyotes was to set heavy stakes in the ground in a circle, about the carcasses of one or two dead buffalo. the stakes were placed at an angle of about forty-five degrees, a few inches apart, and all pointing toward the centre of the circle. at one place, dirt was piled up against the stakes from the outside, and the wolves, climbing up on this, jumped down into the enclosure, but were unable to jump out. hugh monroe tells me that, about thirty years ago, he and his sons made a trap like this, and in one night caught eighty-three wolves and coyotes. in early times, beaver were very abundant and very tame, and were shot with bows and arrows. the blackfeet were splendid prairie hunters. they had no superiors in the art of stalking and killing such wary animals as the antelope. sometimes they wore hats made of the skin and horns of an antelope head, which were very useful when approaching the game. although the prairie was pre-eminently their hunting-ground, they were also skilful in climbing mountains and killing sheep and goats. on the other hand, the northern crees, who also are a prairie people, are poor mountain hunters. the blackfoot in war the blackfeet were a warlike people. how it may have been in the old days, before the coming of the white men, we do not know. very likely, in early times, they were usually at peace with neighboring tribes, or, if quarrels took place, battles were fought, and men killed, this was only in angry dispute over what each party considered its rights. their wars were probably not general, nor could they have been very bloody. when, however, horses came into the possession of the indians, all this must have soon become changed. hitherto there had really been no incentive to war. from time to time expeditions may have gone out to kill enemies,--for glory, or to take revenge for some injury,--but war had not yet been made desirable by the hope of plunder, for none of their neighbors--any more than themselves--had property which was worth capturing and taking away. primitive arms, dogs, clothing, and dried meat were common to all the tribes, and were their only possessions, and usually each tribe had an abundance of all these. it was not worth any man's while to make long journeys and to run into danger merely to increase his store of such property, when his present possessions were more than sufficient to meet all his wants. even if such things had seemed desirable plunder, the amount of it which could be carried away was limited, since--for a war party--the only means of transporting captured articles from place to place was on men's backs, nor could men burdened with loads either run or fight. but when horses became known, and the indians began to realize what a change the possession of these animals was working in their mode of life, when they saw that, by enormously increasing the transporting power of each family, horses made far greater possessions practicable, that they insured the food supply, rendered the moving of the camp easier and more rapid, made possible long journeys with a minimum of effort, and that they had a value for trading, the blackfoot mind received a new idea, the idea that it was desirable to accumulate property. the blackfoot saw that, since horses could be exchanged for everything that was worth having, no one had as many horses as he needed. a pretty wife, a handsome war bonnet, a strong bow, a finely ornamented woman's dress,--any or all of these things a man might obtain, if he had horses to trade for them. the gambler at "hands," or at the ring game, could bet horses. the man who was devoted to his last married wife could give her a horse as an evidence of his affection. we can readily understand what a change the advent of the horse must have worked in the minds of a people like the blackfeet, and how this changed mental attitude would react on the blackfoot way of living. at first, there were but few horses among them, but they knew that their neighbors to the west and south--across the mountains and on the great plains beyond the missouri and the yellowstone--had plenty of them; that the k[=u]tenais, the kalispels, the snakes, the crows, and the sioux were well provided. they soon learned that horses were easily driven off, and that, even if followed by those whose property they had taken, the pursued had a great advantage over the pursuers; and we may feel sure that it was not long before the idea of capturing horses from the enemy entered some blackfoot head and was put into practice. now began a systematic sending forth of war parties against neighboring tribes for the purpose of capturing horses, which continued for about seventy-five or eighty years, and has only been abandoned within the last six or seven, and since the settlement of the country by the whites made it impossible for the blackfeet longer to pass backward and forward through it on their raiding expeditions. horse-taking at once became what might be called an established industry among the blackfeet. success brought wealth and fame, and there was a pleasing excitement about the war journey. except during the bitterest weather of the winter, war parties of blackfeet were constantly out, searching for camps of their enemies, from whom they might capture horses. usually the only object of such an expedition was to secure plunder, but often enemies were killed, and sometimes the party set out with the distinct intention of taking both scalps and horses. until some time after they had obtained guns, the blackfeet were on excellent terms with the northern crees, but later the chippeways from the east made war on the blackfeet, and this brought about general hostilities against all crees, which have continued up to within a few years. if i recollect aright, the last fight which occurred between the pi-kun'-i and the crees took place in 1886. in this skirmish, which followed an attempt by the crees to capture some piegan horses, my friend, tail-feathers-coming-in-sight-over-the-hill, killed and counted _coup_ on a cree whose scalp he afterward sent me, as an evidence of his prowess. the gros ventres of the prairie, of arapaho stock, known to the blackfeet as _at-séna,_ or gut people, had been friends and allies of the blackfeet from the time they first came into the country, early in this century, up to about the year 1862, when, according to clark, peace was broken through a mistake.[1] a war party of snakes had gone to a gros ventres camp near the bear paw mountains and there killed two gros ventres and taken a white pony, which they subsequently gave to a party of piegans whom they met, and with whom they made peace. the gros ventres afterward saw this horse in the piegan camp and supposed that the latter had killed their tribesman, and this led to a long war. in the year 1867, the piegans defeated the allied crows and gros ventres in a great battle near the cypress mountains, in which about 450 of the enemy are said to have been killed. [footnote 1: indian sign language, p. 70.] an expression often used in these pages, and which is so familiar to one who has lived much with indians as to need no explanation, is the phrase to count _coup_. like many of the terms common in the northwest, this one comes down to us from the old french trappers and traders, and a _coup_ is, of course, a blow. as commonly used, the expression is almost a direct translation of the indian phrase to strike the enemy, which is in ordinary use among all tribes. this striking is the literal inflicting a blow on an individual, and does not mean merely the attack on a body of enemies. the most creditable act that an indian can perform is to show that he is brave, to prove, by some daring deed, his physical courage, his lack of fear. in practice, this courage is shown by approaching near enough to an enemy to strike or touch him with something that is held in the hand--to come up within arm's length of him. to kill an enemy is praiseworthy, and the act of scalping him may be so under certain circumstances, but neither of these approaches in bravery the hitting or touching him with something held in the hand. this is counting _coup_. the man who does this shows himself without fear and is respected accordingly. with certain tribes, as the pawnees, cheyennes, and others, it was not very uncommon for a warrior to dash up to an enemy and strike him before making any attempt to injure him, the effort to kill being secondary to the _coup_. the blow might be struck with anything held in the hand,--a whip, coupstick, club, lance, the muzzle of a gun, a bow, or what not. it did not necessarily follow that the person on whom the _coup_ had been counted would be injured. the act was performed in the case of a woman, who might be captured, or even on a child, who was being made prisoner. often the dealing the _coup_ showed a very high degree of courage. as already implied, it might be counted on a man who was defending himself most desperately, and was trying his best to kill the approaching enemy, or, even if the attempt was being made on a foe who had fallen, it was never certain that he was beyond the power of inflicting injury. he might be only wounded, and, just when the enemy had come close to him, and was about to strike, he might have strength enough left to raise himself up and shoot him dead. in their old wars, the indians rarely took men captive. the warrior never expected quarter nor gave it, and usually men fought to the death, and died mute, defending themselves to the last--to the last, striving to inflict some injury on the enemy. the striking the blow was an important event in a man's life, and he who performed this feat remembered it. he counted it. it was a proud day for the young warrior when he counted his first _coup_, and each subsequent one was remembered and numbered in the warrior's mind, just as an american of to-day remembers the number of times he has been elected to congress. at certain dances and religious ceremonies, like that of the medicine lodge, the warriors counted--or rather re-counted--their _coups_. while the _coup_ was primarily, and usually, a blow with something held in the hand, other acts in warfare which involved great danger to him who performed them were also reckoned _coups_ by some tribes. thus, for a horseman to ride over and knock down an enemy, who was on foot, was regarded among the blackfeet as a _coup_, for the horseman might be shot at close quarters, or might receive a lance thrust. it was the same to ride one's horse violently against a mounted foe. an old pawnee told me of a _coup_ that he had counted by running up to a fallen enemy and jumping on him with both feet. sometimes the taking of horses counted a _coup_, but this was not always the case. as suggested by what has been already stated, each tribe of the plains indians held its own view as to what constituted a _coup_. the pawnees were very strict in their interpretation of the term, and with them an act of daring was not in itself deemed a _coup_. this was counted only when the person of an enemy was actually touched. one or two incidents which have occurred among the pawnees will serve to illustrate their notions on this point. in the year 1867, the pawnee scouts had been sent up to ogallalla, nebraska, to guard the graders who were working on the union pacific railroad. while they were there, some sioux came down from the hills and ran off a few mules, taking them across the north platte. major north took twenty men and started after them. crossing the river, and following it up on the north bank, he headed them off, and before long came in sight of them. the six sioux, when they found that they were pursued, left the mules that they had taken, and ran; and the pawnees, after chasing them eight or ten miles, caught up with one of them, a brother of the well-known chief spotted tail. baptiste bahele, a half-breed skidi, had a very fast horse, and was riding ahead of the other pawnees, and shooting arrows at the sioux, who was shooting back at him. at length baptiste shot the enemy's horse in the hip, and the indian dismounted and ran on foot toward a ravine. baptiste shot at him again, and this time sent an arrow nearly through his body, so that the point projected in front. the sioux caught the arrow by the point, pulled it through his body, and shot it back at his pursuer, and came very near hitting him. about that time, a ball from a carbine hit the sioux and knocked him down. then there was a race between baptiste and the pawnee next behind him, to see which should count _coup_ on the fallen man. baptiste was nearest to him and reached him first, but just as he got to him, and was leaning over from his horse, to strike the dead man, the animal shied at the body, swerving to one side, and he failed to touch it. the horse ridden by the other pawnee ran right over the sioux, and his rider leaned down and touched him. baptiste claimed the _coup_--although acknowledging that he had not actually touched the man--on the ground that he had exposed himself to all the danger, and would have hit the man if his horse had not swerved as it did from the body; but the pawnees would not allow it, and all gave the credit of the _coup_ to the other boy, because he had actually touched the enemy. on another occasion three or four young men started on the warpath from the pawnee village. when they came near to spotted tail's camp on the platte river, they crossed the stream, took some horses, and got them safely across the river. then one of the boys recrossed, went back to the camp, and cut loose another horse. he had almost got this one out of the camp, when an indian came out of a lodge near by, and sat down. the pawnee shot the sioux, counted _coup_ on him, scalped him, and then hurried across the river with the whole sioux camp in pursuit. when the party returned to the pawnee village, this boy was the only one who received credit for a _coup_. among the blackfeet the capture of a shield, bow, gun, war bonnet, war shirt, or medicine pipe was deemed a _coup_. nothing gave a man a higher place in the estimation of the people than the counting of _coups_, for, i repeat, personal bravery is of all qualities the most highly respected by indians. on special occasions, as has been said, men counted over again in public their _coups_. this served to gratify personal vanity, and also to incite the young men to the performance of similar brave deeds. besides this, they often made a more enduring record of these acts, by reproducing them pictographically on robes, cowskins, and other hides. there is now in my possession an illuminated cowskin, presented to me by mr. j. kipp, which contains the record of the _coups_ and the most striking events in the life of red crane, a blackfoot warrior, painted by himself. these pictographs are very rude and are drawn after the style common among plains indians, but no doubt they were sufficiently lifelike to call up to the mind of the artist each detail of the stirring events which they record. the indian warrior who stood up to relate some brave deed which he had performed was almost always in a position to prove the truth of his statements. either he had the enemy's scalp, or some trophy captured from him, to produce as evidence, or else he had a witness of his feat in some companion. a man seldom boasted of any deed unless he was able to prove his story, and false statements about exploits against the enemy were most unusual. temporary peace was often made between tribes usually at war, and, at the friendly meetings which took place during such times of peace, former battles were talked over, the performances of various individuals discussed, and the acts of particular men in the different rights commented on. in this way, if any man had falsely claimed to have done brave deeds, he would be detected. an example of this occurred many years ago among the cheyennes. at that time, there was a celebrated chief of the skidi tribe of the pawnee nation whose name was big eagle. he was very brave, and the cheyennes greatly feared him, and it was agreed among them that the man who could count _coup_ on big eagle should be made warchief of the cheyennes. after a fight on the loup river, a cheyenne warrior claimed to have counted _coup_ on big eagle by thrusting a lance through his buttocks. on the strength of the claim, this man was made war chief of the cheyennes. some years later, during a friendly visit made by the pawnees to the cheyennes, this incident was mentioned. big eagle was present at the time, and, after inquiring into the matter, he rose in council, denied that he had ever been struck as claimed, and, throwing aside his robe, called on the cheyennes present to examine his body and to point out the scars left by the lance. none were found. it was seen that big eagle spoke the truth; and the lying cheyenne, from the proud position of war chief, sank to a point where he was an object of contempt to the meanest indian in his tribe. among the blackfeet a war party usually, or often, had its origin in a dream. some man who has a dream, after he awakes tells of it. perhaps he may say: "i dreamed that on a certain stream is a herd of horses that have been given to me, and that i am going away to get. i am going to war. i shall go to that place and get my band of horses." then the men who know him, who believe that his medicine is strong and that he will have good luck, make up their minds to follow him. as soon as he has stated what he intends to do, his women and his female relations begin to make moccasins for him, and the old men among his relations begin to give him arrows and powder and ball to fit him out for war. the relations of those who are going with him do the same for them. the leader notifies the young men who are going with him on what day and at what hour he intends to start. he determines the time for himself, but does not let the whole camp know it in advance. of late years, large war parties have not been desirable. they have preferred to go out in small bodies. just before a war party sets out, its members get together and sing the "peeling a stick song," which is a wolf song. then they build a sweat lodge and go into it, and with them goes in an old man, a medicine-pipe man, who has been a good warrior. they fill the pipe and ask him to pray for them, that they may have good luck, and may accomplish what they desire. the medicine-pipe man prays and sings and pours water on the hot stones, and the warriors with their knives slice bits of skin and flesh from their bodies,--their arms and breasts and sometimes from the tip of the tongue,--which they offer to the sun. then, after the ceremony is over, all dripping with perspiration from their vapor bath, the men go down to the river and plunge in. in starting out, a war party often marches in the daytime, but sometimes they travel at night from the beginning. often they may make an all night march across a wide prairie, in passing over which they might be seen if they travelled in the day. they journey on foot, always. the older men carry their arms, while the boys bear the moccasins, the ropes, and the food, which usually consists of dried meat or pemmican. they carry also coats and blankets and their war bonnets and otter skin medicine. the leader has but little physical labor to perform. his mind is occupied in planning the movements of his party. he is treated with the greatest respect. the others mend his moccasins, and give him the best of the food which they carry. after they get away from the main camp, the leader selects the strongest of the young men, and sends him ahead to some designated butte, saying, "go to that place, and look carefully over the country, and if you see nothing, make signals to us to come on." this scout goes on ahead, travelling in the ravines and coulées, and keeps himself well hidden. after he has reconnoitred and made signs that he sees nothing, the party proceeds straight toward him. the party usually starts early in the morning and travels all day, making camp at sundown. during the day, if they happen to come upon an antelope or a buffalo, they kill it, if possible, and take some of the meat with them. they try in every way to economize their pemmican. they always endeavor to make camp in the thick timber, where they cannot be seen; and here, when it is necessary, on account of bad weather or for other reasons, they build a war lodge. taking four young cotton-woods or aspens, on which the leaves are left, and lashing them together like lodge poles, but with the butts up, about these they place other similar trees, also butts up and untrimmed. the leaves keep the rain off, and prevent the light of the fire which is built in the lodge from showing through. sometimes, when on the prairie, where there is no wood, in stormy weather they will build a shelter of rocks. when the party has come close to the enemy, or into a country where the enemy are likely to be found, they build no more fires, but eat their food uncooked. when they see fresh tracks of people, or signs that enemies are in the country, they stop travelling in the daytime and move altogether by night, until they come to some good place for hiding, and here they stop and sleep. when day comes, the leader sends out young men to the different buttes, to look over the country and see if they can discover the enemy. if some one of the scouts reports that he has seen a camp, and that the enemy have been found, the leader directs his men to paint themselves and put on their war bonnets. this last is a figure of speech, since the war bonnets, having of late years been usually ornamented with brass bells, could not be worn in a secret attack, on account of the noise they would make. before painting themselves, therefore, they untie their war bonnets, and spread them out on the ground, as if they were about to be worn, and then when they have finished painting themselves, tie them up again. when it begins to get dark, they start on the run for the enemy's camp. they leave their food in camp, but carry their ropes slung over the shoulder and under the arm, whips stuck in belts, guns and blankets. after they have crept up close to the lodges, the leader chooses certain men that have strong hearts, and takes them with him into the camp to cut loose the horses. the rest of the party remain outside the camp, and look about its outskirts, driving in any horses that may be feeding about, not tied up. of those who have gone into the camp, some cut loose one horse, while others cut all that may be tied about a lodge. some go only once into the camp, and some go twice to get the horses. when they have secured the horses, they drive them off a little way from the camp, at first going slowly, and then mount and ride off fast. generally, they travel two nights and one day before sleeping. this is the usual method of procedure of an ordinary expedition to capture horses, and i have given it very nearly in the language of the men who explained it to me. in their hostile encounters, the blackfeet have much that is common to many plains tribes, and also some customs that are peculiar to themselves. like most indians, they are subject to sudden, apparently causeless, panics, while at other times they display a courage that is heroic. they are firm believers in luck, and will follow a leader who is fortunate in his expeditions into almost any danger. on the other hand, if the leader of a war party loses his young men, or any of them, the people in the camp think that he is unlucky, and does not know how to lead a war party. young men will not follow him as a leader, and he is obliged to go as a servant or scout under another leader. he is likely never again to lead a war party, having learned to distrust his luck. if a war party meets the enemy, and kills several of them, losing in the battle one of its own number, it is likely, as the phrase is, to "cover" the slain blackfoot with all the dead enemies save one, and to have a scalp dance over that remaining one. if a party had killed six of the enemy and lost a man, it might "cover" the slain blackfoot with five of the enemy. in other words, the five dead enemies would pay for the one which the war party had lost. so far, matters would be even, and they would feel at liberty to rejoice over the victory gained over the one that is left. the blackfeet sometimes cut to pieces an enemy killed in battle. if a blackfoot had a relation killed by a member of another tribe, and afterward killed one of this tribe, he was likely to cut him all to pieces "to get even," that is, to gratify his spite--to obtain revenge. sometimes, after they had killed an enemy, they dragged his body into camp, so as to give the children an opportunity to count _coup_ on it. often they cut the feet and hands off the dead, and took them away and danced over them for a long time. sometimes they cut off an arm or a leg, and often the head, and danced and rejoiced over this trophy. women and children of hostile tribes were often captured, and adopted into the blackfoot tribes with all the rights and privileges of indigenous members. men were rarely captured. when they were taken, they were sometimes killed in cold blood, especially if they had made a desperate resistance before being captured. at other times, the captive would be kept for a time, and then the chief would take him off away from the camp, and give him provisions, clothing, arms, and a horse, and let him go. the captive man always had a hard time at first. when he was brought into the camp, the women and children threw dirt on him and counted _coups_ on him, pounding him with sticks and clubs. he was rarely tied, but was always watched. often the man who had taken him prisoner had great trouble to keep his tribesmen from killing him. in the very early days of this century, war parties used commonly to start out in the spring, going south to the land where horses were abundant, being absent all summer and the next winter, and returning the following summer or autumn, with great bands of horses. sometimes they were gone two years. they say that on such journeys they used to go to _spai'yu ksah'ku_, which means the spanish lands--_spai'yu_ being a recently made word, no doubt from the french _espagnol._ that they did get as far as mexico, or at least new mexico, is indicated by the fact that they brought back branded horses and a few branded mules; for in these early days there was no stock upon the plains, and animals bearing brands were found only in the spanish american settlements. the blackfeet did not know what these marks meant. from their raids into these distant lands, they sometimes brought back arms of strange make, lances, axes, and swords, of a form unlike any that they had seen. the lances had broad heads; some of the axes, as described, were evidently the old "t. gray" trade axes of the southwest. a sword, described as having a long, slender, straight blade, inlaid with a flower pattern of yellow metal along the back, was probably an old spanish rapier. in telling of these journeys to spanish lands, they say of the very long reeds which grow there, that they are very large at the butt, are jointed, very hard, and very tall; they grow in marshy places; and the water there has a strange, mouldy smell. it is said, too, that there have been war parties who have crossed the mountains and gone so far to the west that they have seen the big salt water which lies beyond, or west of, the great salt lake. journeys as far south as salt lake were not uncommon, and hugh monroe has told me of a war party he accompanied which went as far as this. religion in ancient times the chief god of the blackfeet--their creator--was _na'pi_ (old man). this is the word used to indicate any old man, though its meaning is often loosely given as white. an analysis of the word _na'pi_, however, shows it to be compounded of the word _ni'nah_, man, and the particle _a'pi_, which expresses a color, and which is never used by itself, but always in combination with some other word. the blackfoot word for white is _ksik-si-num'_ while _a'pi_, though also conveying the idea of whiteness, really describes the tint seen in the early morning light when it first appears in the east--the dawn--not a pure white, but that color combined with a faint cast of yellow. _na'pi_, therefore, would seem to mean dawn-light-color-man, or man-yellowish-white. it is easy to see why old men should be called by this latter name, for it describes precisely the color of their hair. dr. brinton, in his valuable work, american hero myths, has suggested a more profound reason why such a name should be given to the creator. he says: "the most important of all things to life is light. this the primitive savage felt, and personifying it, he made light his chief god. the beginning of day served, by analogy, for the beginning of the world. light comes before the sun, brings it forth, creates it, as it were. hence the light god is not the sun god but his antecedent and creator." it would be absurd to attribute to the blackfoot of to-day any such abstract conception of the name of the creator as that expressed in the foregoing quotation. the statement that old man was merely light personified would be beyond his comprehension, and if he did understand what was meant, he would laugh at it, and aver that _na'pi_ was a real man, a flesh and blood person like himself. the character of old man, as depicted in the stories told of him by the blackfeet, is a curious mixture of opposite attributes. in the serious tales, such as those of the creation, he is spoken of respectfully, and there is no hint of the impish qualities which characterize him in other stories, in which he is powerful, but also at times impotent; full of all wisdom, yet at times so helpless that he has to ask aid from the animals. sometimes he sympathizes with the people, and at others, out of pure spitefulness, he plays them malicious tricks that are worthy of a demon. he is a combination of strength, weakness, wisdom, folly, childishness, and malice. under various names old man is known to the crees, chippeways, and other algonquins, and many of the stories that are current among the blackfeet are told of him among those tribes. the more southern of these tribes do not venerate him as of old, but the plains and timber crees of the north, and the north chippeways, are said still to be firm believers in old man. he was their creator, and is still their chief god. he is believed in less by the younger generation than the older. the crees are regarded by the indians of the northwest as having very powerful medicine, and this all comes from old man. old man can never die. long ago he left the blackfeet and went away to the west, disappearing in the mountains. before his departure he told them that he would always take care of them, and some day would return. even now, many of the old people believe that he spoke the truth, and that some day he will come back, and will bring with him the buffalo, which they believe the white men have hidden. it is sometimes said, however, that when he left them he told them also that, when he returned, he would find them changed--a different people and living in a different way from that which they practised when he went away. sometimes, also, it is said that when he disappeared he went to the east. it is generally believed that old man is no longer the principal god of the blackfeet, that the sun has taken his place. there is some reason to suspect, however, that the sun and old man are one, that _n[=a]t[=o]s_' is only another name for _na'pi_, for i have been told by two or three old men that "the sun is the person whom we call old man." however this may be, it is certain that _na'pi_--even if he no longer occupies the chief place in the blackfoot religious system--is still reverenced, and is still addressed in prayer. now, however, every good thing, success in war, in the chase, health, long life, all happiness, come by the special favor of the sun. the sun is a man, the supreme chief of the world. the flat, circular earth in fact is his home, the floor of his lodge, and the over-arching sky is its covering. the moon, _k[=o]-k[=o]-mik'-[=e]-[)i]s,_ night light, is the sun's wife. the pair have had a number of children, all but one of whom were killed by pelicans. the survivor is the morning star, _a-pi-su-ahts_--early riser. in attributes the sun is very unlike old man. he is a beneficent person, of great wisdom and kindness, good to those who do right. as a special means of obtaining his favor, sacrifices must be made. these are often presents of clothing, fine robes, or furs, and in extreme cases, when the prayer is for life itself, the offering of a finger, or--still dearer--a lock of hair. if a white buffalo was killed, the robe was always given to the sun. it belonged to him. of the buffalo, the tongue--regarded as the greatest delicacy of the whole animal--was especially sacred to the sun. the sufferings undergone by men in the medicine lodge each year were sacrifices to the sun. this torture was an actual penance, like the sitting for years on top of a pillar, the wearing of a hair shirt, or fasting in lent. it was undergone for no other purpose than that of pleasing god--as a propitiation or in fulfilment of vows made to him. just as the priests of baal slashed themselves with knives to induce their god to help them, so, and for the same reason, the blackfoot men surged on and tore out the ropes tied to their skins. it is merely the carrying out of a religious idea that is as old as history and as widespread as the globe, and is closely akin to the motive which to-day, in our own centres of enlightened civilization, prompts acts of self-denial and penance by many thousands of intelligent cultivated people. and yet we are horrified at hearing described the tortures of the medicine lodge. besides the sun and old man, the blackfoot religious system includes a number of minor deities or rather natural qualities and forces, which are personified and given shape. these are included in the general terms above persons, ground persons, and under water persons. of the former class, thunder is one of the most important, and is worshipped as is elsewhere shown. he brings the rain. he is represented sometimes as a bird, or, more vaguely, as in one of the stories, merely as a fearful person. wind maker is an example of an under water person, and it is related that he has been seen, and his form is described. it is believed by some that he lives under the water at the head of the upper st. mary's lake. those who believe this say that when he wants the wind to blow, he makes the waves roll, and that these cause the wind to blow,--another example of mistaking effect for cause, so common among the indians. the ground man is another below person. he lives under the ground, and perhaps typifies the power of the earth, which is highly respected by all indians of the west. the cheyennes also have a ground man whom they call the lower one, or below person _(pun'-[)o]-ts[)i]-hyo)_. the cold and snow are brought by cold maker _(ai'-so-yim-stan_). he is a man, white in color, with white hair, and clad in white apparel, who rides on a white horse. he brings the storm with him. they pray to him to bring, or not to bring, the storm. many of the animals are regarded as typifying some form of wisdom or craft. they are not gods, yet they have power, which, perhaps, is given them by the sun or by old man. examples of this are shown in some of the stories. among the animals especially respected and supposed to have great power, are the buffalo, the bear, the raven, the wolf, the beaver, and the kit-fox. geese too, are credited with great wisdom and with foreknowledge of the weather. they are led by chiefs. as is quite natural among a people like the blackfeet, the buffalo stood very high among the animals which they reverenced. it symbolized food and shelter, and was _nato'y[)e]_ (of the sun), sacred. not a few considered it a medicine animal, and had it for their dream, or secret helper. it was the most powerful of all the animal helpers. its importance is indicated by the fact that buffalo skulls were placed on the sweat houses built in connection with the medicine lodge. a similar respect for the buffalo exists among many plains tribes, which were formerly dependent on it for food and raiment. a reverence for the bear appears to be common to all north american tribes, and is based not upon anything that the animal's body yields, but perhaps on the fact that it is the largest carnivorous mammal of the continent, the most difficult to kill and extremely keen in all its senses. the blackfeet believe it to be part brute and part human, portions of its body, particularly the ribs and feet, being like those of a man. the raven is cunning. the wolf has great endurance and much craft. he can steal close to one without being seen. in the stories given in the earlier pages of this book, many of the attributes of the different animals are clearly set forth. there were various powers and signs connected with these animals so held in high esteem by the blackfeet, to which the people gave strict heed. thus the raven has the power of giving people far sight. it was also useful in another way. often, in going to war, a man would get a raven's skin and stuff the head and neck, and tie it to the hair of the head behind. if a man wearing such a skin got near the enemy without knowing it, the skin would give him warning by tapping him on the back of the head with its bill. then he would know that the enemy was near, and would hide. if a raven flew over a lodge, or a number of lodges, and cried, and then was joined by other ravens, all flying over the camp and crying, it was a sure sign that during the day some one would come and tell the news from far off. the ravens often told the people that game was near, calling to the hunter and then flying a little way, and then coming back, and again calling and flying toward the game. the wolves are the people's great friends; they travel with the wolves. if, as they are travelling along, they pass close to some wolves, these will bark at the people, talking to them. some man will call to them, "no, i will not give you my body to eat, but i will give you the body of some one else, if you will go along with us." this applies both to wolves and coyotes. if a man goes away from the camp at night, and meets a coyote, and it barks at him, he goes back to the camp, and says to the people: "look out now; be smart. a coyote barked at me to-night." then the people look out, and are careful, for it is a sure sign that something bad is going to happen. perhaps some one will be shot; perhaps the enemy will charge the camp. if a person is hungry and sings a wolf song, he is likely to find food. men going on a hunting trip sing these songs, which bring them good luck. the bear has very powerful medicine. sometimes he takes pity on people and helps them, as in the story of mik'-api. some piegans, if they wish to travel on a certain day, have the power of insuring good weather on that day. it is supposed that they do this by singing a powerful song. some of the enemy can cause bad weather, when they want to steal into the camp. people who belonged to the _sin'-o-pah_ band of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi,_ if they were at war in summer and wanted a storm to come up, would take some dirt and water and rub it on the kit-fox skin, and this would cause a rain-storm to come up. in winter, snow and dirt would be rubbed on the skin and this would bring up a snow-storm. certain places and inanimate objects are also greatly reverenced by the blackfeet, and presents are made to them. the smallest of the three buttes of the sweet grass hills is regarded as sacred. "all the indians are afraid to go there," four bears once told me. presents are sometimes thrown into the missouri river, though these are not offerings made directly to the stream, but are given to the under water people, who live in it. mention has already been made of the buffalo rock, which gives its owner the power to call the buffalo. another sacred object is the medicine rock of the marias. it is a huge boulder of reddish sandstone, two-thirds the way up a steep hill on the north bank of the marias river, about five miles from fort conrad. formerly, this rock rested on the top of the bluff, but, as the soil about it is worn away by the wind and the rain, it is slowly moving down the hill. the indians believe it to be alive, and make presents to it. when i first visited it, the ground about it was strewn with decaying remnants of offerings that had been made to it in the past. among these i noticed, besides fragments of clothing, eagle feathers, a steel finger ring, brass ear-rings, and a little bottle made of two copper cartridge cases. down on milk river, east of the sweet grass hills, is another medicine rock. it is shaped something like a man's body, and looks like a person sitting on top of the bluff. whenever the blackfeet pass this rock, they make presents to it. sometimes, when they give it an article of clothing, they put it on the rock, "and then," as one of them once said to me, "when you look at it, it seems more than ever like a person." down in the big bend of the milk river, opposite the eastern end of the little rocky mountains, lying on the prairie, is a great gray boulder, which is shaped like a buffalo bull lying down. this is greatly reverenced by all plains indians, blackfeet included, and they make presents to it. many other examples of similar character might be given. the blackfeet make daily prayers to the sun and to old man, and nothing of importance is undertaken without asking for divine assistance. they are firm believers in dreams. these, they say, are sent by the sun to enable us to look ahead, to tell what is going to happen. a dream, especially if it is a strong one,--that is, if the dream is very clear and vivid,--is almost always obeyed. as dreams start them on the war path, so, if a dream threatening bad luck comes to a member of a war party, even if in the enemy's country and just about to make an attack on a camp, the party is likely to turn about and go home without making any hostile demonstrations. the animal or object which appears to the boy, or man, who is trying to dream for power, is, as has been said, regarded thereafter as his secret helper, his medicine, and is usually called his dream _(nits-o'-kan)_. the most important religious occasion of the year is the ceremony of the medicine lodge. this is a sacrifice, which, among the blackfeet, is offered invariably by women. if a woman has a son or husband away at war, and is anxious about him, or if she has a dangerously sick child, she may make to the sun a vow in the following words:-"listen, sun. pity me. you have seen my life. you know that i am pure. i have never committed adultery with any man. now, therefore, i ask you to pity me. i will build you a lodge. let my son survive. bring him back to health, so that i may build this lodge for you." the vow to build the medicine lodge is repeated in a loud voice, outside her lodge, so that all the people may hear it, and if any man can impeach the woman, he is obliged to speak out, in which case she could be punished according to the law. the medicine lodge is always built in summer, at the season of the ripening of the sarvis berries, and if, before this time, the person for whom the vow is made dies, the woman is not obliged to fulfil her vow. she is regarded with suspicion, and it is generally believed that she has been guilty of the crime she disavowed. as this cannot be proved, however, she is not punished. when the time approaches for the building of the lodge, a suitable locality is selected, and all the people move to it, putting up their lodges in a circle about it. in the meantime, at least a hundred buffalo tongues have been collected, cut, and dried by the woman who may be called the medicine lodge woman. no one but she is allowed to take part in this work. before the tongues are cut and dried, they are laid in a pile in the medicine woman's lodge. she then gives a feast to the old men, and one of them, noted for his honesty, and well liked by all, repeats a very long prayer, asking in substance that the coming medicine lodge may be acceptable to the sun, and that he will look with favor on the people, and will give them good health, plenty of food, and success in war. a hundred songs are then sung, each one different from the others. the feast and singing of these songs lasts a day and a half.[illustration: medicine lodge] before the medicine lodge is erected, four large sweat lodges are built, all in a line, fronting to the east or toward the rising sun. two stand in front of the medicine lodge, and two behind it. the two nearest the medicine lodge are built one day, and the others on the day following. the sticks for the framework of these lodges are cut only by renowned warriors, each warrior cutting one, and, as he brings it in and lays it down, he counts a _coup_, which must be of some especially brave deed. the old men then take the sticks and erect the lodges, placing on top of each a buffalo skull, one half of which is painted red, the other black, to represent day and night, or rather the sun and the moon. when the lodges are finished and the stones heated, the warriors go in to sweat, and with them the medicine pipe men, who offer up prayers. while this is going on, the young men cut the centre post for the medicine lodge, and all the other material for its construction. the women then pack out the post and the poles on horses, followed by the men shouting, singing, and shooting. in the morning of this day the medicine woman begins a fast, which must last four days and four nights, with only one intermission, as will shortly appear. during that time she may not go out of doors, except between sunset and sunrise. during the whole ceremony her face, hands, and clothing are covered with the sacred red paint. when all the material has been brought to the spot where the lodge is to be erected, that warrior who, during the previous year, has done the most cutting and stabbing in battle is selected to cut the rawhide to bind it, and while he cuts the strings he counts three _coups_. the centre post is now placed on the ground, surrounded by the poles and other smaller posts; and two bands of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, the braves, and the all crazy dogs approach. each band sings four songs, and then they raise the lodge amid the shouting of the people. it is said that, in old times, all the bands of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_ took part in this ceremony. for raising the centre post, which is very heavy, lodge poles are tied in pairs, with rawhide, so as to form "shears," each pair being handled by two men. if one of the ropes binding the shears breaks, the men who hold the pair are said to be unlucky; it is thought that they are soon to die. as soon as the centre post is up, the wall posts are erected, and the roof of poles put on, the whole structure being covered with brush. the door-way faces east or southeast, and the lodge is circular in shape, about forty feet in diameter, with walls about seven feet high. inside the medicine lodge, at the back, or west side, in the principal place in the lodge, is now built a little box-shaped house, about seven feet high, six feet long, and four wide. it is made of brush, so tightly woven that one cannot see inside of it. this is built by a medicine man, the high priest of this ceremony, who, for four days, the duration of the ceremony, neither eats nor goes out of it in the daytime. the people come to him, two at a time, and he paints them with black, and makes for them an earnest prayer to the sun, that they may have good health, long lives, and good food and shelter. this man is supposed to have power over the rain. as rain would interfere with the ceremonies, he must stop it, if it threatens. in the meantime, the sacred dried tongues have been placed in the medicine lodge. the next morning, the medicine lodge woman leaves her own lodge, and, walking very slowly with bowed head, and praying at every step, she enters the medicine lodge, and, standing by the pile of tongues, she cuts up one of them and holds it toward heaven, offering it to the sun; then she eats a part of it and buries the rest in the dirt, praying to the ground man, and calling him to bear witness that she has not defiled his body by committing adultery. she then proceeds to cut up the tongues, giving a very small piece to every person, man, woman, or child. each one first holds it up to the sun, and then prays to the sun, na'-pi, and the ground man for long life, concluding by depositing a part of the morsel of tongue on the ground, saying, "i give you this sacred tongue to eat." and now, during the four days, outside the lodge, goes on the counting of the _coups_. each warrior in turn recounts his success in war,--his battles or his horse-takings. with a number of friends to help him, he goes through a pantomime of all these encounters, showing how he killed this enemy, took a gun from that one, or cut horses loose from the lodge of another. when he has concluded, an old man offers a prayer, and ends by giving him a new name, saying that he hopes he will live well and long under it. inside the lodge, rawhide ropes are suspended from the centre post, and here the men fulfil the vows that they have made during the previous year. some have been sick, or in great danger at war, and they then vowed that if they were permitted to live, or escape, they would swing at the medicine lodge. slits are cut in the skin of their breast, ropes passed through and secured by wooden skewers, and then the men swing and surge until the skin gives way and tears out. this is very painful, and some fairly shriek with agony as they do it, but they never give up, for they believe that if they should fail to fulfil their vow, they would soon die. on the fourth day every one has been prayed for, every one has made to the sun his or her present, which is tied to the centre post, the sacred tongues have all been consumed, and the ceremony ends, every one feeling better, assured of long life and plenty. most persons have an entirely erroneous idea of the purpose of this annual ceremony. it has been supposed that it was for the purpose of making warriors. this is not true. it was essentially a religious festival, undertaken for the bodily and spiritual welfare of the people according to their beliefs. incidentally, it furnished an opportunity for the rehearsal of daring deeds. but among no tribes who practised it were warriors made by it. the swinging by the breast and other self-torturings were but the fulfilment of vows, sacred promises made in time of danger, penances performed, and not, as many believe, an occasion for young men to test their courage. from the indians of the tribe, the medicine lodge woman receives a very high measure of respect and consideration. blackfoot men have said to me, "we look on the medicine lodge woman as you white people do on the roman catholic sisters." not only is she virtuous in deed, but she must be serious and clean-minded. her conversation must be sober. before the coming of the whites, the blackfeet used to smoke the leaves of a plant which they call _na-wuh'-to-ski_, and which is said to have been received long, long ago from a medicine beaver. it was used unmixed with any other plant. the story of how this came to the tribe is told elsewhere.[1] this tobacco is no longer planted by the piegans, nor by the bloods, though it is said that an old blackfoot each year still goes through the ceremony, and raises a little. the plant grows about ten inches high and has a long seed stalk growing from the centre. white calf, the chief of the piegans, has the secrets of the tobacco and is perhaps the only person in the tribe who knows them. from him i have received the following account of the ceremonies connected with it:-[footnote 1: the beaver medicine, p. 117.] early in the spring, after the last snow-storm, when the flowers begin to bud (early in the month of may), the women and children go into the timber and prepare a large bed, clearing away the underbrush, weeds and grass and leaves and sticks, raking the ground till the earth is thoroughly pulverized. elk, deer, and mountain sheep droppings are collected, pounded fine, and mixed with the seed which is to be sown. on the appointed day all the men gather at the bed. each one holds in his hand a short, sharp-pointed stick, with which to make a hole in the ground. the men stand in a row extending across the bed. at a signal they make the holes in the ground, and drop in some seed, with some sacred sarvis berries. the tobacco song is sung by the medicine men, all take a short step forward, make another hole, a foot in front of the last, and then drop in it some more seed. another song is sung, another step taken, and seed is again planted; and this continues until the line of men has moved all the way across the bed, and the planting is completed. the tobacco dance follows the planting. after the seed has been planted, they leave it and go off after the buffalo. while away during the summer, some important man--one of the medicine men who had taken part in the planting--announces to the people his purpose to go back to look after the crop. he starts, and after he has reached the place, he builds a little fire in the bed, and offers a prayer for the crop, asking that it may survive and do well. then he pulls up one of the plants, which he takes back with him and shows to the people, so that all may see how the crop is growing. he may thus visit the place three or four times in the course of the summer. from time to time, while they are absent from the tobacco patch in summer, moving about after the buffalo, the men gather in some lodge to perform a special ceremony for the protection of the crop. each man holds in his hand a little stick. they sing and pray to the sun and old man, asking that the grasshoppers and other insects may not eat their plants. at the end of each song they strike the ground with their sticks, as if killing grasshoppers and worms. it has sometimes happened that a young man has said that he does not believe that these prayers and songs protect the plants, that the sun does not send messengers to destroy the worms. to such a one a medicine man will say, "well, you can go to the place and see for yourself." the young man gets on his horse and travels to the place. when he comes to the edge of the patch and looks out on it, he sees many small children at work there, killing worms. he has not believed in this before, but now he goes back convinced. such a young man does not live very long. at length the season comes for gathering the crop, and, at a time appointed, all the camps begin to move back toward the tobacco patch, timing their marches so that all may reach it on the same day. when they get there, they camp near it, but no one visits it except the head man of the medicine men who took charge of the planting. this man goes to the bed, gathers a little of the plant, and returns to the camp. a small boy, six or eight years old, is selected to carry this plant to the centre of the circle. the man who gathered the tobacco ties it to a little stick, and, under the tobacco, to the stick he ties a baby's moccasin. the little boy carries this stick to the centre of the camp, and stands it in the ground in the middle of the circle, the old man accompanying him and showing him where to put it. it is left there all night. the next day there is a great feast, and the kettles of food are all brought to the centre of the camp. the people all gather there, and a prayer is made. then they sing the four songs which belong especially to this festival. the first and fourth are merely airs without words; the second has words, the purport of which is, "the sun goes with us." the third song says, "hear your children's prayer." after the ceremony is over, every one is at liberty to go and gather the tobacco. it is dried and put in sacks for use during the year. the seed is collected for the next planting. when they reach the patch, if the crop is good, every one is glad. after the gathering, they all move away again after the buffalo. sometimes a man who was lazy, and had planted no tobacco, would go secretly to the patch, and pull a number of plants belonging to some one else, and hide them for his own use. now, in these prayers that they offer, they do not ask for mercy for thieves. a man who had thus taken what did not belong to him would have a lizard appear to him in a dream, and then he would fall sick and die. the medicine men would know of all this, but they would not do anything. they would just let him die. this tobacco was given us by the one who made us. the blackfoot cosmology is imperfect and vague, and i have been able to obtain nothing like a complete account of it, for i have found no one who appeared to know the story of the beginning of all things. some of the blackfeet now say that originally there was a great womb, in which were conceived the progenitors of all animals now on earth. among these was old man. as the time for their birth drew near, the animals used to quarrel as to which should be the first to be born, and one day, in a fierce struggle about this, the womb burst, and old man jumped first to the ground. for this reason, he named all the animals nis-kum'-iks, young brothers; and they, because he was the first-born, called him old man. there are several different accounts of the creation of the people by old man. one is that he married a female dog, and that their progeny were the first people. others, and the ones most often told, have been given in the old man stories already related. there is an account of the creation which is essentially an algonquin myth, and is told by most of the tribes of this stock from the atlantic to the rocky mountains, though the hero is variously named. here is the blackfoot version of it:-in the beginning, all the land was covered with water, and old man and all the animals were floating around on a large raft. one day old man told the beaver to dive and try to bring up a little mud. the beaver went down, and was gone a long time, but could not reach the bottom. then the loon tried, and the otter, but the water was too deep for them. at last the muskrat dived, and he was gone so long that they thought he had drowned, but he finally came up, almost dead, and when they pulled him on to the raft, they found, in one of his paws, a little mud. with this, old man formed the world, and afterwards he made the people. this myth, while often related by the blackfoot tribe, is seldom heard among the bloods or piegans. it is uncertain whether all three tribes used to know it, but have forgotten it, or whether it has been learned in comparatively modern times by the blackfeet from the crees, with whom they have always had more frequent intercourse and a closer connection than the other two tribes. there is also another version of the origin of death. when old man made the first people, he gave them very strong bodies, and for a long time no one was sick. at last, a little child fell ill. each day it grew weaker and weaker, and at last it fainted. then the mother went to old man, and prayed him to do something for it. "this," said old man, "will be the first time it has happened to the people. you have seen the buffalo fall to the ground when struck with an arrow. their hearts stop beating, they do not breathe, and soon their bodies become cold. they are then dead. now, woman, it shall be for you to decide whether death shall come to the people as well as to the other animals, or whether they shall live forever. come now with me to the river." when they reached the water's edge, old man picked up from the ground a dry buffalo chip and a stone. "now, woman," he said, "you will tell me which one of these to throw into the water. if what i throw floats, your child shall live; the people shall live forever. if it sinks, then your child shall die, and all the people shall die, each one when his time comes." the woman stood still a long time, looking from the stone to the buffalo chip, and from the chip to the stone. at last she said, "throw the stone." then old man tossed it into the river, and it sank to the bottom. "woman," he cried, "go home; your child is dead." thus, on account of a foolish woman, we all must die. the shadow of a person, the blackfeet say, is his soul. northeast of the sweet grass hills, near the international boundary line, is a bleak, sandy country called the sand hills, and there all the shadows of the deceased good blackfeet are congregated. the shadows of those who in this world led wicked lives are not allowed to go there. after death, these wicked persons take the shape of ghosts _(sta-au'_[1]), and are compelled ever after to remain near the place where they died. unhappy themselves, they envy those who are happy, and continually prowl about the lodges of the living, seeking to do them some injury. sometimes they tap on the lodge skins and whistle down the smoke hole, but if the fire is burning within they will not enter. [footnote 1: the human skeleton is also called _sta-au', i.e._ ghost. compare cheyenne _mis-tai'_, ghost.] outside in the dark they do much harm, especially the ghosts of enemies who have been killed in battle. these sometimes shoot invisible arrows into persons, causing sickness and death. they have hit people on the head, causing them to become crazy. they have paralyzed people's limbs, and drawn their faces out of shape, and done much other harm. ghosts walk above the ground, not on it. an example of this peculiarity is seen in the case of the young man who visited the lodge of the starving family, in the story entitled origin of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi._ ghosts sometimes speak to people. an instance of this is the following, which occurred to my friend young bear chief, and which he related to me. he said: "i once went to war, and took my wife with me. i went to buffalo lip butte, east of the cypress mountains; a little creek runs by it. i took eighteen horses from an assinaboine camp one night, when it was very foggy. i found sixteen horses feeding on the hills, and went into the camp and cut loose two more. then we went off with the horses. when we started, it was so foggy that i could not see the stars, and i did not know which way to run. i kept travelling in what i supposed was the direction toward home, but i did not know where i was going. after we had gone a long way, i stopped and got off my horse to fix my belt. my wife did not dismount, but sat there waiting for me to mount and ride on. "i spoke to my wife, and said to her, 'we don't know which way to go.' a voice spoke up right behind me and said: 'it is well; you go ahead. you are going right.' when i heard the voice, the top of my head seemed to lift up and felt as if a lot of needles were sticking into it. my wife, who was right in front of me, was so frightened that she fainted and fell off her horse, and it was a long time before she came to. when she got so she could ride, we went on, and when morning came i found that we were going straight, and were on the west side of the west butte of the sweet grass hills. we got home all right. this must have been a ghost." now and then among the blackfeet, we find evidences of a belief that the soul of a dead person may take up its abode in the body of an animal. an example of this is seen in the story of e-k[=u]s'-kini, p. 90. owls are thought to be the ghosts of medicine men. the blackfeet do not consider the sand hills a happy hunting ground. there the dead, who are themselves shadows, live in shadow lodges, hunt shadow buffalo, go to war against shadow enemies, and in every way lead an existence which is but a mimicry of this life. in this respect the blackfeet are almost alone. i know of scarcely any other american tribe, certainly none east of the rocky mountains, who are wholly without a belief in a happy future state. the blackfeet do not especially say that this future life is an unhappy one, but, from the way in which they speak of it, it is clear that for them it promises nothing desirable. it is a monotonous, never ending, and altogether unsatisfying existence,--a life as barren and desolate as the country which the ghosts inhabit. these people are as much attached to life as we are. notwithstanding the unhappy days which have befallen them of late years,--days of privation and hunger,--they cling to life. yet they seem to have no fear of death. when their time comes, they accept their fate without a murmur, and tranquilly, quietly pass away. medicine pipes and healing the person whom the whites term "medicine man" is called by the blackfeet _ni-namp'-skan_. mr. schultz believes this word to be compounded of _nin'nah_, man, and _namp'-ski_, horned toad (_phrynosoma_), and in this he is supported by mr. thomas bird, a very intelligent half-breed, who has translated a part of the bible into the blackfoot language for the rev. s. trivett, a church of england missionary. these gentlemen conclude that the word means "all-face man." the horned toad is called _namp'-ski_, all-face; and as the medicine man, with his hair done up in a huge topknot, bore a certain resemblance to this creature, he was so named. no one among the blackfeet appears to have any idea as to what the word means. the medicine pipes are really only pipe stems, very long, and beautifully decorated with bright-colored feathers and the fur of the weasel and other animals. it is claimed that these stems were given to the people long, long ago, by the sun, and that those who own them are regarded by him with special favor. formerly these stems were valued at from fifteen to thirty head of horses, and were bought and sold like any other property. when not in use, they were kept rolled up in many thicknesses of fine tanned fur, and with them were invariably a quantity of tobacco, a sacred whistle, two sacred rattles, and some dried sweet grass, and sweet pine needles. in the daytime, in pleasant weather, these sacred bundles were hung out of doors behind the owners' lodges, on tripods. at night they were suspended within, above the owners' seat it was said that if at any time a person should walk completely around the lodge of a medicine man, some bad luck would befall him. inside the lodge, no one was allowed to pass between the fireplace and the pipe stem. no one but a medicine man and his head wife could move or unroll the bundle. the man and his wife were obliged always to keep their faces, hands, and clothing painted with _nits'-i-san,_ a dull red paint, made by burning a certain clay found in the bad lands. the _ni-namp'-skan_ appears to be a priest of the sun, and prayers offered through him are thought to be specially favored. so the sacred stem is frequently unrolled for the benefit of the sick, for those who are about to undertake a dangerous expedition, such as a party departing to war, for prayers for the general health and prosperity of the people, and for a bountiful supply of food. at the present time these ancient ceremonies have largely fallen into disuse. in fact, since the disappearance of the buffalo, most of the old customs are dying out. the thunder is believed to bring the rain in spring, and the rain makes the berries grow. it is a rule that after the first thunder is heard in the spring, every medicine man must give a feast and offer prayers for a large berry crop. i have never seen this ceremony, but mr. schultz was once permitted to attend one, and has given me the following account of it. he said: "when i entered the lodge with the other guests, the pipe stem had already been unrolled. before the fire were two huge kettles of cooked sarvis berries, a large bowlful of which was soon set before each guest. each one, before eating, took a few of the berries and rubbed them into the ground, saying, 'take pity on us, all above people, and give us good.' "when all had finished eating, a large black stone pipe bowl was filled and fitted to the medicine stem, and the medicine man held it aloft and said: 'listen, sun! listen, thunder! listen, old man! all above animals, all above people, listen. pity us! you will smoke. we fill the sacred pipe. let us not starve. give us rain during this summer. make the berries large and sweet. cover the bushes with them. look down on us all and pity us. look at the women and the little children; look at us all. let us reach old age. let our lives be complete. let us destroy our enemies. help the young men in battle. man, woman, child, we all pray to you; pity us and give us good. let us survive.' "he then danced the pipe dance, to be described further on. at this time, another storm had come up, and the thunder crashed directly over our heads. "'listen,' said the medicine man. 'it hears us. we are not doing this uselessly'; and he raised his face, animated with enthusiasm, toward the sky, his whole body trembling with excitement; and, holding the pipe aloft, repeated his prayer. all the rest of the people were excited, and repeatedly clasped their arms over their breasts, saying: 'pity us; good give us; good give us. let us survive.' "after this, the pipe was handed to a man on the right of the semi-circle. another warrior took a lighted brand from the fire, and counted four _coups_, at the end of each _coup_ touching the pipe bowl with the brand. when he had counted the fourth _coup_, the pipe was lighted. it was then smoked in turn around the circle, each one, as he received it, repeating a short prayer before he put the stem to his lips. when it was smoked out, a hole was dug in the ground, the ashes were knocked into it and carefully covered over, and the thunder ceremony was ended." in the year 1885, i was present at the unwrapping of the medicine pipe by red eagle, an aged _ni-namp'-skan_ since dead. on this occasion prayers were made for the success of a party of piegans who had started in pursuit of some crows who had taken a large band of horses from the piegans the day before. the ceremony was a very impressive one, and prayers were offered not only for the success of this war party, but also for the general good, as well as for the welfare of special individuals, who were mentioned by name. the concluding words of the general prayer were as follows: "may all people have full life. give to all heavy bodies. let the young people grow; increase their flesh. let all men, women, and children have full life. harden the bodies of the old people so that they may reach great age." in 1879, mr. schultz saw a sacred pipe unwrapped for the benefit of a sick woman, and on various occasions since he has been present at this ceremony. all accounts of what takes place agree so closely with what i saw that i give only one of them. mr. schultz wrote me of the first occasion: "when i entered the lodge, it was already well filled with men who had been invited to participate in the ceremony. the medicine man was aged and gray-headed, and his feeble limbs could scarcely support his body. between him and his wife was the bundle which contained the medicine pipe, as yet unwrapped, lying on a carefully folded buffalo robe. plates of food were placed before each guest, and after all had finished eating, and a common pipe had been lighted to be smoked around the circle, the ceremony began. "with wooden tongs, the woman took a large coal from the fire, and laid it on the ground in front of the sacred stem. then, while every one joined in singing a chant, a song of the buffalo (without words), she took a bunch of dried sweet grass, and, raising and lowering her hand in time to the music, finally placed the grass on the burning coals. as the thin column of perfumed smoke rose from the burning herb, both she and the medicine man grasped handfuls of it and rubbed it over their persons, to purify themselves before touching the sacred roll. they also took each a small piece of some root from a little pouch, and ate it, signifying that they purified themselves without and within. "the man and woman now faced each other and again began the buffalo song, keeping time by touching with the clenched hands--the right and left alternately--the wrappings of the pipe, occasionally making the sign for buffalo. now, too, one could occasionally hear the word _nai-ai'_[1] in the song. after singing this song for about ten minutes, it was changed to the antelope song, and, instead of touching the roll with the clenched hands, which represented the heavy tread of buffalo, they closed the hands, leaving the index finger extended and the thumbs partly open, and in time to the music, as in the previous song, alternately touched the wrappers with the tips of the left and right forefinger, the motions being quick and firm, and occasionally brought the hands to the side of the head, making the sign for antelope, and at the same time uttering a loud '_kuh'_ to represent the whistling or snorting of that animal. [footnote 1: my shelter; my covering; my robe.] "at the conclusion of this song, the woman put another bunch of sweet grass on a coal, and carefully undid the wrappings of the pipe, holding each one over the smoke to keep it pure. when the last wrapping was removed, the man gently grasped the stem and, every one beginning the pipe song, he raised and lowered it several times, shaking it as he did so, until every feather and bit of fur and scalp hung loose and could be plainly seen. "at this moment the sick woman entered the lodge, and with great difficulty, for she was very weak, walked over to the medicine woman and knelt down before her. the medicine woman then produced a small bag of red paint, and painted a broad band across the sick woman's forehead, a stripe down the nose, and a number of round dots on each cheek. then picking up the pipe stem, which the man had laid down, she held it up toward the sky and prayed, saying, 'listen, sun, pity us! listen, old man, pity us! above people, pity us! under water people, pity us! listen, sun! listen, sun! let us survive, pity us! let us survive. look down on our sick daughter this day. pity her and give her a complete life.' at the conclusion of this short prayer, all the people uttered a loud _m-m-m-h_, signifying that they took the words to their hearts. every one now commenced the pipe song, and the medicine woman passed the stem over different parts of the sick woman's body, after which she rose and left the lodge. "the medicine man now took a common pipe which had been lighted, and blew four whiffs of smoke toward the sky, four toward the ground, and four on the medicine pipe stem, and prayed to the sun, old man, and all medicine animals, to pity the people and give them long life. the drums were then produced, the war song commenced, and the old man, with a rattle in each hand, danced four times to the door-way and back. he stooped slightly, kept all his limbs very rigid, extending his arms like one giving a benediction, and danced in time to the drumming and singing with quick, sudden steps. this is the medicine pipe dance, which no one but a pipe-owner is allowed to perform. afterward, he picked up the pipe stem, and, holding it aloft in front of him, went through the same performance. at the conclusion of the dance, the pipe stem was passed from one to another of the guests, and each one in turn held it aloft and repeated a short prayer. the man on my right prayed for the health of his children, the one on my left for success in a proposed war expedition. this concluded the ceremony." disease among the blackfeet is supposed to be caused by evil spirits, usually the spirits or ghosts of enemies slain in battle. these spirits are said to wander about at night, and whenever opportunity offers, they shoot invisible arrows into persons. these cause various internal troubles, such as consumption, hemorrhages, and diseases of the digestive organs. mice, frogs, snakes, and tailed batrachians are said to cause much disease among women, and hence should be shunned, and on no account handled. less important external ailments and hurts, such as ulcers, boils, sprains, and so on, are treated by applying various lotions or poultices, compounded by boiling or macerating certain roots or herbs, known only to the person supplying them. rheumatic pains are treated in several ways. sometimes the sweat lodge is used, or hot rocks are applied over the place where the pain is most severe, or actual cautery is practised, by inserting prickly pear thorns in the flesh, and setting fire to them, when they burn to the very point. the sweat lodge, so often referred to, is used as a curative agent, as well as in religious ceremonies, and is considered very beneficial in illness of all kinds. the sweat lodge is built in the shape of a rough hemisphere, three or four feet high and six or eight in diameter. the frame is usually of willow branches, and is covered with cow-skins and robes. in the centre of the floor, a small hole is dug out, in which are to be placed red hot stones. everything being ready, those who are to take the sweat remove their clothing and crowd into the lodge. the hot rocks are then handed in from the fire outside, and the cowskins pulled down to the ground to exclude any cold air. if a medicine pipe man is not at hand, the oldest person present begins to pray to the sun, and at the same time sprinkles water on the hot rocks, and a dense steam rises, making the perspiration fairly drip from the body. occasionally, if the heat becomes too intense, the covering is raised for a few minutes to admit a little air. the sweat bath lasts for a long time, often an hour or more, during which many prayers are offered, religious songs chanted, and several pipes smoked to the sun. as has been said, the sweat lodge is built to represent the sun's own lodge or home, that is, the world. the ground inside the lodge stands for its surface, which, according to blackfoot philosophy, is flat and round. the framework represents the sky, which far off, on the horizon, reaches down to and touches the world. as soon as the sweat is over, the men rush out, and plunge into the stream to cool off. this is invariably done, even in winter, when the ice has to be broken to make a hole large enough to bathe in. it is said that, when the small-pox was raging among these indians, they used the sweat lodge daily, and that hundreds of them, sick with the disease, were unable to get out of the river, after taking the bath succeeding a sweat, and were carried down stream by the current and drowned. it is said that wolves, which in former days were extremely numerous, sometimes went crazy, and bit every animal they met with, sometimes even coming into camps and biting dogs, horses, and people. persons bitten by a mad wolf generally went mad, too. they trembled and their limbs jerked, they made their jaws work and foamed at the mouth, often trying to bite other people. when any one acted in this way, his relations tied him hand and foot with ropes, and, having killed a buffalo, they rolled him up in the green hide, and then built a fire on and around him, leaving him in the fire until the hide began to dry and burn. then they pulled him out and removed the buffalo hide, and he was cured. while in the fire, the great heat caused him to sweat profusely, so much water coming out of his body that none was left in it, and with the water the disease went out, too. all the old people tell me that they have seen individuals cured in this manner of a mad wolf's bite. whenever a person is really sick, a doctor is sent for. custom requires that he shall be paid for his services before rendering them. so when he is called, the messenger says to him, "a---presents to you a horse, and asks you to come and doctor him." sometimes the fee may be several horses, and sometimes a gun, saddle, or some article of wearing-apparel. this fee pays only for one visit, but the duration of the visit is seldom less than twelve hours, and sometimes exceeds forty-eight. if, after the expiration of the visit, the patient feels that he has been benefited, he will probably send for the doctor again, but if, on the other hand, he continues to grow worse, he is likely to send for another. not infrequently two or more doctors may be present at the same time, taking turns with the patient. in early days, if a man fell sick, and remained so for three weeks or a month, he had to start anew in life when he recovered; for, unless very wealthy, all his possessions had gone to pay doctor's fees. often the last horse, and even the lodge, weapons, and extra clothing were so parted with. of late years, however, since the disappearance of the buffalo, the doctors' fees are much more moderate. the doctor is named _i-so-kin-[)u]h-kin,_ a word difficult to translate. the nearest english meaning of the word seems to be "heavy singer for the sick." as a rule all doctors sing while endeavoring to work their cures, and, as helpers, a number of women are always present. disease being caused by evil spirits, prayers, exhortations, and certain mysterious methods must be observed to rid the patient of their influence. no two doctors have the same methods or songs. herbs are sometimes used, but not always. one of their medicines is a great yellow fungus which grows on the pine trees. this is dried and powdered, and administered either dry or in an infusion. it is a purgative. as a rule, these doctors, while practising their rites, will not allow any one in the lodge, except the immediate members of the sick man's family. mr. schultz, who on more than one occasion has been present at a doctoring, gives the following account of one of the performances. "the patient was a man in the last stages of consumption. when the doctor entered the lodge, he handed the sick man a strip of buckskin, and told him to tie it around his chest. the patient then reclined on a couch, stripped to the waist, and the doctor kneeled on the floor beside him. having cleared a little space of the loose dirt and dust, the doctor took two coals from the fire, laid them in this place, and put a pinch of dried sweet grass on each of them. as the smoke arose from the burning grass, he held his drum over it, turning it from side to side, and round and round. this was supposed to purify it. laying aside the drum, he held his hands in the smoke, and rubbed his arms and body with it. then, picking up the drum, he began to tap it rapidly, and prayed, saying: 'listen, my dream. this you told me should be done. this you said should be the way. you said it would cure the sick. help me now. do not lie to me. help me, sun person. help me to cure this sick man.' "he then began to sing, and as soon as the women had caught the air, he handed the drum to one of them to beat, and, still singing himself, took an eagle's wing and dipped the tip of it in a cup of 'medicine.' it was a clear liquid, and looked as if it might be simply water. placing the tip of the wing in his mouth, he seemed to bite off the end of it, and, chewing it a little, spat it out on the patient's breast. then, in time to the singing, he brushed it gently off, beginning at the throat and ending at the lower ribs. this was repeated three times. next he took the bandage from the patient, dipped it in the cup of medicine, and, wringing it out, placed it on the sick man's chest, and rubbed it up and down, and back and forth, after which he again brushed the breast with the eagle wing. finally, he lighted a pipe, and, placing the bowl in his mouth, blew the smoke through the stem all over the patient's breast, shoulders, neck, and arms, and finished the ceremony by again brushing with the wing. at intervals of two or three hours, the whole ceremony was repeated. the doctor arrived at the lodge of the sick man about noon, and left the next morning, having received for his services a saddle and two blankets." "listen, my dream--" this is the key to most of the blackfoot medicine practices. these doctors for the most part effect their cures by prayer. each one has his dream, or secret helper, to whom he prays for aid, and it is by this help that he expects to restore his patient to health. no doubt the doctors have the fullest confidence that their practices are beneficial, and in some cases they undoubtedly do good because of the implicit confidence felt in them by the patient. often, when a person is sick, he will ask some medicine man to unroll his pipe. if able to dance, he will take part in the ceremony, but if not, the medicine man paints him with the sacred symbols. in any case a fervent prayer is offered by the medicine man for the sick person's recovery. the medicine man administers no remedies; the ceremony is purely religious. being a priest of the sun, it is thought that god will be more likely to listen to him than he would to an ordinary man. although the majority of blackfoot doctors are men, there are also many women in the guild, and some of them are quite noted for their success. such a woman, named wood chief woman, is now alive on the blackfoot reservation. she has effected many wonderful cures. two bear woman is a good doctor, and there are many others. in the case of gunshot wounds a man's "dream," or "medicine," often acts directly and speedily. many cases are cited in which this charm, often the stuffed skin of some bird or animal, belonging to the wounded man, becomes alive, and by its power effects a cure. many examples of this might be given but for lack of space. entirely honest indians and white men have seen such cures and believe in them. the blackfoot of to-day in the olden times the blackfeet were very numerous, and it is said that then they were a strong and hardy people, and few of them were ever sick. most of the men who died were killed in battle, or died of old age. we may well enough believe that this was the case, because the conditions of their life in those primitive times were such that the weakly and those predisposed to any constitutional trouble would not survive early childhood. only the strongest of the children would grow up to become the parents of the next generation. thus a process of selection was constantly going on, the effect of which was no doubt seen in the general health of the people. with the advent of the whites, came new conditions. various special diseases were introduced and swept off large numbers of the people. an important agent in their destruction was alcohol. in the year 1845, the blackfeet were decimated by the small-pox. this disease appears to have travelled up the missouri river; and in the early years, between 1840 and 1850, it swept away hosts of mandans, rees, sioux, crows, and other tribes camped along the great river. i have been told, by a man who was employed at fort union in 1842-43, that the indians died there in such numbers that the men of the fort were kept constantly at work digging trenches in which to bury them, and when winter came, and the ground froze so hard that it was no longer practicable to bury the dead, their bodies were stacked up like cord wood in great piles to await the coming of spring. the disease spread from tribe to tribe, and finally reached the blackfeet. it is said by whites who were in the country at the time, that this small-pox almost swept the plains bare of indians. in the winter of 1857-58, small-pox again carried off great numbers, but the mortality was not to be compared with that of 1845. in 1864, measles ran through all the blackfoot camps, and was very fatal, and again in 1869 they had the small-pox. between the years 1860 and 1875, a great deal of whiskey was traded to the blackfeet. having once experienced the delights of intoxication, the indians were eager for liquor, and the traders found that robes and furs could be bought to better advantage for whiskey than for anything else. to be sure, the personal risk to the trader was considerably increased by the sale of whiskey, for when drunk the indians fought like demons among themselves or with the traders. but, on the other hand, whiskey for trading to indians cost but a trifle, and could be worked up, and then diluted, so that a little would go a long way. as a measure of partial self-protection, the traders used to deal out the liquor from the keg or barrel in a tin scoop so constructed that it would not stand on a flat surface, so that an indian, who was drinking, had to keep the vessel in his hand until the liquor was consumed, or else it would be spilled and lost. this lessened the danger of any shooting or stabbing while the indian was drinking, and an effort was usually made to get him out of the store as soon as he had finished. nevertheless, drunken fights in the trading-stores were of common occurrence, and the life of a whiskey-trader was one of constant peril. i have talked with many men who were engaged in this traffic, and some of the stories they tell are thrilling. it was a common thing in winter for the man who unbarred and opened the store in the morning to have a dead indian fall into his arms as the door swung open. to prop up against the door a companion who had been killed or frozen to death during the night seems to have been regarded by the indians as rather a delicate bit of humor, in the nature of a joke on the trader. long histories of the doings of these whiskey trading days have been related to me, but the details are too repulsive to be set down. the traffic was very fatal to the indians. the united states has laws which prohibit, under severe penalties, the sale of intoxicants to indians, but these laws are seldom enforced. to the north of the boundary line, however, in the northwest territories, the canadian mounted police have of late years made whiskey-trading perilous business. of major steell's good work in putting down the whiskey traffic on the blackfoot agency in montana, i shall speak further on, and to-day there is not very much whiskey sold to the blackfeet. constant vigilance is needed, however, to keep traders from the borders of the reservation. in the winter of 1883-84 more than a quarter of the piegan tribe of the blackfeet, which then numbered about twenty-five or twenty-six hundred, died from starvation. it had been reported to the indian bureau that the blackfeet were practically self-supporting and needed few supplies. as a consequence of this report, appropriations for them were small. the statement was entirely and fatally misleading. the blackfeet had then never done anything toward self-support, except to kill buffalo. but just before this, in the year 1883, the buffalo had been exterminated from the blackfoot country. in a moment, and without warning, the people had been deprived of the food supply on which they had depended. at once they had turned their attention to the smaller game, and, hunting faithfully the river bottoms, the brush along the small streams, and the sides of the mountains, had killed off all the deer, elk, and antelope; and at the beginning of the winter found themselves without their usual stores of dried meat, and with nothing to depend on, except the scanty supplies in the government storehouse. these were ridiculously inadequate to the wants of twenty-five hundred people, and food could be issued to them only in driblets quite insufficient to sustain life. the men devoted themselves with the utmost faithfulness to hunting, killing birds, rabbits, prairie-dogs, rats, anything that had life; but do the best they might, the people began to starve. the very old and the very young were the first to perish; after that, those who were weak and sickly, and at last some even among the strong and hardy. news of this suffering was sent east, and congress ordered appropriations to relieve the distress; but the supplies had to be freighted in wagons for one hundred and fifty or two hundred miles before they were available. if the blackfeet had been obliged to depend on the supplies authorized by the indian bureau, the whole tribe might have perished, for the red tape methods of the government are not adapted to prompt and efficient action in times of emergency. happily, help was nearer at hand. the noble people of montana, and the army officers stationed at fort shaw, did all they could to get supplies to the sufferers. one or two montana contractors sent on flour and bacon, on the personal assurance of the newly appointed agent that he would try to have them paid. but it took a long time to get even these supplies to the agency, over roads sometimes hub deep in mud, or again rough with great masses of frozen clay; and all the time the people were dying. during the winter, major allen had been appointed agent for the blackfeet, and he reached the agency in the midst of the worst suffering, and before any effort had been made to relieve it. he has told me a heart-rending story of the frightful suffering which he found among these helpless people. in his efforts to learn exactly what was their condition, major allen one day went into twenty-three houses and lodges to see for himself just what the indians had to eat. in only two of these homes did he find anything in the shape of food. in one house a rabbit was boiling in a pot. the man had killed it that morning, and it was being cooked for a starving child. in another lodge, the hoof of a steer was cooking,--only the hoof,--to make soup for the family. twenty-three lodges major allen visited that day, and the little rabbit and the steer's hoof were all the food he found. "and then," he told me, with tears in his eyes, "i broke down. i could go no further. to see so much misery, and feel myself utterly powerless to relieve it, was more than i could stand." major allen had calculated with exactest care the supplies on hand, and at this time was issuing one-seventh rations. the indians crowded around the agency buildings and begged for food. mothers came to the windows and held up their starving babies that the sight of their dull, pallid faces, their shrunken limbs, and their little bones sticking through their skins might move some heart to pity. women brought their young daughters to the white men in the neighborhood, and said, "here, you may have her, if you will feed her; i want nothing for myself; only let her have enough to eat, that she may not die." one day, a deputation of the chiefs came to major allen, and asked him to give them what he had in his storehouses. he explained to them that it must be some time before the supplies could get there, and that only by dealing out what he had with the greatest care could the people be kept alive until provisions came. but they said: "our women and children are hungry, and we are hungry. give us what you have, and let us eat once and be filled. then we will die content; we will not beg any more." he took them into the storehouse, and showed them just what food he had,--how much flour, how much bacon, how much rice, coffee, sugar, and so on through the list--and then told them that if this was issued all at once, there was no hope for them, they would surely die, but that he expected supplies by a certain day. "and," said he, "if they do not come by that time, you shall come in here and help yourselves. that i promise you." they went away satisfied. meanwhile, the supplies were drawing near. the officer in command of fort shaw had supplied fast teams to hurry on a few loads to the agency, but the roads were so bad that the wagon trains moved with appalling slowness. at length, however, they had advanced so far that it was possible to send out light teams, to meet the heavily laden ones, and bring in a few sacks of flour and bacon; and every little helped. gradually the suffering was relieved, but the memory of that awful season of famine will never pass from the minds of those who witnessed it. there is a record of between four and five hundred indians who died of hunger at this time, and this includes only those who were buried in the immediate neighborhood of the agency and for whom coffins were made. it is probable that nearly as many more died in the camps on other creeks, but this is mere conjecture. it is no exaggeration to say, however, that from one-quarter to one-third of the piegan tribe starved to death during that winter and the following spring. the change from living in portable and more or less open lodges to permanent dwellings has been followed by a great deal of illness, and at present the people appear to be sickly, though not so much so as some other tribes i have known, living under similar conditions further south. like other indians, the blackfeet have been several times a prey to bad agents,--men careless of their welfare, who thought only about drawing their own pay, or, worse, who used their positions simply for their own enrichment, and stole from the government and indians alike everything upon which they could lay hands. it was with great satisfaction that i secured the discharge of one such man a few years ago, and i only regret that it was not in my power to have carried the matter so far that he might have spent a few years in prison. the present agent of the blackfeet, major george steell, is an old-timer in the country and understands indians very thoroughly. in one respect, he has done more for this people than any other man who has ever had charge of them, for he has been an uncompromising enemy of the whiskey traffic, and has relentlessly pursued the white men who always gather about an agency to sell whiskey to the indians, and thus not only rob them of their possessions, but degrade them as well. the prison doors of deer lodge have more than once opened to receive men sent there through the energy of major steell. for the good work he has done in this respect, this gentleman deserves the highest credit, and he is a shining example among indian agents. as recently as 1887 it was rather unusual to see a blackfoot indian clad in white men's clothing; the only men who wore coats and trousers were the police and a few of the chiefs; to-day it is quite as unusual to see an indian wearing a blanket. not less striking than this difference in their way of life, is the change which has taken place in the spirit of the tribe. i was passing through their reservation in 1888, when the chiefs asked me to meet them in council and listen to what they had to say. i learned that they wished to have a message taken to the great father in the east, and, after satisfying myself that their complaint was well grounded, i promised to do for them what i could. i accomplished what they desired, and since that time i have taken much active interest in this people, and my experience with them has shown me very clearly how much may be accomplished by the unaided efforts of a single individual who thoroughly understands the needs of a tribe of indians. during my annual visits to the blackfeet reservation, which have extended over two, three, or four months each season, i see a great many of the men and have long conversations with them. they bring their troubles to me, asking what they shall do, and how their condition may be improved. they tell me what things they want, and why they think they ought to have them. i listen, and talk to them just as if they were so many children. if their requests are unreasonable, i try to explain to them, step by step, why it is not best that what they desire should be done, or tell them that other things which they ask for seem proper, and that i will do what i can to have them granted. if one will only take the pains necessary to make things clear to him, the adult indian is a reasonable being, but it requires patience to make him understand matters which to a white man would need no explanation. as an example, let me give the substance of a conversation had last autumn with a leading man of the piegans who lives on cut bank river, about twenty-five miles from the agency. he said to me:-"we ought to have a storehouse over here on cut bank, so that we will not be obliged each week to go over to the agency to get our food. it takes us a day to go, and a day to come, and a day there; nearly three days out of every week to get our food. when we are at work cutting hay, we cannot afford to spend so much time travelling back and forth. we want to get our crops in, and not to be travelling about all the time. it would be a good thing, too, to have a blacksmith shop here, so that when our wagons break down, we will not have to go to the agency to get them mended." this is merely the substance of a much longer speech, to which i replied by a series of questions, something like the following:-"do you remember talking to me last year, and telling me on this same spot that you ought to have beef issued to you here, and ought not to have to make the long journey to the agency for your meat?" "yes." "and that i told you i agreed with you, and believed that some of the steers could just as well be killed here by the agency herder and issued to those indians living near here?" "yes." "that change has been made, has it not? you now get your beef here, don't you?" "yes." "you know that the piegans have a certain amount of money coming to them every year, don't you?" "yes." "and that some of that money goes to pay the expenses of the agency, some for food, some to pay clerks and blacksmiths, some to buy mowing-machines, wagons, harness, and rakes, and some to buy the cattle which have been issued to you?" "yes." "now, if a government storehouse were to be built over here, clerks hired to manage it, a blacksmith shop built and another blacksmith hired, that would all cost money, wouldn't it?" "yes." "and that money would be taken out of the money coming next year to the piegans, wouldn't it?" "yes." "and if that money were spent for those things, the people would have just so many fewer wagons, mowing-machines, rakes, and cattle issued to them next year, wouldn't they?" "yes." "well, which would be best for the tribe, which would you rather have, a store and a blacksmith shop here on cut bank, or the money which those things would cost in cows and farming implements?" "i would prefer that we should have the cattle and the tools." "i think you are right. it would save trouble to each man, if the government would build a storehouse for him right next his house, but it would be a waste of money. many white men have to drive ten, twenty, or thirty miles to the store, and you ought not to complain if you have to do so." after this conversation the man saw clearly that his request was an unreasonable one, but if i had merely told him that he was a fool to want a store on cut bank, he would never have been satisfied, for his experiences were so limited that he could not have reasoned the thing out for himself. in my talks with these people, i praise those who have worked hard and lived well during the past year, while to those who have been idle or drunken or have committed crimes, i explain how foolish their course has been and try to show them how impossible it is for a man to be successful if he acts like a child, and shows that he is a person of no sense. a little quiet talk will usually demonstrate to them that they have been unwise, and they make fresh resolutions and promise amendment. of course the only argument i use is to tell them that one course will be for their material advancement, and is the way a white man would act, while the other will tend to keep them always poor. some years ago, the blackfeet made a new treaty, by which they sold to the government a large portion of their lands. by this treaty, which was ratified by congress in may, 1887, they are to receive $150,000 annually for a period of ten years, when government support is to be withdrawn. this sum is a good deal more than is required for their subsistence, and, by the terms of the treaty, the surplus over what is required for their food and clothing is to be used in furnishing to the indians farming implements, seed, live stock, and such other things as will help them to become self-supporting. the country which the blackfeet inhabit lies just south of the parallel of 49°, close to the foot of the rocky mountains, and is very cold and dry. crops can be grown there successfully not more than once in four or five years, and the sole products to be depended on are oats and potatoes, which are raised only by means of irrigation. it is evident, therefore, that the piegan tribe of the blackfeet can never become an agricultural people. their reservation, however, is well adapted to stock-raising, and in past years the cattlemen from far and from near have driven their herds on to the reservation to eat the blackfoot grass; and the remonstrances of the indians have been entirely disregarded. some years ago, i came to the conclusion that the proper occupation for these indians was stock-raising. horses they already had in some numbers, but horses are not so good for them as cattle, because horses are more readily sold than cattle, and an indian is likely to trade his horse for whiskey and other useless things. cattle they are much less likely to part with, and besides this, require more attention than horses, and so are likely to keep the indians busy and to encourage them to work. within the past three or four years, i have succeeded in inducing the indian bureau to employ a part of the treaty money coming to the blackfeet in purchasing for them cattle. it was impressed upon them that they must care for the cattle, not kill and eat any of them, but keep them for breeding purposes. it was represented to them that, if properly cared for, the cattle would increase each year, until a time might come when each indian would be the possessor of a herd, and would then be rich like the white cattlemen. the severe lesson of starvation some years before had not failed to make an impression, and it was perhaps owing to this terrible experience that the piegans did not eat the cows as soon as they got them, as other indian tribes have so often done. instead of this, each man took the utmost care of the two or three heifers he received. little shelters and barns were built to protect them during the winter. indians who had never worked before, now tried to borrow a mowing-machine, so as to put up some hay for their animals. the tribe seemed at once to have imbibed the idea of property, and each man was as fearful lest some accident should happen to his cows as any white man might have been. another issue of cattle was made, and the result is that now there is hardly an individual in the tribe who is not the possessor of one or more cows. scarcely any of the issued cattle have been eaten; there has been almost no loss from lack of care; the original stock has increased and multiplied, and now the piegans have a pretty fair start in cattle. this material advancement is important and encouraging. but richer still is the promise for the future. a few years ago, the blackfeet were all paupers, dependent on the bounty of the government and the caprice of the agent. now, they feel themselves men, are learning self-help and self-reliance, and are looking forward to a time when they shall be self-supporting. if their improvement should be as rapid for the next five years as it has been for the five preceding 1892, a considerable portion of the tribe will be self-supporting at the date of expiration of the treaty. it is commonly believed that the indian is hopelessly lazy, and that he will do no work whatever. this misleading notion has been fostered by the writings of many ignorant people, extending over a long period of time. the error had its origin in the fact that the work which the savage indian does is quite different from that performed by the white laborer. but it is certain that no men ever worked harder than indians on a journey to war, during which they would march on foot hundreds of miles, carrying heavy loads on their backs, then have their fight, or take their horses, and perhaps ride for several days at a stretch, scarcely stopping to eat or rest. that they did not labor regularly is of course true, but when they did work, their toil was very much harder than that ever performed by the white man. the blackfeet now are willing to work in the same way that the white man works. they appreciate, as well as any one, the fact that old things have passed away, and that they must now adapt themselves to new surroundings. therefore, they work in the hay fields, tend stock, chop logs in the mountains, haul firewood, drive freighting teams, build houses and fences, and, in short, do pretty much all the work that would be done by an ordinary ranchman. they do not perform it so well as white men would; they are much more careless in their handling of tools, wagons, mowing-machines, or other implements, but they are learning all the time, even if their progress is slow. the advance toward civilization within the past five years is very remarkable and shows, as well as anything could show, the adaptability of the indian. at the same time, i believe that if it had not been for that fateful experience known as "the starvation winter," the progress made by the blackfeet would have been very much less than it has been. the indian requires a bitter lesson to make him remember. but besides this lesson, which at so terrible a cost demonstrated to him the necessity of working, there has been another factor in the progress of the blackfoot. if he has learned the lesson of privation and suffering, the record given in these pages has shown that he is not less ready to respond to encouragement, not less quickened and sustained by friendly sympathy. without such encouragement he will not persevere. if his crops fail him this year, he has no heart to plant the next. a single failure brings despair. yet if he is cheered and helped, he will make other efforts. the blackfeet have been thus sustained; they have felt that there was an inducement for them to do well, for some one whom they trusted was interested in their welfare, was watching their progress, and was trying to help them. they knew that this person had no private interest to serve, but wished to do the best that he could for his people. having an exaggerated idea of his power to aid them, they have tried to follow his advice, so as to obtain his good-will and secure his aid with the government. thus they have had always before them a definite object to strive for. the blackfoot of to-day is a working man. he has a little property which he is trying to care for and wishes to add to. with a little help, with instruction, and with encouragement to persevere, he will become in the next few years self-supporting, and a good citizen. index above persons, adoption of captives, adultery, penalty for, adventure, stories of, adventures of bull turns round, affirmation, solemn form of, _ah-kaik'-sum-iks_ _ah-kai-yi-ko-ka'-kin-iks,_ _ah-kai'-po-kaks_ _ah-kwo'-nis-tsists,_ _ahk-o'-tash-iks,_ ahk-sa'-ke-wah, _ah'pai-tup-iks,_ _ai-sik'-stuk-iks,_ a[=i]-sin'-o-ko-ki, _ai'-so-yim-stan,_ alcohol, agent of destruction, algonquin myth, algonquin tribes, all-are-his-children, all comrades, all crazy dogs, allen, major, all-face man, almost-a-dog, _amelanchier alnifolia_, _american anthropologist_, american hero myths, ancient customs dying out, ancient times, stories of, animals, birth of, creation of, animal powers, animal powers and signs, animals to be food, antelope, method of taking, song, where created, _anthropologist, american_ _a'pi,_ _ap'-i-kai-yiks,_ ap'i-kunni, api-su'-ahts, _ap-ut'-o-si-kai-nah,_ armells creek, arrows, assinaboines (tribe), a'-tsi-tsi, authority of "sits beside him" woman, a-wah-heh', back fat (of buffalo), creek, bad weapons, the, bad wife, the, badger, badger creek, bags, basins, battle near cypress mountains, bear, bears, the beaver, how taken, creek, indians, medicine, the, song, belly river, buttes, belt, berries created, berry of the red willow, big eagle, big nose, big topknots, bighorn, where created birch tree bird, thomas birds created birth of the animals biters bitter-root black elks (blackfoot gens) (blood gens) blackfat roasters blackfeet as known to the whites blackfoot cosmology country, boundaries of crossing genesis, the in war, the black doors black patched moccasins blood (tribe) blood people boiling meat bow river bowls of stone bows box elder creek boys, advice to brave (band of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi),_ bravery held in high esteem proofs of required braves, duties of braves' society brinton, dr. brush created buckets buffalo bringing to camp corral of cheyennes created driven over cliffs dung (gens) eating the people hunting disguised hidden slaughter, modern value of to the people surrounding buffalo lip butte buffalo rock, the what it is buffalo song bull bats bull berries bulls bulls' society bunch of lodges burial buttes created camas root, how prepared camp arranged in circle camp, order of moving canadian mounted police casey, lieutenant catchers cattle issued cause of disease. centre post of medicine lodge ceremony of medicine lodge of unwrapping pipe-stem cheyennes buffalo corral of chickadee chief children in lodge sports of training of children, the lost chippeways chippeweyans chinook winds choke-cherries, how prepared clark (w.p.) clay images, of buffalo in human shape clot of blood clothing made of buffalo hide cold maker confederation of three tribes corral of cheyennes, buffalo cosmology, blackfoot counting _coup_ _coup_ at medicine lodge country of the blackfoot _coup_, _et seq_. among blackfeet. different tribes. counting, in early times. "covering" the slain. cowardice, penalty for. coyotes, how taken. creation, _et seq_. creator. cree (tribe), _et seq_. crimes to be punished. crops in blackfoot country. crow (tribe). cups, how made. custer, general, xiv. customs, ancient, dying out. customs, daily life and. cut bank river. cutting rawhide for medicine lodge. cypress mountains. daily life and customs. dance, medicine pipe. young women's. dawson, mrs. thomas, xiv. dead return to life. death, origin of. deer, how taken. deer lodge. diet. disease. diseases introduced by whites. dishes. divorce. doctors. dog and the stick, the. dogs beasts of burden, _et seq_. killed at grave. not eaten. dogs naked. don't laugh band. double runner, vii, xv. doves. dream helper, _et seq_. originates war party. person, _et seq_. dreaming for power, _et seq_. dreams, 3 _et seq_.. belief in. dress. dried meat. dried meat (gens). dwelling. duties of first wife. eagle catching. songs. lodge. early finished eating. riser. wars bloodless. ear-rings. eggs of waterfowl, how cooked. _[=e]-in'-a-ke_. e-kus'-kini, _et seq_. elbow river. elk, how taken. the. tushes. elkhorn arrow. elk river. elopement. _e'-mi-tah-pahk-sai-yiks,_. _e'-mi-taks,_. _esk'-sin-ai-t[)u]p-iks,_. _esk'-sin-i-t[)u]ppiks_. _[)e]ts-k[=a]i'-nah,_. everyday life, _et seq_. family names. fast of medicine lodge woman. fast runners, the. fat roasters. feast, invitations to. feasting in the camps. fighting between bloods and piegans. fire, how obtained. carried. first killing in war. mauls. medicine pipe. people. pis'kun. scalping. shelter to sleep under. stone knives. fish. hooks. fish spears, flat bows, flatheads, flesh of animals eaten, fleshers, how made, flint and steel, folk-lore, food of war party, _forest and stream_, fort conrad, mcleod, pitt, union, four bears, fox, the, fox-eye, frogs, fungus for punk, fur animals, how caught, future life, gambling, game, hidden, in blackfoot country, game played by prairie dogs, genesis, the blackfoot, gentes of the blackfeet, bloods, kai'nah, piegans, pi-k[)u]n'i, sik'si-kau, now extinct, ghost, bear, country, woman, heavy collar and the, ghosts, ghosts' buffalo, the, ghosts, camp of the, girls, carefully guarded, instructed, outfit for marriage, girl stolen, gown of women, grasshoppers, grease on red willow bark, great bear (constellation), falls, grizzly bear, grooved arrow shafts, gros ventres, ground man, ground man (of cheyennes), ground persons, hair, care of, mode of wearing, handles of knives, "hands," hats of antelope skin, head chief, how chosen, heavy collar, and the ghost woman, runner, help from animals, hill where old man sleeps, horned toad, horns, horses cause of war, killed at grave, when obtained, how the blackfoot lived, hunting, alone punished, husband's personal rights in wife, power over wife, property rights in wife, _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, origin of, implements of the dead, made of buffalo hide, indian a man, sign language, tobacco, indians and their stories, beaver, general ignorance about, infants lost, _i-nis'-kim_, _in-uhk'-so-yi-stam-iks_, _i-nuk-si'-kah-ko-pwa-iks_, _i-nuks'-iks_, invitation to feasts, _i'-pok-si-maiks_, _i-sis'-o-kas-im-iks_, _i-so-kin'-uh-kin_, _is'-sui_, _is-ti'-kai-nah_ "it fell on them" creek, _it-se'-wah,_ jackson, william, _kah'-mi-taiks_ kai'-nah, kalispels, kettles of stone, kill close by, kipp, joseph, kit-fox, kit-fox (society), kit-foxes, _ki'-yis,_ _knats-o-mi'-ta,_ knives of stone, ko-ko-mik'-e-is, kom-in'-a-kus, _ksik-si-num'_ _kuk-kuiks'_ _kut'-ai-[=i]m-iks,_ _kut-ai-sot'-si-man,_ kutenais, kut-o'-yis, ladles of horn, of wood, _lari p[=u]k'[=u]s_ lesser slave lake, _l'herbe_, liars, life among the blackfeet, little birds, little blackfoot, "little slaves," lizards, lodge for dreaming, of stone, lodges, ancient, how made, decoration of, of chiefs of the _i-kun-uk'-kak-tsi,_ lone eaters, fighters, medicine person, long tail lodge poles, lost children, the, lost woman, the, low horn, mad wolf, maker, the, mandans, man-eater, many children, lodge poles, horses, medicines, march of the camp, of war party, marriage, girl's outfit for, how arranged, of important people, poorer people, prerequisites for, prohibited within gens, _ma-stoh'-pah-ta-kiks,_ material advancement, _mats_, mauls, how made, measles, medicine leggings, medicine lodge, the, man, pipes and healing, rock of the marias, woman, mexico, _mi-ah-wah'-pit-siks,_ _mi-aw'-kin-ai-yiks_ mik-a'pi, miles, general, milk river, missouri river, _mis-tai'_ moccasins, _mo-k[)u]m'-iks,_ monroe, hugh, john, morning star, mosquitoes, _mo-tah'-tos-iks_ mother-in-law, meeting, not to be spoken to, _mo-twai'-naiks_ mountains created, mourning, chant, for the dead, muddy river, murder, penalty for musselshell river, _m[)u]t'-siks_, _na-ahks'_, _nai-ai'_, name, changing, unwillingness to speak, _namp'-ski_, _na'-pi_, _nat-[=o]s'_, _nat-o'-ye_, _na-wuh'-to-ski_, necklaces, new mexico, night red light, _ni-kis'-ta_, _nimp'-sa_, _ni'-nah_, _ni-namp'-skan_, _nin'-nah_, _nin'-sta_, _ni'-po-m[=u]k-i_, _nis'-ah_, _ni-sis'-ah_, nis-kum'-iks, _nis-k[=u]n'_, _nis-t[=u]m-o'_, _nit-t[=u]m-o'-kun_, _nit'-ak-os-kit-si-pup-iks_, _ni-taw'-yiks_, _nit'-ik-skiks_, _nit-o-k[=e]-man_, _ni-tot'-o-ke-man_, _ni-tot'-si-ksis-stan-iks_, _nits'-i-san_, _nits-o'-kan_, _ni-tun'_, no parfleche, _no-ko'-i_, _no'-ma_, north bloods, north, major, north saskatchewan river, northwest territories, number of wives, oath, indian, obstinate (gens), office not hereditary, ojibwas, _ok-wi-tok-so-ka_, old man, and the lynx, character of, disappearance of, doctors, known to other tribes, makes first weapons, makes fire sticks, sleeps, hill where, stories of, old man's predictions, river, sliding ground, origin of the _i-kun-uh'-kah-tsi_, medicine pipe, worm pipe, orpheus and eurydice, other game, owl bear, owls ghosts of medicine men, owner's seat in lodge, paints, parfleche soles of moccasins, past and the present, the, pawnee _coups_, hero stories and folk tales, pawnees, peace with gros ventres broken, the snakes, the, pemmican, penalty for adultery, for cowardice, for murder, for theft, for treachery, penances, pend d'oreille, people created, _phrynosoma_, physical characteristics, pictographs of _coups_, piegans, pi-kun'i, _pi-n[)u]t-u'-ye is-tsim'-o-kan_, pipe dance, medicine, of the soldier society, stems, pipes, material of, pis'kun, etymology of, bringing buffalo to, how constructed, of the blackfeet, of the crees, of the sik'-si-kau, _pis-tsi-ko'-an_, places chosen for dreaming, plants, medical properties of, plunder from the south, _pomme blanche_, pottery, power, dreaming for, of herbs, to bring on storms, powers, animal, prayers, in sweat house, to the thunder, preparations for burial, for dreaming, for the attack, for war parties, presents to husband from father-in-law, to the sun, product of the buffalo, property buried with dead, of brave society, of deceased, disposition of, _psoralea esculenta_, _puh-ksi-nah'-mah-yiks_, _puk'-sah-tchis_, punishment for hunting alone, for infidelity, for stealing tobacco, punk, _p[=u]n'-o-ts[)i]-hyo_, purification by smoke, quarrels between the three tribes, rabid wolf, wolves, rabies, cure for, race, the, raven band of the _i-k[)u]n-uh'-kah-tsi_, bearers, carriers, ravens, red deer's river, eagle, old man, river half-breeds, round robes, religion, river, badger, belly, big, bow, elbow, elk, milk, missouri, muddy, north saskatchewan, old man's, peace, person, red deer's, saskatchewan, st. mary's, teton, yellowstone, roasting meat, robes, rock, the, root-digger, ross, miss cora m., round, running rabbit, russell, william, sacks, sacred bundles, where kept, sacred objects, things connected with eagle catching, sacrifice, sacrifices to sun, of war party, _sai'-yiks_, _sak-si-nak'-mah-yiks_, salt, sand hills, sarcees, sarvis berries, berry creek, saskatchewan river, saskatoon creek, scarface, schultz, j.w., scout of war party, screech owl, seats in lodge, secret helper, seeking the sun's lodge, thunder's lodge, seldom lonesome, self-torturings in medicine lodge, servants, seven persons, seven persons creek, shadow, shelter for war party, to sleep under, _shepherdia argentea_, short bows, sign language, signs, signs and powers of animals, _sik-o-kit-sim-iks_. _sik-o-pok'-si-maiks_. sik'-si-kau, _siks-ah'-pun-iks_, _siks-in'-o-kaks_ (blackfoot), (blood), _sik-ut'-si-pum-aiks_, _sin'-o-pah_, sioux, "sits beside him" woman, skeleton, skidi tribe, skull taken into eagle pit, skunks, sleeping for power, small brittle fat, small leggings, robes, smallpox, smell of a person, smoking, rules in, snakes, snakes (tribe), peace with, the, snares, social organization, societies of the all comrades, soldiers, song, antelope, beaver, buffalo, pipe, war party, soul, _spai'-yu ksah'-ku_, spanish lands, spear heads, spears, spoons, sports of children, of adults, spotted tail's camp, st. mary's river, _sta-au'_, starvation winter, steell, major, stockraising, stolen by the thunder, stone bowls, kettles, knives, pointed arrows, _ston'-i-t[)a]pi_, stories of adventure, of ancient times, of old man, story of the three tribes, the, story-telling, striped-face, struck by the thunder, _st[)u]'miks,_ suicide among girls, sun, sun dogs, sun river, sun's lodge, sun's lodge, seeking the, surrounding buffalo, _s[=u]'-ye-st[)u]'-miks_, _s[=u]'-ye-t[)u]ppi_, _su-yoh-pah'-wah-ku_, sweat bath, sweat lodge, houses for medicine lodge, sweet-grass, sweet grass hills, swindling the indians, tail-feathers-coming-in-sight-over-the-hill, tails, taking horses, temperament, teton river, the bad weapons, bears, beaver medicine, blackfoot genesis, blackfoot in war, buffalo rock, dog and the stick, elk, fox, ghosts' buffalo, past and the present, race, rock, theft from the sun, wonderful bird, theft from the sun, the, penalty for, they don't laugh, things sacred to the sun, three tribes, the story of, thunder, bird, described, brings the rain, steals women, tobacco, indians', songs, tobacco thief punished, tongues for medicine lodge, touchwood hills, training of children, transmigration of souls, trapping wolves, treachery, penalty for, treatment of dead enemies, of women, trial by jumping, trivett, rev. s., _tsin-ik-tsis'-tso-yiks_, _ts[)i]-st[=i]ks_, _t[)u]is-kis't[=i]ks_, turtles, two medicine (lodge creek), war trails, under water people, persons, uses of buffalo products, version of the origin of death, visitor's seat in lodge, war bonnet, bonnet of bulls society, clubs, how made, head-dress, journeys, duration of, journeys to the southwest, lodges, lodges, how built, systematized, with the gros ventres, war parties, warrior's outfit, contributions to, whiskey trading, white beaver, breasts, calf, widows, wife, standing of, duties of first, the bad, wind maker, sucker, wolf calf, tail, man, the, road, song, wolverine, wolves, wolves, rabid, woman doctors, woman, standing of, the lost, woman's dress, seat in lodge, wonderful bird, the, wood for bows, woods bloods, worm people, pipe, worms, yellowstone river, young bear chief, women's dance, younger sisters potential wives, a note about the author although george bird grinnell (1849-1938) won distinction as an ethnologist, author, editor, and explorer, perhaps his most enduring achievement was that cited by president coolidge when he presented the theodore roosevelt gold medal of honor to grinnell in 1925: "few have done as much as you, and none has done more, to preserve vast areas of picturesque wilderness for the eyes of posterity...." it was largely thanks to grinnell that glacier national park was created, and in yellowstone park, as the president said, he "prevented the exploitation and therefore the destruction of the natural beauty." grinnell was a member of the marsh, custer, and ludlow expeditions in the 1870's, and during those years prepared reports on birds and mammals of the northwestern great plains region which are still authoritative. from those years, also, dates his interest in the indians, particularly the pawnee, blackfoot, and cheyenne. among the score of books resulting from his lifelong study of the plains tribes, _the fighting cheyenne_ (1915) and _the cheyenne indians_ (1923), _pawnee hero stories and folk-tales_ (1889), and blackfoot lodge tales (1892) are perhaps the best known. a friend of the famed north brothers, who commanded the pawnee scouts, grinnell encouraged captain luther north to set down his recollections, and contributed a foreword to the book. titled _man of the plains_, this work was published for the first time in its entirety by the university of nebraska press (1961). 