Boy Scouts in Glacier Park Part 33

Stabs-by-Mistake (that was really the name of the old chief, and not a joke of Mills') now beckoned Pete into the middle of the circle. Two or three young braves danced around him, while the drums beat and all the Indians shouted and sang, and then the braves seized him, pretended to grab something from him with their hands, and ran with this imaginary thing to some bushes outside the camp. They disappeared in these bushes, speedily reappeared holding up their hands to show they were empty, and came back to the circle.

"I suppose they dropped his old name in the bushes!" Joe laughed.

"Sure," said Mills.

Now Stabs-by-Mistake rose to make another speech. Pete stood before him, and he talked for two or three minutes right at him, with many gestures, while the Indians listened. The boys could see that he had not yet given him a new name, and all the Blackfeet were waiting, excited, to see what the new name was going to be. Finally, Stabs-by-Mistake laid his hand on Pete's shoulder and spoke very solemnly. Then he spoke the new name. As he spoke it, he gave Pete a great slap on the back as a sort of period to his oration, and at the same instant the entire circle of Indians broke out into shouts of laughter. Pete looked sheepish, and came back toward the Ranger, red and grinning.

"Well, what's your name now?" Mills asked.

"He made a big talk about giving me the name of a great chief, gone to the Sand Hills long ago, and then he said it was Lazy-Boy-Afraid-to-Work. That's why they are all laughing."

Mills laughed, too. "He's got your number, Pete," said he.

Now another chief was making a speech, and Pete grinned at Mills.

"You're in for it now," he chuckled. "Yellow Wolf says they're going to give you an Indian name."

"Oh, help!" Mills exclaimed.

He was led into the circle, looking uncomfortable and shy with so many tourists gazing at him. But the boys knew he would rather have cut off his right hand than hurt the Indians' feelings by refusing. For him, the ceremony was much more serious. There was no laughing, and Yellow Wolf made a grave and evidently impa.s.sioned speech to the tribe, who listened and applauded. They did not go through the comic ceremony of taking the Ranger's old name out into the bushes, but instead they sat him down in a smaller circle of the chiefs, and pa.s.sed an Indian pipe around. Then, standing once more, they danced and sang, and finally Yellow Wolf gave him his new name, with a slap on the shoulder, while the crowd expressed approval. Then a gorgeous feathered head-dress was put on his head, instead of a hat, and when he finally rejoined the boys, he was still wearing this.

"What's your name?" Tom asked.

"What is it, Pete?" said Mills.

"Tail-Feathers-Coming-Over-the-Hill," said Pete. "He was a fine Indian, too--medicine man."

"I thought so," Mills answered. "I thought I recognized it. Well, boys, I suppose I'm a Blackfoot now! You know" (he added this in a lower tone) "they are grateful to me because in the hard winter last year I didn't prosecute one of 'em for killing a sheep, but got the government to send 'em some food, so they wouldn't have to poach.

Tail-Feathers-Coming-Over-the-Hill was a fine old Indian. I'm proud to have his name."

"It's some name!" the scouts laughed.

Now that these ceremonies were over, the Indians fell to dancing again, and the beat of the three drums, the calls and songs, rose on the air.

Seeing the crowd of tourists about, and filled with fun and good spirits, the Indians started the squaw dance, the dance in which the women and even the larger children of the tribe take part. The three drummers stood in the middle, pounding their sheepskin drums, and around them, in a ring, holding hands or linking elbows, everybody facing inward, the Indians revolved by a curious little side step with a bend to the right knee, in time to the TuM-_tum_, TuM-_tum_, of the drums.

Every moment or two a couple of chiefs or braves would dart out of the circle, seize some white woman or girl, and drag her laughing back into the ring. Then the young squaws began to run out and grab white men. Two Indian maidens seized Joe, while Tom got his camera hastily into action.

"Now, look pleasant, Joey!" he laughed. "We'll have this picture enlarged for the Scout House--Joe and the Indian maidens!"

The girls placed Joe in the circle, and he began to revolve with the rest. One of the girls beckoned at Tom, as much as to say, "Shall we get him?"

Joe nodded, and the girl spoke to another squaw maid on her left, and the two of them left the line and seized Tom, also, keeping fast hold of his hands and dragging him with much laughter into the revolving ring.

Before long as many as two hundred people, Indians and white, old folks and young, men, women and children, were all revolving in a great circle about the three drummers, who were beating violently, singing, shouting.

The Indian women began to sing, also, a strange tune, with only one phrase, repeated over and over. Of course, the boys could not understand the words, or even tell for sure sometimes whether there were any words.

But the tune got into their heads. They could never sing it afterwards just as the Indians did, for the Indian scale, the intervals, are different from ours, but they could come somewhere near it, as they danced around their camp.

The squaw dance lasted until the "pale faces" began to get tired and drop out of the ring. Then the Indians went back to their former solo dances, their other songs, their general jollification and curious games. But the three drummers, without any rest, kept right on pounding and shouting and singing, as if nothing could tire them. They were still at it when the scouts had to return to their duties at the camp, and all that evening, too, they kept it up.

The next day the steer was to be roasted, in a fire pit dug and prepared by the Indians themselves, but Joe did not see that, for he received word that evening to start out early the following morning with a party over Swift Current Pa.s.s, and down to Lake McDonald. Tom went to see the beginning of the ceremony, but the process of roasting an entire steer isn't very pretty, nor very tempting, and he didn't stay. Beside, he had a big party of hikers to look after, and his own meals to cook now Joe was away. He returned to Camp Kent, looked longingly at his coil of Alpine rope, took his axe, and went at the task of replenishing the wood supply.

CHAPTER XX--The Scouts Start on a Trip Together at Last, To Climb Chief Mountain

Joe was gone five days, coming back over Gunsight and Piegan Pa.s.s, the reverse of the route he had taken on his first trip. But this time, he was getting so at home in the saddle that he could manage the packhorses without worrying, could throw a diamond hitch as well as the next man, and cook for a crowd without having too much left over, or not enough prepared--not that there is ever much danger of having anything left over in the Rocky Mountains! Everybody eats while there's food in sight.

But Tom was pretty lonely without him, especially as the Ranger was away, too, for the first three days.

But on the fourth day Big Bertha called Tom up to the chalet office, and told him something that made him very happy, though it didn't seem to please Big Bertha at all.

"Tom," said he, "I've got to fire you."

(This isn't what made Tom happy. It made his heart drop into his boots for a second, before he realized that the man was trying to get a rise out of him.)

"Yes," the manager went on, "there's a party of men from Washington at the hotel. They came over Piegan, and they've been up to Iceberg Lake to-day, and now they want to climb Chief Mountain. Somebody's told 'em about it, and nothing for it but they must go up there. There's no cook for 'em till Joe gets back, and the Saddle Company is short on guides anyhow, and hasn't anybody who knows Chief Mountain. Mills says he'll lead the party, if he can have you and your rope. He won't go otherwise.

Now, that puts me in a hole, because I'll have to go short handed and send one of my boys down to look after the tepees. But these Washington guys are big bugs of some sort, and I suppose we gotter please 'em. So day after to-morrow you start, if Joe gets back."

"Hooray!" Tom shouted. "Old Joey and I'll be on a trip together!"

"Yes, and what about me? You don't seem sorry for me at all," said Big Bertha.

"I'm not," Tom laughed. "I'll cut up enough wood to-morrow for a week, and clean the stove, and fix everything up. Guess you can worry along."

"You are a heartless, ungrateful creature," said Big Bertha, in his funny, high voice. But Tom knew that he was really glad to give him this chance to see Chief Mountain.

The next day Mills and Tom got together and made all the arrangements for the trip, for they knew Joe would not get in till late, over the twenty-two mile Piegan trail. It was to be a long expedition--probably a week--and needed considerable planning, for they were going north, where there were no chalets, no stores nor camps, and they had to carry everything. Fortunately, there were only three men in the party, so Mills, Joe and Tom were the only guides necessary. But it meant tents, provisions, blankets, and that meant packhorses--good ones, too, which were hard to pick, for the season was late, and the horses were all getting thin and tired.

Joe came in late, as they expected, and though he, too, was tired after the long ride over Piegan, he gave a whoop of joy at Tom's announcement.

Tom made him sit down, however, and got the supper himself.

"And you're going to bed early," he added. "This is the real thing ahead of us now--Chief Mountain, maybe the Belly River Canon, and Mills says maybe Cleveland, the highest mountain in the Park, if the weather is good. He says, though, it's getting time for a storm again. Anyhow, we'll see old Cleveland. Gee--it'll be great to be on a rope again!"

"You talk as if you'd climbed the Matterhorn all your life," Joe laughed.

The next morning at six o'clock the Ranger and the two boys were at the hotel, and beginning to pack the horses. For this trip they took but two tents, one for the three men, one for themselves. Enough food was the main requirement. They got everything, including blankets, on four horses, saving a fifth horse for the dunnage bags, which the men speedily brought out.

Of course, Joe and Tom looked at these men carefully. When you are going to be on the trail and in camp with people for a whole week, you are pretty interested to know what sort of folks they are, and whether you are going to like them. One of these three was young, not over twenty-two or twenty-three, the son of the oldest man in the party. The father, whom Mills addressed as Mr. Crimmins, had gray hair, but he looked hardy and strong, with a quick, sharp way of talking and quick motions. He and his friend, Mr. Taylor, a man of about forty, were both connected with the State Department at Washington, Mills said. The young man, Robert Crimmins, was just out of college.

"They look good to me," Joe whispered to Tom.

"I ain't saying a word," Tom answered. "Not after Doc Kent. Wait and see."

The fifth horse was now packed, and the expedition started.

But instead of turning up any of the trails toward the range, Mills led the way straight down the automobile road, toward the prairie. It seemed funny to Joe to be setting off on a trip in this direction, right away from the high places, but the horses liked it. They liked the comparatively smooth going, gently down-hill, and swung along at an easy trot.

Down the road they went, mile after mile, until they emerged from the lower end of the Swift Current Valley, out into the rolling prairies, with the whole range behind them. Then, as the road swung up over a knoll, Mills paused and pointed north.