Rising Wolf the White Blackfoot Part 4

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 _engages_ 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 mountain- and b.u.t.te-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 sh.o.r.es. 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 _parfleche_ 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 circ.u.mference 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 pa.s.sed 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 s.p.a.ce. 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 a.s.sistance 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 una.s.sailable. 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 G.o.ds 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, gra.s.sy 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 ma.s.s 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 s.h.a.ggy, 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 pa.s.sed below the cutbank and went ash.o.r.e 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!"