Jack in the Rockies

With noisy puffings the steamboat was slowly pushing her way up the river. On either side the flat bottom, in some places overgrown with high willow brush, in others, bearing a growth of tall and sturdy cottonwoods, ran back a long way to the yellow bluffs beyond. The bluffs were rounded and several hundred feet in height, rising imperceptibly until they seemed to meet the blue of the sky, so that the boat appeared to be moving at the bottom of a wide trough.

Hour after hour she pushed on, meeting nothing, seeing nothing alive, except now and then a pair of great gray geese, followed by their yellow goslings; or sometimes on the shore a half-concealed red object, which moved quickly out of sight, and which observers knew to be a deer.

On the boat were two of our old friends. From the far East had come Jack Danvers, traveling day after day until he had reached Bismarck, Dakota, where he found awaiting him Hugh Johnson, as grave, as white-haired, and as cheery as ever. At Bismarck they had taken the up-river steamer, "Josephine," and the boat had sailed early on the morning of July 5th.

Hugh and Jack were on their way back up to the Piegan country. They had separated at Bismarck the previous autumn, and while Hugh kept on down the river, to take a west-bound train, which should carry him back to Mr. Sturgis' ranch in Wyoming, Jack had gone East, to spend the winter in New York. He had had a year of hard work at school, for his experience of the previous winter had taught him that it paid well to work in school, and to make the most of his opportunities there. This made his parents more willing to have him go away to this healthful life, and he found that if he did his best he enjoyed all the better the wild, free life of the prairie and the mountains, which he now hoped would be his during a part, at least, of every year.

His summer with the Piegans had taught him many things known to few boys in the East, and given him many pleasures to which they are strangers; and the more he saw of this prairie life the more he enjoyed it, and the more he hoped to have more and more of it. Sometimes, when he awoke early in the morning, or at night, after he had gone to bed, as he lay between sleeping and waking, he used to go over in his mind the scenes that he had visited, and the stirring adventures in which he had taken part, and these memories, with the hope of others like them, gave him a pleasure that he would not have parted with for anything.

Often when he was in New York, walking through narrow city streets, looking up at high buildings, hearing the roar and rattle of the passing traffic, and watching the people hurry to and fro, each one absorbed in his own business, it was hard to realize that away off somewhere, only a few days' journey distant, there was a land where there was no limit to the view, where each human being seemed absolutely free, and where it was possible to travel for days and days without seeing a single person. Always interwoven with his dreams and his imaginings about this distant country was the memory of the friend Hugh, to whom he was so deeply attached. It hardly seemed to him possible to go anywhere in the West, except in company with Hugh, and until he had joined him, it never seemed as if his journey had begun, or was really going to be made.

All through the day the boat went on, turning and twisting, and at different times facing all points of the compass. Sometimes the sun would be shining on the port side of the boat, a little later on the starboard side, then it would be ahead, and again behind. Hugh and Jack spent their time chatting on the upper deck of the boat, Hugh smoking vigorously, to keep off the mosquitoes, while Jack, the edges of his handkerchief under his hat and tucked inside his coat collar, to leeward of Hugh, took advantage of the constant stream of smoke that poured from his pipe. They had much to tell each other of the winter that had passed, and much to say of the trip on which they were now starting. Fort Benton was their destination, and until they reached there, and saw their friend Joe, the Blackfoot Indian who was to meet them with the horses, they were uncertain what they should do.

There were not a few passengers on the boat. Some of them were carefully dressed persons, wearing long frock coats, white shirts, and a modest amount of jewelry, residents of the thriving towns of Helena or Virginia City, Montana; others were army officers, on their way to posts in the Northwest, or now starting out on some exploring expedition; while others still were persons of whose occupation and destination it was hard to judge from their appearance.

Among them was a middle-aged man who Jack thought, from his conversation, had long been a resident of the plains, and who told Jack something about a trade that he had long practised-that of wolfing.

"Why, young fellow," he said, "it is only a few years ago since there was good money in wolfin', but I had to quit it down in the southern country for wolves got too scarce when the buffalo got killed off. Wherever there was buffalo there was plenty of wolves, for the wolves made their livin' off the herds, just like the Indians; and when I say wolves I mean big wolves, coyotes, foxes, and swifts.

"In the autumn, as soon as the fur began to get good, I used to start out and find a herd of buffalo, and after shootin' two or three of them, I'd skin them down, and rip them up, and put from one to three bottles of strychnine in each carcass. After the blood that lay in the ribs had been poisoned good, I'd smear that over the meat on the outside. Generally I'd try to kill my buffalo close to where I was goin' to camp, and after I had put out my baits I went to camp and slept until near day. Then, before I could see, I'd get up, cook my breakfast, hitch up, if I had a team, and go round to all my baits. Likely, around each one I'd find my half dozen to fifteen wolves, and sometimes it would take me two or three days to skin them. Likely enough, if the weather turned right cold, I got a good many more wolves than I could skin, and had to stack them up, and wait till I got time. It was mighty hard work now, and don't you forget it. Then, too, there was always a chance that Indians might come along and make trouble for me. You take a man out on the prairie, ten years ago, and even the friendly Indians were likely to scare him a whole lot, or take his hides, even if they didn't take away his gun and his horses. As for the hostiles, if they got too close to a man it was all up with him. But I never had no trouble with them, except once, and then I was camped in the dug-out, with plenty of provisions, and there was only three of the Indians. I saw them comin', and suspected who they were, and managed to get my horses into the dug-out with me and stood 'em off. They scared me bad though.

"I should think so," said Jack.

The man stopped talking to fill his pipe and after he had lighted it puffed thoughtfully. Then he continued: "There's another way I've wolfed it, and that is by draggin' a bait over quite a scope of country, and droppin' pieces of poisoned meat along the trail. I used to do that when I couldn't find animals to kill for bait. This worked pretty well for awhile but it's no good any more down in that country."

"I've seen coyotes killed by putting poisoned tallow in auger holes, bored in chunks of wood," said Jack.

"Yes," said the man, "that's good sometimes, and they stay there lickin' and lickin' up the bait until they die right there. You don't have to look over much country to find your wolves."

"What kind of meat did you use when you were dragging the bait?" asked Jack.

"Most any kind would do," replied the wolfer; "sometimes it would be a piece of buffalo meat, sometimes a shoulder of a deer, but the best bait of all is a beaver carcass; there's lots of grease and lots of smell to that, and the wolves and coyotes are sure to follow it. This draggin' a trail is good too, because the wolves, when they go along and snap up the poisoned bait, don't go off, but keep right on followin' the trail, and you find them there, maybe quite a long way from where they pick the bait.

"Where are you goin', young fellow; you and that old man I see you talking with?"

"We're going up to Benton," said Jack, "and I don't know where we're going from there. I expect we'll meet a friend there, with our horses, and then we're going to make a trip, off maybe on the prairies, and maybe into the mountains; we can't tell yet."

"Sho," said the man, "you're sure goin' to have a good time. I've got to get a job when I get to Benton; somethin' that'll keep me until it comes time for fur to get good."

The next morning when Jack and Hugh left their stateroom a heavy fog hung low over the river and the boat was not moving, but was tied up to the bank, for it was so thick that there was danger of running aground on the frequent sand-bars, and as the river was now falling, the captain was unwilling to take the chance of such delay. On the lower deck was a dug-out canoe, the property of a temporary passenger, who was going only to Fort Berthold, and, after breakfast, Jack suggested to Hugh that they should borrow this canoe and go off a little way up the river, taking their guns, and seeing whether they could kill anything. Hugh said this could not be done, explaining that it would be easy enough to get lost, which would be bad for them, and very irritating to the captain, who might feel it necessary to wait for them; and besides this, the fog might lift at any moment, when the boat would move onward much faster than they could paddle. As it happened, the fog lifted almost immediately, and the boat set forward; and a little before noon the village of the Rees, Gros Ventres and Mandans, high up on the bluff above the river, was seen; and soon after the boat tied up, and all hands went ashore.

The bluff rose steeply from the river, and up and down its face were steep trails, worn by the feet of women passing up and down as they carried water and the driftwood which they gathered, up to the village. On the top of the bluff stood the bee-hive shaped gray houses, which Hugh told Jack were much like those occupied by the Pawnees.

They began to climb the bluff toward the village, and Jack asked Hugh about the Indians who lived here.

"In old times," said Hugh, "these Indians were scattered out up and down the river. The Gros Ventres lived furthest up, between here and Buford, and the Rees and Mandans lived further down the stream. A long time ago,-back maybe more than a hundred years,-the Rees and the Mandans all lived together, away down below here; but then they had some sort of a quarrel among themselves, and the Mandans moved on up the stream, and for a long time camped near the mouth of the Knife River. For a while after that there was some fighting between the Rees and Mandans, but after a time they made peace, and gradually the tribes came together again; and now for a long time they've all lived together in this village of Berthold. In old times each of these villages was a big one, but since the white men came among them, and brought smallpox, and liquor, and all the other things that the white men bring, they are dying off fast, and I don't believe that now there is more than eight or nine hundred of these Indians all together. You know these Rees here are kind of kin to the Pawnees; they speak near the same language, so that I can talk with 'em, and they call the Pawnees their relations. I think they used to be a part of the Skidi band. Nobody knows just when they separated from the Pawnees, but it must have been a good while ago."

Hugh paused, and Jack asked: "Does any one know how they came to separate, Hugh? Is there any tradition about it?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "there is. The old story is that all the Pawnees were out hunting, and the Sioux got around some of 'em, and cut 'em off from the rest and kept fighting 'em, and driving 'em, and fighting and driving, until they got 'em away up on the Missouri River, so far from their friends that they had to winter there. Then, along back, maybe about 1830, soon after the beginning of the fur trade on the upper river, the Rees fought the white folks, and were generally hostile. After that they went back and joined the Pawnees, but they couldn't get along well with the Pawnees, and quarreled with them, and finally the Pawnees drove 'em off. So they came on back up the river. It was after that that they joined the Mandans, and they've lived together ever since."

By this time they had reached the top of the bluff, and were now close to the houses, on whose curious domed roofs many people were sitting,-women busy with their work, young men wrapped in their robes, and looking off into the distance, and little girls playing with their dolls or their puppies. The ground in the village all about the houses was worn bare by the passage of many feet; Indians were going to and fro, women carrying water and wood, men naked, or wrapped in their summer sheets, little boys chasing each other, or, with their ropes trying to snare the dogs, which were usually too cunning for them.

Jack was greatly interested in the houses, and wished to look into one, and to this Hugh said there would be no objection. The entrance of each house was by a long passage-way, closed above, and at the sides, and passing through this, they found themselves at the door. Jack expected to go into a room that was dark; but this was not so. Above the center of the large room was a wide open space, which answered both for chimney and for window. About the fireplace, which was under the smoke hole, at the corners of a square, stood four stout posts, reaching up to and supporting the rafters of the roof. The floor of the house was swept clean, and all around the walls were raised platforms, serving for beds, and separated by screens of straight willow sticks strung on sinew, from the adjacent bed on either side. In front of some of the beds similar screens hung down like curtains so that the bed could be cut off from the observation of those in the house. Over the fireplace hung a pot, and two pleasant-faced women were sitting near it, sewing moccasins. They looked up pleasantly, as the strangers stood in the doorway, and Hugh spoke a few words to them, to which they made some answer. Then the strangers withdrew.

Keeping on through the village, they walked out on the higher prairie, toward the tribal burying-ground, but not such a burying-ground as Jack was accustomed to see. Here were placed the dead, wrapped up in bundles, on platforms raised on four poles, eight or ten feet above the ground. Evidently no attention was paid to them after burial, for many of the poles which supported the platforms had rotted and fallen down, and, in the older part of the graveyard the ground was strewn with pieces of old robes and clothing, and with white bones.

Hugh told Jack that farther away, and down on lower ground, where the soil was moist, the Rees, Mandans, and Gros Ventres had farms, where they raised corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes, and that in old times they used to raise tobacco.

It was now time to return to the boat, for the wait was to be only a short one, and on their way back he told of something that had happened not many years before in the Mandan village.

"The people were hungry," said Hugh, "and there was no food in camp. They sent young men off in all directions to look for buffalo, but none could be found. As the people grew hungrier and hungrier the White Cow Society made up their minds that they would give a dance, and try to bring the buffalo. They did this, and danced for a long time; but no buffalo were found, and there were no signs that any were coming. Still the people of the White Cow Society danced, and still the other people watched them, and prayed that they might bring the buffalo. One day, after they'd danced for ten days, suddenly a big noise was heard in the village, and when the people rushed out of the lodges to see what was happening, there, among the lodges, was a big buffalo bull, charging about right close to the lodge in which the White Cow Society were dancing. All the dogs in the village seemed to be about him, barking at his head, and biting at his heels, and he was trying only to get away, and paying no attention to the Indians that were all about him.

"Then everybody was glad, for all could see that the Master of Life had sent this bull, to answer their prayers; and all believed that he had come ahead of the main herd, which would soon follow him. Before he had got out of the village, the bull was shot. The White Cow Society came out of their lodge, and danced around the village, and while they were doin' this, one of the scouts came in, and reported that a big band of cows was not far off. Then everybody was glad, and all wondered at the strong medicine of the White Cow Society. The next day the men went out and made a surround, and killed plenty of cows, and brought in the meat, and there came a terrible storm, and when the storm cleared off the whole prairie, beyond the ridge near Knife River, was black with buffalo. Now there was plenty in the camp, and every one was happy. The men went out and brought in fat meat, and it was dried, and no more that winter was there any suffering for food."

"That's a good story, Hugh," said Jack, "but do you suppose the dancing of the White Cow Society really brought the buffalo?"

"I couldn't tell you, son. The Indians believed it did, but I don't suppose any white folks would. But I've seen so many queer things follow these medicine performances that I don't know what to think about them, myself."

By this time they had reached the shore, and looking around, as they passed over the gang-plank to the deck, they saw the captain and purser coming down the trail just behind them. The deck hands were already beginning to cast off the fasts, and a moment later the whistle sounded, the boat's nose turned out into the river, and the steady thump, thump of the paddle-wheel began again. On the bank stood the three or four white men belonging to the agency, and up and down the bottom, and clustered in little groups on the bluffs, were Indians, dressed in buckskin, or in bright-colored cloth, who stood motionless, watching the steamer as she slowly moved away.

"That's a mighty interesting place, Hugh; and I want to get you to tell me all about it. Who are the Gros Ventres, and who are the Mandans? You've told me about the Rees, but I want to know about the others."

"Well, son," said Hugh, "I don't know as I can tell you very much about them, but I'll try. The Gros Ventres are close relations to the Crows; in fact, many people call them the River Crows, to distinguish them from the real Crows, that live up close to the mountains, on the head of the Yellowstone. Those fellows are called the Mountain Crows, and there's a good many more of them than there are of these. These people, I suppose, got their name, Gros Ventres, from the French, and I never heard why it was given to 'em. I never could see that they were any fatter, or had any bigger bellies, than other Indians, and I never found out any reason for the name. They don't call themselves by any such name as that; their name for themselves is Hi d?t sa, and that's said to mean, willows. Anyhow, they used to be called Willow Indians; so I have been told.

"In old times, they say that there were three tribes of them, but the other tribes have been lost, or forgotten, and now they're all together-all one bunch of Indians. There's one thing you want to remember, that there are two different outfits of Indians, both called Gros Ventres; one of them, these people here, whom we know as the Gros Ventres of the Village, or Gros Ventres of the Missouri; the others are the Gros Ventres of the Prairie, whose country is east of the Blackfoot country, and who used to be friendly with the Blackfeet, and then fought them for a long time, and now are friendly again. Those Gros Ventres of the Prairie are no kin at all to these people, but are a part of the Arapahoes, from whom, according to the old story, they split off a long, long time ago. They talk the Arapahoe language, and call the Arapahoes their own people, and still visit them back and forth. Nowadays they have an agency along with the Assinaboines, further west, at Fort Belknap, over on Milk River. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred get these Arapahoes and these River Crows mixed up, just for the reason that the French called them both Gros Ventres. Don't you ever do that, because when a man makes that mistake it shows that he don't know nothing about Indians. Try to remember that, will you?"

"Of course I will, Hugh. I don't want to make any mistakes, especially now since I have been out and seen something of real Indians. People back East, and especially all the fellows at school, think that I know everything about Indians now. They're all the time asking me questions about them, who they are, and where they live, and I should hate to make any mistakes in my answers. Now tell me, who are the Mandans?"

"I don't know as much about the Mandans as I do about the Gros Ventres of the Village," said Hugh, "and yet I've heard a lot about them. They're a kind of queer people; lots of 'em used to have yellow hair and gray eyes, and lots of 'em now have gray-haired children, same as you have seen among the Blackfeet. I got hold of a book once with lots of pictures of Indians in it; mighty good pictures, too, they were. 'T was written by a man named Catlin, who came up the river, painting pictures of Indians, a long time ago; maybe fifty years. He said he thought the Mandans were Welshmen, and told some story about some foreign prince that brought a colony of Welshmen over here, and Catlin thought that maybe the Mandans were descended from that colony. Anyhow they've lived by themselves, so the story goes, for a great many years; but I've heard the old men say that long, long ago the tribe came from away back East somewhere. They followed down a big river that ran from east to west, likely it may have been the Ohio River, until they came to the Mississippi, and then they struck off northwest, and camped on the Missouri, and they have been traveling up the Missouri, a little way at a time, for an almighty sight o' years.

"This book of Catlin's that I tell you about has got a whole lot o' stuff about the Mandans, and it is mighty good readin'. You had better get hold of it sometime when you get back East; it'll tell you more about 'em than I can. The Mandans have always been farmers, and raised good crops of corn, and that and their buffalo give them a pretty good living. But now the buffalo are getting scarce, and when they give out the Mandans will have to live on straight corn, I am afraid. There's one thing about the Mandans that's worth rememberin', they make the best pots of any people that I know of on the plains. I expect that in old times maybe the Pawnees made just as good pots, but since the white folks began to bring brass and copper kettles into the country the Pawnees have forgotten how to make pots; but the Mandans still keep it up, and make some pots, big and little--"

"Oh, Hugh!" called Jack at this moment, "Look at the buffalo!" and he pointed toward the high bluffs on the south side of the river, and there were three dark spots, running as hard as they could up the hill.

"Sure enough," said Hugh, "there's the first buffalo we've seen. Don't they look like three rats scuttling off over the hills, as fast as they can go. Before long, now, we ought to see plenty of 'em along the river; though we ain't likely to see many buffalo before we get above Buford."

The boat pushed slowly up the river's muddy current, and Hugh and Jack continued to talk about the Indian village on the hill.

"A mighty queer thing happened once at that village, son," said Hugh. "You've heard, maybe, that in some tribes of Indians they have sort of prophets, or men that foretell things that are going to happen. I have seen a little of that sort of thing myself, that I never could explain. Besides that, they've got some way of learning news that we don't understand anything about. Of course it may not be as quick as railroads and telegraphs, but its quick. Let me tell you something that happened there at Berthold, some years ago, and the man that it happened to lives in the upper country now, and you may likely run across him some time when you are up there. He is a Dutchman, and his name is Joe Butch.

"Along in 1868, Joe was working at Berthold, for a trader there, and the trader got into some sort of a quarrel about a horse with old White Cow, chief of the Mandans, and I guess old White Cow was pretty sassy, and maybe he threatened to do something, and Joe killed him. Well, as soon as he had killed the old man, Joe he knew that that wasn't no place for him, because the Mandans would be pretty sure to kill him; so he hops onto his horse, and rides as hard as he could for Buford, that's eighty miles up the river, next place we stop at. When he got to Buford he found there a big camp of Assinaboines, and they were having a big dance, because the chief of the Mandans, their enemies, had just been killed. Now, how do you suppose those Assinaboines knew that White Cow had been killed? Joe didn't waste no time getting onto his horse, and he rode as hard as he could to Buford; and its a sure thing that nobody got there before him with the news. I never understood how they found that out, and I never expect to."

"That seems a wonderful thing, Hugh," said Jack. "I don't see how they could have found it out if nobody told them, and if there were no telegraphs."

"Well, it's sure there were no telegraphs," said Hugh, "and I don't see how anybody could have told them. Joe killed the man, and started on his ride right off, and had a good horse. That's one of the things that always beat me."

The hours passed swiftly by for Jack and Hugh, as they watched the river banks on either side. The boat had met a flood of water just above Berthold, which, if it made progress against the strong current more slow, nevertheless saved time by deepening the water, so that they did not run aground on sand-bars. Several times during the morning, antelope were seen feeding in the bottom, lifting their heads to gaze at the boat, as it puffed and snorted along, but not being enough alarmed to take to flight. After supper that night, as they sat on the deck about sundown, Hugh, watching the banks, pointed out no less than three distant spots on the wide bottom, which he told Jack were bears digging roots. They were a long way off, yet with his glasses Jack was able to make out their forms, and to recognize them as bears.