Activate Javascript or update your browser for the full Digital Library experience.
Next Page
OCR
VOLUME 86. NO. 40.
OCTOBER 3, 1912,
OMPAN
THE QUEST
0
)
Pitamakan and I.returned to Fort
Benton after our perilous winter in the
depths of the Rockies. For a time I was
well content to remain within the walls
of the stockade and rest and sleep, and
tell over and over to the eagerly listening
company-men the story of our hardships.
A month after our return, however, the
factor loaded two keel-boats and three
bateawr with furs and robes, and telling
off the crew and putting my Uncle Wesley
in charge, sent them, one fine morning,
on their way to far St. Louis. After
their departure I found life in the fort was
not so pleasant; I missed my uncle’s com-
panionship sorely. True, I went out
with the fort hunter whenever he made
a trip for meat, but as there were now
only a few mouths to feed, he hunted not
oftener than once a fortnight, and then
for a few hours only. Why should he?
Immense herds of buffalo were constantly
grazing in the bottom; in the early morn-
ing we shot them, often from the very
walls of the fort. .
Moreover, the Blackfeet had all moved
out on the far plains for the summer,
and Pitamakan had gone with them;
saying that his father needed him to herd
the family horses, he had firmly refused to
accept our hospitality. Although my
uncle’s good and faithful wife, Tsistsaki,
did all she could to make me happy and
contented in our little home, I found the
monoteny of it all become, week by week,
less and less endurable, until at last [
actually fell sick from lack of companion-
ship and proper exercise.
If Pitamakan had stayed with me, we
could have lounged away the whole sum-
mer at the fort—in which event this story
would never have been written. It all
happened because I was left moping there
in the fort, the only boy within its four
lT was early in the spring of 1861 that
v in August several hundred of the
ipal Blackfeet came to the fort for a
h supply of powder and ball, and for
two d: trade was livel Their camp,
they said, was on the Missouri at the
mouth of Sun River. Within a moon they
were expecting the River People to join
them there for a season of intertribal trade
and horse-racing.
Pitamakan’s father, White Wolf, was
one of the visiting party, and I went
quicl
health.
“*Your elder brother sends you greeting,’’
the stern old warrior replied, ‘‘and asks you
to come and stay with him for a time. There
will be great fun for young and old when we
and the River People meet.””
Without waiting to hear more, I ran to
Tsistsaki, who was busy at the fireplace pre-
paring her share of a feast for the visitors.
““Pitamakan asks me to go and stay with him!””
I eried. *‘O Tsistsaki! As you love me, let
me go!”’
Rising from the hearth, she gave me a hug
and kiss. ~
““Yes, my son, of course you shall go,’’ she
said, heartily. ““Yes, and I’ll go with you.
Your uncle will not be here for several moons,
80 it is right for us to go and live in the great
camp for a time. It is long, long since I slept
in a lodge. My nos are hungry for the
odor of trampled sage and the sweet-smelling
growth of the plains. My eyes ache for a sight
of the happy people feasting and dancing. My
ears long for the laughter and singing and
drumming of the people as the sun goes down.
Yes, my son, we will go to the camp with
this party, and have a good time.””
So we set out under the protection of Pita-
makan’s father, White Wolf, who was Tsist-
saki’s own brother. We each rode a good horse,
and we had two pack-animals laden with our
bedding, clothing and food, and with numerous
presents for our friends.
I carried a new rifle; that is, it was new for |
me, although it was a weapon of some age that |
belonged to my uncle. My own father bhad
made it in the little shop in St. Lou I took
that for a good omen: a sign that I should be
ORAWN BY GEORGE VARIAN
" WHAT DO YOU CALL IT?
WHERE DID IT LIVE?
WHERE DID YOU GET IT?"
| a ball weighing thirty-two to the pound. O,
but I was proud of it, and of the powder:
as well as among women. |
“Oh, T am glad to see you again, brother!””
horn and the ball-and-cap pouch slung at my | my friend exclaimed.
side!
With so good a gun, I did not intend to run
| short of ammunition ; although the kind factor
had laughed at me, I had taken, on credit from
the company store, five hundred extra rounds
of ammunition and seven boxes of caps, now
safely stowed in the center of one of the
packs.
It is about forty miles from Fort Benton to
the mouth of Sun River. We left the fort late
in the afternoon: not until late in the after-
noon of the next day did we draw near to the
great camp. ‘It consisted of more than five
hundred lodges, scattered in groups on the
plain, from the Missouri River for several miles
up the smaller am. The whole valley and
the hills on eithe) e were covered with herds
of grazing borses, and long before we si;
the camp we could hear the noise of i
confused, continuous sound of shouting, s
ing, laughing, drumming, crying of children,
And I answered that I was glad to see him.
“Yonder is our lodge,”’” he said, pointing to
one on the right edge of a group of forty or|
fifty of them; but I had already recognized it
by the two enormous otters painted in black
and red on the outside, for the otter was White |
Wolf’s sacred medicine-animal. |
Pitamakan slid to the ground, caught and
remounted his own horse, and presently we |
halted in front of the lodge. The women,
with tears of joy streaming down their cheek:
came hurrying out, and embraced Tsistsaki.
They would have kissed me, too, but I man-
aged to elude them under pretense of caring
for my horse. They were good old motherly
souls, and considered me a real member of the
While White Wolf, Pitamakan and T went
inside and sat down on the soft buffalo-robe
couches, the women unpacked the horses and
brought in the stuff. Then they cooked some
the wailing of the bereaved, and the barking | buffalo ribs and service-berries for us, a simple
of hundreds of dogs.
‘0N, but it sounds good !
Tsistsaki exclaimed.
So it did.
knew that T was getting excited.
1t sounds good 1””
meal that we ate with keen appetites.
As the evening advanced, many visitors came
and smoked with White Wolf, for they were
As we came nearer and nearer, I anxious to hear his news of the fort and its
The people | people.
There was much talk of the coming |
OF THE FISH-DOG SKIN
In. Ten Chapters. Chapter One.
O~ JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ (Ap-1-KUN-D)
the big lake and the river that bore their
name, and their chief means of subsist-
ence was deer-hunting and salmon-fishing.
They also dried immense quantities of
ss and bitterroot, articles of food of
which the Blackfeet were very fond.
The Blackfeet did not allow the Pend
d’Oreilles or the Flatheads, Nez Pereés,
Kootenais, or any other West-of-the-
Rockies tribes, to hunt on their buffalo
plains unless they came out of the range
to some certain specified point of meeting.
In this instance it had been decided the
season before that the Pend d’Oreilles
should come to trade with the Blackfeet
here, at the mouth of Sun River, in the
choke-cherry moon—a month that was
now at hand. They were to cross the
range by the Sun River pass, and were
privileged to kill all the buffaloes they
could on their way to the meeting-point.
That meant much to the people of the
other side; for buffalo meat—best of all
flesh—was a welcome change of diet, and
the big, heavy, well-furred hides answered
many purposes for which the skins of deer
and elk were inadequate.
Pitumakan and I. passed a pleasant
evening, talking over our experiences of
the winter. Early the next morning we
crossed the Missouri at the ford just above
the first falls. Several miles back from
the stream I fired the first shot from my
new rifle, and dropped an antelope in its
tracks at a distance of more than two
hundred yards. A little later we each
killed a big, fat bnck antelope. We now
had all the meat our horses could easily
carry, and so, although there were some
buffaloes farther on, we did not molest
them. After skinning our kills and pack-
ing on the meat we lost no time in going
back to camp. We wanted to be on hand
when the visitors came. Late in the
evening some returning hunters reported
that the Pend d’Oreilles were camped on
the Sun River, about a half-day’s journey
away, and that they would probably trail
in on the morrow before noon.
Early the next morning there was a
tremendous stir and bustle of preparation
in camp. The women cooked great quan-
tities of meat, —broiled and boiled,—and
got out tempting portions of rich dried
meat, back fat and bags of berry pem-
mican. Then they put on their best buel
skin dresses, ornamented with embroidery
up to him to ask about my friend’s | fortunate with it. It had a cap lock, and shot | kiss was the Blackfoot salutation among men |of beads or colored porcupine quills, and
with elk tusks, carefully combed and braided
their hair, and painted their faces red or
yellow, as their fancy dictated. The men
spent much more time on their toilets, and
when they had given their beautiful war
clothes and eagle-plume war-bonnets a last
preening, and had proudly mounted their most
fiery horses to ride out to meet the incoming
tribe, they were simply gorgeous—a mass of
rainbow color.
Pitamakan and T went with them, although
in the rear of the chiefs, as befitted our station.
| Two miles beyond the farther end of the great
camp we saw the Pend d’Oreilles coming ; their
horses raised a trail of dust that mounted into
the blue of the mountain sky. There were
perhaps a thousand, all told, of the visiting
tribe.
The first thing that struck me was that they
rode fine big horses of a breed superior to the
Spanish stock of the Blackfeet. Then, as they
came closer, I saw that the men were not
physically the equal of the tall, lean, proudly
poised I eet. They were shorter and
darker. Their hair was in many cases loose
and uncombed, and they were not so well
dressed. Most of them wore leggings and shirts
of buckskin without ornamentation, and togas
of the same material. The Blackfeet adopted
for their costume whatever was most beautiful
saw us coming, and many rode out to greet us. | of the River People, and of how they should | in design and color among the different tribes
Foremost of them all was, Pitamakan, racing | be welcomed to the camp. | n ]
|across the fiat on a biz pinto horse. Straight| T may as well say here hat the River People | were the most richly dressed Indians of all the
and gave me a bear-like hug and a
exa
Yes,
¢ voyageurs gave the name of
lles, — ear pendants, — because |
they wore such enormous shell earring
that they met and fought, and in consequence,
past me he rode with a shout of weleome, | ( Nii-tuk-tai-tup-pi) were the Indians to|pla
wheeled, and coming up beside me, sprang | whom the e
from his horse to mine, just behind the saddle, | Pend d’Or
As we neared the other column, with our
chiefs and medicine-men in the lead, we struck
up the song of weleome, a powerful chant that
tly that, for in those days the embrace and | home was in the great forests that bordered | quickens the blood. When it ended, the other
9g n0w LTy 2061
Angy wAPAE
