CHAPTER VI. INDIANS OF OLD TIMES.
The next morning they were up bright and early. The horses were all standing where they had been picketed the night before, and after the fire was kindled, Jack and Hugh went to them, took up the picket pins, and moved each horse so that he might have fresh grass to eat; then while Hugh prepared breakfast, Jack rolled up the beds and prepared all the camp furniture except the mess kit for packing. When they loaded the horses the carcass of the deer was put on one of the packs, and presently they started off down the creek. That night they camped at the Platte River, and the next morning crossed it, and kept on north.
For many days they travelled northward, crossing some small streams, and then coming to the head of Powder River, and journeying along the divide on its east side. The marches that they made were not very long. The grass was good, there was plenty of water, and the loads were light; so that their horses kept in good condition and moved along briskly. After two or three nights Hugh picketed only four of the horses, permitting two to drag their ropes, and when morning came these two were found with the others. A little later he freed one more, and at last another one, so that finally there were only two horses confined at night. These were not always the same two, but usually the two riding horses were the ones on picket.
They made some slight changes in the packs, making two of them lighter and two heavier; and then, sometimes Jack, instead of riding Pawnee, let him carry a light pack, and rode the bay, while Hugh sometimes changed off to the dun or to the paint horse. One day when their stock of fresh meat was running low, since the deer had been almost eaten up, Hugh killed a buck antelope, which was in fair order; but they did no hunting, and travelled steadily.
One afternoon they camped on a small fork of Powder River, and after camp had been made and the horses picketed, Hugh proposed that they should take a little walk to the top of a high hill not far off, and see what could be seen. They started, going rather slowly, and stopping every now and then to look over the country with the field glass that Hugh carried. Nothing was seen except the wild animals of the prairie, and when they reached the top of the hill they sat down and took a long, long look. Hugh was carefully examining some distant object to the north when he felt himself pushed by Jack, and glancing around, saw that he was lying flat on the ground. Hugh very slowly lowered his head, and turning, looked in the direction in which Jack pointed. Coming up out of the ravine not far away, he saw a good sized grizzly bear, and following her, two little cubs. The cubs were still very small, and were cunning little creatures. They ran about fast yet clumsily, sometimes attacked each other and had a pretended fight, stood up on their hind legs and sparred at each other with their front paws, and then one chased the other as he ran wildly off over the hillside. Every now and then the mother would stop to look at them, and she seemed to take pleasure in their high spirits. Now and then she stood up on her hind legs and looked in all directions, and she was now so close to the top of the hill that they could see her wrinkle her nose as she sniffed the air. Jack whispered to Hugh, "Ain't they beauties! Wouldn't I like to have them back at the ranch. There's no way we could catch 'em and take 'em along, is there?"
"No," whispered Hugh; "the only thing you can do is to kill 'em."
"By Jove, I don't want to do that; they're too cunning."
The little family was now quite near the top of the hill, but was passing around it. Again the mother stood on her hind legs to look, and while she was doing this one of the cubs rushed up in front of her and sprang into the air, grasping her around the chest and the mother closed her arms about it and put her head down. The whole act seemed like the springing of a child into its mother's arms, and the mother kissing the child.
"The mother kissing the child."—Page 49
"By mighty!" said Hugh, "I can't shoot at that bear, and I don't believe you can either, son."
"Not much, we'll let them go."
They lay there and watched the bears go around the hill, and presently the old one saw the horses and the camp equipage far below in the valley. She stood on her hind legs and looked for a long time, evidently much puzzled as to what these strange objects were, but after looking for awhile she came down on all fours again, called her young ones to her by a low cry, trotted off around the hill out of sight, and then made her way back as she had come.
They watched her for a long time, until she was hidden behind the swells of the prairie, and then Jack sat up and said to Hugh, "That's the prettiest thing I ever saw, and I don't feel as if I ever could shoot at a bear again after seeing it."
"Well," said Hugh, "that's saying a good deal, but I tell you I wouldn't have shot at that bear for a farm."
The sun was low when they reached camp on their return. They had eaten when they made camp, but Hugh said that he believed that Jack could eat again, and they cooked a little meat and warmed up some of the coffee that was in the pot, and made up a good fire, by which they sat for a long time.
Hugh said, "I reckon this is about the last regular camp fire we can have. We're getting up into the country now where we're liable to run across Indians, and while I don't think there's a mite of danger to be looked for from any of 'em, still I'd just as leave they wouldn't see us."
"What Indians live in this country, Hugh?"
"Well," said Hugh, "the fact is it's Cheyenne country, but Sioux and Cheyennes live here, and Crows come into it; fact is, it's a kind of anybodys' country. The Piegans come down here and make war on the Crows and Cheyennes, and in old times the Pawnees used to come up here on their war journeys. You've got to keep your eye open here for all sorts of Indians."
"Well, Hugh, these Indians haven't always been hostile, have they?"
"Not so; there was a long time when they were friendly with everybody. It was only after white people began to come into the country and make trouble of one sort and another that the Indians got bad. You see, the white people didn't know nothing about Indians, and had a kind of an idea that the whites owned the whole country, and the Indians thought that they owned it, because they always had, up to that time; and then there was young men that stole white men's horses and likely some of 'em got killed; so that, on the whole, you can easy see how the wars began; they started about twenty-five years ago. Up to that time the tribes had been all pretty friendly. I won't say that there wasn't bad young men that did bad things, but the old men didn't approve of that, and when they could catch their young men doing anything o' that sort they'd punish them. Why, from 1851 to 1854, I was trading with Indians right along; that is, in winter."
"I wish you'd tell me about that, Hugh."
"Why, sure, I'll tell you all there is to tell. I hired out to old Corcoran one fall. He had a trading post down on the Platte, a little way east of the forks, and the Indians used to come in there sometimes, but there was other posts, and he didn't get as much trade as he thought he ought to; so he hired me to travel around to the camps, and stop with the Indians and trade with them, and fetch in what furs I got to the post. I started out that first winter with a big wagon, hauled by bulls, and with quite a lot o' trade goods, to find the Cheyenne camp. I remember we'd heard that they were up on Horse Creek, and I started up there. It took me a long time to get there, for bulls don't travel very fast, you know, and when I got there I found they'd moved over onto the Platte, so I had to follow 'em there, and when I got there they were just moving out to go further up the stream, to above where Fort Laramie stands, and I had to trail along with 'em. However, at last they got located for the winter, and I went into Spotted Wolf's lodge and lived there with him. After I got there and unpacked my goods, Spotted Wolf sent a crier out through the camp, and told the Indians that I was there and ready to trade, and before very long I had my store agoing."
"Well, what did you trade to them, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Well, there's one thing I didn't trade to 'em, and that is whiskey. That was before the days when anybody thought of trading liquor to the Indians, though of course now and then in a fort they gave a man a dram, as they called it; but in them days there wasn't never no trading of liquor. I had tobacco and red cloth, and beads and little mirrors, and some silver coins that they used to hammer out plates from to wear on their heads."
"Oh, I know! I've seen pictures of Indians with great silver plates on their scalp locks, and big ones at the top and little ones running down to the end."
"That's it, that's just what I mean. Well, I lived pretty near the whole winter in that camp. The Indians had plenty of dried meat and back fat, and tongues, and we lived well. Once in a while I'd go out up into the hills and kill a deer, or a couple of antelope; and two or three times the buffalo came close to the camp, in good weather, so that we made a killing; so we had fresh meat during a good part of the winter. Along in the end of February or first of March I had all the robes and furs that my team could haul, and I started back. I'd taken a half breed boy with me to drive the bulls, and we got along all right till we got down pretty close to Scott's Bluffs. When we got there I noticed that one of the bulls was kind of sick. I didn't know what was the matter with him. We drove along till night, and camped, and the next morning that bull was dead. We went on, and the next day two more of the bulls seemed sick, and the next morning they were dead; so we couldn't go no further. I unloaded the wagon, piled up the bales of robes all around it, went into camp there, and sent the boy on to old Corcoran, to get some more bulls. I expected him back in about six or seven days, but I was eighteen days there in camp before he showed up again. I tell you, them was long days, too. Nothing to do except to sit there and watch them bales of fur, and cook three meals a day. I got terrible tired of it."
"After I'd been there about a week, one morning I saw an Indian dog on the prairie, about a hundred yards off. He was sneaking around, looking this way and that way, and when he saw me move about the camp, he just sat down and watched me. I walked outside my stockade and called to him, but he didn't pay no attention, just sat there. I was kind of uneasy when I saw him, for I thought maybe a party of Indians might be coming along, and if they did, and took a notion to them furs, there was nothing to stop them carrying 'em all off; but nobody showed up. The next morning the dog was still there. I went out and walked toward him, but as fast as I walked toward him, he walked away, and I couldn't get nearer than about a hundred yards; so I went back to the robes and figured what I should do. I wanted to get hold o' that dog, for I was powerful lonesome, and I thought he'd be kind o' company. I went back to the camp, and when I got there the dog had come back to the place where he was at first and was settin' there. I took a piece of dried meat and went out to where the dog was, and there I scattered a few chips of meat on the ground, and then went back to camp, and every few feet as I went I'd cut off a little piece of meat and drop it on the ground. When I got back, the dog had come to the place where I put the first meat, and was nosing around, picking it up, and after a while he struck the trail of meat toward camp, and came along pretty slowly, pretty shy and suspicious, until he was about half way between the place where he started and the stockade. He wouldn't come any further than that. I sat on the bale of robes and talked to him, and called him, and coaxed him, and he'd look at me and put back his ears and wag his tail, but he was afraid. I worked with that dog that way three days, before I could get him inside of the stockade, but on the fourth day he would come to me, as I sat by the fire, and take pieces of meat out of my hand, and after a while he lay down on the other side of the fire and went to sleep. That night I got my hand on him and patted him, and coaxed him, and then he saw that I was friendly, and from that time he wasn't afraid. I tell you he was good company to me, and I got to think a heap of him before that half breed got back. He was a pretty nice looking dog, too; had dark brown hair, so that he looked some like a beaver; so I called him Beaver. He got to know his name right soon, and he stayed with me for four years; and one time, when I was in the Cheyenne camp, he disappeared. I always believed some of them Cheyenne women got hold of him and killed him for a feast."
"Well, that's a good story, Hugh. I wish I could have been the boy that drove that team. I'd like to have spent a winter in an Indian camp; and above all, in those old times."
"Yes, son, I expect you'd have liked it right well. There was a heap o' difference between Indians then and now; they were right good people then, they hadn't picked up many white men's ways; so long as you treated 'em well they gave you the very best they had, and all you wanted of it. There wa'nt any beggars then, and the men you made friends with couldn't do enough for you. Of course when I went into old Spotted Wolf's lodge, and used it for a store and a boarding house, I made him some little presents, like two or three yards of red cloth, and three or four strings of beads and a mirror or two to his women. That is all it cost me to stop there all winter, board, lodging and mending all attended to for me."
"Well," said Jack, "I wish I could have seen some of those old days."
"You're going to see a heap this summer, son, that will be new to you, and you'll see a lot of old-time Indians and old-time Indian ways, up where we're going."
By this time darkness had fallen, and the sky was full of stars. The fire had burned down, and the air was growing cool. They spread their beds, and before long were sleeping soundly.