CHAPTER XIV. THE PIEGAN CAMP.
"There's the camp," said Hugh, half turning in his saddle, as he drew up his horse on top of the hill. Jack turned Pawnee out of the trail, and trotted by the pack horses, and when he reached Hugh's side, he looked down on the first Indian camp he had ever seen. At the foot of the long hill before them flowed a broad river, and on the wide flat beyond it stood a great circle of lodges, stretching up and down the stream, and reaching almost over to the farther bluffs.
"It's a big camp," said Hugh; "all the Piegans must be there."
"Why, Hugh," said Jack, "there must be an awful lot of people in all those tents."
"Yes," said Hugh, "there's quite a lot of 'em, and I expect, from the way the camp looks, that maybe there's more than just the Piegans. There must be some Bloods and Blackfeet with them. Now you can see what a camp really looks like. It's only once in a while that the people all get together like this. I expect maybe they're getting ready to hold the medicine lodge; that'll come right soon now; about the time that the berries are ripe. That's the biggest time these people have, and I expect if we're here when they hold it this year, you'll like it. There ain't many white people has ever seen a Blackfoot medicine lodge, and if you see one you'll be in big luck."
"I hope I will," said Jack. "I don't know what it is, but I want to find out everything about how these people live, and I want to try to remember everything that I see. Now, most of the lodges stand in a circle, but there are some of them inside the circle; what does that mean, Hugh? What are those for?"
"Well, you see that big lodge nearly in the middle of the circle?" said Hugh; "that's the head chief's lodge. He stops there. And then those two smaller ones on either side of it, pretty well over toward the other lodges, they belong to the secret societies, that they call, 'All Friends.'"
"Secret societies! You must be joking, Hugh; they don't have secret societies among the Indians, do they?"
"They surely do," answered Hugh. "There's about a dozen or fifteen societies of men. A man starts in when he's only a boy, not much bigger than you are, and he keeps going along from one society to another, until he gets to be a middle-aged man; until he begins to be old. The men that are warriors, going to war all the time—young fellows with lots of ambition—they mostly belong to what they call the brave society; Mŭt'siks, they call it. You'll hear all about them societies if you stop long in the camp; but the brave society is about the most important; and that, and two or three of the others, are what we call the 'soldier bands'; they're kind o' like constables. If the chiefs order anything done, and the people don't do it, they tell some of these bands of the 'All Friends' to make 'em do it, and they just have to. Sometimes, if a man's right stubborn, the soldiers'll quirt him, or they'll break his lodge poles, or cut his lodge to pieces, or even kill his horses. Most folks think that each Indian does what he likes; but you can bet it ain't so. And if you'll just think about it a little bit, you'll see it couldn't be so. These people have got to live together, and they couldn't live together comfortably if every man was doing just what he wanted to, and didn't pay no attention to what was good for other people. Now suppose there was a bunch of buffalo close to the camp, and a man found 'em, and started in to run 'em, and kill a lot of meat for himself; he might scare the buffalo, and run 'em all out of the country, so that the other people in the camp couldn't get any for themselves. That is just one way where one man might do a whole lot of harm to everybody in the camp. These people have laws, just like white folks do, and they have to obey the laws too, you bet. Well, let's go on down to the camp. You start them pack horses ahead, and we'll go down to the ford; it runs kind of slanting, and we've got to stick to the bar, without we want to swim."
"Hold on a minute, Hugh," said Jack; "what are those things there, that those horses are dragging?" Several riders had just appeared around a point of the bluffs, close to the river bank, and were entering the water to cross to the camp. Behind each horse followed a pile of wood, supported on two sticks which the animal was dragging. Almost every horse bore a rider. "Why," said Hugh, "that's a lot of women coming in with their wood. Don't you see each horse is dragging a travois, with a load of sticks and brush on it?"
"Oh, are those travois? I want to see how they're fixed on the horses. They are a good deal like our wagons, aren't they? Only they haven't any wheels," said Jack.
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's the Indians' cart. There, you see the way that first woman is pointing? You see, she doesn't go straight across the river; she goes slantways down the stream. There's a big bar runs across there, where the water isn't much more than up to a horse's belly; the bar's narrow, and on either side, it's swimming water; so when you cross here, you have to stick to that gravel bar."
By this time all the women had ridden into the water, and were crossing. Hugh started down the hill toward the point where they had entered the stream, and Jack drove the pack horses close after him. When they were part way down the hill, two more women made their appearance, and riding down the narrow ravine, along which the trail ran, entered the water. Hugh and Jack were not far behind them, and saw them stop a little way from the bank, to let their horses drink. They were near enough to see that the first one was a middle-aged woman, and the last, who was nearer to them, was a young girl.
Just before Jack and Hugh reached the water's edge, they heard behind them the thunder of many hoofs, and suddenly—driven by two Indian boys—there poured over the bank, almost on top of them, a great band of horses, rushing forward at top speed, the younger ones bounding and plunging, with heads and tails in the air, nipping at each other, and lashing out with their heels in play. The leading horses, when they saw the men and the pack train, tried to stop, but they were pushed forward by the throng behind, and obliged to keep on, but the herd separated, and rushed down to the ford on either side of Jack, whose pack horses, tired as they were, threw up their heads and seemed to want to join in the race. The band of horses came together again, just in front of Hugh, and streamed down the trail into the water, and along the bar. The leading ones galloped across, toward the older woman, who, Jack saw, was screaming and motioning with her hands. This stopped the horses in front, but not those behind, which continued to rush into the river, crowding and pushing, at first against each other, and soon against the horse ridden by the girl. She was striking at them with her quirt, but they could not get away from her, on account of those that followed, and in a moment Jack saw them crowd against the horse on which the girl sat, which was being pushed into deeper and deeper water.
It was exciting to watch, and Jack felt afraid that the girl might be knocked off into deep water and drowned. Without thinking of his pack horses, he galloped to the water's edge. The loose horses immediately in front of him started again, and then the whole bunch made a rush for the other bank. There was a confused struggle, and, to his dismay, he saw the old travois horse run against by some of the other horses, and knocked down into the deep water, and the girl and travois horse both disappeared. He heard Hugh call to him, "Ride in and swim for her!" and closing his legs about Pawnee, he galloped him through the shallow water, and in a moment the good horse was swimming over where the girl had disappeared. Jack saw the old horse, still followed by its load of wood, striking out bravely for the other bank, but where was the girl? In a moment he caught a gleam of something white in the water, and almost at the same instant her struggling form appeared. She was just ahead of Pawnee, and a light pressure on the right hand rein, turned the horse so that he swam close beside her, and Jack, reaching over, caught her by the shoulder of her buckskin dress, and pulled her toward him.
As soon as her head was above water she reached out and grasped the horn of his saddle, and then, after resting a moment, drew herself close to the horse, and, helped by Jack, clambered up behind him. By the time she was seated, they were half way across the river, and now Jack did not know whether to guide his horse toward the other bank, or to swim back to the bar. The double weight made Pawnee swim low in the water, but his head was stretched out, his nostrils were well above the surface, and he struck out strongly—as Hugh said afterwards—"like a loon chasing shiners." The question as to which way he should go was soon decided, for in a moment or two the horse's hoofs touched bottom, and he climbed up the rapidly shoaling side of the bar.
"She reached out and grasped the horn of his saddle."—Page 138
During all this time Jack had not looked about him very much; he had been thinking how he should get hold of the girl, and then, how he should get to shore. If he had looked, he would have seen the girl's mother sitting on her horse, near the bank where the camp stood, scanning the water just ahead of him, and twisting her hands, but uttering no word. He would have seen Hugh gallop into the water, followed by the pack horses, and ride off the bar, not very far behind him, and then, when Jack got the girl, ride back to the bar and go on toward the other shore.
Now, when Jack was on the bar once more, he saw just before him, the old woman sitting looking at him, and, hearing a splashing in the water behind, he looked around and saw Hugh following.
"Is the girl hurt?" called Hugh.
"I don't know," answered Jack, "I didn't think to ask her. Are you hurt, little girl?" he added, twisting in his saddle, so that he could look into her face. As he did so he saw that blood was trickling down over her forehead. She did not answer him, but shook her head.
In a moment more he stopped by the woman, who reached out her hand and took hold of the girl's arm, and spoke to her; but of course Jack did not understand what she said, though he felt that the girl shook her head. Then Hugh, who had come up, spoke to the woman in the Indian tongue. She replied, and after a moment's conversation, Hugh said to Jack, "Ride after the old woman, son; we will camp at her lodge to-night. I know her husband right well; he is a relation of old John Monroe's. You're in pretty good luck that you fished that girl out of the river the way you did. You'll surely be thought a heap of in this camp. She's Little Plume's daughter. He's an awful good man, a great warrior and a chief, and there won't be anything too good for you in this camp as long as you're here. I expect the little girl hurt her head when she rolled off that horse, but I reckon it ain't nothing but a little cut." He spoke to the girl, who did not answer him, but her mother spoke for her and Hugh said, "No, she ain't hurt a mite." By this time they had ridden up on the bank, and were entering the circle of the camp. Jack looked about him with the greatest interest, and forgot that he was wet, cold and shivering.
The lodges were great broad cones, and each one ended above in a sheaf of crossing lodge poles. Beneath where the lodge poles crossed, on one side, there was a dark opening from which smoke poured out, and on either side of this opening, stretched out a sort of three-cornered sail or wing. Near the ground, the skins, which covered the lodges were yellow or gray, but toward the top they grew darker, and some of them were dark brown. Some of the lodges had great patches on them, as if they had been mended. Some were ornamented with curious figures. Over the door of one was painted the black head of a buffalo cow. On another there was the figure of an elk. About yet another was a broad band of red, on which a procession of black birds seemed to be marching round the lodge. From the points of the wings of many lodges, hung buffalo tails, and sometimes great bunches of this black hair ran down from the smoke hole to the door. Scattered about through the camp were many people, busy about many different tasks. Groups of men smoked together. Women were busy hammering on stones. Here and there men sat by themselves, working with knives or other tools, at sticks of different sorts. On the ground were hides, over which women were bending.
All these things Jack saw, but did not very well comprehend. Meantime they had crossed the circle and approached a large lodge, near which two women were busy, with whom were two or three little children, and by the lodge stood an old horse with a travois, on which there was a load of wet and dripping wood. The woman Jack was following called in shrill tones to the others, and as Jack stopped, they hurried up to him, lifted the girl from his horse, and took her into the lodge. The woman motioned for him to dismount, and at the same moment the pack horses came up, driven by Hugh.
Jack was glad to get his feet on the ground once more, and to stamp about a little to get warm. Hugh said to him, "Go inside, if you like, son, and get close to the fire; you must be cold."
"No," said Jack, "I'll help you unpack first. I'll get warm sooner if I'm working."
"I believe you will," said Hugh; "that's pretty good sense. It won't take us long to get these packs off." Nor did it. In a very few minutes the horses' loads were piled up outside the lodge door, the pack horses turned loose, and the saddle horses tied to pins driven in the ground near the lodge. Then Hugh and Jack went inside.
There was a bright, warm fire there, evidently just built up, and Jack, who in entering had hit his head against the top of the doorway, was about to step up to it and warm his hands, when Hugh laid his hand on his shoulder and guided him to the right as they went in, and pressed him to the ground, and both sat down near the door. The woman spoke up quickly, in a voice as if she were finding fault, and motioned toward the back of the lodge, and Hugh rose and led Jack around, almost opposite the door, where they again sat down. "Now, son," said Hugh, "take off your shoes and all your outside things, and try to get dry. After we've set here a minute or two, maybe I'll go out and open one of the packs, and see if I can get you some dry clothes." He spoke to the woman for a moment, and then turning to Jack, said, "She says she wants us to stop here until her husband gets back. He and John Monroe went off early this morning, up the creek, to try to get some deer skins. Pretty soon now they'll be back. She says that even if you do go to stop with John Monroe, she wants you to sleep to-night in this lodge, so that her husband can see you and talk to you. She says he will not forget that you pulled his little girl out of the water. She thinks you are a good boy. You acted quick. When you grow up you will be a good man and brave. If you go to war you will have good luck."
Jack felt rather embarrassed. "Do you mean to say that she said all those things about me?" he asked.
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's just what she said."
"Well," said Jack, "of course I'm awful glad I pulled the little girl out of the water, but anybody else would have done it just the same, and if I hadn't, why you were right there and would have done it, I expect, a good deal quicker than I did."
"Well," said Hugh, "maybe I might, but you're the one that did it, that makes the difference, and I expect that woman, and her man, too, will be mighty grateful to you. What is more, they'll talk about it all through the camp, and you'll see that everybody here will have a good word and a pleasant smile for you to-morrow."
Jack had taken off most of his wet things, and had thrown them on the ground beside him, and now the woman came over to where he was, holding a great, soft buffalo robe, which, with a laugh, she threw around him, almost covering him up. Then she went back, and in a moment threw across the lodge to him a pair of boy's moccasins and a pair of leggings. Then she went out of the lodge.
"Now," said Hugh, "take off all your things, put on them leggings and moccasins, and set here by the fire with that robe around you. The woman will hang up your things, and they'll be dry in a little while, and then you can dress again if you want to. I'm going out now to look after the horses, and maybe to look around the camp. Or, if you like, I'll just see after the horses, and then come back, and when you're dressed we'll go around the camp together."
"I'd like that best of all, Hugh, if you don't mind waiting. I suppose you've got a lot of friends in the camp you'd like to see."
"Yes," said Hugh, "I expect I have, but there ain't no great hurry. I'll have plenty of time to see them and visit with them;" and he went out.