A HOSTILE TRIBE LEAVES FOOTPRINTS
By the time Pitamakan and I had finished breakfast the engagés had hitched up the teams and gone to cut logs, and my uncle was marking out the site for the fort on level ground just behind our barricade. He had drawn the plan for it while we were coming down the river. It was to be in the form of a square. The south, west, and north sides were each to be formed by the walls of a building eighty feet long, twenty feet wide, nine feet high. The roof was to be of poles heavily covered with well-packed earth. At the southwest and northeast corners there were to be bastions with portholes for the cannon and for rifles. The east side of the square was to be a high stockade of logs with a strong gate in it.
Leaving my uncle at his work, Pitamakan and I watered the saddle-horses and then, saddling two, rode out after meat. We could, of course, have gone into the timber just above the log-cutters and killed some deer or elk, but we wanted first to explore the valley. Here and there were narrow groves of timber with growths of willows between them; and again long stretches where the grass grew to the very edge of the banks.
We carefully examined the dusty game trails and every sandbar and mud slope of the river for signs of man, but not a single moccasin track did we see. That was no proof, however, that war parties had not recently passed up or down the valley. Instead of following the course of the river, they were far more likely to keep well up in the breaks on the east side of the valley, from which they could constantly see far up and down it.
I was not very keen for hunting that morning, because I was worrying about my uncle's charge to us. "Almost-brother," I said presently as I brought my horse to a stand, "the load that Far Thunder has put upon us is too heavy for our backs. Look, now, at this great country; this brush and timber-bordered stream; those deep, pine-clad bad-land breaks; the great plain to the west, seamed with coulees; the heavily timbered valley of the Big River. We cannot possibly watch it all. We have not the eyes of the gods to see right through the trees and brush and discover what they conceal. Watch as we may, a war party can easily come right down to the mouth of this stream and attack the log-cutters or charge our barricade, and we never know of their approach until we hear their shots and yells!"
"What you say is plain truth!" Pitamakan exclaimed. "But well you know that Far Thunder is a wise chief. He does not expect us to do the impossible; his heavy talk was just to make us as watchful and careful as we possibly can be. But come, we waste time. We have to provide meat for the middle-of-the-day eating!"
"All right, we go," I answered, "but I am uneasy. When we return to camp I shall say a few words to Far Thunder."
Not far ahead a band of a hundred and more buffaloes were filing down a sharp, bare ridge of the bad lands to water. Under cover of the brush we rode to the point they would strike and awaited their coming. They were thirsty; the big cow in front was stepping faster and faster as she neared the foot of the slope; then, scenting the water, she broke into a lope. The whole band came thundering after her, raising a cloud of fine, light dust.
We let our eager horses go when the buffaloes were about fifty yards from us. Pitamakan shot down the old lead cow, and I a fat two-year-old bull; then what a scattering there was!
Drawing my six-shooter, I turned my horse after another two-year-old bull and gained upon it, but just as I was about to fire it sprang sharply round and dodged back past me. My horse turned, too, with a suddenness that all but unseated me. He had the bit in his teeth. I could not have checked him if I would, and he was determined that the bull should not escape. Nor did it. I overtook and downed it after a chase of several hundred yards, but was then, of course, out of the run. Away up the flat Pitamakan was still in the thick of the fleeing band. I saw him shoot twice, and then he, too, came to a stand. In all we had shot six fine animals, meat enough to last our camp for some time. We carefully butchered them all, cutting the carcasses into portions that could be easily loaded into the wagon that would come for them, and then, packing upon our horses several sets of the boss ribs for dinner, we started back.
The day was now very hot; so we rode in the shade of the timber bordering the stream and in a short time entered the big grove at the mouth of it. We could plainly hear the incessant thudding of axes and the crash of the big cottonwood as it struck the ground. I told Pitamakan that the men were working like beavers, and then he laughed. It was a simile quite new to him.
There was here dense underbrush, much of which was higher than our heads and penetrable only by the well-worn zigzag trails of game. We were following what seemed to be the most direct of the trails and were now so near the choppers that we could plainly hear several of them talking, but still, owing to the dense, high brush, we were unable to see any of them. Then suddenly, right in front of us, a shot rang out; and in answer to it, Pitamakan brought his rifle to his shoulder and fired at something that I could dimly see tearing away from us through a thick growth of rosebushes. "Enemies! My horse is hit! Look out!"
Simultaneously we heard a piercing shriek of pain and fear, the well-known voice of Louis, the cordelier, he who had bewailed the death of the company and the loss of his promised pension. "Help! Help! I am shot! I die! Help, messieurs! Ze enemy, he comes, tousans of heem!"
I grasped the situation at once and, fearing that others of the choppers would mistake us for enemies, dashed on past Pitamakan, shouting, "Don't shoot! It is we! Don't shoot!" I cleared the high brush just as the roused men were gathering in a circle about Louis, who was still wildly shrieking for help.
"Now, what is all this about?" cried my uncle as he came running up to the group.
"I am shot! Me, I die!" Louis cried.
"He thought us enemies. He fired at Pitamakan and got shot himself," I explained.
"Let us see the wound," my uncle demanded.
"No use! I die!"
"Throw him down, men, throw him down! We'll see how badly he is hurt!" my uncle ordered; and down he went.
"Huh! Just as I thought! Nothing but a bullet scratch! Get up, you crazy scamp! Get up! Go to the river and wash yourself, and then come back to work!" said my uncle disgustedly.
"Where is his rifle?" some one asked.
"Dropped right where he fired it," I hazarded; and there it was found.
"Wal, now, me, I call Louis's hittin' that hoss a plumb miracle!" exclaimed an American engagé, Illinois Joe, so called because he was always talking about the glories of that State. "To my certain knowledge that there is the fust time Louis ever come nigh hittin' what he aimed to kill!"
The men resumed their work, and my uncle went to the camp with us. We unloaded the boss ribs and picketed our horses, Pitamakan rubbing some marrow grease into the wound of his animal. I then told my uncle that I thought that we could not possibly guard the men from sudden surprise by the enemy.
"You will do the best you can, and that is all I ask from you," he answered. "From now on, one of the engagés shall stand guard while the others work, and I will take a turn at it myself. You have meat up there? Take a team and wagon and bring it in."
We had the meat in camp by two o'clock; then my uncle advised us to ride out upon discovery. As Pitamakan's runner would be of no service for some time to come, I borrowed Is-spai-u and let him have my fast horse. We could, of course, have ridden the scrub horses of the engagés, but did not care to trust our lives to their slow running in case we should be surprised by a war party.
Is-spai-u was a horse with a history. Four summers before, in the spring of 1861, a war party of seven of the Pikuni, led by One Horn, a noted warrior and medicine man, had gone south on a raid with the avowed intention never to turn back until they had penetrated far into the always-summer land and taken fine horses from the Spanish settlers of that country. That meant a journey southward on foot of all of fifteen hundred miles and an absence from us of at least a year. They chose to go on foot because they could thus most surely pass through that long stretch of hostile country without being discovered by the enemy.
Fifty—yes, a hundred—warriors begged One Horn to be allowed to join his party, but he had had a dream in which the Seven Persons, as the constellation of the Great Bear was called, had appeared and advised him what to do, and he would take only six men. Each one of the six was a man of proved valor and intelligence.
The summer passed and the winter. One Horn and his party were to return in the Moon of Full-Grown Leaves, but they came not. With the appearance of the Berries-Ripe Moon they were long overdue, and some said that without doubt their bones were whitening on the sands of the grassless plains far to the south. Still, hoping against hope, the old medicine man prayed on for them at setting of the sun, and all the people prayed with him.
It was in the Moon of Falling Leaves—October—that we in Fort Benton noticed a lone horseman fording the river and wondered who he could be. Then we saw that it was One Horn. He approached the gate, mournfully calling over and over the names of his six companions; and we knew that they were dead, and the women set up a great wailing for them. When he rode slowly into the court we thought that we had never seen so thin and careworn a man; he was just bones covered with wrinkled skin, and across his breast was a tightly drawn bandage of what had evidently been his buffalo-leather leggings.
We were so painfully struck with his forlorn appearance that we did not at first notice the horse he rode; but when he slipped from it and staggered into the outstretched arms of the crying women, Antoine, the stableman, stepped up to it to lead it away, and he cried out, "See, my frien's, dis horse so beautiful!" We almost cried out with him. The animal was shining black and in good flesh, clean-limbed, of powerful build, gentle and proud.
"A thoroughbred, if ever there was one!" said my uncle, who was standing beside me. "Unquestionably of Andalusian stock!"
Tsistsaki had One Horn carried into our quarters and a robe couch made up for him. A woman brought in some soup hot from her hearth, but he would take only a few sups of it. My uncle cut away the bandage round his breast and disclosed a jagged wound several inches long, partly healed, but badly discolored and suppurating at the lower end.
"It was all healed over, then it got bad again," One Horn whispered.
My uncle shook his head. "Mortification has set in; I fear there is no hope for him," he said in English to Tsistsaki and me.
Then he carefully washed the wound, medicated it, and put a clean, soft bandage upon it.
When the wounded man awoke that evening, my uncle asked him to tell us his adventures on the long south trail.
We thought that he was never going to answer, so long did he stare straight up at the roof; but finally he said, so low that it was with straining ears that we heard him: "Far Thunder, Tsistsaki! My words shall be few. We went far into the country of the Spanish white men and came upon a camp of plains people and in their herds of good horses saw the horse that I rode here to-day. We raided that camp and took many horses, among them the black, Is-spai-u, as I have named him. We got safe away from that camp. But then—oh, my friends! through my fault my companions died. I was in great hurry to get back here. I would not heed the warnings of my dreams. I took chances. Through a rough country I led my men in the daytime when I should have traveled at night. We were seen by the enemy, but saw them not. They made ready for our coming and suddenly rode out at us. My companions fought bravely, killed many and were themselves killed. I was wounded, but because I was upon this black horse I escaped. So swift was he that none of the enemy could overtake me. At first my wound was very bad; then it got better, and I took courage. I said to myself that I would return to this south country with all the warriors of the Pikuni and avenge the death of my companions. Then my wound got steadily worse. Far Thunder, my wound is killing me. No, don't deny it; you know it as well as I do. From the time you and I first met we have been friends. You have been good to me. Now we part. This night I am going upon the long trail to the Sand Hills. I give you the black horse. You must promise me always to keep him. You promise? That is good! North and south, east and west, he is the swiftest, the most tireless horse on all the plains. I know that you will be good to him. I can talk no more."
Nor did he ever speak again. He soon became unconscious and died before midnight.
Now, my Uncle Wesley was a great sportsman and loved more than anything else the excitement of a buffalo run with a good horse under him, a bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows at his back. "You can have your rifle and your six-shooters for the chase," he would often say, "but the bow for me. While you are fooling away time reloading your weapons, I shall be slipping arrows into good, fat cows!"
Several months after the death of One Horn, a herd of buffaloes drifted into the upper end of the bottom and gave him a chance to try Is-spai-u. Word spread that my uncle was going to run the buffaloes, and when he rode out from the fort all the men followed him who had horses or could borrow them. I shall not go into the details of that run, but will simply say that when it ended twenty-seven buffaloes lay strung along the plain with my uncle's arrows in them! It was the best run ever made in the whole Northwest, so far as was known, and the success of it was owing more to the swiftness and endurance of Is-spai-u than to the skill of my uncle with the bow. The reputation of the black horse was established. Through visiting Kootenay Indians it spread to all the west-side tribes, the Kalispels, Nez Percés, and Snakes. When bands from the Blackfoot tribes came into the fort at different times in order to trade, the first request of the chiefs and warriors was for a sight of the wonderful animal.
In time our engagés took word of him to our different forts along the river, and thus all the other tribes, Sioux, Assiniboins, Crows, Crees, and Yanktonnais, came to know about him. Deputations from all the tribes that were at peace with the Blackfeet came to the fort and made fabulous offers for the animal. At the risk of their lives, some Snakes brought in one hundred and ten good ordinary horses that they wanted to trade for the black runner. A chief of the Yanktonnais, then trading mostly with the Hudson's Bay Company at their Assiniboin River post, sent word that he would give two hundred horses for him. My uncle's one answer to all of the would-be purchasers was that the black was not for sale. We soon heard that many a warrior of the tribes hostile to the Blackfeet had vowed to get the horse in one way or another. Within a year three desperate attempts were made to steal him right out from the fort, and the last raiders, three Assiniboins, paid for the attempt with their lives.
On the evening before we left Fort Benton George Steell had begged my uncle to leave Is-spai-u in his care. "You know how flies swarm about a molasses keg. Well, so will the hostiles swarm about you down there when they learn that the runner is with you. Be sensible for once, Wesley, and let me have him until your fort is completed."
"George, I know you mean well," my uncle replied, "but, consarn it, you're too reckless! You would cripple him in no time. Is-spai-u goes with me!"
Half angry at that, Steell shrugged his shoulders and turned away from us without another word. My uncle had been right in refusing him the use of the animal; he was the most reckless, hard-riding buffalo hunter in all the country.
After this explanation, you can imagine my pride and happiness in mounting Is-spai-u for the first time. He was eager to go; I let him have the bit.
"Well, almost-brother," I said to Pitamakan, "we are off upon discovery. Which way shall we go?"
"First, straight to the head of the breaks yonder, from which we can see far up and down Big River and the plains to the north of it," he answered.
We passed through the grove in which the men were working, crossed the Musselshell and began the steep climb, following a game trail that was sure to keep us out of trouble in the maze of bad-land breaks ahead. Two thirds of the way up the breaks we entered the lowermost of the scrub-pine and juniper growths that concealed the heads of most of the coulees, from which great numbers of mule deer and occasionally some fine-looking elk fled at our approach. Within an hour we arrived at the summit, and there in a dense grove found a war lodge that had been put up not more than three nights before. By its size, and the signs within, we judged that it had been the one night's resting-place of a party of between fifteen and twenty men, and the pattern of the beadwork of a pair of worn-out moccasins that we found partly charred in the fireplace proved to us that they were Assiniboins. Circling the place, we found their trail in the spongy, volcanic ash of which the bad lands are mainly composed. They were going south, and I said to Pitamakan that they would doubtless come back the same way from their raid against the Crows, or whatever tribe they were heading for, and would, of course, discover our camp.
"Well, what else can you expect? I should not be astonished if some enemies already have their eyes upon it," he answered.
After watching for some time the valley of the Missouri and the great plains to the north of it we turned south along the heads of the breaks and traveled at a good pace for an hour or more along a rolling plain. We then turned westward into the valley of the Musselshell and saw across it the narrow and sparsely timbered valley of a small stream putting in from the Moccasin Mountains, the eastern end of which, Black Butte, seemed very near to us. I had read the journal of the Lewis and Clark expedition many times, and so recognized that small and generally dry watercourse by their description of it.
The sun was near setting when we struck the small grove of timber at the junction of the two streams, and there in a dusty game trail we found the moccasined footprints of men—a war party, of course—traveling north. We could not determine how recently they had passed, but upon following the trail to the shore of the river we saw where they had sat down to remove their moccasins and leggings, and we found the tracks of their bare feet in the mud at the edge of the stream. In several of the footprints the water was still muddy; in others the mud had settled.
