THE INDIAN PRAYING.
The winter of 1869 and 1870 was my first winter in Sun River valley. For a while I boarded with Mr. and Mrs. Armstrong, who kept the Leaving Station adjoining my ranch. This place was so named because it was at this point the road leaves (Leaving) the Sun River valley to Fort Benton. (This was the winter that Col. Baker made a raid on the Indian village on the Marias river.) Also this same winter and spring the smallpox caused many deaths among the Indians. Several whites died also from the same disease. Two stage drivers who drove from Benton to the Leaving died; and as they stopped at the station where I boarded, I took the smallpox in a mild form and was very sick for two weeks, but it left no marks. About this time I concluded to fence the farm. Early in the spring I went to a bend in the Missouri river about ten miles south to cut posts and poles for this purpose. Here there were several log buildings that had been erected sometime in the early sixties by some of the Catholic missionaries and used as an Indian Mission (old St. Peter’s Mission). In 1868 it was abandoned for missionary purposes. After that it was occupied in winter by Indians. In the same bend is now what is known as “The Churchill Ranch.” During the time I was chopping I lived in an old empty cabin that had been built by some trappers; it was in the edge of the woods about a quarter of a mile from the old Mission buildings. There was neither a door nor a window, but it had a good fireplace; I hung a blanket for a door, and cut lots of wild rye-grass for my bed. Although alone, I was very comfortable and slept well at night, for I worked hard all day. There were in all about thirty Indians in the old buildings, many of whom were sick with the smallpox; and a great many had died of the same disease. Their mode of burying the dead was to wrap the corpse in a buffalo robe and lay it under a tree in some secret place in the woods and cover it with leaves and branches off the trees; others were placed on a scaffold in trees, [as heretofore described]. There were a great many buried in this way in the woods where I was working. One Indian buried his wife and two children two days before I came. The female relations showed great grief by hacking their legs from the ankle to the calf into many small cuts barely through the skin; and they would sit alone with a robe over their heads and mourn and sigh. Once in the dead of the night, when I was asleep, some unearthly noise awoke me. It was at my cabin door. I raised on my elbow in my bed which was on the ground. As usual, when danger came, I grabbed my old gun which was under my head and pointed it at the door where the blanket hung. I listened, and finally decided that it was a human voice. It was a kind of chanting talking and in the most mournful tone, with now and then a deep, pitiful sigh as though it came from the bottom of the heart. It was the most mournful and pitiful utterance ever made by a human voice. It was kept up for at least twenty minutes. There was living with the Indians a half-breed who could speak English. His name was Simpson. (Afterwards he was killed by the Indians on the hill across Sun river from my ranch.) Next morning I told the half-breed of what took place at my cabin the previous night and he interpreted to me that it was an Indian, “the husband and father of the woman and two children that died the other day,” and that he was praying, and asking me to ask the Great Spirit to stop the smallpox. A few minutes later the Indian and the half-breed came together to see me; the Indian said to me that his wife and two of his children were already dead and that more of his relations were sick. He firmly believed that I could do a great deal towards preventing the disease.
I told him that the Great Spirit was listening to his praying last night and heard every word, and as soon as the “warm winds” came the smallpox would be no more. This appeared to be of great consolation to him. It was plain to be seen that the poor fellow loved his family. He was the Indian that saved Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy’s lives only few months before at the Kennedy ranch near the mouth of the Prickly Pear canyon when the Indians took them out of their home and were going to kill them, but this Indian came forward and stood between Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy and the other Indians that would be murderers. He raised his gun and spoke in a firm voice: “If you kill this man and woman you must kill me first.” He stood them off and saved the lives of two good citizens. He was well known by the whites and was always friendly and honorable. He went by the name of “Cut Lip Jack.” This kind and brave Indian is dead, but Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy are alive and live in Missoula county, Montana. Will Kennedy of this city is their nephew.
Robert Vaughn.
Jan. 14, 1898.