One day my partner said he wanted to eat, but didn’t know what to do with those damn Indians. They were all huddled around the fireplace. I told him to make a lane through them as if he wanted to put some wood on the fire. I had a 45 six-shooter under my head on our bunk. When he made the opening I opened fire on the fireplace and took a fit. I hollered and bucked like a bronc. I throwed ashes all over the Indians and they nearly tore the door down getting out. Then we cooked and eat, and wasn’t bothered with Indians for a long time.
About a week after a buck Indian came by there looking for horses. It was very cold and my partner asked him in to get warm. He looked at me for a while and shook his head and made signs I was crazy. I guess the squaws had told him about me. We had put out some poisoned meat for coyotes and the Indians found it and was going to eat it but was suspicious and tried it on a dog and it killed him, which didn’t raise us much in their estimation.
I will always think those Indians got even with me. That following spring I wanted to leave that part of the country, and I didn’t have a horse. So I got to talking to some Indians. They said they had a fine horse running in their bunch. It was a stray—nobody claimed it and I could have him. I made a date with them when they would corral their horses. I was there with my saddle. They showed me a beautiful big sorrel and told me to catch him, which I did. He trotted right up to me when I roped him and seemed very nice to saddle. I was wondering all the time why those Indians were so kind to me, but oh boy, when I mounted him I found out. After the first jump I never saw anything but a little piece of sorrel mane in front of the saddle. I have been bucked off a good many times and often thought I could have rode most of the horses if I had got a break, but there never was any doubt about that Indian gift horse—I never had a Chinaman’s chance.
I saw several of those Indians in years afterwards. They would think awhile before they would remember me—they would laugh and make signs with their hands how the horse bucked me off.
The Crow Indians’ name for me was the White Man Chews Tobacco—Masachele Opa Barusha.
One time an old Crow Indian told me quite a story about the Tribe that I don’t believe many people know (and I have seen some evidence of the truth of his story).
I was riding line for a cow outfit on the Crow Reservation and an old Crow Chief came riding into my camp one morning about daylight, and asked me for something to eat, as he said he was making a long ride on some important business. I knew him—he was the same Chief that pulled a knife on Chief Sitting Bull, grabbed him by the hair and made him smell of his feet. This old Chief’s white-man’s name was Crazy Head—his Indian name was Ah Shumoch Noch, which means “Curly Head.” His hair was curly (which is unusual for an Indian) and he had very thick lips, which made me think of the story the old Indian had told me. He said a great many snows ago, a Negro showed up among the Crows. Nobody knew where he came from or how he got there, but he lived with them for many years. The Crow name for a Negro is Masachele Sha Pit Cot (which means White Black Man). While this old Chief was enjoying his breakfast (and he was plenty hungry) I asked him in Indian if he didn’t have some Nigger blood in him, and it sure made him mad. I believe if he hadn’t been eating in my camp he would have done something to me, but he said “Barrett” in a very loud voice, which means NO, but I insisted that he must have a little Negro blood. Still his answer was NO, with an oath, but I kept on teasing him about his curly hair and thick lips. He finally stuck out the end of his little finger with his thumb on the other hand to measure with—ecosh cota, which meant about the size of a pin head. He sure hated a nigger.
There was another old Indian visited our camp sometimes, that was quite a character. But he could peddle the bull as good as any white man I ever knew. Sometimes when he came to our camp—we wouldn’t have much food cooked and wouldn’t give him anything to eat, and he would silently sit on the ground watching us until we got through eating. When we put our cooking outfit away, he would get up on his feet, hitch his blanket over his shoulders and go out of the tent and call us all the mean dirty names he could think of, such as dogs, skunks and snakes. Well, maybe the next time he came we would feed him and it was sure wonderful to see the change in him. He loved bacon and coffee. Sometimes we would give him a big plate of bacon and sour dough bread. He would sit on the ground, cross his legs and boy, how he would eat! He would get his hands all bacon grease and rub them through his hair, and get a few shots of that strong coffee into him—it seemed to stimulate him like a shot of hop. Then he would open up with his “bull.” He would talk part Indian and part English. His favorite line was how much he loved the white man, such as, “Me no steal em White Man horse—White Man he my brother—My heart very good for him” (and I know he would steal the coppers off of a dead white man’s eyes). He said the Piegan Indian and the Sioux was very bad and all the time steal white man’s horse, but he was always watching out for the white man and wouldn’t let other Indians steal white man horse.
I recall another Indian I knew several years later, his name was Christmas. I always thought that he had stolen my saddle. One time at Big Sandy, Montana, we had shipped a train load of cattle out of Malta, and as usual after the cattle were all loaded out, we proceeded to celebrate before we went back on the range to gather some more. I think there were about twenty of us when we started the night celebration, but sometime in the night I must have took a nap, anyway I came to about two o’clock in the morning and as it was late in the month of October it was quite cold, in fact I thought I would freeze to death, everybody was gone to camp, my horse was tied to the hitch rack, the saloons were all closed, and not a light anywhere. I was working my way around trying to find my horse. When this Indian showed up where my horse was tied, he evidently had been drunk too and seemed very glad to find someone to talk to or steal something. He came up to where I was and said, “By golly Con Price I sure glad to see you, you my brother.” I guess I must have got some bad whiskey and felt pretty mean for while Christmas was talking to me I thought it would be a good joke to swing on him. His hands were both hanging down by his sides, so I was not taking any chances. I braced myself and gave him all I had, right on the point of the chin. It turned him half way around and he fell on his stomach. He weighed about two hundred and twenty-five, he had on a pair of heavy cowhide boots, that must have weighed five pounds each. He had no sooner fell down than he was up again and running like hell, he didn’t look back or say a word, but with those big boots and his weight, it sounded like a bunch of horses running away. I saw him about a month afterward, he didn’t say anything, but smiled. I guess he thought it was a good joke too.
After Christmas left I got on my horse, and started for camp, of course there were no roads so I started out across the prairie, and it was very dark and I got lost. I finally landed in some heavy sage brush, I got off my horse and tied him to some brush, by that time I had got awful thirsty and couldn’t find any water. I felt something in my chaps pocket, and found it was a bottle of tomato catsup (where or how I got it I never knew). I couldn’t get the cork out so I broke the head off of it with a rock, and drank nearly all of it. I layed down and went to sleep but woke up in a short time with a terrible pain in my stomach, the first thing I thought was that I had swallowed some of the glass from that ketchup bottle and I was sure scared. It was getting daylight about that time and I knew where I was, and I got on my horse and started for the old DHS horse ranch. There was no one home as the boys were all on the roundup. I heated a tub of water and got into it and had a big sweat, after that I felt much better, I cooked something to eat and went to bed and stayed there until the next morning. As I knew about where the roundup would be, I found camp that day, nobody said much to me about my absence, as it was a legitimate excuse those days for a cowboy getting drunk to be late on the job.