Pluck on the Long Trail; Or, Boy Scouts in the Rockies

by Edwin L. Sabin

The Big Dipper swings on such a wide circle that sometimes it drops into the hills or into mist. The Little Dipper stays high in the sky. Therefore sailors choose the two brighter stars in the end of the cup of the Little Dipper, and watch them, for an hour-hand.

The Blackfeet Indians call the Big Dipper the Seven Brothers, and they, and also other plains people such as sheep-herders and cowboys, tell the time by the "Last Brother," which is the star in the end of the handle. "The Last Brother is pointing to the east," or "The Last Brother is pointing downwards to the prairie," say the Indians. And by that they mean the hour is so and so.

Note 42, page 109: The "Papoose on the old Squaw's Back" is a tiny star, Alcor, very close to the star Mizar which forms the bend in the handle of the Big Dipper. To see this tiny star is a test for eyesight. The Sioux Indians say that the Big Dipper is four warriors carrying a funeral bier, followed by a train of mourners. The second star in the train (or the star in the bend) is the widow of the slain brave, with her little child, or the Little Sister, weeping beside her!

The Blackfeet and other Indians say that the Pole Star (which does not move) is a hole in the sky, through which streams the light from the magical country beyond. They call it "the star that stands still."

By the "Lost Children" Jim Bridger meant the Pleiades. These stars, forming a cluster or nebula, sink below the western horizon in the spring and do not appear in the sky again until autumn; and the following is the reason why. They were once six children in a Blackfeet camp. The Blackfeet hunters had killed many buffalo, and among them some buffalo calves. The little yellow hides of the buffalo calves were given to the children of the camp to play with, but six of the children were poor and did not get any. The other children made much fun of the six, and plagued them so that they drove them out of the camp. After wandering ashamed and afraid on the prairie, the six finally were taken up into the sky. So they are not seen in the spring and summer, when the buffalo calves are yellow; but in the autumn and winter, when the buffalo calves are black, they come out.

Nearly everybody can see the six stars of the Pleiades, and good eyesight can make out seven. By turning the head and gazing sideways the seven are made plainer. An English girl has eyesight so remarkable that she has counted twelve.

The Western Indians have had names for many of the stars and the planets and the constellations, and the night sky has been of much company and use to them and to the old plainsmen and mountaineers, just as it was to Jim Bridger at this time.

Mars is "Big-Fire-Star"; Jupiter is "Morning Star," or when evening star is "The Lance"; Venus is "Day Star," because sometimes it is so bright that it can be seen in the day. Scouts should know by the almanac what is the morning star, and then when it rises over the camp or the trail they are told that morning is at hand.

Note 43, page 110: Sunday comes to the trail, to the mountains and plains and field and forest, just as often as to the town and the farm. The Scout will feel much better, mentally and physically, when he observes Sunday. This one day in the seven can be made different by a change from the ordinary routine: by a good cleaning up; by only a short march, just enough for exercise; by a whole day in camp, if possible; by an avoidance of harm to bird or beast; by some especial arrangement, which will say, "This is Sunday." The real Jedediah Smith, fur-hunter and explorer, found as much profit in his Bible as in his rifle, amidst the wilderness; and the Scout of to-day should include the Bible in the outfit. It reads well out in the great open, it is full of nature lore of sky and water and earth, and it is a great comforter and sweetener of trail and camp.

CHAPTER X