The mosquitoes made us move from this camp. We went east nearly to the Teton Peaks, where we found game plentiful and the streams full of trout. The valley with its river running north and south through the middle of it was beautiful. There was no timber on the banks of the stream, but it was bordered with great patches of willows from one to two miles wide extending for about twenty miles along it. The white-tailed deer were plentiful among the willows. I killed five while we were there and mother tanned the skins and made a suit of clothes for me out of them. The clothes were nice and warm. The Indians also killed a number of moose among the willows.
Albert Schlechten, Bozeman, Mont.
A white-tailed deer.
Washakie told me that his tribe had had a great fight with the Sioux Indians in this valley many years before when he was a small boy. He said that his people lost a great many of their best men. He took me all over the battle ground.
We stayed in this valley about thirty days and I began again breaking colts. When I brought up the first one, mother said, “Leave your rope here.” I told her I could not manage the colt without it.
“Well, don’t use it on any more papooses,” she said, and I minded her.
The Indians killed a great many elk, deer, and moose while in this valley, and the squaws had all they could do tanning the skins and drying the meat. I asked Washakie if he was planning to winter in this valley.
“Oh, no,” he replied. “The snow falls too deep here. After the buffalo get fat, and we kill all we want for our winter use, we will go a long way west out of the buffalo country, but where there are plenty of deer and antelope and fish. Some of the fish,” he said, “are as long as you are.”
Berries were getting ripe, so we papooses would go with our mothers up in the hills and gather them to dry. It was great fun. One day, however, things got pretty exciting. We were in a canyon busy gathering the berries when all at once we heard a terrible screaming. Pretty soon there came a crowd of squaws and papooses. One was yelling, “A bear has killed my girl.”