Jack Among the Indians; Or, A Boy's Summer on the Buffalo Plains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Well," said Hugh, "the fact is it's Cheyenne country, but Sioux and Cheyennes live here, and Crows come into it; fact is, it's a kind of anybodys' country. The Piegans come down here and make war on the Crows and Cheyennes, and in old times the Pawnees used to come up here on their war journeys. You've got to keep your eye open here for all sorts of Indians."

"Well, Hugh, these Indians haven't always been hostile, have they?"

"Not so; there was a long time when they were friendly with everybody. It was only after white people began to come into the country and make trouble of one sort and another that the Indians got bad. You see, the white people didn't know nothing about Indians, and had a kind of an idea that the whites owned the whole country, and the Indians thought that they owned it, because they always had, up to that time; and then there was young men that stole white men's horses and likely some of 'em got killed; so that, on the whole, you can easy see how the wars began; they started about twenty-five years ago. Up to that time the tribes had been all pretty friendly. I won't say that there wasn't bad young men that did bad things, but the old men didn't approve of that, and when they could catch their young men doing anything o' that sort they'd punish them. Why, from 1851 to 1854, I was trading with Indians right along; that is, in winter."

"I wish you'd tell me about that, Hugh."

"Why, sure, I'll tell you all there is to tell. I hired out to old Corcoran one fall. He had a trading post down on the Platte, a little way east of the forks, and the Indians used to come in there sometimes, but there was other posts, and he didn't get as much trade as he thought he ought to; so he hired me to travel around to the camps, and stop with the Indians and trade with them, and fetch in what furs I got to the post. I started out that first winter with a big wagon, hauled by bulls, and with quite a lot o' trade goods, to find the Cheyenne camp. I remember we'd heard that they were up on Horse Creek, and I started up there. It took me a long time to get there, for bulls don't travel very fast, you know, and when I got there I found they'd moved over onto the Platte, so I had to follow 'em there, and when I got there they were just moving out to go further up the stream, to above where Fort Laramie stands, and I had to trail along with 'em. However, at last they got located for the winter, and I went into Spotted Wolf's lodge and lived there with him. After I got there and unpacked my goods, Spotted Wolf sent a crier out through the camp, and told the Indians that I was there and ready to trade, and before very long I had my store agoing."

"Well, what did you trade to them, Hugh?" asked Jack.

"Well, there's one thing I didn't trade to 'em, and that is whiskey. That was before the days when anybody thought of trading liquor to the Indians, though of course now and then in a fort they gave a man a dram, as they called it; but in them days there wasn't never no trading of liquor. I had tobacco and red cloth, and beads and little mirrors, and some silver coins that they used to hammer out plates from to wear on their heads."

"Oh, I know! I've seen pictures of Indians with great silver plates on their scalp locks, and big ones at the top and little ones running down to the end."

"That's it, that's just what I mean. Well, I lived pretty near the whole winter in that camp. The Indians had plenty of dried meat and back fat, and tongues, and we lived well. Once in a while I'd go out up into the hills and kill a deer, or a couple of antelope; and two or three times the buffalo came close to the camp, in good weather, so that we made a killing; so we had fresh meat during a good part of the winter. Along in the end of February or first of March I had all the robes and furs that my team could haul, and I started back. I'd taken a half breed boy with me to drive the bulls, and we got along all right till we got down pretty close to Scott's Bluffs. When we got there I noticed that one of the bulls was kind of sick. I didn't know what was the matter with him. We drove along till night, and camped, and the next morning that bull was dead. We went on, and the next day two more of the bulls seemed sick, and the next morning they were dead; so we couldn't go no further. I unloaded the wagon, piled up the bales of robes all around it, went into camp there, and sent the boy on to old Corcoran, to get some more bulls. I expected him back in about six or seven days, but I was eighteen days there in camp before he showed up again. I tell you, them was long days, too. Nothing to do except to sit there and watch them bales of fur, and cook three meals a day. I got terrible tired of it."

"After I'd been there about a week, one morning I saw an Indian dog on the prairie, about a hundred yards off. He was sneaking around, looking this way and that way, and when he saw me move about the camp, he just sat down and watched me. I walked outside my stockade and called to him, but he didn't pay no attention, just sat there. I was kind of uneasy when I saw him, for I thought maybe a party of Indians might be coming along, and if they did, and took a notion to them furs, there was nothing to stop them carrying 'em all off; but nobody showed up. The next morning the dog was still there. I went out and walked toward him, but as fast as I walked toward him, he walked away, and I couldn't get nearer than about a hundred yards; so I went back to the robes and figured what I should do. I wanted to get hold o' that dog, for I was powerful lonesome, and I thought he'd be kind o' company. I went back to the camp, and when I got there the dog had come back to the place where he was at first and was settin' there. I took a piece of dried meat and went out to where the dog was, and there I scattered a few chips of meat on the ground, and then went back to camp, and every few feet as I went I'd cut off a little piece of meat and drop it on the ground. When I got back, the dog had come to the place where I put the first meat, and was nosing around, picking it up, and after a while he struck the trail of meat toward camp, and came along pretty slowly, pretty shy and suspicious, until he was about half way between the place where he started and the stockade. He wouldn't come any further than that. I sat on the bale of robes and talked to him, and called him, and coaxed him, and he'd look at me and put back his ears and wag his tail, but he was afraid. I worked with that dog that way three days, before I could get him inside of the stockade, but on the fourth day he would come to me, as I sat by the fire, and take pieces of meat out of my hand, and after a while he lay down on the other side of the fire and went to sleep. That night I got my hand on him and patted him, and coaxed him, and then he saw that I was friendly, and from that time he wasn't afraid. I tell you he was good company to me, and I got to think a heap of him before that half breed got back. He was a pretty nice looking dog, too; had dark brown hair, so that he looked some like a beaver; so I called him Beaver. He got to know his name right soon, and he stayed with me for four years; and one time, when I was in the Cheyenne camp, he disappeared. I always believed some of them Cheyenne women got hold of him and killed him for a feast."