Jack sat thinking, for awhile, and then he turned to Hugh and said:
"I tell you, Hugh, if all you know about Indians, and about this Western country were put in a book, it would make an awful big one, wouldn't it?"
"Well, I don't know, son," said Hugh, "maybe it might; but a man has got to learn the life he's lived; if he doesn't, he won't amount to nothing. I expect if all that you know about the East was put in a book it would make quite a sizable one."
"Oh," said Jack, "that's nothing. The things I know don't amount to anything, and everybody else knows them a good deal better than I do."
"Well, I tell you," said Hugh, "the things that are new and strange to you seem kind o' wonderful, but they don't seem wonderful to me; but I remember one time you were telling me something about catching fish down at the place called Great South Bay, and talking about seeing the vessels sailing on the ocean, and to me that seemed mighty wonderful."
By this time the boat had left the landing-place, and the light was growing dim. They turned and looked back, and there across the wide bottom was moving toward the Post, a long string of people, men and women and children and dog travois, so that it looked almost like a moving camp. Hugh and Jack sat for a while longer on the deck talking, and then, as the mosquitoes got bad, they turned in.
The next afternoon the boat reached Fort Peck, then one of the most important Indian agencies on the Missouri River. It stood on a narrow bench, a few log buildings surrounded by a stockade, and back of it the bluffs rose sharply, and were dotted with the scaffolds of the dead. It seemed to Jack that there must be hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of these graves in sight. From the poles of some of them long streamers were blown out in the wind, which Hugh told him were offerings tied to the poles of the scaffolds by mourning relatives. But few living Indians were seen here, and there were only three or four white men seen about the trading post. They did not leave the boat, which soon pushed on again.
"The Indians about here have been awful mean," said Hugh; "Lots of things were brought in here that the Sioux took from the Custer battlefield. Somebody told me that Custer's gold watch was brought in here by an Indian, who wanted to know how much it was worth: but so many questions were asked him about it that he just put the watch in his sack and lit out, and has not been seen here since."
As the boat passed the mouth of the Musselshell early next morning Hugh pointed shoreward, and said:
"Do you see that place over there where that creek comes in, son?"