Jack, the Young Ranchman: A Boy's Adventures in the Rockies

by George Bird Grinnell

When his pipe was going well he turned to Jack, and said: "It was a camp of fifteen lodges of 'Rapahoes, and the white men was a bunch of thirty trappers. This is the way I heard it. It was more than forty years ago that a war-party of 'Rapahoes attacked a small train of emigrants and killed them all, except one young boy about as old as you, who hid in the brush when the charge was made. A few days later a couple of trappers came along that way and found the boy. He told them the story, and when they looked around over the place where the killing was done, they found that it was 'Rapahoes that done it. These two men took the boy with them, and they made up their minds that the 'Rapahoes had got to sweat for this, and when they got into the Fort they told other men about it, and they all figured on it the same way.

"This killing was done in the summer, and the next spring, when the men were coming in from their trapping they camped somewheres near here in the hills, and stopped two or three days. Before they started on into the Fort, one of the men who was out hunting saw a camp of Indians coming—a small party—and he watched 'em until they camped, and then crawled up close to the lodges. After he'd watched them awhile, he made out that they were 'Rapahoes, and he took the news to camp. The men there turned out, and during the night they got all around the Indians and cached on the hillside among the cedars and rocks. You can think how it must have been that night, the lodges all standing here white in the darkness, and the men lying hid on the hillside waiting for day. At last it began to grow grey in the east, and then light, and pretty soon a smoke began to come from one lodge and then from another, and then a man stepped out, or a woman started down to the creek to get water, or a boy to bring in the horses, and then the first shot came and the people began to run out, and to run this away and that away, but as fast as they came out they were shot down. After all the people were killed, they killed the dogs and horses; everything that there was alive, and then they went away. They never went down into the camp."

He paused to relight his pipe, and Jack said: "But how did they know that these were the people who killed the emigrants?"

"They didn't," said Hugh, "but they knew that they were 'Rapahoes. That's the way it used to be in them days; if a Piegan or a Sioux, or a Cheyenne killed a white man, his friends killed the next Indian they met of the tribe that had done the killing. The Indians did the same, and many a man has been killed in revenge for something that he had never heard of."

"That seems very unfair," said Jack, "I never heard of anything like it before."

"Well, it don't seem just right; that's so," said Hugh, "but anyhow, that's the way it used to be in old times. Come on now. Let's go down to where the camp stood."

They rode down to the little flat and stopped their horses in the middle of this old camp-ground. Hugh pointed to several spots where there were a few broken, bent and weathered sticks, and said: "You see, the lodges stood wherever you see those lodge poles. If you look in the middle of each of those circles you will find the old ashes of the fire and the stones that were around it. See here!" Dismounting, he walked to one of the circles and picked up two or three pieces of charred wood, which he held up. "That fire once cooked a man's dinner, and look here!" he added, stooping down and feeling in the dirt for something which he released with a hard pull "Here's a knife, a regular old-fashioned bowie-knife; what we used to call an Arkansas toothpick." He knocked the heavy blade against a stone, to free it from the dirt which clung to it, and passed it to Jack.

"Why, what a big knife," said Jack. "It's almost like a sword; but it isn't very sharp."

"Not very," said Hugh, "but notice how it's whetted, round on one side and flat on the other. That's the way Indians always whet their knives. Queer, isn't it? Let's look around for something more. Let your horse go, after you've thrown down the reins; he won't move." The two separated and began to look over the ground, and in a moment Jack called out in a solemn way. "Oh, Hugh, look here; see what I have found!" and as the old man came up to him, he pointed out a human skull that lay half buried in the dirt in a little washout. "That's one of 'em," said Hugh, as he picked it up. It was very old, grey with weather, and all the teeth had fallen out. Higher up the hill were splinters of bones and even some whole bones of legs and arms, and sticking out of the ground among them was a long piece of iron, which when dragged from its resting-place, proved to be a rifle barrel.

"Well, now," remarked Hugh, "if we keep this up we'll have a horse-load of truck to pack home with us."