Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"I don't know whether we'll be able to talk to those Indians again, son," he said. "That shot will make them all mighty suspicious. I was a little uneasy when they first got around us, but as soon as I saw who those men were that I talked to I knew it was all right. I know some of them right well, and the one who met me is Man Above. He used to be a friend of mine. Man Above said that the Indians don't want to fight the white people, but they don't want them coming in here to kill their game, and they are going to tell everybody to get out; and then if they won't get out, the Indians will fight them. He told me that he had just heard about the trouble down below, and doesn't know what it's about, but that they are going back soon to find out.

"I told him that we were just on our way home, and didn't expect to hunt here any more, but that if they wanted to fight us, we were ready for them, and they could start in any time. I said that the Utes knew me, and that I had with me three men that had good guns and could shoot as well as I, and that if we had any fighting, it would be real fighting and not play. I said it would make me feel bad to fight the Utes, because I had always liked them and felt friendly toward them; that it would be bad for them to fight the white people, because there were too many whites for them to fight. If they killed a few, more would come, and at last they would whip the Utes. He said that he knew me, and I knew him, and he did not want to fight me; that our guns were good, and that many of his young men had only bows. He said that he was glad we were going away, and that now, after what I had told him, they would go away in the opposite direction, so that there would be no danger of trouble. But you see that shot has spoiled everything. Now I've got to see if I can get them to talk again. You see how a little thing like that boy's carelessness might start a trouble that would cost half a dozen men their lives."

"Yes," said Jack, "it was pretty stupid. I suppose it might have happened to me, perhaps, just as well as to Henry, but I am mighty glad it wasn't me."

"No," said Hugh, "I should hate to believe that you could do such a fool thing as that."

Hugh mounted his horse and again rode out into the open, stopping a couple of hundred yards from the trees, and here he made the peace sign again.

One of the distant Indians—which one Jack could not see because of the distance, rode out toward Hugh. Then Hugh dismounted, and, after holding his gun above his head for a moment, placed it on the ground, and then remounted and rode toward the Indian. A little later the Indian dismounted and put his gun on the ground, and presently he and Hugh met. Hugh explained to Man Above—for it was he—what the shot had meant, and asked him, if he felt like it, to ride into the timber and see for himself what had happened. If he did not feel like it, Hugh asked him if he would gather up his men and go away as he had before said he intended to do. "I think," said Hugh, "if you will ask your men, you will find that no one of them was shot at. The boy just let his gun go off in the air, but it happened at a bad time."

"I will get my men together," said Man Above; "and if no one of them says that he was shot at, we will go away as I promised. I believe that your words are true, and that the shot was fired by accident. Now I will go and send someone to call up the young men who are about these trees."

"That is good," said Hugh. "I should be sorry to fight you, my friend. It would do good to neither of us, and it might lead to much fighting."

"You speak well," said Man Above; and after shaking hands the two parted and rode in opposite directions, each one picking up his gun when he came to it.

A little later two Indians were seen to ride in opposite directions around the clump of trees, but a long way from it, and not long after the surrounding Indians were seen riding toward the group of their fellows, assembled on the prairie south of the cottonwoods. Hugh watched them with the glasses, and at last announced to Jack that they had all come together; and a little later the whole band of Indians turned their faces southward, and trotted off in the direction from which they had come.