We soon began to join in these hunts, and I have from my station behind a rock at one of these crossings killed as many as fifteen antelope in a single hunt. I was an expert with the navy in those days and rarely missed a shot. I always gave them every one to the Indians, as neither Curl nor I cared for antelope meat, and they were, of course, greatly pleased and regarded us both with our skill and navies as fortunate acquisitions, and we lost nothing by our kindness to them.
We had a hundred and sixteen head of cattle and four horses. The Indians had about two hundred ponies. All herded and grazed together in that valley for four months. When the Indians left in the spring we rounded up our cattle and found every one of them.
About the first of May, 1866, we moved our cattle over on Indian Creek, about forty miles north. There was a little mining town near and we set up a butcher shop, furnishing our own beeves to it. The town was not large enough to enable us to do much business and, after two months, we moved to Helena, another mining town, but larger than the first. At that time Virginia City was the capital of the territory. By the first of September we had disposed of all our cattle one way or another and were ready for something else.
While we were deciding what next to do, Brother William and his family arrived in Helena. I had not seen him for six years—since he and Brother Zack left me at home in 1860 to care for father while they went back to California to look after the cattle. I had heard little from our ranch and our cattle in California, but was hardly prepared to learn that war times had been so bad there. From William I learned that great lawlessness prevailed in California and that our cattle had been shot and driven away and that long before the war was over William and Zack had nothing left but their families. They went to Idaho and mined a while, and then on to Montana. While in Idaho, Brother James, who had escaped from prison in St. Louis—and a death sentence also—had managed to join them with his family. James and Zack had bought a drove of cattle and had them in another portion of Montana, so William, Curl and I decided to come home.
[CHAPTER XVIII.]
The Return to Missouri.
It was too late in the fall when this decision was reached to make the trip by land, and we began to look about for an opportunity to go by the river. Two men were fitting up a flat boat at Fort Benton, a hundred miles down the river from Helena. We all—William, his wife and little daughter, Curl and myself got in William's two-horse wagon and made our way over to Fort Benton. There were no white people living between the two places, and we were told that it was not safe to attempt the journey, as the Indians had killed and robbed many persons on that road. We were too well acquainted with Indians to be much afraid of them, so we decided to go. We saw no Indians, but I was robbed one night. William and his family slept in the wagon, Curl and I under it. One night a coyote slipped up and stole a sack of venison from under the back part of my pillow. That was the second experience of that kind. The other, which I think I have related, happened years before in California.
When I left with Turner at St. Joseph I was on the west side of the Missouri River. When I reached Fort Benton I was on the east side, and that was the first time I had seen the river since I had left it at St. Joseph. I had gone entirely around it.