Rising Wolf, the White Blackfoot / Hugh Monroe's Story of His First Year on the Plains

by James Willard Schultz

"A big lion! It has little young ones. It was making ready to spring at me," I answered, and at that he became greatly excited.

"Quick! Let me have your gun! Help me up!" he exclaimed, and I went to the wall and bent over, and Mink Woman handed him the gun after he had gotten upon my back. He straightened up, and I expected to hear him shoot; but instead he called down to us: "They are gone!" and sprang upon the shelf and we heard a scuff or two of his moccasins as he ran off. At that Mink Woman helped me get upon the shelf, and I then drew her up, and we ran around a bend of it just in time to see Red Crow, farther on, lay down my gun, draw his bow and arrows, and begin shooting at something that seemed to be in a crevice of the cliff at the back of the shelf. We hurried on to him and found that he had killed the lion there where she had made her stand in front of her young, and as we came up to him he shot the last of the little ones. There were four of them. He was mightily pleased at what he had done, for the hide of a mountain lion was valued by the Blackfeet tribes above that of any other animal. It was believed to bring good luck in hunting and in war to the owner, and was either fashioned into a bow case and quiver, or softly tanned and used as a saddle robe.

While we were skinning the animals I asked my friend why he had not used my gun to kill the old one.

"Never the gun when the bow will do as well!" he answered. "The bow is silent. The gun goes whoom! and for far around all ears take notice of it."

There was sound sense in what he said. I determined that I would no longer delay getting a bow and learning to use it. We little thought that we were to prove his saying on the height above us. If he had fired the gun at the lion it is likely that I would not be sitting here telling you my story of those vanished days.

Having skinned the lions we folded the hides flesh side together, so that they would not dry out, and would be fresh and soft to stretch properly when we got them to camp, and packed them with us; they were light and would not interfere with our climbing. We went back to where we had come up on the shelf, and then zigzagged our way up from shelf to shelf, all the time in a deep recess in the great cliff. On the shelf above the one on which we got the lions, were the remains of a yearling bighorn which the old lion had apparently killed that morning, and that explained, we thought, why we had seen none of the animals thereabout. On the previous day we had seen several small bands there.

At last we climbed onto the cave shelf. From where we struck it, it ran out toward the valley and then circled around the projecting point of the formation, and ended in a recess similar to the one we had come up in. The cave was on our side of the point; about a hundred yards from it. We hurried out along the shelf, eager to get to the cave and explore it, but upon reaching the entrance our haste died right there; it was a mighty black hole we were looking into; a rank, damp, cold odor came from it; we could see in only a few yards; the darkness beyond might conceal something of great danger to us! A grizzly, I thought, and my companions' fears included ghosts; the shadows of the dead always lurking about to do the living harm.

Said Red Crow at last, and the set expression of his face belied his words: "Ha! I am not afraid! Let's go in!"

"Come on," I told him, and led the way.