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

by James Willard Schultz

"And what else did he say?" the factor would ask.

"An' dat is all."

"And that is all! Huh!" the factor exclaimed. "Here we have had long speeches, matters of importance to the trade may have been touched upon, and you can't tell me what has been said! I told you a year ago, Antoine, to study this language, but you do not improve in it. If anything, your interpreting is worse than it was last spring!"

"But what can I do? My woman, he is mad all the time. He say Blackfoot language no good; no will talk it. So, me, I no can learn."

"Huh!" the factor again sputtered, and with a shrug of the shoulders and a wave of the hand, led the way to the trade-room. There he gave the chiefs good value for their furs, and presents besides, and they retired, well satisfied, to make room for their people.

I spent all of the afternoon in the trade-room watching them, and saw much to interest and amuse me. The men, almost without exception, bought guns and ammunition, traps, and tobacco, and the women bought the finery. I saw one young woman pay twenty beavers for a white blanket, and proudly drape it around the stalwart form of her man. He wore it for a few minutes, and then put it over her shoulders, and when his turn came to trade he bought for her several skins' worth of copper jewelry. I saw many such instances during the trade of the next few days, and one idea of the Indians that I had—that the men took everything and merely tolerated their women, used them as mere slaves—went glimmering.

The next morning the factor told me that he would give me the day off, and advised that I spend it in visiting the camps of the different tribes, located in the river bottoms above the post. He assured me that I should be perfectly safe in doing so, and said that I had best leave my gun at home, so as to show the Indians that we regarded them as the friends that they professed to be. I did, however, thrust one of my pistols under my shirt-bosom and, upon Antoine's advice, wore a blanket Indian fashion, so the camp dogs would not bother me.

Thus equipped, I set forth.

I had a wonderful day, a day of a thousand surprises and intense interest. The trail to the next bottom above the fort ran over a point of the plain ending in a bank at the river, and looking out from it I saw that the plain for several miles was covered with the horses of the different tribes, actually thousands and thousands of them, all in bands of from sixty or seventy to two or three hundred head. I afterward found that each owner so herded his horses that they became attached to one another, and would not mix with other herds.