With the Indians in the Rockies

by James Willard Schultz

It was the kind of room that gave one a restful feeling at sight. Opposite the doorway was a big fireplace of stone and adobe, with hooks above the mantel for rifles and powder-horns and ball-pouches. Two windows on the courtyard side afforded plenty of light. There were a strong table and comfortable chairs, all home-made. A settee covered with buffalo-robes was placed before the fire. A curtained set of shelves in the corner contained the dishes and cooking-utensils. The north end of the room was partitioned off for a sleeping-place. My bed, I was told, would be the buffalo-robe couch under the window at the right of the door.

The next day my uncle took me all round the fort and made me known to the different employees—clerks and tailors, carpenters and blacksmiths, and the men of the trade-room. The fort was a large one, about three hundred feet square, all of adobe. Entering the front gate, you saw that three long buildings, of which the easterly one was two stories high, formed three sides of the quadrangle, and that a high wall containing the gate formed the fourth, or south side, facing the river. The outer walls of the buildings were thus the defensive walls of the fort. They were protected against assault by two-storied bastions, with cannon at the southeast and northwest corners. All the tribes of the Northwest together could not have taken the place by assault without the loss of thousands of their force, and they knew it.

Before night the keel-boat was unloaded, and our trunks were brought in and unpacked. My mother's little library and my school-books filled a new set of shelves, and that evening I began, under my uncle's direction, a course of study and reading, preparatory to going East to school in the following year.

No boy ever had a happier time than I had in that fort so far beyond the borders of civilization. Day in and day out there was always something worth while going on. Hundreds, and often thousands, of Indians came in to trade, and I found endless pleasure in mingling with them and learned their language and customs. In this I was encouraged by Tsistsaki (Little Bird Woman), my uncle's wife. She had no children, and all her natural mother love was given to me. In her way of thinking, nothing that I did could be wrong, and the best of everything was not good enough for me. The beautifully embroidered buckskin suits and moccasins she made for me fairly dazzled the eye with their blaze of color. These were not for everyday wear, but I took every possible occasion for putting them on, and strutted around, the envy of all the Indian boys in the country.

The winter passed all too quickly. With the approach of spring my uncle began to plan for my long trip to St. Louis, and thence to the home of my mother's Connecticut friend, where I was to prepare for Princeton. I said nothing to him, but I had many talks with my aunt-mother, Tsistsaki; and one night we poured out such a torrent of reasons why I should not go, ending our pleadings with tears, that he gave in to us, and agreed that I should grow up in the fur trade.

A frequent visitor in our cozy room in the fort was a nephew of Tsistsaki, a boy several years older than I. We liked each other at sight, and every time we met we became firmer friends than ever. "Friend" means much more to Indians—at least, to the Blackfeet—than it does to white people. Once friends, Indians are always friends. They almost never quarrel. So it came to be with Pitamakan (Eagle Running) and myself.

My uncle Wesley was as much pleased as his wife. One day he said to me, "Pitamakan is an honest, good-hearted boy, and brave, too. He gets all that from his father, who is one of the very best and most trustworthy Indians in all this country, and from his mother, who is a woman of fine character. See to it that you keep his friendship."

Except, of course, Baptiste Rondin, the hunter of the fort, Pitamakan was almost the only one with whom I was allowed to go after the buffalo and the other game which swarmed on the plains near by. What with my daily studies, occasional hunts, and the constant pleasure I had in the life of the fort, time fairly flew; no day was too long. And yet, for four years, I never once went more than five miles from the fort.

During this time my one great desire was to go on a trip into the Rocky Mountains. Clearly visible from the high plains to the north and south of the river, their pine-clad slopes and sharp, bare peaks always seemed to draw me to explore their almost unknown fastnesses.

In the fall of 1860 there came an opportunity for me to do this. The Small Robes band of the Blackfeet, of which Pitamakan's father, White Wolf (Mah-kwi´-yi ksik-si-num), was chief, outfitted at the fort for an expedition to trap beaver along the foot of the great mountains, and, much to my surprise and delight, I was permitted to accompany them.