With the Indians in the Rockies

by James Willard Schultz

At this time there were ninety lodges—about six hundred people—of the Small Robes (I-nuk-siks) band of the Blackfeet. They had several thousand horses, and when the moving camp was strung out on the plain, the picturesque riders, the pack-animals laden with queerly shaped, painted rawhide and leather pouches and sacks, made a pageant of moving color that was very impressive.

Our first camp after leaving the fort was on the Teton River. A couch was made up for me in White Wolf's lodge. The lodge of the plains Indians was the most comfortable portable shelter ever devised by man. One of average size was made of sixteen large cow buffalo-hides, tanned into soft leather, cut to shape, and sewed together with sinew thread.

This cone-shaped "lodge skin" was stretched over tough, slender poles of mountain-pine, and the lower edge, or skirt, was pegged so that it was at least four inches above the ground. Within, a leather lining, firmly weighted to the ground by the couches and household impedimenta of the occupants, extended upward for five or six feet, where it was tied to a rope that was fastened to the poles clear round. There was a space as wide as the thickness of the poles between the "skin" and the lining, so that the cold, outside air rushing up through it created a draft for the fire, and carried the smoke out of the open space at the top. This lining, of course, prevented the cold air from coming into the lower part of the lodge, so that even in the coldest weather a small fire was enough for comfort.

Traveling leisurely up the Teton River, we came in three or four days to the foot of the great range. There we went into camp for several weeks, long enough for the hunters to trap most of the beavers, not only on the main stream, but on all its little tributaries. Pitamakan and I had twelve traps, and were partners in the pursuit of the animals.

From the Teton we moved northward to Back-Fat Creek, now Dupuyer Creek. From there we went to the Two Medicine waters, and then on to the Cut-Bank River. The trapping area of this stream was small. On the first day of our camp there Pitamakan and I foolishly went hunting, with the result that when, on the next day, we began looking for a place to set our traps, we found that all the beaver-ponds and bank-workings had been occupied by the other trappers.

It was late in the afternoon, after we had followed up the south fork to a tremendous walled cañon, where it was impossible for the beavers to make dams and homes, that we made this discovery. Our disappointment was keen, for from Cut-Bank the camp was to return to Fort Benton, and we had only thirty-seven of the fifty beaver pelts that we had planned to take home with us.

We were sitting on a well-worn trail that stretched along the mountainside above the cañon, when Pitamakan suddenly exclaimed:—

"Listen to me! We will get the rest of the beaver! You see this trail? Well, it crosses this backbone of the world, and is made by the other-side people,—the Kootenays and the Flatheads,—so that they can come over to our plains and steal our buffalo. You can see that it has not been used this summer. It will not be used at all now, since winter is so near. Now, down on the other side there are many streams in the great forest, and no doubt there are beavers in them. We will go over there to-morrow, and in a few days' trapping we will catch enough to make up the number we set out to get."

This plan seemed good to me, and I said so at once. We left the traps on the trail and started to camp, to prepare for an early start in the morning. We decided to say nothing to any one of our intentions, to White Wolf least of all, lest he should forbid our going.

At dusk we picketed near camp two horses that we selected for the trip, and during the evening we refilled our powder-horns and ball-pouches to the neck. Rising the next morning before any of the others were awake, and each taking a heavy buffalo-robe from our bedding, we quietly left the lodge, saddled and mounted our horses, and rode away. Some dried meat and buffalo back fat taken from the lodge furnished us a substantial breakfast.