With the Indians in the Rockies

by James Willard Schultz

At this time our catch of fur began to decrease rapidly. It is my belief that the predatory as well as the herbivorous animals never stray very far from the place where they are born.

A case in point is that of an old grizzly bear, whose trail could not be mistaken because he had lost a toe from his left front foot. Every three weeks he crossed the outlet of the Upper St. Mary's Lake, wandered up into the Red Eagle Valley, swung round northward along the back-bone of the Rockies to the Swift Current Waters, and thence down across the outlet again. Observation of other animals also leads me to believe that they all have their habitual rounds. If this is so, it explains why it was that our deadfalls held fewer and fewer prizes for us, until finally three or four days would pass without our finding even a marten to reward us for our long, weary tramps.

The days now grew noticeably longer and warmer, until finally snow-shoeing was impossible after nine or ten o'clock in the morning. The warm sun turned the snow into large, loose, water-saturated grains which would give way every few steps and let us down clear to the ground, often in places where the snow was so deep that we stood, so to speak, in a greenish well from which we had to look straight up to see the sky. It was very difficult to get out of such places.

Toward the end of our stay we did most of our tramping in the early morning, when the snow was covered with so hard a crust by the night's frost that it would hold us up without snowshoes.

One evening we heard the distant cry of wild geese. That was our signal for departure. We made a last round of the deadfalls, sprung each one that was set, and the next day made up two bundles of the peltries that we were to take with us. There were in all sixty-one marten, ten fisher, seventeen mink, five wolverene, one mountain-lion, eight lynx, and two otter skins. Fortunately, there was little weight in all that number, and we bound them so compactly that there was little bulk. A quantity of moose meat, cut into thin sheets and dried, made up the rest of our pack. Nor did we forget the fire-drill and a small, hard piece of birch wood that had been seasoning by the fire all the winter for a drill base.

The goatskin sleeping-bag was too heavy to take along; it would have added much to our comfort, of course, but there was now no night cold enough to be very disagreeable so long as we could have fire, and of that we were assured. However, Pitamakan did not intend that the bag should be wasted; almost the last thing that he did was to make an offering of it to the sun. Lashing the bundle in a tree, he prayed that we might survive all perils by the way, and soon reach the lodges of our people.

At sundown we ate our last meal in the lodge and enjoyed for the last time its cheerful shelter. Somehow, as we sat by the fire, we did not feel like talking. To go away and leave the little home to the elements and the prowlers of the night was like parting forever from some near and dear friend.

We waited several hours, until the frost hardened the snow; then putting on the snowshoes and slinging the packs, we started away down the valley. There was certainly a lump in my throat as I turned for a last look at the lodge, with the smoke of its fire curling up from it and beckoning us back to rest and sleep.

Until midnight the stiffening crust occasionally broke and let us down; but after that time it became so hard that, taking off our snowshoes and slinging them to the packs, we made remarkable time down the valley.

After passing the pipestone falls, we entered country new to us, where the valley became much wider. Every mile or two a branch came into the river, which we were obliged to ford, for the ice had gone out of the streams. It was no fun to remove moccasins and leggings, wade through the icy water, and then put them on in the snow on the other side.