“‘At last,’ Monroe told me, ‘the day came for our departure, and I set out with the chiefs and medicine men at the head of the long procession. There were eight hundred lodges of the Piegans there, about eight thousand souls. They owned thousands of horses. Oh, but it was a grand sight to see that long column of riders and pack animals, and loose horses trooping over the plains. We traveled on southward all the long day, and about an hour or two before sundown we came to the rim of a valley through which flowed a cotton wood-bordered stream. We dismounted at the top of the hill, and spread our robes intending to sit there until the procession passed by into the bottom and put up the lodges. A medicine man produced a large stone pipe, filled it and attempted to light it with flint and steel and a bit of punk (rotten wood), but somehow he could get no spark. I motioned him to hand it to me, and drawing my sunglass from my pocket, I got the proper focus and set the tobacco afire, drawing several mouthfuls of smoke through the long stem.
“‘As one man all those round about sprang to their feet and rushed toward me, shouting and gesticulating as if they had gone crazy. I also jumped up, terribly frightened, for I thought they were going to do me harm, perhaps kill me. The pipe was wrenched out of my grasp by the chief himself, who eagerly began to smoke and pray. He had drawn but a whiff or two when another seized it, and from him it was taken by still another. Others turned and harangued the passing column; men and women sprang from their horses and joined the group, mothers pressing close and rubbing their babes against me, praying earnestly meanwhile. I recognized a word that I had already learned—Natos—Sun—and suddenly the meaning of the commotion became clear; they thought that I was Great Medicine; that I had called upon the Sun himself to light the pipe, and that he had done so. The mere act of holding up my hand above the pipe was a supplication to their God. They had perhaps not noticed the glass, or if they had, had thought it some secret charm or amulet. At all events I had suddenly become a great personage, and from then on the utmost consideration and kindness was accorded to me.
“‘When I entered Lone Walker’s lodge that evening—he was the chief, and my host—I was greeted by deep growls from either side of the doorway, and was horrified to see two nearly grown grizzly bears acting as if about to spring upon me. I stopped and stood quite still, but I believe that my hair was rising; I know that my flesh felt to be shrinking. I was not kept in suspense. Lone Walker spoke to his pets, and they immediately lay down, noses between their paws, and I passed on to the place pointed out to me, the first couch at the chief’s left hand. It was some time before I became accustomed to the bears, but we finally came to a sort of understanding with one another. They ceased growling at me as I passed in and out of the lodge, but would never allow me to touch them, bristling up and preparing to fight if I attempted to do so. In the following spring they disappeared one night and were never seen again.’
“Think how the youth, Rising Wolf, must have felt as he journeyed southward over the vast plains, and under the shadow of the giant mountains which lie between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri, for he knew that he was the first of his race to behold them.” We were born a little too late!
“Monroe often referred to that first trip with the Piegans as the happiest time of his life.”
In the moon of falling leaves they came to Pile of Rocks River, and after three months went on to winter on Yellow River. Next summer they wandered down the Musselshell, crossed the Big River and thence westward by way of the Little Rockies and the Bear Paw Mountains to the Marias. Even paradise has its geography.
“Rifle and pistol were now useless as the last rounds of powder and ball had been fired. But what mattered that? Had they not their bows and great sheaves of arrows? In the spring they had planted on the banks of the Judith a large patch of their own tobacco which they would harvest in due time.
“One by one young Rising Wolf’s garments were worn out and cast aside. The women of the lodge tanned deerskins and bighorn (sheep) and from them Lone Walker himself cut and sewed shirts and leggings, which he wore in their place. It was not permitted for women to make men’s clothing. So ere long he was dressed in full Indian costume, even to the belt and breech-clout, and his hair grew so that it fell in rippling waves down over his shoulders.” A warrior never cut his hair, so white men living with Indians followed their fashion, else they were not admitted to rank as warriors. “He began to think of braiding it. Ap-ah’-ki, the shy young daughter of the chief, made his footwear—thin parfleche (arrow-proof)—soled moccasins (skin-shoes) for summer, beautifully embroidered with colored porcupine quills; thick, soft warm ones of buffalo robe for winter.
“‘I could not help but notice her,’ he said, ‘on the first night I stayed in her father’s lodge.... I learned the language easily, quickly, yet I never spoke to her nor she to me, for, as you know, the Blackfeet think it unseemly for youths and maidens to do so.
“‘One evening a man came into the lodge and began to praise a certain youth with whom I had often hunted; spoke of his bravery, his kindness, his wealth, and ended by saying that the young fellow presented to Lone Walker thirty horses, and wished, with Ap-ah’-ki, to set up a lodge of his own. I glanced at the girl and caught her looking at me; such a look! expressing at once fear, despair and something else which I dared not believe I interpreted aright. The chief spoke: “Tell your friend,” he said, “that all you have spoken of him is true; I know that he is a real man, a good, kind, brave, generous young man, yet for all that I can not give him my daughter.”