Red Cloud, the Solitary Sioux: A Story of the Great Prairie

by Sir William Francis Butler

I noticed that it did so.

“Well,” said Red Cloud, “that is because you did not select the exact centre of the stick in which to place the chain. The consequence is that one end of the stick is heavier than the other. This heavy end trails after the chain, so that the wolf has less difficulty in dragging it along. It glides over the snow easily, whereas when both ends of the stick are evenly balanced, it lies across the animal’s line of flight. That is the reason why this wolf has got away so far. But we will reach him yet.”

Following rapidly along, we overtook the trapped animal in the bottom of a coulee, in the soft snow of which he could not make much way. He was quickly despatched, and dragged back to the tent, his skin to be added to those already taken.

The weather was now so intensely cold that Red Cloud began to fear the horses would be unable to drag the load of meat back to the Forks. There was meat fully sufficient to load the three sleds we had brought to their utmost capacity. Fortunately the spare horses had had an easy time of it up to the present. They were still in fair condition; but the riding horses already showed signs of feeling the terrible severity of these exposed treeless plains, and to delay the return to the Forks longer than was absolutely necessary, would only be to imperil the lives of the most valuable animals possessed by us.

Accordingly the lodge was struck, and the retreat to the hut at the Forks began.

During four days our line of sleds and men toiled slowly over the treeless waste, dark specs upon a waste of white. The north wind blew with merciless rigour. Sometimes the air was still, and the sun shone; but at other times terrible storms swept the wild landscape, whirling powdery snow over hills and ravines. With downbent heads men and horses plodded on; at night the lodge was pitched in some coulee for better shelter, and in the early morning so black and cold and desolate looked all visible nature, that I used to long to be again in the tent. Still I struggled hard to keep a bold front before my Indian comrades; they did not complain, why should I? One good thing was, we had plenty of buffalo meat, and we could be fairly warm at night by lying close together in the “lodge.”

At last, on the fifth day, the wood at Les Trois Arbres was reached, and piling on the firewood, that night the tent was made warm and comfortable.

The poor horses were now very weak. On the treeless plains the grass had been short and covered in many places with snow; but in the thickets wild vetch and pea grew, twining, through the brushwood, and these succulent grasses, sweetened by the frost, were eagerly sought for by the hungry steeds. It was decided to give a day’s rest here, for the worst portion of the journey was now over. Accordingly the lodge was pitched in a sheltered spot amid thickets, and the horses turned adrift in what at this season of the year was good pasturage.

The next day we spent in a long hunt on foot amid the thickets and open prairies. The “poire” tree grew in many places amid the aspen groves, and the Indians declared that where the poire flourished there the bear was to be found—so our hunt this day was to the sleeping-place of the bear. When the last berry has disappeared, and the first snow has come, Bruin begins to bethink himself of seeking a place wherein he can sleep away the long winter months.

Beneath the trunk of a fallen tree, under a rock, oftentimes on the level ground of aspen or poplar thicket, he digs his hole. When it is deep enough to hold his fat body he backs into it, and placing his nose between his fore paws goes fast asleep. Sometimes the sleep is for four or five months duration; but at other times, when the sun comes out warm and bright in mid-winter, he will crawl forth from his burrow, roam a little way around, and then retire again into his den. It is no easy matter to find his nest. Like all wild things he selects his place of rest with an eye to security; but hide it as he may, the Indian’s sharp eye pierces through all disguises, and in the time before the snow has fallen deep enough to cover tree stumps and hollow in one undistinguishably level of white, the couch which Bruin has made with so much care for his winter’s sleep becomes his death-bed ere his first doze has well begun.