"For he who fights and runs away
May live to fight another day";
and afterward, if they were taken prisoners, they had a chance for life, in the old days, if they could run fast enough to escape their captors and the spears and bullets of their pursuers.
A very popular game that attracted most of the Blackfeet boys was the throwing of darts, or little white hand-arrows, along the grass. The game was to see who could throw his arrow farthest in a straight line. At times the air was full of the white missiles where the boys were playing, and they fell like rain upon the grass.
In another part of the field were some larger boys with rude bows with which to shoot these same darts. These boys were playing a favorite Blackfeet game. Each one had a disk or solid wheel of sheet-iron or lead, and the game was to see who could roll his disk the farthest, while all the others shot at it to tip it over and bring it to a stop. The boys made splendid shots at the swift-moving little wheels, and from greater distances than you would imagine.
They play with arrows so frequently that it is no wonder they are good marksmen; yet you would be surprised to see how frequently they bring down the birds, rabbits, and gophers which abound on the plains. The houses of these plump little drab-colored creatures are holes in the turf, and as you ride along the plains you will see them everywhere around, sitting up on their haunches with their tiny fore paws held idle and limp before them, and their bead-like, bright eyes looking at you most trustingly—until you come just so near, when pop! suddenly down goes little Mr. Gopher in his hole. You may be sure the Indian boys find great sport in shooting at these comical little creatures. But the boys take a mean advantage of the fact that the restless gophers cannot stay still in one place any great length of time. When one pops into a hole it is only for a minute, and during that minute the Indian boy softly and deftly arranges a snare around the hole, so that when the gopher pops up again the snare can be jerked and the animal captured.
We gave the boys in the Blackfeet camp great sport by standing at a distance of a hundred yards from all of them and offering a silver quarter to whichever boy got to us first. You should have seen the stampede that followed the signal, "Go!" Blankets were dropped, moccasins fell off, boys stumbled and others fell atop of them, their black locks flew in the breeze, and the air was noisy with yelling and laughter.
These boys spin tops, but their "top-time" is the winter, when snow is on the ground and is crusted hard. Their tops are made of lead or some other metal, and are mere little circular plates which they cover with red flannel and ornament with tiny knots or wisps of cord all around the edges. These are spun with whips and look very pretty on the icy white playgrounds. Nearly all Indian boys play ball, but not as we do, for their only idea of the game is the girlish one of pitching and catching. All their games are the simplest, and lack the rules which we lay down to make our sports difficult and exciting.
The boys of the Papago tribe in the Southwest have a game which the fellows in Harvard and Yale would form rules about, if they played it, until it became very lively indeed. These Indian boys make dumb-bells of woven buckskin or rawhide. They weave them tight and stiff, and then soak them in a sort of red mud which sticks like paint. They dry them, and then the queer toys are ready for use. To play the game they mark off goals, one for each band or "side" of players. The object of each side is to send its dumb-bells over to the goal of the enemy. The dumb-bells are tossed with sticks that are thrust under them as they lie on the ground. The perverse things will not go straight or far, and a rod is a pretty good throw for one. The sport quickly grows exciting, and the players are soon battling in a heap, almost as if they were playing at foot-ball.
"YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN THE STAMPEDE THAT FOLLOWED THE SIGNAL, 'GO!'"