Old Indian trails

by Walter McClintock

Next morning there was a below-zero temperature inside the cabin. The stove was as cold as ice; and the kettle, which was boiling when I went to bed, was frozen solid. I built a fire and cooked breakfast—bacon, potatoes, and rutabagas. The wounded Yellow Bird lay gloomily in bed. Then I fed the cows and calves in the sheds. Many of the chickens were frozen in their snug house underground. The cats, which lived in the cattle-sheds, were like savage beasts. When I drew off my gloves to feed them, a cat sprang at my hand and fastened its teeth in my thumb. They fought over the meat and tore it with snarls.

I found our two dogs in a deep hole under the haystack. One named Red Rover showed his fangs and slunk away. He was wild and suspicious by nature; his father was a coyote and while young he ran with a coyote pack. But after I fed him, he watched for my coming. He was no longer afraid and became my faithful friend.

Kutenai, my saddle horse, I kept in the cattle-shed. Every day he liked to play in the corral, trying to escape me by running, until I swung myself on his bare back and we went for a swift gallop in the pasture, where the snow had been trampled by the cattle.

From early morning until night I was busy, feeding the crippled Yellow Bird and the live stock and chopping wood for the hungry stove. I cooked three meals a day and washed the dishes; baked bread and swept the cabin; shoveled snow and kept the ford at the river open for horses and cattle to drink.

Every afternoon near sunset, I fed the big cattle herd, [[145]]chopping hay from the frozen stack and carrying it to them in the pasture. I had narrow escapes on foot from wild steers trying to kick the hay from my fork; and from cows with calves—sometimes they drove me on a run to the fence.

I tried to save time in the feeding, by scattering the hay in long windrows near the stack. But this only gave me more trouble. When the hungry cattle saw me spreading hay on the other side of the fence, they began to bellow and paw the snow. A steer tried to get over the fence, but stuck in the middle; another followed; and then the entire herd made a rush through the fence. I had to saddle my horse to drive them away from the stack.

One cold night, when Yellow Bird and I sat smoking with our feet against the stove, we heard a strange thumping against the cabin wall, at the back of the kitchen. Yellow Bird was afraid and showed it. He had a superstitious dread of the mysterious, of big storms and of going about in the dark. I was not superstitious by nature; yet I had a queer feeling when that mysterious sound began again.

Something struck the cabin and was followed by a rhythmic beating against the outside wall. The weather was cold, but windless. When the sound died away there was silence. I got up and peered through the frost-covered window. Yellow Bird quickly blew out the light. At that moment the same thought came to both of us—it was the Mad Indian. He had come to get a shot at us. People were afraid on both sides of the line, in Alberta and Montana. Ever since the fall we had been hearing blood-curdling tales. He came silently in the dark and shot people who stood in the light; outside he stabbed them with a long knife.

We got our rifles and held them ready, standing in the shadow, away from the glow of the fire, expecting any moment to hear a shot, to feel the sting of a bullet, or to see a wild face at the window. But nothing happened and we got [[146]]tired of waiting; we hung blankets over the windows and went to bed.

Then came another blow that shook the cabin. I sat up to listen; Yellow Bird made no sound; he did not move in his bed. After the mysterious beating had died away, I was no longer afraid; even a mad Indian would not wait so long in the snow and bitter cold.