I was amazed, but could not doubt her word, as she had told me the truth so far as I had investigated. It seemed impossible that this most haggard of old women could have been the most beautiful girl of her tribe. But a hundred and fifteen years of life can change much, even the beautiful curves of the human body and the roses on the cheek and lip. A hundred and fifteen years! But this was the chance of a lifetime, I must not let it slip away while I dreamed.
"Where did your people go?" I asked; "what became of your tribe?"
"One beautiful day," she replied, "when sun warm and earth green, white man got lost and his ponies come into our camp. White man very sick. Medicine man put him in big tepee and take care of him, give him much bath in hot water. Man got very red like Indian man, face much all over spots. By and by he die. Then sickness all over camp. Sheep Eater run off in forest and die. Some run to other villages, they all die. Sheep Eater all much scared and run away. Many tepee standing alone, all dead inside. Red Eagle die, Red Arrow die, me no die, me very much scare, go off in mountains, eat berries, cherries, root. Me find many Sheep Eater dead in woods. By and by Sheep Eaters not many. They go to other Indian tribes down in valley on river, where much big water runs, and eat heap buffalo, ride pony, marry heap squaw. Sheep Eater have one squaw, other Indians many. Then Sheep Eater no more, no more papoose, no more squaw, all gone. Cold winds go, spring come, wild geese come back to lakes. Sheep Eater no come back, all gone. Tepee rot, rain, wind, snow, sun, on bones, on blanket, tepees, skins, bows, arrows. By and by all gone too. Indian no go there long time, many moon."
So passed away the proudest race of Indians that ever lived on earth. They left behind no trace of history except the Paint Rocks among the canyons of Wyoming, near Basin City, and in Crandle Creek Basin, Montana, on which we might read of a thousand historical deeds if we could but find the key. These, and the great shrine wheel on Bald Mountain, the sheep pens where the wary sheep were caught, and here and there along the mountain trails, stone blinds behind which the hunter lay in ambush for game, are all that is left to remind us of a tribe now extinct.
From those visible signs, and the tales of the old squaw and stories extant among other tribes, we find the Sheep Eaters were a strong, brave, peaceable race of people, clean morally and physically. Provident and inventive, excelling in all the Indian arts. They lived as brothers. No poor were ever known among them, all sharing alike except the chiefs, who had larger tepees and more robes that they might care for visitors. Death was meted out to the woman who broke her marriage vows, and after death she was condemned to live in darkness and never again to see the sun they worshipped.
They never knew the use of alcohol in any form. It was left to the proud, civilized whites to bring that curse to the Indians. This favored people never saw but the one white man, and he only brought death to their bodies, leaving their souls unashamed to face their Maker.
It seems very fitting that this most perfect tribe of which we know should have lived out their little span of life among the most perfect surroundings, building their homes in the crags and rocks among those towering mountains, whose lofty heads are covered with perpetual snow, on whose sides great glaciers lie half hidden, like monsters of the deep. Dark stretches of timber fringe the canyons where the bald eagle, silent as the grave, seeks its prey. To the south the black forest clings to the shoulders of the mountains where the snow goes whirling across the peaks, along the table land, and into the valleys. Always and always the silent Rockies towering among the clouds on the one side and the majestic Big Horn on the other. Sentinel peaks, capped with the eternal snows, stand like hoary-headed giants. Great piles of God's masonry wall in this emerald vale with one ever-astounding, sometimes appalling, always changing vista of mountain, forest, river, lake, crest, gorge, and peak. Crouched in this empire of solemnity by night and grandeur by day, was the home of the Sheep Eaters.