MY LIFE AS AN INDIAN. James Willard Schultz
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one in a daze, I heard Heavy Breast give the command, and up we went out of the coulee, our leader shouting, "Take courage; take courage! Let us wipe them out!"
The enemy and the herd they were driving were not more than a hundred yards distant when we got upon a level with them, and our appearance was so sudden that their horses were stampeded, some running off to the east and some to the west. For a moment they tried to round them in again, and then we were among them, and they did their best to check our advances, firing their guns and arrows. Some were armed only with the bow. One after another I saw four of them tumble from their horses to the ground, and the rest turned and fled in all directions, our party close after them. They outnumbered us, but they seemed to have little courage. Perhaps our sudden and unexpected onslaught had demoralised them at the start. Somehow, the moment I rode out of the coulée and saw them, I felt no more fear, but instead became excited and anxious to be right at the front. I fired at several of them, but of course could not tell if they fell to my shots or those of our party. When they turned and fled I singled out one of them, a fellow riding a big strawberry pinto, and took after him. He made straight for Hairy Cap and its sheltering pines, and I saw at once that he had the better horse and would get away unless I could stop him with a bullet; and how I did try to do so, firing shot after shot, each time thinking, '' This time I must certainly hit him." But I didn't. Three times he loaded his flint lock and shot back at me. His aim must have been as bad as mine, for I never even heard the whiz of the bullets, nor saw them strike. On, on he went, putting more distance between us all the time. He had now reached the foot of the butte, and urged the horse up its steep side, soon reaching a point where it was so nearly perpendicular that the animal could carry him no farther. He jumped off and scrambled on up, leaving the horse. I also dismounted, kneeled down, and taking deliberate aim, fired three shots before he reached the pines. I saw the bullets strike, and not one of them was within ten feet of the fleeing mark. It was about the worst shooting I ever did.
Of course, I was not foolish enough to try to hunt the Indian in those thick pines, where he would have every advantage of me. His horse had run down the hill and out on the plain. I rode after it, and soon captured it. Riding back to the place where we had charged out of the coulée, I could see members of our party coming in from all directions, driving horses be fore them, and soon we were all together again. We had not lost a man, and only one was wounded, a youth named Tail-feathers; an arrow had fearfully lacerated his right cheek, and he was puffed up with pride. Nine of the enemy had fallen, and sixty-three of their horses had been taken. Every one was jubilant over the result. Every one was talking at once, telling in detail what he had done. I managed to attract Heavy Breast's attention. "Who were they?" I asked.
"They were Crees."
"How could you tell that they were?"
"Why, I understood some of the words they shouted," he replied. "But even if they had not uttered a sound, I would still have recognised them by their mean faces and by their dress."
I rode over to one of them lying on the ground nearby. He had been scalped, but I could see that his countenance was quite different from a Blackfoot's face. Besides, there were three blue tattooed marks on his chin, and his moccasins and garments were unlike any thing I had seen before.
We changed horses and turned homeward, plodding along steadily all that afternoon. The excitement was over, and the more I thought of it, the more pleased I was that I had not killed the Cree I chased into the pines. But the others; those I had fired at and seen drop; I succeeded in convincing myself that they were not my bullets that had caused them to fall. Had I not fired as many as twenty shots at the man I chased and each one had sped wide of the mark? Of course, it was not I who laid them low. I had captured a fine horse, one stronger and more swift than my own good mount, and I was satisfied.
We got home in the course of four or five days, and you may well believe that there was great excitement over our arrival, and many a dance with the scalps by those who had at one time or another lost dear ones at the hands of the Crees. Hands and faces and moccasins painted black, bearing the scalps on a willow stick, little parties would go from one part of the village to another, sing the sad song of the dead, and dance in step to its slow time. I thought it a very impressive ceremony, and wish I could remember the song, just for the sake of old times.
Dear old Berry and his wife killed the fatted calf over my safe return; at least we had, besides choice meats and bread and beans, three dried apple pies and a plum (raisin) duff for dinner. And I will remark that the two latter courses were a rare treat in those days in that country. I was glad to get back to the fort. How cheerful was the blaze in the wide fireplace of my sleeping room; how soft my couch of buffalo robes and blankets! I stayed pretty close to them for a time, and did nothing but sleep and eat and smoke; it seemed as if I would never get enough sleep.
Chapter V.
Days with the Game
Who should roll in one day but Sorrel Horse and his wife, with whom I had passed the summer, and with them came young Bear Head—once the Wolverine—and his Gros Ventre wife, whom I had helped him steal from her people. That is, I went with him on that expedition to the Gros Ventre camp, and gave him very good will in his undertaking if nothing more. Berry and his wife were as glad to meet them all again as I was, and gave them one of the rooms in the fort until such time as Sorrel Horse should have a cabin of his own. He had decided to winter with us, trap beaver and poison wolves, and perhaps do a little trading with the Indians. With Bear Head to help him, he soon built a comfortable two-room cabin just back of our place, and put in two good fireplaces like ours. I was glad of the fireplaces, for I counted on spending some little time by them in the long winter evenings to come. Nothing on earth gives one such a sense of rest and abiding peace as a cheerful blaze in a wide fireplace when cold weather comes, and blizzards from the north sweep down over the land.
Among other things, I had brought west with me a shotgun, and, now that the geese and ducks were moving south, I had some very good shooting. Whenever I went out for a few birds a number of Indians always followed me to see the sport; they took as much delight in seeing a bird fall at the crack of the gun as I did in making the shot. Once I dropped eleven widgeons from a flock passing by, and the onlookers went wild with enthusiasm over it. But I could never induce them to accept any of the fowl I killed; birds and fish they would not eat, regarding the latter especially as unclean. All they cared for was ni-tap-i wak-sin: real food, by which was meant the meat of buffalo, and the various other ruminants.
In November many of the Blackfeet proper came down from the north, where they had been summering along the Saskatchewan and its tributaries, and fol lowing them came the Kai-na, or Bloods, another tribe of the Blackfeet. The latter went into camp a mile below the Piegans, and the former pitched their lodges about half a mile above our fort. We now had, including women and children, something like 9,000 or 10,000 Indians about us, and the traders were kept busy all day long. Buffalo robes were not yet prime—the fur did not get its full growth until about the first of November—but a fair trade was done in beaver, elk, deer, and antelope skins. About the only groceries the Indians bought were tea, sugar, and coffee, and they cost them, on an average, one dollar per pint cupful. Blankets— three-point—were twenty dollars; or four prime head-and-tail buffalo robes, each; a rifle, costing fifteen dollars, sold for one hundred dollars; whisky—very weak—was five dollars per quart, and even a package of Chinese vermilion sold for two dollars. There was certainly profit in the trade. As a matter of fact, there was not a single thing in the trader's stock that was not an unnecessary article of luxury to the Indian. The trader's argument was something like this: The Indians don't need these things, but if they will have them, they must pay my price for them. I'm not risking my life in this business for anything but big profits.
Of course Berry did not expect to get all the trade of the three great camps. Parties were continually going into Fort Benton with robes and furs, indeed, the larger part of the trade went there; nevertheless, the little fort on the Marias did a fine business.
Winter came early that year, in the fore part of November. The lakes and streams