MY LIFE AS AN INDIAN. James Willard Schultz
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peace and plenty which was assured to her so long as she lived. This is the story she told me as we sat be fore the fireplace, that winter night so many years ago:
"We were very happy, my young husband and I, for we truly loved each other. He was a good hunter, always keeping our lodge well supplied with meat and skins, and I, too, worked hard in the summer planting, and watering as they grew, a nice patch of beans and corn and pumpkins; in the winter I tanned many robes and many buckskins for our use. We had been married two winters; summer came, and for some reason the buffalo left the river, all except a few old bulls, and remained away out on the plains. My people did not like to hunt out there, for we were only a small tribe; our men were brave, but what could a few of them do against a great band of our many enemies? So some were content to remain safely at home and eat the tough meat of the straggling bulls; but others, more brave, made up a party to go out where the great herds were. My husband and I went with them; he did not want me to go, but I insisted upon it. Since we had been married we had not been separated even for one night; where he went I had sworn to go also. Our party travelled southward all day over the green-grassed plain; along toward evening we saw many bands of buffalo, so many that the country was dark with them; we rode down into a little valley, and made camp by a stream bordered by cottonwoods and willows.
"Our horses were not very strong, for always at night they were driven inside the stockade of our village, and, feeding daily over the same ground outside, they soon tramped and ate off the grass; they had no chance to become fat. Some enemy or other was always prowling around our village at night, and we could not let them remain outside and wander to where the feed was good.
From our camp by the creek we started out every morning, the women following the men, who carefully looked over the country and then went after that band of buffalo which could be most surely approached. Then, when they had made the run, we rode out to where the great animals lay and helped skin and cut up the meat. When we got back to camp we were busy until evening cutting the meat into thin sheets and hanging it up to dry in the wind and the sun. Thus for three mornings we went out, and our camp began to look red; you could see the red from afar, the red meat drying. We were very happy.
"I was proud of my husband. He was always in the lead; the first to reach the buffalo, the last one to quit the chase, and he killed more of them—always fine fat animals —than any other one of the party. And he was so generous; did anyone fail to make a kill he would call to him and give him one, sometimes two, of his own kill.
"On the fourth morning we went out soon after sun rise, and only a little way from camp the men made a run and killed many buffalo. My husband shot down nine. We were all hard at work skinning them and getting the meat in shape to pack home, when we saw those who were at the far end of the running ground hurriedly mount their horses and ride swiftly toward us with cries of 'The enemy! the enemy!' Then we also saw them, many men on swift horses riding down upon us, their long war bonnets fluttering in the wind; and they were singing the war song; it sounded terrible in our ears. They were so many, our men so few, there was no use in trying to make a stand against them. We all mounted our horses, our leader shouting: 'Ride for the timber at the camp; it is our only chance. Take courage; ride, ride fast.'
"I whipped my horse as hard as I could and pounded his sides with my heels; my husband rode close beside me also whipping him, but the poor thing could go only so fast, the enemy were getting nearer and nearer all the time. And then, suddenly, my husband gave a little cry of pain, threw up his hands, and tumbled off on to the ground. When I saw that I stopped my horse, got down, and ran to him and lifted his head and shoulders into my lap. He was dying; blood was running from his mouth in a stream; yet he made out to say: 'Take my horse; go quick; you can outride them.'
"I would not do that. If he died I wanted to die also; the enemy could kill me there beside him. I heard the thunder of their horses' feet as they came on, and cover ing my head with my robe I bent over my husband, who was now dead. I expected to be shot or struck with a war club, and I was glad for whither my dear one's shadow went, there I would follow. But no; they passed swiftly by us and I could hear shots and cries and the singing of the war song as they rode on into the distance. Then in a little while I heard again the trampling of a horse, and looking up I saw a tall man, a man full of years, looking down at me. 'Ah,' he said, 'I made a good shot; it was a long way, but my gun held straight.'
"He was a Crow, and I could talk with him. 'Yes, you have killed my poor husband; now have pity and kill me, too.'
"He laughed. 'What?' he said, 'kill such a pretty young woman as you? Oh, no. I will take you home with me and you shall be my wife.'
" 'I will not be your wife. I will kill myself,' I began, but he 'stopped me. 'You will go with me and do as I say,' he continued, 'but first I must take the scalp of this, my enemy.'
' 'Oh, no,' I cried, springing up as he dismounted. 'Oh, do not scalp him. Let me bury him, and I will do anything you say. I will work for you, I will be your slave, only let me bury this poor body where the wolves and the birds cannot touch it.'
"He laughed again, and got up into the saddle. 'I take your word,' he said. 'I go to catch a horse for you and then you can take the body down to the timber by your camp.'
"And so it was done. I wrapped my dear one in robes and lashed the body on a platform which I built in a tree by the little stream, and I was very sad. It was a long, long time, many winters, before I took courage and found life worth living.
"The man who had captured me was a chief, owning a great herd of horses, a fine lodge, many rich things; and he had six wives. These women stared very hard at me when we came to the camp, and the head wife pointed to a place beside the doorway and said: Tut your robe and things there.' She did not smile, nor did any of the others; they all looked very cross, and they never became friendly to me. I was given all of the hardest work; worst of all, they made me chip hides for them, and they would tan them into robes; every day this was my work when I was not gathering wood or bringing water to the lodge. One day the chief asked me whose robe it was I was chipping, and I told him. The next day, and the next, he asked me the same question, and I told him that this hide belonged to one of his wives, that to another, and so on. Then he be came angry, and scolded his wives. 'You will give her no more of your work to do,' he said. 'Chip your own hides, gather your share of wood; mind what I say, for I shall not tell you this again.'
"This Crow chief was a kind man, and very good to me; but I could not like him. I turned cold at his touch. How could I like him when I was always mourn ing so for the one who was gone?
"We travelled about a great deal. The Crows owned so many horses that after camp was all packed and lodge poles trailed, hundreds and hundreds of fat, strong animals were left without a burden of any kind. Once there was talk of making peace with my people, and I was very glad, for I longed to be with them again. A council was held, and it was decided to send two young men with tobacco to the chief of the Arickaree and ask that peace be declared. The messengers went, but they never returned. After waiting three moons (months) for them, it was thought that they had been killed by those whom they went to visit. Then we left the Elk River (Yellowstone) and moved to the upper part of Dried Meat River (Musselshell). This was the fifth summer after my capture. It was berry time and the bushes were loaded with ripe fruit, which we women gathered in large quantities and dried for winter use. We went out one day to some thickets on the north slope of the valley, some distance from camp, where there were more berries than at any other place we had found. There had been trouble in our lodge that morning; while my captor—I never could call him my husband—was eating, he asked to see the amount of berries we had gathered; his wives brought out their stores, the head woman five sacks of them, the others two and three each, I had but one sack, and another partly full, to show. 'How is this?' the chief asked. 'Has my little Arickaree wife become lazy?'
" 'I am not lazy,' I answered, angrily. 'I have picked a great quantity of berries; and every evening I have spread them out to dry, covering them well after sunset so that the night dew would not injure them; but in the morning, when I have removed the covers and exposed them to the sun's heat, I have found many, very many less than I had placed there. This has happened every night since we came to camp here.'
'That is strange,' he said. 'Who could have taken them? Do you women