Jack in the Rockies

With noisy puffings the steamboat was slowly pushing her way up the river. On either side the flat bottom, in some places overgrown with high willow brush, in others, bearing a growth of tall and sturdy cottonwoods, ran back a long way to the yellow bluffs beyond. The bluffs were rounded and several hundred feet in height, rising imperceptibly until they seemed to meet the blue of the sky, so that the boat appeared to be moving at the bottom of a wide trough.

Hour after hour she pushed on, meeting nothing, seeing nothing alive, except now and then a pair of great gray geese, followed by their yellow goslings; or sometimes on the shore a half-concealed red object, which moved quickly out of sight, and which observers knew to be a deer.

On the boat were two of our old friends. From the far East had come Jack Danvers, traveling day after day until he had reached Bismarck, Dakota, where he found awaiting him Hugh Johnson, as grave, as white-haired, and as cheery as ever. At Bismarck they had taken the up-river steamer, "Josephine," and the boat had sailed early on the morning of July 5th.

Hugh and Jack were on their way back up to the Piegan country. They had separated at Bismarck the previous autumn, and while Hugh kept on down the river, to take a west-bound train, which should carry him back to Mr. Sturgis' ranch in Wyoming, Jack had gone East, to spend the winter in New York. He had had a year of hard work at school, for his experience of the previous winter had taught him that it paid well to work in school, and to make the most of his opportunities there. This made his parents more willing to have him go away to this healthful life, and he found that if he did his best he enjoyed all the better the wild, free life of the prairie and the mountains, which he now hoped would be his during a part, at least, of every year.

His summer with the Piegans had taught him many things known to few boys in the East, and given him many pleasures to which they are strangers; and the more he saw of this prairie life the more he enjoyed it, and the more he hoped to have more and more of it. Sometimes, when he awoke early in the morning, or at night, after he had gone to bed, as he lay between sleeping and waking, he used to go over in his mind the scenes that he had visited, and the stirring adventures in which he had taken part, and these memories, with the hope of others like them, gave him a pleasure that he would not have parted with for anything.

Often when he was in New York, walking through narrow city streets, looking up at high buildings, hearing the roar and rattle of the passing traffic, and watching the people hurry to and fro, each one absorbed in his own business, it was hard to realize that away off somewhere, only a few days' journey distant, there was a land where there was no limit to the view, where each human being seemed absolutely free, and where it was possible to travel for days and days without seeing a single person. Always interwoven with his dreams and his imaginings about this distant country was the memory of the friend Hugh, to whom he was so deeply attached. It hardly seemed to him possible to go anywhere in the West, except in company with Hugh, and until he had joined him, it never seemed as if his journey had begun, or was really going to be made.

All through the day the boat went on, turning and twisting, and at different times facing all points of the compass. Sometimes the sun would be shining on the port side of the boat, a little later on the starboard side, then it would be ahead, and again behind. Hugh and Jack spent their time chatting on the upper deck of the boat, Hugh smoking vigorously, to keep off the mosquitoes, while Jack, the edges of his handkerchief under his hat and tucked inside his coat collar, to leeward of Hugh, took advantage of the constant stream of smoke that poured from his pipe. They had much to tell each other of the winter that had passed, and much to say of the trip on which they were now starting. Fort Benton was their destination, and until they reached there, and saw their friend Joe, the Blackfoot Indian who was to meet them with the horses, they were uncertain what they should do.

There were not a few passengers on the boat. Some of them were carefully dressed persons, wearing long frock coats, white shirts, and a modest amount of jewelry, residents of the thriving towns of Helena or Virginia City, Montana; others were army officers, on their way to posts in the Northwest, or now starting out on some exploring expedition; while others still were persons of whose occupation and destination it was hard to judge from their appearance.

Among them was a middle-aged man who Jack thought, from his conversation, had long been a resident of the plains, and who told Jack something about a trade that he had long practised-that of wolfing.

"Why, young fellow," he said, "it is only a few years ago since there was good money in wolfin', but I had to quit it down in the southern country for wolves got too scarce when the buffalo got killed off. Wherever there was buffalo there was plenty of wolves, for the wolves made their livin' off the herds, just like the Indians; and when I say wolves I mean big wolves, coyotes, foxes, and swifts.

"In the autumn, as soon as the fur began to get good, I used to start out and find a herd of buffalo, and after shootin' two or three of them, I'd skin them down, and rip them up, and put from one to three bottles of strychnine in each carcass. After the blood that lay in the ribs had been poisoned good, I'd smear that over the meat on the outside. Generally I'd try to kill my buffalo close to where I was goin' to camp, and after I had put out my baits I went to camp and slept until near day. Then, before I could see, I'd get up, cook my breakfast, hitch up, if I had a team, and go round to all my baits. Likely, around each one I'd find my half dozen to fifteen wolves, and sometimes it would take me two or three days to skin them. Likely enough, if the weather turned right cold, I got a good many more wolves than I could skin, and had to stack them up, and wait till I got time. It was mighty hard work now, and don't you forget it. Then, too, there was always a chance that Indians might come along and make trouble for me. You take a man out on the prairie, ten years ago, and even the friendly Indians were likely to scare him a whole lot, or take his hides, even if they didn't take away his gun and his horses. As for the hostiles, if they got too close to a man it was all up with him. But I never had no trouble with them, except once, and then I was camped in the dug-out, with plenty of provisions, and there was only three of the Indians. I saw them comin', and suspected who they were, and managed to get my horses into the dug-out with me and stood 'em off. They scared me bad though.

"I should think so," said Jack.

The man stopped talking to fill his pipe and after he had lighted it puffed thoughtfully. Then he continued: "There's another way I've wolfed it, and that is by draggin' a bait over quite a scope of country, and droppin' pieces of poisoned meat along the trail. I used to do that when I couldn't find animals to kill for bait. This worked pretty well for awhile but it's no good any more down in that country."

"I've seen coyotes killed by putting poisoned tallow in auger holes, bored in chunks of wood," said Jack.

"Yes," said the man, "that's good sometimes, and they stay there lickin' and lickin' up the bait until they die right there. You don't have to look over much country to find your wolves."

"What kind of meat did you use when you were dragging the bait?" asked Jack.

"Most any kind would do," replied the wolfer; "sometimes it would be a piece of buffalo meat, sometimes a shoulder of a deer, but the best bait of all is a beaver carcass; there's lots of grease and lots of smell to that, and the wolves and coyotes are sure to follow it. This draggin' a trail is good too, because the wolves, when they go along and snap up the poisoned bait, don't go off, but keep right on followin' the trail, and you find them there, maybe quite a long way from where they pick the bait.

"Where are you goin', young fellow; you and that old man I see you talking with?"

"We're going up to Benton," said Jack, "and I don't know where we're going from there. I expect we'll meet a friend there, with our horses, and then we're going to make a trip, off maybe on the prairies, and maybe into the mountains; we can't tell yet."

"Sho," said the man, "you're sure goin' to have a good time. I've got to get a job when I get to Benton; somethin' that'll keep me until it comes time for fur to get good."

The next morning when Jack and Hugh left their stateroom a heavy fog hung low over the river and the boat was not moving, but was tied up to the bank, for it was so thick that there was danger of running aground on the frequent sand-bars, and as the river was now falling, the captain was unwilling to take the chance of such delay. On the lower deck was a dug-out canoe, the property of a temporary passenger, who was going only to Fort Berthold, and, after breakfast, Jack suggested to Hugh that they should borrow this canoe and go off a little way up the river, taking their guns, and seeing whether they could kill anything. Hugh said this could not be done, explaining that it would be easy enough to get lost, which would be bad for them, and very irritating to the captain, who might feel it necessary to wait for them; and besides this, the fog might lift at any moment, when the boat would move onward much faster than they could paddle. As it happened, the fog lifted almost immediately, and the boat set forward; and a little before noon the village of the Rees, Gros Ventres and Mandans, high up on the bluff above the river, was seen; and soon after the boat tied up, and all hands went ashore.

The bluff rose steeply from the river, and up and down its face were steep trails, worn by the feet of women passing up and down as they carried water and the driftwood which they gathered, up to the village. On the top of the bluff stood the bee-hive shaped gray houses, which Hugh told Jack were much like those occupied by the Pawnees.

They began to climb the bluff toward the village, and Jack asked Hugh about the Indians who lived here.

"In old times," said Hugh, "these Indians were scattered out up and down the river. The Gros Ventres lived furthest up, between here and Buford, and the Rees and Mandans lived further down the stream. A long time ago,-back maybe more than a hundred years,-the Rees and the Mandans all lived together, away down below here; but then they had some sort of a quarrel among themselves, and the Mandans moved on up the stream, and for a long time camped near the mouth of the Knife River. For a while after that there was some fighting between the Rees and Mandans, but after a time they made peace, and gradually the tribes came together again; and now for a long time they've all lived together in this village of Berthold. In old times each of these villages was a big one, but since the white men came among them, and brought smallpox, and liquor, and all the other things that the white men bring, they are dying off fast, and I don't believe that now there is more than eight or nine hundred of these Indians all together. You know these Rees here are kind of kin to the Pawnees; they speak near the same language, so that I can talk with 'em, and they call the Pawnees their relations. I think they used to be a part of the Skidi band. Nobody knows just when they separated from the Pawnees, but it must have been a good while ago."

Hugh paused, and Jack asked: "Does any one know how they came to separate, Hugh? Is there any tradition about it?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "there is. The old story is that all the Pawnees were out hunting, and the Sioux got around some of 'em, and cut 'em off from the rest and kept fighting 'em, and driving 'em, and fighting and driving, until they got 'em away up on the Missouri River, so far from their friends that they had to winter there. Then, along back, maybe about 1830, soon after the beginning of the fur trade on the upper river, the Rees fought the white folks, and were generally hostile. After that they went back and joined the Pawnees, but they couldn't get along well with the Pawnees, and quarreled with them, and finally the Pawnees drove 'em off. So they came on back up the river. It was after that that they joined the Mandans, and they've lived together ever since."

By this time they had reached the top of the bluff, and were now close to the houses, on whose curious domed roofs many people were sitting,-women busy with their work, young men wrapped in their robes, and looking off into the distance, and little girls playing with their dolls or their puppies. The ground in the village all about the houses was worn bare by the passage of many feet; Indians were going to and fro, women carrying water and wood, men naked, or wrapped in their summer sheets, little boys chasing each other, or, with their ropes trying to snare the dogs, which were usually too cunning for them.

Jack was greatly interested in the houses, and wished to look into one, and to this Hugh said there would be no objection. The entrance of each house was by a long passage-way, closed above, and at the sides, and passing through this, they found themselves at the door. Jack expected to go into a room that was dark; but this was not so. Above the center of the large room was a wide open space, which answered both for chimney and for window. About the fireplace, which was under the smoke hole, at the corners of a square, stood four stout posts, reaching up to and supporting the rafters of the roof. The floor of the house was swept clean, and all around the walls were raised platforms, serving for beds, and separated by screens of straight willow sticks strung on sinew, from the adjacent bed on either side. In front of some of the beds similar screens hung down like curtains so that the bed could be cut off from the observation of those in the house. Over the fireplace hung a pot, and two pleasant-faced women were sitting near it, sewing moccasins. They looked up pleasantly, as the strangers stood in the doorway, and Hugh spoke a few words to them, to which they made some answer. Then the strangers withdrew.

Keeping on through the village, they walked out on the higher prairie, toward the tribal burying-ground, but not such a burying-ground as Jack was accustomed to see. Here were placed the dead, wrapped up in bundles, on platforms raised on four poles, eight or ten feet above the ground. Evidently no attention was paid to them after burial, for many of the poles which supported the platforms had rotted and fallen down, and, in the older part of the graveyard the ground was strewn with pieces of old robes and clothing, and with white bones.

Hugh told Jack that farther away, and down on lower ground, where the soil was moist, the Rees, Mandans, and Gros Ventres had farms, where they raised corn, beans, pumpkins, and squashes, and that in old times they used to raise tobacco.

It was now time to return to the boat, for the wait was to be only a short one, and on their way back he told of something that had happened not many years before in the Mandan village.

"The people were hungry," said Hugh, "and there was no food in camp. They sent young men off in all directions to look for buffalo, but none could be found. As the people grew hungrier and hungrier the White Cow Society made up their minds that they would give a dance, and try to bring the buffalo. They did this, and danced for a long time; but no buffalo were found, and there were no signs that any were coming. Still the people of the White Cow Society danced, and still the other people watched them, and prayed that they might bring the buffalo. One day, after they'd danced for ten days, suddenly a big noise was heard in the village, and when the people rushed out of the lodges to see what was happening, there, among the lodges, was a big buffalo bull, charging about right close to the lodge in which the White Cow Society were dancing. All the dogs in the village seemed to be about him, barking at his head, and biting at his heels, and he was trying only to get away, and paying no attention to the Indians that were all about him.

"Then everybody was glad, for all could see that the Master of Life had sent this bull, to answer their prayers; and all believed that he had come ahead of the main herd, which would soon follow him. Before he had got out of the village, the bull was shot. The White Cow Society came out of their lodge, and danced around the village, and while they were doin' this, one of the scouts came in, and reported that a big band of cows was not far off. Then everybody was glad, and all wondered at the strong medicine of the White Cow Society. The next day the men went out and made a surround, and killed plenty of cows, and brought in the meat, and there came a terrible storm, and when the storm cleared off the whole prairie, beyond the ridge near Knife River, was black with buffalo. Now there was plenty in the camp, and every one was happy. The men went out and brought in fat meat, and it was dried, and no more that winter was there any suffering for food."

"That's a good story, Hugh," said Jack, "but do you suppose the dancing of the White Cow Society really brought the buffalo?"

"I couldn't tell you, son. The Indians believed it did, but I don't suppose any white folks would. But I've seen so many queer things follow these medicine performances that I don't know what to think about them, myself."

By this time they had reached the shore, and looking around, as they passed over the gang-plank to the deck, they saw the captain and purser coming down the trail just behind them. The deck hands were already beginning to cast off the fasts, and a moment later the whistle sounded, the boat's nose turned out into the river, and the steady thump, thump of the paddle-wheel began again. On the bank stood the three or four white men belonging to the agency, and up and down the bottom, and clustered in little groups on the bluffs, were Indians, dressed in buckskin, or in bright-colored cloth, who stood motionless, watching the steamer as she slowly moved away.

"That's a mighty interesting place, Hugh; and I want to get you to tell me all about it. Who are the Gros Ventres, and who are the Mandans? You've told me about the Rees, but I want to know about the others."

"Well, son," said Hugh, "I don't know as I can tell you very much about them, but I'll try. The Gros Ventres are close relations to the Crows; in fact, many people call them the River Crows, to distinguish them from the real Crows, that live up close to the mountains, on the head of the Yellowstone. Those fellows are called the Mountain Crows, and there's a good many more of them than there are of these. These people, I suppose, got their name, Gros Ventres, from the French, and I never heard why it was given to 'em. I never could see that they were any fatter, or had any bigger bellies, than other Indians, and I never found out any reason for the name. They don't call themselves by any such name as that; their name for themselves is Hi d?t sa, and that's said to mean, willows. Anyhow, they used to be called Willow Indians; so I have been told.

"In old times, they say that there were three tribes of them, but the other tribes have been lost, or forgotten, and now they're all together-all one bunch of Indians. There's one thing you want to remember, that there are two different outfits of Indians, both called Gros Ventres; one of them, these people here, whom we know as the Gros Ventres of the Village, or Gros Ventres of the Missouri; the others are the Gros Ventres of the Prairie, whose country is east of the Blackfoot country, and who used to be friendly with the Blackfeet, and then fought them for a long time, and now are friendly again. Those Gros Ventres of the Prairie are no kin at all to these people, but are a part of the Arapahoes, from whom, according to the old story, they split off a long, long time ago. They talk the Arapahoe language, and call the Arapahoes their own people, and still visit them back and forth. Nowadays they have an agency along with the Assinaboines, further west, at Fort Belknap, over on Milk River. Ninety-nine men out of every hundred get these Arapahoes and these River Crows mixed up, just for the reason that the French called them both Gros Ventres. Don't you ever do that, because when a man makes that mistake it shows that he don't know nothing about Indians. Try to remember that, will you?"

"Of course I will, Hugh. I don't want to make any mistakes, especially now since I have been out and seen something of real Indians. People back East, and especially all the fellows at school, think that I know everything about Indians now. They're all the time asking me questions about them, who they are, and where they live, and I should hate to make any mistakes in my answers. Now tell me, who are the Mandans?"

"I don't know as much about the Mandans as I do about the Gros Ventres of the Village," said Hugh, "and yet I've heard a lot about them. They're a kind of queer people; lots of 'em used to have yellow hair and gray eyes, and lots of 'em now have gray-haired children, same as you have seen among the Blackfeet. I got hold of a book once with lots of pictures of Indians in it; mighty good pictures, too, they were. 'T was written by a man named Catlin, who came up the river, painting pictures of Indians, a long time ago; maybe fifty years. He said he thought the Mandans were Welshmen, and told some story about some foreign prince that brought a colony of Welshmen over here, and Catlin thought that maybe the Mandans were descended from that colony. Anyhow they've lived by themselves, so the story goes, for a great many years; but I've heard the old men say that long, long ago the tribe came from away back East somewhere. They followed down a big river that ran from east to west, likely it may have been the Ohio River, until they came to the Mississippi, and then they struck off northwest, and camped on the Missouri, and they have been traveling up the Missouri, a little way at a time, for an almighty sight o' years.

"This book of Catlin's that I tell you about has got a whole lot o' stuff about the Mandans, and it is mighty good readin'. You had better get hold of it sometime when you get back East; it'll tell you more about 'em than I can. The Mandans have always been farmers, and raised good crops of corn, and that and their buffalo give them a pretty good living. But now the buffalo are getting scarce, and when they give out the Mandans will have to live on straight corn, I am afraid. There's one thing about the Mandans that's worth rememberin', they make the best pots of any people that I know of on the plains. I expect that in old times maybe the Pawnees made just as good pots, but since the white folks began to bring brass and copper kettles into the country the Pawnees have forgotten how to make pots; but the Mandans still keep it up, and make some pots, big and little--"

"Oh, Hugh!" called Jack at this moment, "Look at the buffalo!" and he pointed toward the high bluffs on the south side of the river, and there were three dark spots, running as hard as they could up the hill.

"Sure enough," said Hugh, "there's the first buffalo we've seen. Don't they look like three rats scuttling off over the hills, as fast as they can go. Before long, now, we ought to see plenty of 'em along the river; though we ain't likely to see many buffalo before we get above Buford."

The boat pushed slowly up the river's muddy current, and Hugh and Jack continued to talk about the Indian village on the hill.

"A mighty queer thing happened once at that village, son," said Hugh. "You've heard, maybe, that in some tribes of Indians they have sort of prophets, or men that foretell things that are going to happen. I have seen a little of that sort of thing myself, that I never could explain. Besides that, they've got some way of learning news that we don't understand anything about. Of course it may not be as quick as railroads and telegraphs, but its quick. Let me tell you something that happened there at Berthold, some years ago, and the man that it happened to lives in the upper country now, and you may likely run across him some time when you are up there. He is a Dutchman, and his name is Joe Butch.

"Along in 1868, Joe was working at Berthold, for a trader there, and the trader got into some sort of a quarrel about a horse with old White Cow, chief of the Mandans, and I guess old White Cow was pretty sassy, and maybe he threatened to do something, and Joe killed him. Well, as soon as he had killed the old man, Joe he knew that that wasn't no place for him, because the Mandans would be pretty sure to kill him; so he hops onto his horse, and rides as hard as he could for Buford, that's eighty miles up the river, next place we stop at. When he got to Buford he found there a big camp of Assinaboines, and they were having a big dance, because the chief of the Mandans, their enemies, had just been killed. Now, how do you suppose those Assinaboines knew that White Cow had been killed? Joe didn't waste no time getting onto his horse, and he rode as hard as he could to Buford; and its a sure thing that nobody got there before him with the news. I never understood how they found that out, and I never expect to."

"That seems a wonderful thing, Hugh," said Jack. "I don't see how they could have found it out if nobody told them, and if there were no telegraphs."

"Well, it's sure there were no telegraphs," said Hugh, "and I don't see how anybody could have told them. Joe killed the man, and started on his ride right off, and had a good horse. That's one of the things that always beat me."

The hours passed swiftly by for Jack and Hugh, as they watched the river banks on either side. The boat had met a flood of water just above Berthold, which, if it made progress against the strong current more slow, nevertheless saved time by deepening the water, so that they did not run aground on sand-bars. Several times during the morning, antelope were seen feeding in the bottom, lifting their heads to gaze at the boat, as it puffed and snorted along, but not being enough alarmed to take to flight. After supper that night, as they sat on the deck about sundown, Hugh, watching the banks, pointed out no less than three distant spots on the wide bottom, which he told Jack were bears digging roots. They were a long way off, yet with his glasses Jack was able to make out their forms, and to recognize them as bears.

Early next morning the boat stopped at Fort Buford, above the mouth of the Yellowstone River.

The wait was to be only a short one, and no one left the boat. Jack was interested in looking from the upper deck at the post, where there were a number of soldiers, and it looked like a busy place. Away to the left was seen the broad current of the Yellowstone coming down between timbered banks. As the two friends sat on the upper deck and looked off toward the shore, Hugh, in response to some question by Jack, said:

"Yes, in old fur-trading days this used to be a mighty interesting place. Just above here was one of the great trading posts of old times, and pretty much all the tribes of the northern prairie used to come here to get their ammunition, and whatever other stuff they could buy. Old man Culbertson was here for a long time, and lots of people from back east and from foreign parts used to come up the river as far as this. Sometimes they used to have great fights out here on this flat, when two hostile tribes would come in to trade and would get here at the same time. I've heard great stories about the way the Indians used to fight here among themselves almost under the walls of the post; and, then, again, sometimes the Indians used to crawl up as near to the fort as they could, and try to run off the horse herd, which would be feeding right out in front of the post. Sometimes they'd get 'em; sometimes they wouldn't, but would get one of the herders. On the whole, however, the place wasn't often attacked, because the Indians couldn't afford to quarrel with the people who furnished them with their goods. When 'twas Fort Union, 'twas a mighty lively place."

"Why Hugh," said Jack, "do you mean to tell me that this is old Fort Union?"

"Sure," said Hugh.

"Why," said Jack, "I've read lots about Fort Union. Don't you know that in 1843 Audubon, the naturalist, and a party of his friends, came up here to find out a lot about the Western birds and animals? I've read a lot of Audubon, and he speaks constantly of Fort Union, and about the things he used to see here, and the buffalo hunting, and about Mr. Culbertson. Dear me! dear me! when I was reading about it I never thought that I would see Fort Union."

"Well," said Hugh, "this is the place; and if this man Audubon was out here in 1843, that, I think, was just the year before they had the big smallpox here. Men that were here at the time tell me that there were two or three big camps of Indians here, and that they got the smallpox in the fall, just before the ground froze, and the Indians died off like wolves about a poisoned carcass; and the ground was hard, and they could not dig graves for them, and they just stacked up the bodies outside of the fort, in rows, like so much cord-wood, and had to wait till the ground melted in the spring before they could bury 'em. There must have been a pile of Indians died."

"Well, what did they do for smallpox, Hugh? How did they cure themselves?"

"Why, they didn't know anything about curing themselves, son. When a man got smallpox, or got sick, he just went into a sweat-lodge, and took a sweat, and came out and plunged into the river to cool off, and the ice was running, and some of 'em never came up again, and some of those that did come up were so weak from the shock that they could not get to the shore, and just drowned. If we get to the Blackfoot camp this summer, you ask old man Chouquette about it. He was here then; he'll tell you about it, just the same as he told me."

While Hugh had been talking, the boat had cast off and had once more started up the river.

It was afternoon, and Hugh was dozing in his chair, tilted up against the cabin, while Jack as usual was watching the river banks, when suddenly from behind a little hill that formed the end of a hog back, which extended well out into the bottom, he saw a herd of seventy or eighty buffalo, come running as hard as they could across the bottom, and plunge into the river just above the boat. The great animals ran as if frightened, and seemed to regard nothing but the danger behind them. As the boat went along, and the buffalo swam to cross the stream, they came nearer and nearer together, and at last it was evident that the buffalo would pass very close to the boat. They swam rapidly, and with them were many little calves, swimming on the down stream side of their mothers, and going swiftly and easily. Jack shouted to Hugh, who, with him, watched the buffalo, and in a very few minutes the boat was actually in the midst of the herd. The animals did not attempt to turn about, but swam steadily after their leaders, and some of them actually swam against the boat, and, only then seeming to understand their danger, turned about and, grunting, snorting, and bellowing, climbed up on each other in tremendous fright. As they came to the boat Jack at first had started to get his rifle, but Hugh called him back, and they both descended to the lower deck, where, with the other passengers, and the deck hands, they were actually within arms length of the buffalos. The mate, forming a noose with a rope, threw it over the head of a two-year-old, and half a dozen of the roustabouts, pulling on the rope, lifted the animal's head up on the deck, when the mate killed it, and it was presently hauled aboard and butchered. As they returned to the upper deck, having watched the buffalo, after the boat had passed, swim to the other bank and climb out of the water, and then stop and look at the boat, Jack said to Hugh, "Well, I saw a lot of buffalo last year, but it sort of excites one to see them again as close as those were."

"Yes," said Hugh, "that's so; but there was no use in your getting your gun, as you started to. I don't want you to act like all the rest of these pilgrims that come up the river, and to be shooting at everything you see that's alive. There'd have been no more fun in shooting one of those buffalo in the water there, than there'd be in shooting a cow on the range. Of course, if a man's hungry, it's well enough for him to butcher; but if he just wants meat, and there's somebody else to do the butchering, he might just as well let him do it. I always used to like to hunt, and I do still, but it's no fun for me to kill a calf in a pen, or to chop off a chicken's head.

"That's so, Hugh," said Jack; "it would have been no more to shoot one of those buffalos in the water than it was for the mate to kill that two-year-old."

"That's so," said Hugh; "it would have been just the same thing, and you don't envy him the work he did, I expect."

"No indeed," said Jack, "not much."

"Now, if you want to fire a few shots," said Hugh, "if you want a little practice with your gun, get it out the next time we get close to the bank, and shoot at a knot in some cottonwood tree. I can watch with the glasses and see where you hit, and you can get some practice with your rifle, but won't show up a tenderfoot."

The sun was low that evening when they reached Wolf Point, the agency for the Assinaboine Indians, and it seemed as if all the Indians there must have clustered about the landing-place to welcome the boat; men, clad in fringed buckskin shirts and leggings, and with eagle feathers in their hair; bright-shawled women, carrying babies on their backs; small boys, naked, save for a pair of leggings and a breech-clout; and little girls, some wearing handsome buckskin dresses, trimmed with elk-teeth, and clinging to their mothers' skirts, made up the assemblage. Most interesting to Jack were the many travois, each one drawn by a dog. Some of these were very wolf-like in appearance; others might have been big watch dogs taken from the front door yard of some eastern farm house. All seemed well-trained and patient; and when, a little later, some of them started off for the agency buildings, dragging loads that had been piled on the travois, they bent sturdily to their work, and dug their feet into the ground.

"There's something, son," said Hugh, "that we are not going to see much longer. The dog travois has seen its best days, and before long dogs won't be used any more for that work. Why, I hear that even up in the North, dogs are not used in winter for hauling half as much as they used to be; and down here, the first thing you know, all these Indians will be having wagons, and driving them 'round over the prairie. Why, do you know, it ain't so very long ago since these Assinaboines had hardly any horses. They didn't want 'em; they said horses were only a nuisance and a bother to 'em, and their dogs were better. Horses had to be looked after; driven in and caught up whenever they were to be used, and then they had to be watched to keep people from stealing them; but dogs, instead of running away when you wanted to catch them, would come running toward you; they never ran off nor were stolen. Nowadays, though, the Assinaboines have got quite a good many horses, and I expect to live long enough to see the time when dog travois will be a regular curiosity."

"Who are the Assinaboines, Hugh," said Jack. "What tribe are they related to?"

"They're Sioux," said Hugh, "and talk the Sioux language. Of course it's a little different from that talked by the Ogallalas and the down river Sioux; but still they can all understand each other, and they call themselves Lacotah, which of course you know is the name that all the Sioux have for themselves."

"And yet," he continued, "they have been at war with the Sioux and with the Sioux' friends for a good many years. I reckon there ain't any one that rightly knows when the Assinaboines split off from the main stock; it must have been a long time ago. But you talk with the Assinaboines, and they'll tell you-just as most of the other Sioux'll tell you-about a time long ago, in the lives of their fore-fathers, when their people lived at the edge of the salt water. I expect maybe that means that they migrated a long way, either from the East or from the West, very far back."

"My!" said Jack, "if we could only know about all these things that happened, and what the history of each tribe was, wouldn't it be interesting?"

"It sure would," said Hugh.

"Well, Hugh," continued Jack, "what does Assinaboine mean? Has it any real meaning, like some of these other names of Indian tribes that you tell me about?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "it has a meaning, and I reckon it's a Cree word. Ass?ne means stone in Cree, poit means cooked, or cooking, and the Assinaboines are called stone-cookers, or stone-roasters, I suppose because they used to do their cooking with hot stones. But of course that don't mean much, because pretty nearly all the Indians that I know of used to boil their meat with hot rocks, except those that made pots and kettles for themselves out of clay. Nobody knows, I reckon, when the Pawnees and Mandans first learned how to make pots. I expect that was a long time ago, too. But most of these Indians used to boil meat in a kettle made of hide, or the paunch of a buffalo, filled with water. Then they'd heat stones in the fire, and put them in the water, taking them out as they got cool and putting in others, until the water boiled and the food was cooked."

"But," said Jack, "I should think when they cooked the hide or paunch it would break, and let the water spill out."

"No," said Hugh. "It would of course, if you kept cooking long enough; but one of these kettles would only last to cook a single meal; you couldn't use it a second time, but it was all right for one cooking. I have seen a hide kettle used, and eaten from it."

Jack sat thinking, for awhile, and then he turned to Hugh and said:

"I tell you, Hugh, if all you know about Indians, and about this Western country were put in a book, it would make an awful big one, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I don't know, son," said Hugh, "maybe it might; but a man has got to learn the life he's lived; if he doesn't, he won't amount to nothing. I expect if all that you know about the East was put in a book it would make quite a sizable one."

"Oh," said Jack, "that's nothing. The things I know don't amount to anything, and everybody else knows them a good deal better than I do."

"Well, I tell you," said Hugh, "the things that are new and strange to you seem kind o' wonderful, but they don't seem wonderful to me; but I remember one time you were telling me something about catching fish down at the place called Great South Bay, and talking about seeing the vessels sailing on the ocean, and to me that seemed mighty wonderful."

By this time the boat had left the landing-place, and the light was growing dim. They turned and looked back, and there across the wide bottom was moving toward the Post, a long string of people, men and women and children and dog travois, so that it looked almost like a moving camp. Hugh and Jack sat for a while longer on the deck talking, and then, as the mosquitoes got bad, they turned in.

The next afternoon the boat reached Fort Peck, then one of the most important Indian agencies on the Missouri River. It stood on a narrow bench, a few log buildings surrounded by a stockade, and back of it the bluffs rose sharply, and were dotted with the scaffolds of the dead. It seemed to Jack that there must be hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of these graves in sight. From the poles of some of them long streamers were blown out in the wind, which Hugh told him were offerings tied to the poles of the scaffolds by mourning relatives. But few living Indians were seen here, and there were only three or four white men seen about the trading post. They did not leave the boat, which soon pushed on again.

"The Indians about here have been awful mean," said Hugh; "Lots of things were brought in here that the Sioux took from the Custer battlefield. Somebody told me that Custer's gold watch was brought in here by an Indian, who wanted to know how much it was worth: but so many questions were asked him about it that he just put the watch in his sack and lit out, and has not been seen here since."

As the boat passed the mouth of the Musselshell early next morning Hugh pointed shoreward, and said:

"Do you see that place over there where that creek comes in, son?"

"Why, of course I see it, Hugh," said Jack, "and the timber that runs along it. What creek is it?"

"You ought to know," said Hugh, with a laugh; "you got scared in it a whole lot last summer."

"Why, Hugh, is that the Musselshell?" said Jack.

"That's what it is," said Hugh; "and seeing the mouth of the river, and them sticks there on the flat, reminds me of the big fight that took place there some years back. I wonder if you ever heard about it. I meant to tell you last summer, but somehow it slipped my mind. It was there that Liver-Eating Johnson got his name. They used to say that he cut out the liver of an Indian that got killed in that fight and ate it. Of course he never did, but they tell the story about him, and I rather think he was kind o' proud about it after a little while, and liked the name.

"I think it was in 1869 that the fight took place, along in the spring.

"You know the steamboats always have trouble in coming up to Benton in the low water; and along about 1866, after the mines got paying, and when the fur trade was good, some men at Helena formed a company to make a road and start a freight line down to some point on the river that the boats could always get to. These men didn't know much about the river, and they chose the mouth of the Musselshell for the point where their road, which began at Helena, should end.

"Now, I suppose if they'd raked the whole river with a fine-tooth comb they couldn't have found a poorer place for a town, nor a poorer country to travel through, than this one they pitched on. The place chosen for the town was that little neck of land between the Musselshell and the Missouri. The soil is a bad-land clay, which in summer is an alkali desert, and in spring is a regular bog, in which a saddle-blanket would mire down. Then, all along the Musselshell was a favorite camping and hunting ground for the Indians, and in those days Indians were bad. Well, they made up their company, and started their town. There weren't many settlers, but a few people, mostly hunters and wood-choppers, stopped there; and of course, wherever there were a few people gathered together, there was sure to be a store and a few saloons.

"I think it was along in 1868 that a man came down there with a fine train of mules. Likely he expected to get some freighting to do when the boats came up the river. The stock was turned out, and some men were on guard, when a party of Sioux charged in among them, killed two of the men, and ran off every hoof of stock. The thing was done in a minute; and before the men could get out of their houses and tents the stock was gone, and the Indians along with it: all except one young fellow, who, just to show what he could do, charged back and rode through the crowd, making fun of them as he went along. So far as anybody knew, not one Indian got hit.

"It was not very long after that that the Sioux came down and charged into the Crow camp, and ran off eight hundred head of horses. Of course that made a big excitement. The Crows jumped on their horses an pursued and they had quite a fight, and some of the Indians got killed.

"During the Spring of 1869, the Indians used to attack the town every few days; a Crow squaw that was living there got shot through the body, and a white woman was wounded, knocked down, and scalped, but I reckon she's living yet. Anybody that went out any distance from the town was sure to be shot at and chased. It was a time for a man to travel 'round with his gun loaded, and in his hand all the time. The Indians didn't do much of anything, but they kept the people scared up everlastingly. It got to be so, finally, that the Indians would charge down near the town, and then swing off and run away, and pretty much all the men would run out and run after them, shooting as long as the Indians were in sight.

"One morning there were a couple of Crow women out a little way from town, gathering sage brush for wood, and the Indians opened fire on them. The white men all rushed out and after the Indians, who numbered sixteen. They ran on foot over toward the Musselshell, and then up the bottom, not going very fast, and the white men were gaining on them, and thinking that now they would force them to a regular fight; when suddenly, from a ravine on the Musselshell, a shot was fired, which killed a man named Leader.

"That stopped the whites right off, and they turned to run; and if the Indians had charged 'em then, I expect they'd have got every last one of 'em. But Henry McDonald saw what would happen if they ran, and, bringing down his rifle, swore he'd shoot the first man who went faster than a walk.

"They could see now that there was quite a body of Indians in the ravine on the bank of the Musselshell, but they couldn't tell how many. There was some little shooting between the two parties. Most of the whites moved back to the settlement; but there were half a dozen men who did not retreat; but getting under cover, within thirty or forty yards of the Indians, held them there. They kept shooting, back and forth, and presently a man named Greenwood got shot through the lungs, and had to be carried back. The other men stood their ground, and the Indians, knowing that they had to do with good shots, did not dare to show their heads.

"After two or three hours of this sort of thing, it began to rain, a mighty lucky thing for the white men. They were all armed with Henry rifles, or needle-guns, while the Indians, for the most part, had bows and arrows, with some flintlock guns. They had stripped themselves for war, and had no clothing with which they could cover their gun-locks and bow-strings to keep them from getting wet. After a little of this, the white men began to see that the Indians were practically disarmed, and began to think about charging them; but when they raised up to look, they saw that there was a big party of men there, and that the only way to get them, except in a hand to hand fight, was for some of the party to cross the Musselshell, and get to a point where they could shoot into the ravine, thus driving the Indians out and placing them between two fires. Three men started to do this.

"When the Indians saw what the white men were trying to do, they ran down to the mouth of the ravine and tried to shoot at them; but their strings were wet, and the arrows had no force and hardly reached the men, and very few of their guns would go off. The three men got across the river, and went down to a point opposite the ravine, and began to shoot at the Indians; but by this time all the men in the settlement had collected together, about eight hundred yards behind the Indians, and seeing these three men on the other side of the stream took them for Indians and began to shoot at them; so that the three white men who had crossed had to get away and re-cross the Musselshell. By this time half a dozen other men got around on the lower side of the Indians, and then again three men crossed the river and commenced to shoot up the ravine. This was too much for the Indians: they jumped out of their hole and started to get away, and everybody was shooting at them as hard as they could. The fire from the body of men near the town still continued, and obliged the men who were doing the real fighting to keep more or less under cover. The Indians broke for the Musselshell, crossing it where they could, and most of them got away; but thirteen were killed, and it was said that a good many more died on the way to camp, and only one of the ninety and more who were in the fight escaped without a wound. The next day after that, the white men found the place where the Indians had stripped for the fight and left their things, and there over a hundred robes and two war bonnets and a whole lot of other stuff were found. Most of it was sold, and the money given to Greenwood, who was wounded. Jim Wells and Henry McDonald, I heard, each got a war bonnet.

"The freight road was given up, and pretty much everybody left the place,-except some traders who stopped there a little longer. Then Carroll was started, up near the Little Rockies, and in a very much better place, and that was the end of Musselshell City. It was at this same place that Johnson claimed to have made for himself a razor strap from a strip of skin that he cut from an Indian's back: but Johnson was always a good man to tell stories, and you never could be quite sure when he was telling the truth and when he was joking.

"A few years ago there used to be lots of talk about that fight, and the people called it one of the biggest lickings that the Indians ever got in this part of the country."

Pushing along up the river, the boat passed beyond the Musselshell, and then up by Carroll, and the Little Rocky Mountain, and the Bearspaw,-and at last one day, about noon, Fort Benton came in sight.

For the last two hundred miles they had seen a good deal of game. Buffalo were almost always in sight on the bluffs, or in the bottom; elk, frightened by the approach of the steamer, tore through the willow points; deer, both black-tail and white-tail, were often seen, and on several occasions mountain sheep were viewed-once in the bottom and at other times on the high bad-land bluffs. One of the herds was a large one, which Hugh said must contain seventy-five or a hundred animals.

As Benton was approached, Jack began to feel more and more excited. Here he hoped to meet Joe, who had been warned some months before by Mr. Sturgis that Hugh and Jack would be at Benton early in July: and Joe would have with him the horses, a lodge, and all their camp equipage; so that, if nothing interfered to prevent, the next morning they could start out on their trip.

As the boat slowly drew near the wharf, Hugh and Jack, from the upper deck, recognized first the old adobe fort and then, one after another, the different buildings of the town. The arrival of the steamer was always a great event in Benton, and pretty much all the inhabitants of the town were seen making their way toward the water's edge. The throng was made up of whites and Indians, with an occasional Chinaman: for already Chinamen had begun to come into the country.

At first the two watchers from the steamboat could recognize no faces, but, as the boat drew nearer and nearer, Hugh suddenly let his hand fall on Jack's shoulder and said, "There's Baptiste, and I believe that's Joe standing near him."

"Oh, where are they, Hugh? I can't see either of them:" and then a moment later, after Hugh had told him where the two stood, he saw them; and springing up on the rail, and holding to a stanchion, he waved his hat, and shouted out to Joe, who had already recognized him and made joyous gestures in response.

A little later, the four were cordially shaking hands on the shore: and presently, when the crowd of passengers had left the boat, the two old men and the boys went on board again and, mounting to the upper deck, talked together. Jack's first question to Joe was as to the whereabouts of the camp.

"Down east of the Judith Mountains somewhere, I expect," said Joe in reply. "They went down there to kill buffalo; there's lots of buffalo over on the Judith, or between the Judith and the Musselshell. I guess they'll be there all summer, and before I left the camp I heard that they would make the medicine lodge somewhere out in that country."

"What about the hostiles, Joe?" said Jack. "Have they seen any Sioux lately?"

"No," said Joe, "but I've heard that there are a few passing back and forth, between the lower country and Sitting Bull's camp, over across the line."

"Like enough," said Hugh, "like enough. We've got to look out for those fellows; but they won't do nothing more than try to steal our horses."

Hugh had been talking quietly with Baptiste La Jeunesse, who told him what had been happening in Benton during the winter. This was not much: there was talk that a railroad was going to be built into the country, one that might even pass through Fort Benton itself, and this would make the town big and important, so people said-and Fort Benton would once more become what it had been in the early days of the fur trade, a populous and thriving place.

"And how have you been getting on yourself, Bat?" said Hugh.

"Oh, I've done well. I always have everything that I want, since you people came in here last summer and gave me the gold. Every month I go to the bank, and they give me the pay for the money that you lent them for me, and so I live well. It doesn't make any difference to me whether I've work to do or not, yet always it is pleasant to be doing something, and so I keep on working. Also, there are some people in the town who are poor, just as I used to be; and now that I have money I can help them to live, just as your boy has helped me."

"Well, Bat, it makes me feel good that you are doing well, and I think that you will continue to do well from this on."

"And what are you going to do this season, Hugh?" said Baptiste. "Where are you going, and what are you going to do-hunting or trapping, or what?"

"Well, Bat," said Hugh, "I am traveling 'round again with this boy of mine. His uncle and his father and mother want him to spend the summers out here, and get strong and hearty, and they've told me to travel with him, and teach him about the way of living out here; the same lesson that you and I learned when we were young; only he will learn it in a better and easier way than we did. He's a good boy: I like him better all the time. I should feel bad if anything happened to him."

"Yes, Hugh, I think he's a good boy," said Baptiste. "Both of those boys are good. I like the Indian well. He came in here many days ago, and came to me; and since he got here, he and I have lived together. I like him."

Hugh now turned to the two boys, who were busily talking, and said; "Now, boys, if we're going to get off to-night we've got to make a start right soon. I expect Joe has got all our stuff ready, except the grub, and if you and he will hurry up and get the horses together and get them saddled, I'll go and buy the grub, and put it in the wagon, and come down here and get our guns and beds, and we'll pack up and move out of town four or five miles and camp."

Both the boys jumped to their feet, and Jack said; "Hurray! that's what I want to do; I want to get out on the prairie once more, and I don't want to see a town again until I have to."

Jack and Joe started at once, and ran races with each other up the street, to see which should get first to the stable. Joe beat the white boy, who found that his winter's confinement, and his lack of exercise in the big city had made him short of wind; so that at last he got out of breath, and stopped running. When they reached the stable, Joe took his rope and went out into the corral, and caught a handsome little buckskin pony, and, saddling it, rode out to get the animals which were pasturing on the bluffs above the town. He was gone some little time, and then, Jack, who was watching for him, saw the familiar sight of loose horses running along the bluff, and then turning and rushing down its steep sides, followed by a cloud of dust; and then Joe, with whoops and yells, and quick turnings and twistings of his horse, drove them up to the bars, through which they crowded, and then stood quiet in the corral.

Jack thought that he would try his old scheme of calling Pawnee, and whistled sharply. The good horse threw up his head, and looked about, and then seeming to recognize Jack, walked over to him, and arched his neck over his shoulder in the old-fashioned way. Jack was very much touched, and put his arms around the horse's head, and leaned his head against his neck, thrilled with affection for the animal that he had ridden so many miles. Presently they got out the ropes, and tied up the horses, and one by one they were saddled. They were all fat and in good condition, and some of them objected quite strongly to being saddled. The dun bucked when the flank cinch tightened on him, just as he had bucked the first time Jack ever saw him packed, and so did the star-faced bay. The others grunted and squealed and kicked a little, but on the whole took the saddling very well.

Not long after they had finished saddling up they heard a cheery call from the front of the stable, and, rushing out, Jack saw the wagon, piled up with food and beds, and Hugh and Baptiste, sitting in it. It took some little time to make up the packs, but by late afternoon this was done, the horses packed, and after shaking hands with Baptiste, the little train, with Hugh in the lead, Jack driving three pack horses, and Joe bringing up the rear, driving two more, filed out of the town and climbed the hills toward the upper prairie.

That afternoon they traveled until the sun went down, and then coming on a little coulee, through which water trickled, they camped. They were careful to picket all their horses; and after this was done, while Joe and Jack brought armfuls of willow brush from up and down the creek, Hugh cooked supper.

The next day they kept on. Now they were well away from the settlements, and game began to be seen. Only antelope, it is true, but of them there were plenty. Jack had a fair shot at a buck, at about a hundred and twenty-five yards, but failed to kill him-to his great mortification.

"Ha!" said Hugh, "you've got to learn how to shoot again; you shot too high, and missed him slick and clean. I remember the first shot you fired last year, when you first came out; you shot high then, just as you did now. When we get to camp to-night, you and Joe had better go out and shoot three or four times at a mark. You have got to learn your gun over again, and Joe of course has got to learn his for the first time." Jack had brought out from New York a gun for Joe, carefully selected from the stock of one of the largest rifle manufacturers in the world, and as yet Joe had not fired a shot out of it; but he seemed never to tire of looking at it, and putting it up to his shoulder, and sighting at various objects. That night they camped on a great swiftly rushing stream, near some high hills, or low mountains; and while he was cooking supper Hugh sent them off to try their guns. With the axe they shaved off the outer bark from a thick cottonwood tree, and making a black mark on the brown surface, each fired five shots at it. Jack's first two shots were high, but the next three were clustered within the size of a silver dollar, all about the mark. Joe did not shoot quite so steadily, two of his shots being above, and two below, and one a little off to one side. When they returned to camp and Hugh asked them about their shooting, they told him, and he advised them to fire a few more shots after supper, and, if necessary, a few in the morning.

"There's nothing, I hate worse than to hear a gun fired about camp," he said, "but guns are no use to people unless they understand them, and you boys must get used to your guns. It won't take you more than a very few shots to do this, and you certainly must do it."

The next morning they started on again. No signs had yet been seen of the Indians, but this day they saw a few buffalo, old bulls, mostly off to the north of them. In the afternoon they passed by the Moccasin Mountains, and camped on a little stream flowing into the Judith River. After they had unpacked their animals and made camp, Hugh said to Jack, "Son, have you ever been here before? Do you see anything that you recognize?"

"Why, no Hugh," said Jack, "I don't think I do;" and standing up he took a long look about him, up and down the valley, and at the hills on either side. Suddenly his face brightened, and he said, "Why yes I do, too. I know where we are. This is just where we came through last year, the second day after I got caught in the quicksands in the Musselshell."

"That's so," said Hugh, "this is just where we came. I wondered if you'd recognize it. You ought to do so, and I'm glad you do.

"Right over a few miles east of us is what we used to call old Camp Lewis. There used to be a trading store there, and a camp of soldiers, and a few men got killed there, mostly soldiers. I remember coming through here not many years ago, the afternoon after some soldiers got killed on the bank of the creek, right close to the camp. There was a camp of Crows there then-about three hundred lodges. The Sioux came down, and ran off some government horses, and killed three recruits that were fishing here in the creek, and the Crows took after 'em, and had quite a fight, and Long Horse, the Crow chief got killed. They got seven of the Sioux, I think. They had quite a time here in the camp then. I remember Yellowstone Kelly was here, and three or four other men; I think the Sioux set them all afoot."

The next morning while Hugh was getting breakfast he said to Jack: "Son, why don't you kill some meat? You are going through a country where game is fairly plenty; anyway, antelope are, and there's a few buffalo; and besides that, here are some mountains right close to you, where there's surely lots of sheep. You boys had better make up your minds to do something to-day; if you don't I'll have to start out and hunt, to kill meat for the camp."

"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "I certainly would rather hunt than drive pack horses; and if you want me to I'll go off to-day and follow along a little closer to the hills, and see if I can't kill something."

"Do so," said Hugh, "and then if you kill anything you can easily overtake us. We will be traveling slow, and your horse is good and fat and can catch us wherever we are. All the same, keep your eye open for Indians, and don't let any strangers come up too close to you. I'd rather have you two boys go off together, but I've got to keep Joe with me, to drive these pack horses. You'd better throw the saddle on your horse and start right off, and maybe you'll catch us before we've gone very far."

No sooner said than done. Jack saddled up, and having asked Hugh the direction in which the party would move, rode away to the left, toward the low foot-hills of the mountains. He had gone only a mile or two when, passing over the shoulder of the foot-hills, he found himself coming down into a narrow valley, in which pretty little meadows were interspersed with clumps of cottonwoods and willows. Three or four antelope were feeding in the valley not far off, but there was no cover under which they could be approached, so he rode straight along. As he drew near, the antelope ceased feeding and raised their heads, and then, before he was within easy rifle shot, trotted off to the other side of the valley, and stood on the hillside watching him. After looking back for a few moments, they started, in single file, and slowly walked up the hill. They were by no means frightened, and it seemed likely that by taking a little time, after they had passed on out of sight, he might get a shot at them; but the brush above him on the stream seemed likely to hold a deer, and he turned his horse that way and rode quietly forward up the stream, among the groups of bushes. He had not gone very far when from a clump of willows at his right a big doe sprang into view, and moved slowly off by those high, long bounds which make the white-tail, in motion, one of the most graceful of animals. Jack's impulse was to jump off his horse and shoot at her, but he saw that, if he did this, he would be so low down that she could hardly be seen over the tops of the willows. He checked Pawnee, cocked his gun, and rising a little in his stirrups, and gripping the horse with his thighs, aimed carefully at the back of the doe's head, just as she was rising in one of her leaps, and pulled the trigger.

Almost at the report, her long tail fell flat to her body, and she began to run much faster. He knew he had hit her, and before she had gone fifty yards, and while she was crossing an open bit of meadow, she fell. Jack rode up to her, and on turning her over found that he had made a good shot. A ball had entered her back, just to the right of the spine, and had pierced both lungs and heart.

Turning her over, to get her ready to put on the horse, he was glad to see that she was a barren doe, one that had not produced a fawn that spring, and so would be fat and good eating. She was pretty big, however, and Jack was a little uncertain just how he was going to get her on his horse. Of course by cutting her up it could easily have been done, for then the quarters would not be too heavy for him to handle. At first he thought that he would take in the whole animal, but considering the time that this might take, and the fact that he had to ride a long way before overtaking his companions, he determined to do things in the easier way. He skinned the deer, therefore, cut off the shoulders and hams, and tied them on his horse, and then taking out sirloins and tenderloins, and some of the fat, wrapped this up in the skin, and put that on behind the saddle. Now he had a fairly compact load, which could be easily carried, and would not be a great additional weight for his horse; while on the ground were left all the bones of the deer, except those of the legs. This method of butchering he had learned from the Indians the summer before.

All this had taken some little time, and when Jack looked at the sun he saw that the morning was half gone. Hugh had told him that they would follow the trail around the point of the mountains, and would then strike the Carroll Road, and bend back toward the river again. This meant that if he could cross the point of the mountains he would save several miles travel, and this he determined to do.

Before starting, he tightened up his cinches carefully, for he knew that the pieces of meat tied on his saddle would give it more or less side motion, and he did not want it to chafe Pawnee's back. Then he climbed into the saddle and started. By this time the sun was pouring down hot upon him, and there was no breeze. From the high ridges that he crossed from time to time he had a wide view of the prairie, and of the distant mountains, the Little Belts and Snowies, which rose from the plain a long way to the south. Here and there on the prairie were black dots, which he knew were buffalo, and other white ones, much nearer, which were antelope. Occasionally, as he rode along, a great sage grouse would rise from the ground near his horse's feet, or a jack-rabbit would start up, and after running fifteen or twenty yards, would stop, sit up, raise its enormous ears, look at him for a moment, and then settle back on all fours, and flatten itself on the ground, so that if he took his eye off it for a moment he could not find it again. It seemed to him then, as it had so often seemed before, a wonderful thing to see how absolutely this wild creature, like so many others, could disappear from sight even while one was looking at it.

As he rode over a high ridge, he saw on the hillside before him, two white-rumped animals, that for a moment he thought were antelope; but a second glance showed him that they were not, and, to his very great astonishment, he recognized them as mountain sheep-a ewe and her young one-which had been feeding on the prairie, just where he would have expected an antelope to be. He threw himself off his horse and, cocking his gun, jerked it to his shoulder and then paused, and lowering it again, stepped back and put his foot in the stirrup. As he mounted, the ewe, which had been looking at him, started to run, passing hardly more than fifty yards in front of him, closely followed by the lamb. A little further on, she stopped again and gazed, and Jack sat there and returned her look. The sight of the sheep had been almost too much for him, and he had come near shooting her,-but before he pressed the trigger he realized that if he shot her he should have to shoot the lamb, and he could not conveniently carry either, and the old ewe would be thin in flesh and hardly worth taking with him. The temptation had been strong, but as he sat there and looked at the graceful animal, which stood and stamped, while the lamb, close beside her, imitated her motions, he realized that it was a good thing to let them go.

It seemed to him a mysterious thing, though, that these sheep should be down here on the prairie, and a long way from the rocky peaks, where he supposed they always lived. He made up his mind that he would ask Hugh about this when he got into camp and get him to explain it.

At last he had crossed the point of the mountains and began to descend. Stretching out toward the northeast he could see a dim thin line, which, although it was interrupted at times-and sometimes for long distances-he thought must be the Carroll Road. Then off a long way to the east was a line of dark-the timber along a stream's course-which he supposed was where they would camp to-night.

He had almost reached the level prairie, when suddenly he became aware of two horsemen galloping toward him from behind. He watched them as they drew nearer, and at last could make out that they were Indians; and by this is meant that he saw that they had no hats on. More than that, he could see, he thought, that one of them had red leggings.