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 following 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 froze over, there were several falls of snow, which the northwest winds gathered up and piled in coulees and on the lee side of the hills. It was not long before the buffalo began to keep away from the river, where the big camps were. A few, of course, were always straggling in, but the great herds stayed out on the plains to the north and south of us. After the snow fell they went no more to water anyhow, as they got enough of it in the form of snow, eaten with the grass. So long as they took water in this way they remained fat, no matter how long and severe the winter was; but as soon as the snow began to melt and water stood everywhere on the plains in little pools, they drank it and lost flesh rapidly. Since the buffalo came no more near the stream the Indians were obliged to go out on a two or three days' camping trip, in order to get what meat and skins they needed, and several times during the season I went with them, accompanying my friends, Weasel Tail and Talks-with-the-buffalo. On these short hunts few lodges were taken, fifteen or twenty people arranging to camp together, so we were somewhat crowded for room. Only enough women to do the cooking accompanied the outfit.
As a rule, the hunters started out together every morning, and sighting a large herd of buffalo, approached them as cautiously as possible, until finally the animals became alarmed and started to run, and then a grand chase took place, and if everything was favorable many fat cows were killed. Nearly all the Piegans had guns of one kind or another; either flintlock or percussion-cap, smooth-bore or rifle; but in the chase many of them, especially if riding swift, trained horses, preferred to use the bow and arrow, as two or three arrows could be discharged at as many different animals while one was reloading a gun. And yet those old smooth-bores were quickly loaded. The hunter carried a number of balls in his mouth; as soon as his piece was discharged he poured a quantity of powder from the horn or flask into his hand and thence down the barrel; then taking a ball from his mouth he dropped it down on top of the powder, gave the stock a couple of sharp blows to settle the charge, and primed the pan or put on the cap, as the case might be. When loaded in d-is manner the piece had to be held muzzle up else the ball would roll out; and when ready to shoot the hunter fired the instant he brought the gun down to the level of the mark, Some of the hunters—fine shots and astride exceptionally swift and long-winded horses—often killed twenty and even more buffalo on a single run, but I think the average number to the man was not more than three. After one of these hunts the main camp was a sanguinary sight. There were string after string of pack horses loaded down with meat and hides, and some hunters even slung a hide or two or a lot of meat across their saddles and perched themselves on top of that. There was blood everywhere; on the horses, along the trail, on the clothing, and even on the faces of the hunters.
I went on several of these hunts when the weather was so cold that a buffalo hide froze stiff as it dropped away from the cut of the knife; yet, the Indians skinned their quarry bare-banded. I wore the heaviest of underclothing, a thick flannel shirt, a buckskin shirt, coat, and waistcoat, a short buffalo robe overcoat and buffalo robe "shaps," and even then there were times when I was uncomfortably cold, and my cheeks and nose became sore from frequent nippings of frost. The Indians wore only a couple of shirts, a pair of blankets or cowskin leggings, fur cap, buffalo robe gloves and moccasins-no socks. Yet they never froze, nor even shivered from the cold. They attributed their indifference to exposure to the beneficial effect of their daily baths, which were always taken, even if a hole had to be cut in the ice for the purpose. And they forced their children to accompany them, little fellows from three years of age up, dragging the unwilling ones from their beds and carrying them under their arms to the icy plunge.
When on these short hunts there was no gambling nor dancing. Some medicine man always accompanied a party, and the evenings were passed in praying to the Sun for success in the hunt, and in singing what I may term songs of the hunt, especially the song of the wolf, the most successful of hunters. Everyone retired early, for there was little cheer in a fire of buffalo chips.
You have perhaps noticed on the northwestern plains, circles of stones or small boulders, varying in size from twelve to twenty and more feet in diameter. They were used to weight the lower edge of lodge skins, to prevent the structure being blown over by a hard wind, and when camp was moved they were simply rolled off the leather. Many of these circles are found miles and miles from any water, and you may have wondered how the people there encamped managed to assuage their thirst; they melted snow; their horses ate snow with the grass; buffalo chips were used for fuel. The stone circles mark the place of an encampment of winter hunters in the long ago. Some of them are so ancient that the tops of the stones are barely visible above the turf, having gradually sunk into the ground of their own weight during successive wet seasons.
By the latter end of November the trade for robes was in full swing, thousands of buffalo had been killed, and the women were busily engaged in tanning the hides, a task of no little labor. I have often heard and read that Indian women received no consideration from their husbands, and led a life of exceedingly hard and thankless work * That is very wide of the truth so far as the natives of the northern plains were concerned. It is true, that the women gathered fuel for the lodge-bundles of dry willow, or limbs from a fallen cottonwood. They also did the cooking, and besides tanning robes, converted the skins of deer, elk, antelope, and mountain sheep into soft buckskin for family use. But never a one of them suffered from overwork; when they felt like it they rested; they realized that there were other days coming, and they took their time about anything they had to do. Their husbands never interfered with them, any more than they did with him in his task of providing the hides and skins and meat, the staff of life . The majority—nearly all of them—were naturally industrious and took pride in their work; they joyed in putting away parfleche after parfleche of choice dried meats and pemmican, in tanning soft robes and buckskins for home use or sale, in embroidering wonderful patterns of beads or colored porcupine quills upon moccasin tops, dresses, leggings, and saddle trappings. When robes were to be traded they got their share of the proceeds; if the husband chose to buy liquor, well and good, they bought blankets and red and blue trade cloth, vermilion, beads, bright prints, and various other articles of use and adornment.
Berry and some of his men made several flying trips to Fort Benton during the winter, and on one of them brought out his mother, who had been living there with her companion, the Crow Woman. Mrs. Berry, Sr., was a full-blooded Mandan, but very ligbt-colored, and brown-haired. She was tall and slender, good-looking, very proud and dignified, but of great kindness of heart. She was very good to me, nursing me when ill and giving me strange and bitter medicines, always picking up and putting away with care the things I scattered about, washing and mending my clothes, making for me beautiful moccasins and warm gloves. She could not have done more had she been my own mother; I was under obligations to her which nothing could ever repay. When I contracted mountain fever, and one evening became delirious, it was she who tended me, and brought me safely out of it. Her companion, the Crow Woman, was equally kind to me. She was a woman with a romance, and one evening, after I became well acquainted with her, she told me the story of her life as we sat before the fire.