Chapter XVI
The Story of Rising Wolf
WHEN BERRY AND Sorrel Horse returned to the mouth of the Marias, Nät-ah'-ki and I, of course, went with them. Word of our coming had preceded us, and when we arrived in the great camp at dusk, there we found our lodge set up between those of Talks-with-the-buffalo and Weasel Tail. Beside it was a pile of firewood; within, a well-built fire was burning cheerfully; at the back, our couch of soft robes and warm blankets was spread, guest seats with the comfortable backrests arranged, and in the proper place were our parfleches and cooking utensils, the former well filled with dried berries and choice dried meats and tongues and pemmican. All this had been done by Nät-ah'-ki's good mother, who greeted her daughter vith a hearty hug and kiss and me with a shy but sincere welcome. She was a good woman; I may say a noble woman. Yes, a noble, high-minded, self-sacrificing woman, always doing something to alleviate the suffering of the sick and the sorrow of the bereaved.
I had no sooner got down from the wagon and gone inside, leaving Nät-ah'-ki and her mother to bring in our possessions, than my friends began to arrive, and right glad they seemed to be to see me again, as pleased as I was to meet them and hear them say, as they heartily grasped my hand: "Ah'-ko-two-ki-tuk'-ah-an-on"—our friend has returned.
They told me briefly of the happenings during my absence, and then asked for the story of my trip. While Nät-ah'-ki prepared a little feast, and they smoked, I gave it to them as well as I could, giving the number of days that I had traveled on the steamboat, and then on the train, in order to reach my home, a distance in all of 100 nights' sleep were one to travel it on horseback. I had to repeat the story several tirnes that night, once in the chief's lodge. When I had finished, the old man inquired particularly about the railroad and its trains, fire-wagons—is-tsi' an'-e-kas-im—as he called them. He wanted to know if any of them were heading for his country.
"No," I replied, "none are coming this way; there is but the one, that which runs east and west far south of here, through the land of the Wolf People and the Sheep Eaters."
"Ai!" he said, thoughtfully stroking his chin, "Ai! that one many of us have seen on our raids to the south. Yes, we have seen it, the wagons, crowded with people, roaring across the plain, killing and scaring the buffalo. Someday you write to our Grandfather (the President) and tell him that we will not allow one to enter our country. Yes, tell him that I, Big Lake, send him this word: 'The white men shall neither put a fire-wagon trail across the country of my people, nor settle here and tear up the sod of our valleys in order to plant the things they feed upon."'
I attended many a feast that night, no sooner finishing a visit at one lodge than I was invited to another one. It was late when I finally returned home and lay down to rest, the song and laughter of the great camp, the howling of the wolves and coyotes lulling me to sleep. I thought of the far-away New England village buried in deep snow, and of its dreary monotony. "Thrice blest am I by propitious gods," I murmured.
Nät-ah'-ki nudged me. "You talk in your sleep," she said.
"I was not asleep; I was thinking aloud."
"And what thought you?"
"The gods pity me," I replied. "They have been kind to me and given me much happiness."
"Ai!" she acquiesced; "they are good; we could ask of them nothing that they have not given us. Tomorrow we will sacrifice to them." And while she prayed I fell asleep, having determined that, save perhaps for an occasional visit, the East should know me no more.
The following day the chiefs and leading men held a council and decided that we sfiould move out to the foot of the Bear's Paw Mountains. Thither we went across the wide, brown and buffalo covered plain, encamping on a little stream running down from a pine-clad coulée, remaining there for several days. There were vast numbers of elk and deer and bighorn here, and in our morning's hunt, Wolverine and I killed four fat ewes, choosing the females instead of the rams, as the rutting season of the sheep was nearly over. So numerous were the bands of these now-scarce animals that I doubt not we could have slaughtered twenty or more of them had we been so rninded; but we took no more than our horses could carry.
When I returned to camp I found Nät-ah'-ki busily chipping the hide of a cow buffalo I had killed. She had laced it to a frame of four lodge poles and frozen it, in which condition the surplus thickness of the hide was most easily removed with the short elk-horn, steel-tipped hoe used for the purpose. But even then it was exceedingly hard, back-breaking labor, and I said that I would be pleased if she would cease doing that kind of work. I had said something about it on a previous occasion, and this time, perhaps, I spoke a trifle too peremptorily. She turned away from me, but not before I saw the tears begin to roll down her cheeks.
"What have I done?" I asked. "I did not mean to make you cry."
"Am I to do nothing," she in turn queried, "but sit in the lodge in idleness? You hunt and provide the meat; you buy from the traders the various foods we eat. You buy my clothes and everything else I wear and use. I also want to do something toward our support."
"But you do. You cook and wash the dishes, you even provide the firewood. You make my moccasins and warm mittens; you wash my clothes; when we travel it is you who take down and set up the lodge, who pack and unpack the horses."
"Yet am I idle most of the time," she said brokenly, "and the women jest and laugh at me, and call me proud and lazy, lazy! Too proud and too lazy to work!"
Thereupon I kissed her and dried her tears, and told her to tan as many robes as she wanted to, taking care not to work too hard nor too long at a time. And immediately she was all smiles and danced out of the lodge; presently I heard the monotonous chuck, chuck of the hoe tip against the stiff hide.
One night a dimly luminous ring was seen around the moon, and the next morning a brighter ring encircled the sun, while on either side of it was a large sun-dog. The rings portended the arrival of a furious storm at no distant date; the rainbow-hued sun-dogs gave certain warning that the enemy, perhaps a large war party, was approaching our camp. This was a bad combination, and a council was called to consider it. The tribe was not afraid to meet any enemy that might do battle with them, but it was certain that in the night of a severe storm a party could approach unseen and unheard, steal many horses, and that the driving, drifting snow would effectually blot out their trail, so that they could not be followed and overtaken. It was decided to break camp at once and move to the mouth of Creek-in-the-middle, on the Missouri. If much snow fell and severe cold weather set in, there would be better shelter in the deep valley of the river; the horses could be fed the rich bark of the cottonwood and kept in prime condition; by moving camp, the certainly approaching enemy would probably never run across our trail, especially if the promised storm came soon. By 10 o'clock the last lodge was down and packed, and we strung out east by south for our destination. At noon snow began to fall. We camped that night on Creek-in-the-middle, so named because it has its source midway between the Bear's Paw and Little Rocky Mountains. The early voyagers named it Cow Creek.
Snow was still lightly falling the next morning and it was much colder; nevertheless, we again broke camp and moved on, arriving at the river before dusk. Here we intended to remain for some time, and the hunters rode far and near on both sides of the valley and out on the plains setting deadfalls for wolves. Strychnine had not then come into general use. These deadfalls were merely a few six- to eight-foot poles set up at an angle of about forty-five degrees and supported by a two-stick trigger. They were covered vith several hundredweight of large stones; when the wolf seized the bait at the back end of the fall, down came the heavy roof and crushed him. Berry and Sorrel Horse did all they could to encourage the trapping of the animals, as a large demand had sprung up for their skins in the States, where they were converted into sleigh robes. Prime skins were selling in Fort Benton at from $4 to $5 each.
The storm did not amount to much, and in a few days a warm chinook again set in. Nor did the expected war party appear. My friends, the traders, were doing such a good business that they were obliged to go after more goods every two or three weeks, or whenever they could join a party bound on a visit to Fort Benton.
I had heard much of a certain white man named Hugh Monroe, or, in Blackfoot, Rising Wolf—Mah-kwo-i-pwo-ahts. One afternoon I was told that he had arrived in camp vith his numerous family, and a little later I met him at a feast given by Big Lake. In the evening I invited him over to my lodge and had a long talk with him while we ate bread and meat and beans, and smoked numerous pipefuls of tobacco. We eventually became firm friends. Even in his old age, Rising Wolf was about the quickest, most active man I ever saw. He was about five feet six in height, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and his firm, square chin and rather prominent nose betokened what he was, a man of courage and determination. His father, Hugh Monroe, was a colonel in the British army, his mother a member of the La Roches, a noble family of Freich emigrés, bankers of Montreal, and large land owners in that vicinity. Hugh, Jr., was born on the family estate at Three Rivers, and attended the parish school just long enough to learn to read and write. All of his vacations, and many truant days from the classroom, were spent in the great forest surrounding his home. The love of nature, of adventure and wild life, was born in him. He first saw the light in July, 1798. in 1813, when but fifteen years of age, he persuaded his parents to allow him to enter the service of the Hudson's Bay Company and started westward with a flotilla of their canoes that spring. His father gave him a fine English smooth-bore, his mother a pair of the famous La Roche duelling pistols and a prayer book. The family priest gave him a rosary and cross, and enjoined him to pray frequently. Traveling all summer, they arrived at Lake Winnipeg in the autumn and wintered there. As soon as the ice went out in the spring, the journey was continued, and one afternoon in July, Monroe beheld Mountain Fort, a new post of the company, built on the south bank of the Saskatchewan River, not far from the foot of the Rockies.
Around about it were encamped thousands of the Blackfeet waiting to trade for the goods the flotilla had brought up, and to obtain on credit ammunition, fukes, traps, and tobacco sufficient to last them through the coming season. As yet the company had no Blackfoot interpreter, their speech having first to be translated into Cree, and then into English. Many of the Blackfeet proper, the North Blackfeet, spoke good Cree, but the more southern tribes of the confederacy, the Bloods and Piegans, did not understand it. The factor, no doubt perceiving that Monroe was a youth of more than ordinary intelligence, at once detailed him to live and travel with the Piegans and learn the language, also to see that they returned to Mountain Fort with their furs the succeeding summer. Word had been received that, following the course of Lewis and Clark, American traders were yearly pushing farther and farther westward, and had even reached the mouth of the Yellowstone, about the eastern line of the vast territory claimed by the Blackfeet as their hunting ground. The company feared their competition. Monroe was to do his best to prevent it.
"At last the day came for our departure," Monroe told me, "and I set out with the chiefs and medicine men at the head of the long procession. There were 800 lodges of the Piegans there, about 8,000 souls. They owned thousands of horses. Oh, but it was a grand sight to see that long column of riders, and travois, and pack animals, and loose horses trooping over the plains. Yes, 'twas a grand, an inspiring sight. We traveled on and on southward all the long day, and about an hour or two before sundown came to the rim of a valley through which flowed a fine cottonwood-bordered stream, We dismounted at the top of the hill and spread our robes, intending to sit there until the procession passed by into the bottom and put up the lodges. A medicine man produced a large stone pipe, filled it and attempted to light it with flint and steel and a bit of punk, but somehow he could get no spark. I motioned him to hand it to me, and, drawing my sun-glass from my pocket, I got the proper focus and set the tobacco afire, draving several mouthfuls of smoke through the long stem. As one man, all those sitting round about sprang to their feet and rushed toward me, shouting and gesticulating as if they bad gone crazy. I also jumped up, terribly frightened, for I thought they were going to do me harm, perhaps kill me; but for what I could not imagine. The pipe was wrenched out of my grasp by the chief himself, who eagerly began to smoke and pray. He had drawn but a whiff or two, however, when another seized it and from him it was taken by still another. Others turned and harangued the passing column; men and women sprang from their horses and joined the group, mothers pressing close and rubbing their babes against me, praying earnestly meanwhile. I recognized a word that I had already learned—natos'—Sun; and suddenly the meaning of the commotion became clear; they thought that I was great medicine; that I had called upon the Sun himself to light the pipe, and that he had done so. The mere act of holding my hand up above the pipe was a supplication to their God. They had perhaps not noticed the glass, or if they did, had thought it some secret charm or amulet. At all events, I had suddenly become a great personage, and from then on the utmost consideration and kindness was accorded me.
"When I entered Lone Walker's lodge that evening—he was the chief, and my host—I was greeted by deep growls from either side of the doorway, and was horrified to see two nearly grown grizzly bears acting as if about to spring upon me. I stopped and stood quite still, but I believe that my hair was rising: I know that my flesh felt to be shrinking. I was not kept in suspense. Lone Walker spoke to his pets and they immediately lay down, noses between their paws, and I passed on to the place pointed out to me, the first couch at the chiefs left hand. It was some time before I became accustomed to the bears, but we finally came to a sort of understanding with one another. They ceased growling at me as I passed in and out of the lodge, but would never allow me to touch them, bristling up and preparing to fight if I attempted to do so. In the folloving spring they disappeared one night and were never seen again. Lone Walker was disconsolate; he went about for days hunting and calling them, but in vain. It has been said that a grizzly cannot be tamed; those two at least appeared to be tame enough, seemed to have a real liking for their master, who alone fed them; they were never tied up and followed the travois of his family along with the dogs when we moved camp, always sleeping where I first saw them on either side of the doorway."
Is there one of us latter-day hunters, amateur explorers, who does not rejoice when he finds, far hidden in some deep forest a lakelet, or in the remote fastnesses of the mountains a glacier, which he is certain no white man has ever seen before, or who climbs some hitherto unclimbed and unnamed peak, and himself names it as his fancy wills, a name which is afterward accepted and printed on the maps of the Government survey? Think then how the youth, Rising Wolf, must have felt as he journeyed southward over the vast plains, and under the shadow of the giant mountains which lie between the Saskatchewan and the Missouri, for he knew that he was the first of his race to behold them. And to enhance his pleasure, he was traveling with an absolutely primitive people; a people many of whom still used flint arrow and spear points, and flint knives; a people whose language and customs no white man understood, but which he was to learn in due time. Would that we could have had that privilege, brother! We were born a little too late!
Monroe often referred to that first trip with the Piegans as the happiest time of his life. journeying by easy stages, sometimes skirting the foot of the mountains, and again traversing the broad plains forty or fiftv miles to the eastward of them, they carne, at the season of falling leaves, to the Pile of Rocks River (Sun River, as the whites named it), and there they remained for three months, passing the remainder of the winter on the Yellow River (the Judith). They had crossed Lewis and Clark's trail, and here again was a vast region which no white man had ever traversed. When spring came, they went still farther south to the Musselshell, down that to its confluence with the Missouri, and, crossing the great river, they wandered westward along the foot of the Little Rockies, and thence by the Bear's Paw Mountains to the Marias and its tributaries. It had been long since decided that they would not return to Mountain Fort until the following summer. Rifle and pistol were now useless, as the last rounds of powder and ball had been fired. But what mattered that? Had they not their bows and great sheafs of arrows? After all, what had the white trader in his stores absolutely necessary to their welfare and happiness? Nothing; not even tobacco, for in the spring they had planted on the banks of the Judith a large patch of their own Nah-wak'-o-sis,* which they would harvest in due time.
One by one young Rising Wolf's garments were worn out and cast aside. The women of the lodge tanned skins of deer and bighorn, and from them Lone Walker himself cut and sewed shirts and leggings, which he wore in their place. It was not permitted for women to make men's clothing. So ere long he was dressed in full Indian costume, even to the belt and breechclout, and his hair grew so that it fell in rippling waves down over his shoulders. He began to think of braiding it. Ap'-ah-ki, the shy young daughter of the chief, made his footwear, thin, parfleche-soled moccasins for summer, beautifully embroidered with colored porcupine quills; thick, soft, warm ones of buffalo robe for winter. Once, he told me the story of this girl's and his little romance. He was a temperate man in all things, but on this particular New Year's night he had taken enough good hot-spiced Scotch to make him bare his inmost thoughts, and I doubt not that those thoughts were mostly of the loved one who was dead and gone.
"I could not help but notice her," he said, "on the first night I stayed in her father's lodge. She was some three years younger than I, yet already a woman. Of good height and slender but well-formed figure, comely face and beautiful eyes, long-haired, quick and graceful in all her movements, she was indeed good to see. 1 fell into the habit of looking at her when I thought no one was observing me, and before long I found that it suited me better to stay in the lodge where I could at least be near her than it did to go hunting or on discovery with the men. I was always increasingly glad when night came, and I could take
*See Blackfoot Lodge Tales for an account of this narcotic weed, and the quaint ceremonies attending the planting of it.
my place in the lodge opposite her. Thus the days and weeks and months went by. I learned the language easily, quickly; yet I never spoke to her, nor she to me, for, as you know, the Blackfeet think it unseemly for youths and maidens to do so.
"One evening a man came into the lodge and began to praise a certain youth with whom I had often hunted; spoke of his bravery, his kindness, his wealth, and ended by saying that the young fellow presented to Lone Walker thirty horses, and wished, with Ap'-ah-ki, to set up a lodge of his own. I glanced at the girl and caught her looking at me; such a look! expressing at once fear, despair, and something else which I dared not believe I interpreted aright. The chief spoke: 'Tell your friend,' he said, 'that all you have spoken of him is true; I know that he is a real man, a good, kind, brave, generous young man, yet for all that I cannot give him my daughter.'
"Again I looked at Ap'-ah-ki, and she at me. Now she was smiling, and there was happiness in her eyes, along with that same peculiar expression which I had before noticed. But if she smiled, I could not, for Lone Walker's words had killed any hope I might have had of getting her someday for my own. I had heard him refuse thirty head of horses. What hope had I then, who did not own even the horse I rode? I who received for my services only L20 a year, from which must be deducted the various articles I bought. Surely the girl was not for me. And to make it worse, there was that peculiar expression in her eyes when she looked into mine which, even young and inexperienced in the ways of women as I was, I decided meant that she cared for me, even as I did for her. I suffered.
"After that night Ap'-ah-ki no longer cast down her eyes when I caught her looking at me, but returned my gaze openly, fearlessly, lovingly. We now knew that we loved each other. Time passed. Going out one evening, she came in just as I reached the doorway, and as we passed our hands met-and clasped. For an instant we stood there, gently but firmly retaining our grasp. I trembled. I could feel her muscles also quivering. Then someone called out, 'Shut the doorway; the lodge fills with smoke.' I staggered out and sat down on the ground. For hours I sat there trying to think of some way to accomplish my desire, but I could find no feasible plan, and went miserably to bed. ft was a little later, perhaps a couple of weeks, that I met her in the trail bringing home a bundle of firewood. We stopped and looked at each other in silence for a moment, and then I spoke her name. Crash went the fuel on the ground, and we embraced and kissed, regardless of those who might be looking.
"'I can stand this no longer,' I said at last. 'Come with me now, now, to your father, and I will speak to him.'
"'Yes,' she whispered. 'Yes; let us take courage, and go to him. He has always been good to me, and perhaps he will be generous now:
"So, forgetting the bundle of wood, we went hand in hand and stood before Lone Walker, where he sat smoking his long pipe, out on the shady side of the lodge. 'I have not thirty horses,' I said, ' nor even one, but I love your daughter, and she loves me. I ask you to give her to me.'
"The chief smiled. 'Why, think you, did I refuse the thirty horses?' he asked, and before I could answer he continued, 'Because I wanted you for my son-in-law; wanted a white man because he is more cunning, much wiser than the Indian, and I need a counselor. We have not been blind, neither I nor my women. We have long seen that this day was coming—have waited for you to speak the word. You have spoken; there is nothing more to say except this: Be good to her.'
"That very day they set up a small lodge for us and stored it with robes and parfleches of dried meat and berries, gave us one of their two brass kettles, tanned skins, pack saddles, ropes—all that a lodge should contain. And, not least, Lone Walker told me to choose thirty horses from his large herd. In the evening we took possession of our home and were happy."
The old man paused and sat silent, thinking of the old days.
"I know how you felt," I said, "for we are experiencing the same thing."
"I know it," he continued; "seeing the peace and contentment and happiness in this lodge, I could not help telling you about my own youthful days."
After he had gone I told Nät-ah'-ki all that he had said. It affected her deeply, for when I had ended I saw tears in her eyes, and she said over and over again, "Oh, how I pity him! Oh, how lonely he is!"
The next evening when he had come in and taken his accustomed seat, Nät-ah'-ki went over and kissed him, kissed him twice. "That," she said, brokenly, "is because my man has told me all that you told him last night; because—" but she could say no more.
Rising Wolf bent his head and I could see his bosom heave, the tears dropping down his smooth-shaven cheeks. Perhaps there was a queer lump in my throat. Presently he straightened up, gently laid his hands on the little woman's head and said, "I pray God that you may live long and that you may always be as happy as you are now."
Monroe remained in the service of the Hudson's Bay Company a number of years, raising a large family of boys and girls, most of whorn are alive today. The eldest, John, is about seventy-five years of age, but still young enough to go up in the Rockies near his home every autumn and kill a few bighorn and elk, and trap a few beavers. The old man never revisited his home; never saw his parents after the day they parted with him at the Montreal docks. He intended to return to them for a brief visit sometime, but kept deferring it, and then came letters, two years old, saying that they were both dead. Came also a letter from an attorney, saying that they had bequeathed him a considerable property, that he must go to Montreal and sign certain papers in order to take possession of it. At the time, the factor of Mountain Fort was going to England on leave; to him, in his simple trustfulness, Monroe gave a power of attorney in the matter. The factor never returned, and by virtue of the papers he had signed, the frontiersman lost his inheritance. But that was a matter of little moment to him then. Had he not a lodge and family, good horses, and a vast domain actually teeming with game—wherein to wander—what more could one possibly want?
Leaving the Hudson's Bay Company, Monroe sometimes worked for the American Fur Company, but mostly as a "free trapper" wandered from the Saskatchewan to the Yellowstone, and from the Rockies to Lake Winnipeg. The headwaters of the South Saskatchewan were one of his favorite hunting grounds. Thither in the early'50's he guided the noted Jesuit Father, De Smet, and at the foot ofthe beautiful lakes lying just south of Chief Mountain they erected a huge wooden cross, and named the two bodies of water St. Mary's Lakes. one winter after his sons, John and François, had married, they were camping there for the season, the three lodges of the family, when one night a large war party of Assiniboins attacked them. The daughters, Lizzie, Amelia, and Mary, had been taught to shoot, and together they made a brave resistance, driving the Indians away just before daylight with the loss of five of their number, Lizzie killing one of them as he was about to let down the bars of the horse corral.
Besides other furs, beaver, fisher, martin, and wolverines, they killed more than three hundred wolves that winter, by a device so unique yet simple, that it is well worth recording. By the banks of the outlet of the lakes they built a long pen twelve by sixteen feet at the base, and sloping sharply inward and upward to a height of seven feet; the top of the pyramid was an opening about two and one-half feet wide by eight in length. Whole deer, quarters of buffalo, any kind of meat handy, was thrown into the pen, and the wolves, scenting the flesh and blood, seeing it plainly through the four- to six-inch spaces between the logs, would eventually climb to the top and jump down through the opening. But they could not jump out, and there morning would find them uneasily pacing around and around in utter bewilderment. Powder and ball were precious commodities in those days, so the trappers killed the wolves with bow and arrows, and opening a door at one end, they allowed the coyotes to escape. The carcasses of the slain wolves were always thrown into the river as soon as skinned, so that there should be nothing of a suspicious nature about.
Dear old Rising Wolf! He was always bemoaning the decadence of the Indians—the Piegans in particular. "You should have seen them in the long ago," lie would say; "such a proud and brave people they were. But now, whisky is their curse. There are no longer any great chiefs, the medicine men have lost their power."
You will remember that the old man was a Catholic. Yet I know that he had much faith in the Blackfoot religion, and believed in the efficacy of the medicine men's prayers and mysteries. He used often to speak of the terrible power possessed by a man narned Old Sun. "There was one," he would say, "who surely talked with the gods, and was given some of their mysterious power. Sometimes of a dark night, he would invite a few of us to his lodge, when all was calm and still. After all were seated his wives would bank the fire with ashes so that it was as dark within as without, and he would begin to pray. First to the Sun, chief ruler, then to Ai-so-pwom-stan, the wind-maker, then to Sis-tse-kom, the thunder, and Puh-pom', the lightning. As he prayed, entreating them to come and do his will, first the lodge ears would begin to quiver with the first breath of a coming breeze, which gradually grew stronger and stronger until the lodge bent to the blasts, and the lodge poles strained and creaked. Then thunder began to boom, faint and far away, and lightning to dimly blaze, and they came nearer and nearer until they seemed to be just overhead; the crashes deafened us, the flashes blinded us, and all were terror-stricken. Then this wonderful man would pray them to go, and the wind would die down and the thunder and lightning go on rumbling and flashing into the far distance until we heard and saw them no more."
All this the old man firmly believed that he had heard and seen. I cannot account for it, nor can you, except—if there be such a thing—the wily old magician hypnotized his audiences.