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THIS, my son, is what happened to us: In the afternoon of that pleasant day, my father and Short Bow sat in the shade of our lodge talking and smoking, and my father spoke of his ice-rock takes-fire-from-the-sun instrument. He had lighted the pipe with it and claimed great things for it. It was, he said, undoubtedly the most powerful of all the different medicines in the camps of the Pikuni and the Gros Ventres.
"In the hands of those who made it, perhaps it is," said Short Bow.
"What do you mean by that?" asked my father.
"Just this," said the chief. "The white men's gods, their medicines also, are for them alone, and not for us prairie peoples. You can draw fire from the sun with that thing, but I believe that when you do so you are stealing the great god's fire and making him angry. I would not think of using it with my prayers to him."
"Ha! You do not understand!" my father exclaimed. "I know that it is powerful medicine; Ki-pah told me so. Why, it is much more powerful than your old lightning fire. What can you do with that except to keep it burning?"
"It was surely powerful enough to save you from death by the snake-bite," said the chief. "I prayed to it constantly during your absence. But, since you think so little of it, I shall not use it again in your behalf."
"Then don't use it. I can get along without your fire, and without your help of any kind," my father angrily told him. And oh, how it hurt us listening, to hear him talking so to his best friend.
And the chief, he answered back never a word. Silently he handed over the pipe, and arose and went slowly to his lodge.
My father continued smoking. When the tobacco was burned to the last whiff, he knocked the ashes from the bowl, and called out: "Black Otter, go get the horses. Women, pack up and take down the lodge. We shall move away from here at once."
"Oh, don't get angry. Short Bow is not angry; he is only sorry for you," my mother told him.
She could not have said a worse thing.
"I don't want anyone to be sorry for me!" he cried. "I can get along without anyone's help! I have a stronger medicine than lightning fire! Go get the horses. Pack up, I say! I want to get out of this camp."
What was there to do but obey him? My mother and sister started taking down the lodge. I went for the horses. When I returned they had everything ready, and we saddled and packed up.
News of my father's anger, of his words to the chief, had gone all through the camp. The Pikuni women and two or three Gros Ventres women and some of our playmates stood around and sorrowfully watched us, but, afraid of my father, offered us no words of sympathy. But not one man was there, and not one of those we passed as we rode out of camp appeared to see us.
Such was our parting from the Gros Ventres. My father, on my best horse, rode proudly in the lead. My mother and sister and I, behind with the pack-horses and loose horses, rode with heavy hearts.
We made camp where the beaver traps were set. We passed a very unpleasant evening, no one saying a word, and went early to bed; I outside with the horses, every one of them hoppled or staked. Nothing happened during the night except that several times I had to drive away coyotes that were chewing the rawhide picket ropes.
In the morning we found three beavers in the traps, and skinned them after eating our meal of meat. Then my father told us to pack up, for we were going to live with the Crows.
"Oh, not with them!" my mother cried. "Why not go to the Blackfeet or the Bloods?"
"What are they but the Pikuni? They are all the one people, only under different names," my father told her. "And they also have those hunting rules. No, we will go live with the Crows, and be free to hunt whenever we need meat and hides."
"But they are our enemies," my mother objected.
"Enemies of the Pikuni, yes. But you forget that we are no longer of that tribe," my father answered. "They will welcome us — they will be only too glad to have Lone Bull with them."
Let me explain about the Crows, my son. What is our country had once been their country. Yes, the plains and valleys and mountains as far north as Belly River had once been theirs. Then, as our fathers got horses, and, later, guns from the Red Coat traders, they came down into this richest of all hunting-grounds and drove the Crows southward, ever southward, until they held all the country north of the Yellowstone River. Then the Pikuni made peace with the Crows, both agreeing that this river should be the line separating the lands of the two tribes. Since that summer they had sometimes been at peace with one another and sometimes at war I mostly at war. Try as they would and did, the chiefs of the two tribes could not keep their young warriors at home. The young Crows would raid the Pikuni, or the young Pikuni would raid the Crows; there would be men killed, and a long war would be the result. At this time the two tribes were at war.
Well, we packed up and started for the Crow country, traveling now by night, and hiding ourselves and our horses as best we could in the day-time, so as to avoid war parties as much as was possible.
On the morning of the third day from the Little River, we came, soon after sunrise, to Ki-pah's fort. He was surprised to see us back so soon, and alone, and both he and Sah-kwi-ah-ki, when they learned my father's intention, said all they could to get him to return to the Pikuni. He would not listen to them. With the beaver-skins we had he bought for himself a new gun and plenty of powder and ball, and for my mother and sister each a fine blanket, and red cloth for new dresses.
During the one day that we remained there at the fort, my mother again had several secret talks with Sah-kwi-ah-ki. And again I wondered what it was all about. Sah-kwi-ah-ki had not then learned our language; they talked by signs, and one cannot hear that. I watched them: they stood so close together that I could not see the movement of their hands.
But, finding that my father would not change his mind, Sah-kwi-ah-ki handed my mother a new white blanket, blue cloth for a dress, some beads and red paint, and said: "My closest friend is an Arickaree woman, who grew up with my own Mandan people, and in my father's lodge. She is now in the Crow camp, married to a chief named Spotted Antelope. We now call her Crow Woman. Give her these things from me, tell her that you are my friend, and that I want her to be your friend."
My mother was glad to have that message to carry, and so were sister and I: it meant that we could anyhow find one friend, should we live to enter the Crow camp.
Leaving Ki-pah's fort we went up to where Fort Benton now stands, in order to cross the Big River, its swollen bank full with the melting snows of the mountains. So it was that we followed the trail of the Pikuni, but a short time since gone south to camp along the beaver streams.
On the first day out from the river, we rested and slept at the foot of the Highwoods, and, packing up at sundown, the following morning we struck brakes of Arrow Creek. Before going down into its deep, narrow valley, my father and I rode to a cut cliff above the trail and looked down into it, to see if any enemy was camping there. Of course we didn't ride to the very edge: we got down from our horses and crawled to the edge, and cautiously looked over it. The sun was just rising, so in the deep valley — it was almost a canyon — night still lingered. Little by little the light of day stole down there and we waited for it to eat up the last of the shadows. Soon all was plain: the stream, the narrow bottoms, the little groves of cottonwood and willow standing close to the water, and the far side of the canyon, a rock wall of many shelves. Not a living thing was moving down about there, nor in sight, except an old buffalo bull lying on a sandbar of the river, and, looking at him more closely, we saw that he was dead. I wondered, out loud, why the game had all left the country.
"There is nothing strange about that," said my father; "the Pikuni are ahead of us, you know. No doubt they camped down there for some days, and killed much game, and scared the herds off to other water."
I felt ashamed that I had not thought of that. I started to get up and follow my father back to the horses when I discovered a bighorn, a wide-backed, fat-looking he one, standing on a shelf of the cliff below us, and to our right. We had no meat, but had planned to kill some that morning. Here was our chance: I called my father back and showed him the animal.
"Good meat. We will sneak around to a point right over him and get him," he said.
We had not far to go, not more than two hundred steps. We came to the place and very carefully looked down over the edge of the cliff: the bighorn was there under us, right where we had seen him, and now lying down and chewing again the green things he had been nipping from the ground and brush.
My father was to have the shot, of course. He was slowly pushing his gun out over the cliff edge when I saw something move on a narrow ledge between us and the animal, and touched his arm and pointed downward. At that he drew back the gun and looked down with me, and lo! there was a big, a very big mountain lion crawling toward the animal, toward a point right over it, from there to make its spring.
We watched it, and at once became so interested in its meat-hunting that we had no thought of our guns. It kept its belly right down against the rock; its ears set forward; its long tail straight out, the tip end of it ever trembling. Almost it had the snake power, to move without legs; it crawled slowly, its eyes ever on the bighorn.
And the bighorn, he chewed and chewed his grasses, and kept raising his head, looking in all directions for signs of danger. That is the way with them when alone: they are always on the watch; they never sleep. Most always you find the old he bighorns together in little bands. Then they sleep by turns. When the watcher thinks that he has done his turn, he just butts one of his companions awake and himself lies down. Many a time I have seen them do that.
This lone old bighorn was a good watcher, but, of course, he could not see the enemy crawling along on the ledge above him. Every little way the lion would stop crawling and move its head out, little by little, so very slowly, that we could barely see it move. In the same way it would draw back its head, and then go on.
Once, as it was looking down, a piece of loosened rock fell from the cliff, struck the ledge near the bighorn, and bounded off into the canyon. The animal quickly turned its head and looked up, looked up to see what might have started it, and so quickly that the lion had not time to draw its head back out of sight. It held its head as motionless as the cliff itself. The bighorn's sharp, black eyes took in the whole cliff, every part of it above him; but he was looking for something that moved, and the lion's head escaped his notice.
Oh, how interested my father and I were in watching all this! Tracks in the winter snows had told us how the mountain lion got his food, but neither he nor I had ever seen one approach its prey; that is something that few men ever see.
And now came the most exciting part of this approach. The lion was at last straight above the bighorn and preparing to make its spring. Time and time again it shuffled its hind feet, seeking places upon which they would not slip.
It was then that I for the first time noticed how close the bighorn lay to the edge of its shelf. I said to myself that when the lion made its spring, it would also spring up, and both of them would go whirling to their death on the rocks below.
And just then the lion darted down upon the bighorn with the swiftness of an arrow. Its heavy body thudded against the animal, its claws sank into the flesh, its jaws closed upon the neck, and the bones cracked, and with that cracking went out instantly the life of the bighorn. It all happened in no more time than it takes me to snap my fingers. As quick as that, the bighorn was struck, its neck was broken, and it was dead: dead without one last kick. And to be sure of its food the lion was dragging the heavy body back from the edge of the cliff, dragging, half-carrying it, as easily as though it were a newborn kid.
It was then that my father poked out his gun, and fired, and missed the lion. It growled, and sprang free from its prey, and looked all around, not knowing where and what was the danger. And then I fired at it, and my aim was true: the ball broke its backbone, went on down through the heart, and it sank down on the rock and was dead.
"Oh, I killed it. I have killed a mountain lion," I cried.
"Yes, you killed it, my son, and I am glad for you," my father said. "That lion's skin in the Crow camp is the same to you as ten horses. Well, go down there and push the two bodies over the edge. We will get them as soon as we make camp there by the creek."
Some distance farther on I found a place to get down, and was soon at the two bodies. I looked over the edge of the shelf: it was a long way down to the foot of it; I would not risk throwing over the lion, for his skin would be torn on the rocky slope. But I did push off the bighorn, and it struck the bottom with a crash that echoed all up and down the valley.
"Go on, and take my horse with you," I called to my father; "I will skin the lion here."
I was a long time getting off the hide, and when I at last got down into the valley with it I found that my father had already taken what meat we needed of the fat bighorn.
"My bad luck continues," he said, "else why did I fail to shoot the mountain lion, so near to me?"
"Your new gun — you had not fired it before; perhaps it is not sighted good," I told him.
"No, no, there is nothing wrong with the gun," he answered, in a low, sad voice; "it is that the gods are against me. I am too tired now, but tomorrow morning, when we make camp, I shall get out my ice-rock takes-fire-from-the-sun instrument and make medicine with it. Perhaps that will bring me the favor of the gods. I do not believe what Short Bow says: that the sun will be angry if I take fire from him."
We did not put up the lodge. After eating we made down our beds in the brush beside the stream, and my mother and sister and I slept while my father kept the horses grazing close in, and watched for enemies. At midday I got up and took his place, so that he could sleep for a time, and a little later my mother arose and nicely fleshed my mountain lion's skin. After seeing that the horses were not trying to stray off, I went up the valley a little way and found the campground of the Pikuni. In several of the fireplaces, deep down in the ashes, there were still live coals; and by that I knew that the people had left there on the previous day. Their big trail from the campground led straight up the river toward the mountains. How I wished that we were to follow it!
I went back to our horses and sat down, and got to thinking about my good fortune of the morning. It was as my father had said: with that one shot I had killed the value of ten horses. The Crows prized the mountain lion's skin above that of any other animal; they thought it great medicine and used it for making a bow-and-arrow case, and for a saddle blanket when, all dressed up in their war clothes, they rode to battle against the enemy.
And then I thought about the bighorn. Keen as were his eyes, and swift and sure as were his feet, his enemy had easily taken his life. We were just like the bighorn, I thought. We were traveling in a country without doubt full of war parties, and we were about as helpless against them as the bighorn had been against the attack of the mountain lion. It did not seem possible to me that we could escape them and reach the Crow camp. And if we did, what kind of greeting would the Crows give us? I prayed long to the gods to have pity on us. I called upon my four ancient ones for help. We needed all the help we could get.
Before starting out from the valley that evening, my father and I climbed up to the edge of the plains for a good look at the country. We sat there a long time, but saw nothing to alarm us. There was not anywhere much life in sight; a few bands of antelopes, a few wolves and coyotes here and there, an eagle flying along with a rabbit in its claws, and a lone buffalo bull coming in for water; that was all.
We were about to go back to camp when the strange actions of the bull attracted our attention. It stopped suddenly a short distance from us and began jerking its big, chin-whiskered head up and down, up and down, and to the right and to the left — oh, wonderfully quick for such a big and slow-moving animal. And then it sprang three or four times high from the ground; then stood straight up on its hind feet, and with its shaggy fore legs pawed the air—oh, such a strange and funny sight it was! I laughed.
"Do not laugh," said my father; "this may be medicine. Perhaps he is dancing that bull dance that our fathers got from the buffaloes in the long ago. Never, never have I seen anything like this. Watch it carefully. Listen! Isn't it making a low singing?"
The bull was again standing upon widespread legs, shaking its big head up and down, up and down, and sideways. I thought that I could hear something: a low, deep sound like the buzzing of many bees: like the faint moaning of wind in cliffs. And as we listened, holding forward our ears to catch the full sound of it, the bull sprang forward and with crooked-up tail went leaping by us and down the slope straight toward our camp. Our horses scattered in all directions before him. My mother and sister, busy packing up, dropped their bundles and fled to the shelter of a big cottonwood tree. The bull passed close by them, splashed into the stream and out of it, went on across the bottom and up the opposite slope, and out on the plain, running, running, ever running, until we lost sight of him in the gathering night.
Said my father then, as we started down the hill: "Black Otter, my son, we have seen something wonderful; we have seen something that is great medicine; that was the ancient dance of the bulls."
That was also my thought. I thought so for a long time. Then I told Ki-pah about it. He laughed: "Why, that was no medicine," he said; "that bull just had the stomach-ache, and danced around and ran, trying to get rid of it."
Well, maybe Ki-pah was right. And again, maybe he wasn’t. There are strange happenings on these plains of ours. Many, many things that we cannot understand.
My mother and sister had recovered from their scare by the time we got down to them. While saddling and packing the horses we told them what we had seen and they also thought it great medicine.
We were soon riding out of the valley, and now making a trail of our own. From that crossing of Arrow Creek the old, deep-worn travoy trail of the Pikuni — and the Crows before them — runs straight to Yellow River where the Creek-of-the-Hot-Spring joins it, and we wanted to cross away below that, and go well out around the Black Butte and the foot of the Snowy Mountains. By so doing my father thought we should be less likely to meet war parties.
By the course we took it is a long way from Arrow Creek to Yellow River. We traveled steadily all night, and the sun found us still some distance out on the bare plains. We could not stop; there was neither shelter nor water for us.
When, at last, we struck the valley of Yellow River and had unpacked beside the stream, the sun marked almost the middle of the day.
My mother chose a little opening in the timber, placed some firewood there, and asked my father to start the blaze with his takes-fire-from-the-sun instrument because we were all so hungry and in a hurry to eat. He would not do it. "That instrument is not for common use; I am going to make medicine with it pretty soon," he told her. So I fixed my bow to the fire drill and started the fire. My mother set thin-cut sheets of the bighorn meat before it to roast, and we soon ended our hunger.
My father then prepared to make medicine, and asked us to sing some sacred songs with him. He freshly painted his face and hands with the red-brown earth that the gods love; tore some shreds from the inner side of a piece of dry cottonwood bark, rolled them into a ball, and laid it on the ground before him; took a pinch from my mother's sack of sweet-grass, and sprinkled that on top of the ball of bark shreds.
"Although I have not my Thunder Pipe, we will begin by singing the four songs that go with the unwrapping of it," he said, as he took his fire instrument in its four painted buckskin wrappings on the ground between him and the sweet-grass-covered bark.
"Now, then, the antelope song," he said to us, and we sang it with him while he removed the first of the four wrappings.
Next was the wolf song, and with it came off the second wrapping. We sang the thunder song, and off came the third wrapping. And now we came to the fourth, the most sacred of all, the buffalo song. My father raised his closed hands to the sides of his head, forefingers out and crooked, the sign for the animal; then he crossed his arms on his breast, the sign for a robe, a wrap. "Hai-yu! Buffalo. Hai-yu! My robe! My shelter!" we began, all watching my father's hands as he began to take off the fourth, the last wrapping.
A strange voice startled us. We looked up. We were entirely surrounded by a war party.