With the Indians in the Rockies

by James Willard Schultz

  CHAPTER VI

  Well, we took up the dim trail on the farther side of the river andfollowed it through the timber toward the cave at the foot of the cliff,but I, for my part, was not at all anxious to reach the end of it.Midway up the slope I called to Pitamakan to halt.

  "Let's talk this over and plan just what we will do at the cave," Iproposed.

  "I don't know what there is to plan," he answered, turning and facingme. "We walk up to the cave, stoop down, and shout, 'Sticky-mouth, comeout of there!' Out he comes, terribly scared, and we stand on each sideof the entrance with raised clubs, and whack him on the base of the noseas hard as we can. Down he falls. We hit him a few more times, and hedies."

  "Yes?" said I. "Yes?"

  I was trying to remember all the bear stories that I had heard thecompany men and the Indians tell, but I could call to mind no story oftheir attacking a bear with clubs.

  "Yes? Yes what? Why did you stop? Go on and finish what you started tosay."

  "We may be running a big risk," I replied. "I have always heard that anyanimal will fight when it is cornered."

  "But we are not going to corner this bear. We stand on each side of theentrance; it comes out; there is the big wide slope and the thick forestbefore it, and plenty of room to run. We will be in great luck if, withthe one blow that we each will have time for, we succeed in knocking itdown. Remember this: We have to hit it and hit hard with one swing ofthe club, for it will be going so fast that there will be no chance fora second blow."

  We went on. I felt somewhat reassured, and was now anxious to have theadventure over as soon as possible. All our future depended on gettingthe bear. I wondered whether, if we failed to stop the animal with ourclubs, Pitamakan would venture to defy his dream, cut off a braid of hishair, and make a bow-cord.

  Passing the last of the trees, we began to climb the short, bare slopebefore the cave, when suddenly we made a discovery that was sickening.About twenty yards from the cave the trail we were following turnedsharply to the left and went quartering back into the timber. We staredat it for a moment in silence. Then Pitamakan said, dully:--

  "Here ends our bear hunt! He was afraid to go to his den because ourscent was still there. He has gone far off to some other place that heknows."

  The outlook was certainly black. There was but one chance for us now, Ithought, and that was for me to persuade this red brother of mine todisregard his dream and cut off some of his hair for a bow-cord. Butturning round and idly looking the other way, I saw something thatinstantly drove this thought from my mind. It was a dim trail along thefoot of the cliff to the right of the cave. I grabbed Pitamakan by thearm, yanked him round, and silently pointed at it. His quick eyesinstantly discovered it, and he grinned, and danced a couple of steps.

  "Aha! That is why this one turned and went away!" he exclaimed. "Anotherbear was there already, had stolen his home and bed, and he was afraidto fight for them. Come on! Come on!"

  We went but a few steps, however, before he stopped short and stood indeep thought. Finally he turned and looked at me queerly, as if I were astranger and he were trying to learn by my appearance what manner of boyI was. It is not pleasant to be stared at in that way. I stood it aslong as I could, and then asked, perhaps a little impatiently, why hedid so. The answer I got was unexpected:--

  "I am thinking that the bear there in the cave may be a grizzly. How isit? Shall we go on and take the chances, or turn back to camp? If youare afraid, there is no use of our trying to do anything up there."

  Of course I was afraid, but I was also desperate; and I felt, too, thatI must be just as brave as my partner. "Go on!" I said, and my voicesounded strangely hollow to me. "Go on! I will be right with you."

  We climbed the remainder of the slope and stood before the cave. Its lowentrance was buried in snow, all except a narrow space in the centre,through which the bear had ploughed its way in, and which, since itspassing, had partly filled. The trail was so old that we could notdetermine whether a black or a grizzly bear had made it.

  But of one thing there could be no doubt: the animal was right there inthe dark hole, only a few feet from us, as was shown by the faint wispsof congealed breath floating out of it into the cold air. Pitamakan,silently stationing me on the right of the entrance, took his place atthe left side, and motioning me to raise my club, shouted,"_Pahk-si-kwo-yi, sak-sit!_" (Sticky-mouth, come out!)

  Nothing came; nor could we hear any movement, any stir of the leavesinside. Again he shouted; and again and again, without result. Then,motioning me to follow, he went down the slope. "We'll have to get apole and jab him," he said, when we came to the timber. "Look round fora good one."

  We soon found a slender dead pine, snapped it at the base where it hadrotted, and knocked off the few scrawny limbs. It was fully twenty feetlong, and very light.

  "Now I am the stronger," said Pitamakan, as we went back, "so do youhandle the pole, and I will stand ready to hit a big blow with my club.You keep your club in your right hand, and work the pole into the cavewith your left. In that way maybe you will have time to strike, too."

  When we came to the cave, I found that his plan would not work. I couldnot force the pole through the pile of snow at the entrance with onehand, so standing the club where I could quickly reach it, I used bothhands. At every thrust the pole went in deeper, and in the excitement ofthe moment I drove it harder and harder, with the result that itunexpectedly went clear through the obstructing snow and on, and I fellheadlong.

  At the instant I went down something struck the far end of the pole sucha rap that I could feel the jar of it clear back through the snow, and amuffled, raucous, angry yowl set all my strained nerves a-quiver. As Iwas gathering myself to rise, the dreadful yowl was repeated right overmy head, and down the bear came on me, clawing and squirming. Its sharpnails cut right into my legs. I squirmed as best I could under itsweight, and no doubt went through the motions of yelling; but my facewas buried in the snow, and for the moment I could make no sound.

  Although I was sure that a grizzly was upon me and that my time hadcome, I continued to wiggle, and to my great surprise, I suddenlyslipped free from the weight, rose up, and toppled over backward,catching, as I went, just a glimpse of Pitamakan fiercely striking ablow with his club. I was on my feet in no time, and what I saw causedme to yell with delight as I sprang for my club. The bear was kickingand writhing in the snow, and my partner was showering blows on itshead. I delivered a blow or two myself before it ceased to struggle.

  Then I saw that it was not a grizzly, but a black bear of no great size.Had it been a grizzly, I certainly, and probably Pitamakan, too, wouldhave been killed right there.

  It was some little time before we could settle down to the work in hand.Pitamakan had to describe how he had stood ready, and hit the bear aterrific blow on the nose as it came leaping out, and how he hadfollowed it up with more blows as fast as he could swing his club. ThenI tried to tell how I had felt, crushed under the bear and expectingevery instant to be bitten and clawed to death. But words failed me,and, moreover, a stinging sensation in my legs demanded my attention;there were several gashes in them from which blood was trickling, and mytrousers were badly ripped. I rubbed the wounds a bit with snow, andfound that they were not so serious as they looked.

  PITAMAKAN FIERCELY STRIKING A BLOW]

  The bear, a male, was very fat, and was quite too heavy for us to carry;probably it weighed two hundred pounds. But we could drag it, and takinghold of its fore paws, we started home. It was easy to pull it down theslope and across the ice, but from there to camp, across the levelvalley, dragging it was very hard work. Night had fallen when wearrived, and cold as the air was, we were covered with perspiration.

  Luckily, we had a good supply of wood on hand. Pitamakan, opening theash-heap, raked out a mass of live coals and started a good fire. Thenwe rested and broiled some rabbit meat before attacking the bear. Neverwere there two happier boys than we, as we sat
before our fire in thatgreat wilderness, munched our insipid rabbit meat and gloated over ourprize.

  The prehistoric people no doubt considered obsidian knives mostexcellent tools; but to us, who were accustomed only to sharp steel,they seemed anything but excellent; they severely tried our muscles, ourpatience, and our temper. They proved, however, to be not such badflaying instruments. Still, we were a long time ripping the bear's skinfrom the tip of the jaw down along the belly to the tail, and from thetail down the inside of the legs to and round the base of the feet.There were fully two inches of fat on the carcass, and when we finallygot the hide off, we looked as if we had actually wallowed in it. Bythat time, according to the Big Dipper, it was past midnight, butPitamakan would not rest until he had the back sinews safe out of thecarcass and drying before the fire for early use.

  It is commonly believed that the Indians used the leg tendons of animalsfor bow-cords, thread, and wrappings, but this is a mistake; the onlyones they took were the back sinews. These lie like ribbons on theoutside of the flesh along the backbone, and vary in length andthickness according to the size of the animal. Those of a buffalo bull,for instance, are nearly three feet long, three or four inches wide, anda quarter of an inch thick. When dry, they are easily shredded intothread of any desired size.

  Those that we now took from the bear were not two feet long, but weremore than sufficient for a couple of bow-cords. As soon as we had themfree, we pressed them against a smooth length of dry wood, where theystuck; and laying this well back from the fire, we began ourintermittent night's sleep, for, as I have said, we had to get upfrequently to replenish the fire.

  The next morning, expecting to have a fine feast, I broiled some of thebear meat over the coals, but it was so rank that one mouthful was morethan enough; so I helped Pitamakan finish the last of the rabbit meat.He would have starved rather than eat the meat of a bear, for to theBlackfeet the bear is "medicine," a sacred animal, near kin to man, andtherefore not to be used for food.

  Killing a grizzly was considered as great a feat as killing a Sioux, orother enemy. But the successful hunter took no part of the animal exceptthe claws, unless he were a medicine-man. The medicine-man, with manyprayers and sacrifices to the gods, would occasionally take a strip ofthe fur to wrap round the roll containing his sacred pipe.

  Pitamakan himself was somewhat averse to our making any use of the blackbear's hide, but when I offered to do all the work of scraping off thefat meat and of drying it, he consented to sleep on it once with me, asan experiment, and if his dreams were good, to continue to use it.

  I went at my task with good will, and was half the morning getting thehide clean and in shape to stretch and dry. Pitamakan meanwhile made twobow-cords of the bear sinew. First he raveled them into a mass of finethreads, and then hand-spun them into a twisted cord of the desiredlength; and he made a very good job of it, too. When he had stretchedthe cords to dry before the fire, he sharpened a twig of dry birch foran awl, and with the rest of the sinew, repaired our badly rippedmoccasins. At noon we started out to hunt, and on the way dragged thebear carcass back to the river and across it into the big timber, wherelater on we hoped to use it for bait.

  This day we went up the river, walking noiselessly on the ice. From thestart we felt confident of success; for not only were our bow-cords asgood as we could desire, but the bows were now in fine condition,having dried out and become more stiff, yet springy. Since, during thelatter part of the night, more snow had fallen, we could distinguishfresh game tracks from old ones. And now that there was snow on the ice,we naturally expected to see where the hoofed game had been crossing theriver; they seldom venture out on smooth ice, from fear of slipping andinjuring themselves.

  The first game we saw were a number of ruffed grouse standing in a rowat the edge of a strip of open water, to take their daily drink. Theywalked away into the willows at our approach, and from there flew intothe firs, where we knocked down four of them with our blunt-headed birdarrows. I got only one, for of course I was not so good a marksman withbow and arrow as my partner, who had used the weapon more or less sincehe was old enough to walk.

  Burying the grouse in the snow at the edge of the shore, we went on, andpresently came to the place where several elk had crossed to the northside of the river, browsed among a bordering patch of red willows, andthen gone into the thick firs. We followed them, not nearly so excitednow that we had trustworthy weapons as we had been on the previous hunt.When we came near the firs, which covered several acres of the bend inthe river, Pitamakan sent me round to enter the farther side and comethrough the patch toward him, while he took his stand close to the placewhere the band had entered.

  "You needn't come back carefully," he said to me. "Make all the noiseyou can--the more the better; then they will come running out here ontheir back trail, and I'll get some good shots. You'd better give me oneof your real arrows, for you will probably not get a chance even for oneshot at them."

  That left me with only one arrow with an obsidian point, butnevertheless I determined to do my best to get an elk. As Pitamakan hadremarked about himself, I, too, felt the sun power strong within me thatmorning and looked for success. With that feeling, call it what youwill,--all old hunters will understand what I mean,--I was not at allsurprised, a short time after entering the firs, to see, as I wassneaking along through them, a big bull elk astride a willow bush thathe had borne down in order to nip the tender tips.

  He was not fifty feet from me, and no doubt thought that the slightnoise which he heard was made by one of his band. He could not see me atfirst, because of a screen of fir branches between us, and he had notlooked up when I made the final step that brought me into the open. Butwhen I raised the bow, he jerked his head sidewise and gathered himselffor a jump.

  He was not so quick as I. The strength of a giant seemed to swell in myarms; I drew the arrow sliding back across the bow almost to the headwith a lightning-like pull, and let it go, _zip!_ deep into his sidethrough the small ribs.

  Away he went, and I after him, yelling at the top of my voice to scarethe herd toward Pitamakan, if possible. I saw several of them boundingaway through the firs, but my eyes were all for the red trail of thebull. And presently I came to the great animal, stretched across asnow-covered log and breathing its last; for the arrow had pierced itslungs.

  "_Wo-ke-hai! Ni-kai-nit-ab is-stum-ik!_" (Come on! I have killed abull!) I yelled.

  And from the far side of the firs came the answer: "_Nis-toabni-mut-uk-stan!_" (I have also killed!)

  That was great news. Although it was hard for me to leave my big bulleven for a moment, I went to Pitamakan, and found that he had killed afine big cow. He had used three arrows, and had finally dropped her atthe edge of the river.

  We were so much pleased and excited over our success that it was sometime before we could cease telling how it all happened and settle downto work. We had several fresh obsidian flakes, but as the edges soongrew dull, we were all the rest of the day in getting the hides off theanimals and going to camp with the meat of the cow. The meat of my bullwas too poor to use, but his skin, sinews, brains, and liver were of thegreatest value to us, as will be explained.

  "There is so much for us to do that it is hard to decide what to dofirst," said Pitamakan that night.

  It was long after dark, and we had just gathered the last of a pile offirewood and sat ourselves down before the cheerful blaze.

  "The first thing is to cook a couple of grouse, some elk liver, and hanga side of elk ribs over the fire to roast for later eating," I said, andbegan preparing the great feast.

  After our long diet of rabbits, it was a feast. We finished the birdsand the liver, and then sat waiting patiently for the fat ribs to roastto a crisp brown as they swung on a tripod over the fire. I was now soaccustomed to eating meat without salt that I no longer craved themineral, and of course my companion never thought of it. In those daysthe Blackfeet used none; their very name for it, _is-tsik-si-pok-wi_(like fire tastes), proved th
eir dislike of the condiment.

  "Well, let us now decide what we shall do first," Pitamakan againproposed. "We need new moccasins, new leggings and snowshoes. Moreover,we need a comfortable lodge. Which shall be first?"

  "The lodge," I answered, without hesitation. "But how can we make one?What material can we get for one unless we kill twenty elk and tan theskins? That would take a long time."

  "This is a different kind of lodge," he explained. "When you came up theBig River you saw the lodges of the Earth People? Yes. Well, we willbuild one like theirs."

  On the voyage up the Missouri with my uncle I had not only seen thelodges of the Earth People (Sak-wi Tup-pi), as the Blackfeet called theMandans, but I had been inside several of them, and noted how warm andcomfortable they were. Their construction was merely a matter of posts,poles, and earth. We agreed to begin one in the morning, and do nohunting until it was done.

  The site that we chose for the lodge was a mile below camp and close tothe river, where two or three years before a fire, sweeping through agrowth of "lodge-pole" pines, had killed thousands of the young, slendertrees. In a grove of heavy firs close by we began the work, and as everyone should know how to build a comfortable house without the aid oftools and nails, I will give some details of the construction.

  In place of the four heavy corner posts which the Mandans cut, we usedfour low-crotched trees that stood about twenty feet apart in the formof a square. In the crotches on two sides of the square we laid as heavya pole as we could carry, and bolstered up the centre with a pile offlat rocks, to keep it from sagging. On the joists, as these may becalled, we laid lighter poles side by side, to form the roof. In thecentre we left a space about four feet wide, the ends of which wecovered with shorter poles, until we reduced it to a hole four feetsquare.

  The next task was to get the poles for the sides. These we made of theproper length by first denting them with sharp-edged stones and thensnapping them off. They were slanted all round against the four sides,except for a narrow space in the south side, which we left for adoorway. Next we thatched the roof and sides with a thick layer ofbalsam boughs, on top of which we laid a covering of earth nearly a footdeep. This earth we shoveled into an elk hide with elk shoulder blades,and then carried each load to its proper place. Lastly, we constructedin the same manner a passageway six or eight feet long to the door.

  All this took us several days to accomplish, and was hard work. But whenwe had laid a ring of heavy stones directly under the square opening inthe roof for a fireplace, made a thick bed of balsam boughs, and coveredit with the bearskin, put up an elkskin for a door, and sat us downbefore a cheerful fire, we had a snug, warm house, and were vastly proudof it.

  "Now for some adventure," said Pitamakan, as we sat eating our firstmeal in the new house. "What say you we had best do?"

  "Make some moccasins and snowshoes," I replied.

  "We can do that at night. Let us----"

  The sentence was never finished. A terrible booming roar, seeminglyright overhead, broke upon our ears. Pitamakan's brown face turned anashy gray as he sprang up, crying:

  "Run! Run! Run!"