Jack Among the Indians; Or, A Boy's Summer on the Buffalo Plains

by George Bird Grinnell

  CHAPTER VI.

  INDIANS OF OLD TIMES.

  The next morning they were up bright and early. The horses were allstanding where they had been picketed the night before, and after thefire was kindled, Jack and Hugh went to them, took up the picket pins,and moved each horse so that he might have fresh grass to eat; thenwhile Hugh prepared breakfast, Jack rolled up the beds and prepared allthe camp furniture except the mess kit for packing. When they loaded thehorses the carcass of the deer was put on one of the packs, andpresently they started off down the creek. That night they camped at thePlatte River, and the next morning crossed it, and kept on north.

  For many days they travelled northward, crossing some small streams, andthen coming to the head of Powder River, and journeying along the divideon its east side. The marches that they made were not very long. Thegrass was good, there was plenty of water, and the loads were light; sothat their horses kept in good condition and moved along briskly. Aftertwo or three nights Hugh picketed only four of the horses, permittingtwo to drag their ropes, and when morning came these two were found withthe others. A little later he freed one more, and at last another one,so that finally there were only two horses confined at night. These werenot always the same two, but usually the two riding horses were the oneson picket.

  They made some slight changes in the packs, making two of them lighterand two heavier; and then, sometimes Jack, instead of riding Pawnee, lethim carry a light pack, and rode the bay, while Hugh sometimes changedoff to the dun or to the paint horse. One day when their stock of freshmeat was running low, since the deer had been almost eaten up, Hughkilled a buck antelope, which was in fair order; but they did nohunting, and travelled steadily.

  One afternoon they camped on a small fork of Powder River, and aftercamp had been made and the horses picketed, Hugh proposed that theyshould take a little walk to the top of a high hill not far off, and seewhat could be seen. They started, going rather slowly, and stoppingevery now and then to look over the country with the field glass thatHugh carried. Nothing was seen except the wild animals of the prairie,and when they reached the top of the hill they sat down and took a long,long look. Hugh was carefully examining some distant object to the northwhen he felt himself pushed by Jack, and glancing around, saw that hewas lying flat on the ground. Hugh very slowly lowered his head, andturning, looked in the direction in which Jack pointed. Coming up out ofthe ravine not far away, he saw a good sized grizzly bear, and followingher, two little cubs. The cubs were still very small, and were cunninglittle creatures. They ran about fast yet clumsily, sometimes attackedeach other and had a pretended fight, stood up on their hind legs andsparred at each other with their front paws, and then one chased theother as he ran wildly off over the hillside. Every now and then themother would stop to look at them, and she seemed to take pleasure intheir high spirits. Now and then she stood up on her hind legs andlooked in all directions, and she was now so close to the top of thehill that they could see her wrinkle her nose as she sniffed the air.Jack whispered to Hugh, "Ain't they beauties! Wouldn't I like to havethem back at the ranch. There's no way we could catch 'em and take 'emalong, is there?"

  "No," whispered Hugh; "the only thing you can do is to kill 'em."

  "By Jove, I don't want to do that; they're too cunning."

  The little family was now quite near the top of the hill, but waspassing around it. Again the mother stood on her hind legs to look, andwhile she was doing this one of the cubs rushed up in front of her andsprang into the air, grasping her around the chest and the mother closedher arms about it and put her head down. The whole act seemed like thespringing of a child into its mother's arms, and the mother kissing thechild.

  "THE MOTHER KISSING THE CHILD."--_Page 49_]

  "By mighty!" said Hugh, "I can't shoot at that bear, and I don't believeyou can either, son."

  "Not much, we'll let them go."

  They lay there and watched the bears go around the hill, and presentlythe old one saw the horses and the camp equipage far below in thevalley. She stood on her hind legs and looked for a long time,evidently much puzzled as to what these strange objects were, but afterlooking for awhile she came down on all fours again, called her youngones to her by a low cry, trotted off around the hill out of sight, andthen made her way back as she had come.

  They watched her for a long time, until she was hidden behind the swellsof the prairie, and then Jack sat up and said to Hugh, "That's theprettiest thing I ever saw, and I don't feel as if I ever could shoot ata bear again after seeing it."

  "Well," said Hugh, "that's saying a good deal, but I tell you I wouldn'thave shot at that bear for a farm."

  The sun was low when they reached camp on their return. They had eatenwhen they made camp, but Hugh said that he believed that Jack could eatagain, and they cooked a little meat and warmed up some of the coffeethat was in the pot, and made up a good fire, by which they sat for along time.

  Hugh said, "I reckon this is about the last regular camp fire we canhave. We're getting up into the country now where we're liable to runacross Indians, and while I don't think there's a mite of danger to belooked for from any of 'em, still I'd just as leave they wouldn't seeus."

  "What Indians live in this country, Hugh?"

  "Well," said Hugh, "the fact is it's Cheyenne country, but Sioux andCheyennes live here, and Crows come into it; fact is, it's a kind ofanybodys' country. The Piegans come down here and make war on the Crowsand Cheyennes, and in old times the Pawnees used to come up here ontheir war journeys. You've got to keep your eye open here for all sortsof Indians."

  "Well, Hugh, these Indians haven't always been hostile, have they?"

  "Not so; there was a long time when they were friendly with everybody.It was only after white people began to come into the country and maketrouble of one sort and another that the Indians got bad. You see, thewhite people didn't know nothing about Indians, and had a kind of anidea that the whites owned the whole country, and the Indians thoughtthat they owned it, because they always had, up to that time; and thenthere was young men that stole white men's horses and likely some of 'emgot killed; so that, on the whole, you can easy see how the wars began;they started about twenty-five years ago. Up to that time the tribes hadbeen all pretty friendly. I won't say that there wasn't bad young menthat did bad things, but the old men didn't approve of that, and whenthey could catch their young men doing anything o' that sort they'dpunish them. Why, from 1851 to 1854, I was trading with Indians rightalong; that is, in winter."

  "I wish you'd tell me about that, Hugh."

  "Why, sure, I'll tell you all there is to tell. I hired out to oldCorcoran one fall. He had a trading post down on the Platte, a littleway east of the forks, and the Indians used to come in there sometimes,but there was other posts, and he didn't get as much trade as he thoughthe ought to; so he hired me to travel around to the camps, and stop withthe Indians and trade with them, and fetch in what furs I got to thepost. I started out that first winter with a big wagon, hauled by bulls,and with quite a lot o' trade goods, to find the Cheyenne camp. Iremember we'd heard that they were up on Horse Creek, and I started upthere. It took me a long time to get there, for bulls don't travel veryfast, you know, and when I got there I found they'd moved over onto thePlatte, so I had to follow 'em there, and when I got there they werejust moving out to go further up the stream, to above where Fort Laramiestands, and I had to trail along with 'em. However, at last they gotlocated for the winter, and I went into Spotted Wolf's lodge and livedthere with him. After I got there and unpacked my goods, Spotted Wolfsent a crier out through the camp, and told the Indians that I was thereand ready to trade, and before very long I had my store agoing."

  "Well, what did you trade to them, Hugh?" asked Jack.

  "Well, there's one thing I didn't trade to 'em, and that is whiskey.That was before the days when anybody thought of trading liquor to theIndians, though of course now and then in a fort they gave a man a dram,as they called it; but in them days there wasn't
never no trading ofliquor. I had tobacco and red cloth, and beads and little mirrors, andsome silver coins that they used to hammer out plates from to wear ontheir heads."

  "Oh, I know! I've seen pictures of Indians with great silver plates ontheir scalp locks, and big ones at the top and little ones running downto the end."

  "That's it, that's just what I mean. Well, I lived pretty near thewhole winter in that camp. The Indians had plenty of dried meat and backfat, and tongues, and we lived well. Once in a while I'd go out up intothe hills and kill a deer, or a couple of antelope; and two or threetimes the buffalo came close to the camp, in good weather, so that wemade a killing; so we had fresh meat during a good part of the winter.Along in the end of February or first of March I had all the robes andfurs that my team could haul, and I started back. I'd taken a half breedboy with me to drive the bulls, and we got along all right till we gotdown pretty close to Scott's Bluffs. When we got there I noticed thatone of the bulls was kind of sick. I didn't know what was the matterwith him. We drove along till night, and camped, and the next morningthat bull was dead. We went on, and the next day two more of the bullsseemed sick, and the next morning they were dead; so we couldn't go nofurther. I unloaded the wagon, piled up the bales of robes all aroundit, went into camp there, and sent the boy on to old Corcoran, to getsome more bulls. I expected him back in about six or seven days, but Iwas eighteen days there in camp before he showed up again. I tell you,them was long days, too. Nothing to do except to sit there and watchthem bales of fur, and cook three meals a day. I got terrible tired ofit."

  "After I'd been there about a week, one morning I saw an Indian dog onthe prairie, about a hundred yards off. He was sneaking around, lookingthis way and that way, and when he saw me move about the camp, he justsat down and watched me. I walked outside my stockade and called to him,but he didn't pay no attention, just sat there. I was kind of uneasywhen I saw him, for I thought maybe a party of Indians might be comingalong, and if they did, and took a notion to them furs, there wasnothing to stop them carrying 'em all off; but nobody showed up. Thenext morning the dog was still there. I went out and walked toward him,but as fast as I walked toward him, he walked away, and I couldn't getnearer than about a hundred yards; so I went back to the robes andfigured what I should do. I wanted to get hold o' that dog, for I waspowerful lonesome, and I thought he'd be kind o' company. I went back tothe camp, and when I got there the dog had come back to the place wherehe was at first and was settin' there. I took a piece of dried meat andwent out to where the dog was, and there I scattered a few chips of meaton the ground, and then went back to camp, and every few feet as I wentI'd cut off a little piece of meat and drop it on the ground. When I gotback, the dog had come to the place where I put the first meat, and wasnosing around, picking it up, and after a while he struck the trail ofmeat toward camp, and came along pretty slowly, pretty shy andsuspicious, until he was about half way between the place where hestarted and the stockade. He wouldn't come any further than that. I saton the bale of robes and talked to him, and called him, and coaxed him,and he'd look at me and put back his ears and wag his tail, but he wasafraid. I worked with that dog that way three days, before I could gethim inside of the stockade, but on the fourth day he would come to me,as I sat by the fire, and take pieces of meat out of my hand, and aftera while he lay down on the other side of the fire and went to sleep.That night I got my hand on him and patted him, and coaxed him, and thenhe saw that I was friendly, and from that time he wasn't afraid. I tellyou he was good company to me, and I got to think a heap of him beforethat half breed got back. He was a pretty nice looking dog, too; haddark brown hair, so that he looked some like a beaver; so I called himBeaver. He got to know his name right soon, and he stayed with me forfour years; and one time, when I was in the Cheyenne camp, hedisappeared. I always believed some of them Cheyenne women got hold ofhim and killed him for a feast."

  "Well, that's a good story, Hugh. I wish I could have been the boy thatdrove that team. I'd like to have spent a winter in an Indian camp; andabove all, in those old times."

  "Yes, son, I expect you'd have liked it right well. There was a heap o'difference between Indians then and now; they were right good peoplethen, they hadn't picked up many white men's ways; so long as youtreated 'em well they gave you the very best they had, and all youwanted of it. There wa'nt any beggars then, and the men you made friendswith couldn't do enough for you. Of course when I went into old SpottedWolf's lodge, and used it for a store and a boarding house, I made himsome little presents, like two or three yards of red cloth, and three orfour strings of beads and a mirror or two to his women. That is all itcost me to stop there all winter, board, lodging and mending allattended to for me."

  "Well," said Jack, "I wish I could have seen some of those old days."

  "You're going to see a heap this summer, son, that will be new to you,and you'll see a lot of old-time Indians and old-time Indian ways, upwhere we're going."

  By this time darkness had fallen, and the sky was full of stars. Thefire had burned down, and the air was growing cool. They spread theirbeds, and before long were sleeping soundly.