George Bird Grinnell

“ Then Last Bull made a prayer, which Hugh interpreted to Jack afterward. He said:—
"O Sun, Old Man, Creator, look down. Have pity; have pity. Listen. Look down on this my son and on me. Pity us.
"I am old, but all my life you have looked after me. This, my son, is young, he is just beginning; care for him all through his life. Give to him, always, plenty of all those things that all men desire. Increase his body, so that he may grow strong. Harden his flesh, so that he may always be well. Give him health; give him full life; let him live to great age. ”

“ After supper that night, Joe came to the lodge, and after a little talk said to Jack, "Isn't this great, that we are going to move and going to chase buffalo?"
"You bet it is great," said Jack. "You know I've never seen a buffalo chase, and I've always thought it must be a fine thing to see."
"I tell you," said Joe; "after they kill plenty of buffalo, everybody is glad. All through the camp they put up the drying scaffolds, and as the meat is brought in, they cut it into thin slices and hang it over the poles, and for a little while it looks as if red cloth was stretched all through the camp. ”

“ Antelope were plenty and tame, and often ventured within shot of the train, but they had meat in one of the packs, and neither Hugh nor Jack felt like molesting the pretty animals. There were many flowers to be seen on the prairie; bunches of brilliant red or yellow cactus and white poppy bells swinging in the wind. Now and then, in some low places, where it was too damp for the sage to grow, they saw patches of blue and pink lupine, and occasionally a bunch of white flowers, which Hugh had told Jack was the loco; a plant which poisons animals that eat it. ”

“ You must yell if you feel anything breaking." He bent forward, throwing his weight very slowly against the sling rope, and starting the horse very slowly at the same time. The ropes tightened, Jack was pulled forward until his face was under water, he felt as if he were being cut in two below his arms, as if his legs were being pulled out of their sockets, when suddenly, with a jerk, he flew forward, was buried under the muddy water, and then whirled over and over in it, and a moment later was dragged out on the bank by Hugh, who bent over him with an anxious face. ”

“ Crossing a little gully through which flowed a tiny stream, which in the excitement of the run, Jack had wholly failed to notice, Hugh pointed to a low clump of bushes to their right, and said, "Ride over and kill that cow, son." Jack then saw, standing among the bushes, a buffalo cow evidently wounded, and riding over near to her, was about to dismount, when Hugh said, "Hold on, shoot from the saddle, don't never get on the ground near a wounded cow; if she were to make a charge, she might scare your horse and if he ran off you wouldn't have a good time dodging the cow." ”

“ Just fire a shot into her head, just in front of the horns, and above the eyes." Jack did so, and the cow stretched out her legs and lay still. "Lots of people will tell you," said Hugh, "that you can't kill a buffalo by shooting it in the forehead. They say that the skull's so thick, and the hide and the hair makes such a mat that a ball won't go into it. Don't you ever believe them. If you shoot a buffalo in the forehead, and aim your gun right, so's to hit its brain, you kill it every time."
They took as much of the meat of the heifer as their horses could carry, and returned to camp. ”

“ The trail climbed a steep bluff there, and the long line of people that followed it, made Jack think of a brightly coloured serpent slowly making its way up the hillside.
At last he tired of the scenes of the camp, and riding to the river, joined the procession that was crossing it. Once on the other side, he turned Pawnee out of the trail, and rode on rapidly toward the head of the column where he joined Hugh. Twenty-five or thirty old and middle-aged men were in the lead, and behind them rode more than a hundred young men on fine horses, handsomely dressed, and well armed. ”

“ When Hugh and Jack went out of the lodge together, the sun was already touching the sharp peaks of the distant snow-patched mountains. The air was cool, and the sky still clear and bright, only toward the east it was beginning to take on the shade of dark blue which foretells the night. The camp was active. Women were hurrying up from the stream, each carrying one or two buckets of water. Men were walking here and there; boys racing to and fro, chasing each other, wrestling and shouting ”

“ You must be joking, Hugh; they don't have secret societies among the Indians, do they?"
"They surely do," answered Hugh. "There's about a dozen or fifteen societies of men. A man starts in when he's only a boy, not much bigger than you are, and he keeps going along from one society to another, until he gets to be a middle-aged man; until he begins to be old. The men that are warriors, going to war all the time—young fellows with lots of ambition—they mostly belong to what they call the brave society ”

“ The boys lay on the edge of the bank and watched the bull slowly clamber toward them, and at length it reached the prairie only a few yards from where they were, and stopping with a grunt, stood there panting. They lay perfectly still and watched it, both feeling a little nervous as to which way the bull might turn. Joe whispered to Jack, "Look out, my friend, do not move, lie perfectly still. If he sees us he may rush upon us and kill us." For several moments they lay there and watched, and at last the buffalo slowly moved away and disappeared over a low hill. ”

“ Everybody in the camp was busy, every one was happy. On the drying scaffolds among the lodges, hung the wide sheets of bright red meat and of white back fat, which slowly turned brown in the dry wind and under the burning sun. And as this dried meat was removed and packed away, other fresh meat took its place, to be in turn removed. All day long women were busy over hides stretched out upon the ground, removing the flesh and fat and hair, and preparing them for lodge-skins. ”

“ It's wonderful."
"Oh!" said Joe, "I tell you a buffalo is a great, powerful beast. He's strong and he never gets tired, and he's big, and then besides all that he has got mysterious power. Maybe you don't believe that, but all the old men will tell you it's so."
"Well," said Jack, "I've heard something about that from Hugh, but of course I don't know anything except what I've been told; but Hugh says that all the Indians believe the buffalo has this power." ”

“ I'd hate almightily to see you go flying off your horse, when you're after a bunch of buffalo, the way you did that time last summer when you were chasing the wolf."
"That's so," said Jack, "I flew a long way that time, but I hope I'm a good deal better rider now than I was then."
[Pg 99]
"Yes," said Hugh, "I expect you are. You ought to be, anyhow. But I want you to be as careful as you know how. There's been a whole lot of men killed by chasing buffalo; hooked by them, or had their horses fall with them, or been thrown a long way, and had their guns driven through their bodies. ”

“ Ain't it, Hugh?"
"No," said Hugh, "not among Indians. Man's work, in an Indian camp, is to kill meat for food, and skins for clothing, and to go to war, so's to get rich and to make people think well of himself and his family, and to defend the camp. The woman's work is to look out for the lodge, to take care of the children, to make the clothing and to see to the moving of the camp. It ain't so very different, you see, from what it is among white folks. Take it among Indians, a man's business is hunting, and going to war. White men hunt for fun, but Indians don't. ”

“ I am glad that so good a person has come to stay with us, and all the camp are glad too. I should like to have you stay with us always, and become one of my children. Sitting about you to-night there are chief men of the camp and we all of us wish to have you become a Piegan, and to be in fact, what I think you are in your heart, one of our people. Therefore, now this day, although your skin is white, we have chosen you one of us, and from this time you belong to the tribe of the Piegans. ”

“ After darkness had fallen and they were sitting about the fire, Hugh smoking a last pipe before going to bed, Jack said:—
"What does it mean, Hugh, our seeing so much game here? We haven't seen antelope or deer either as plenty since we have been out as to-day."
"Well," said Hugh, "I don't know as I can tell you, but it appears to me that the Indians haven't been in this country for quite a while, and it's a sure thing no white men have. The only people that travel around here are skin hunters, and when they're in the country we don't find the game tame like it is here. ”

“ He had often read about wars and the fighting of soldiers and about people being killed, but soldiers, as he had always heard, just shot at the mass of the enemy who were approaching and no man knew just what his own bullet had done. No matter how hard one of the soldiers had tried to kill an enemy, he never could feel sure that it was his bullet that had killed the man he shot at. ”

“ Just after we crossed the Yellowstone, coming north, three or four sheep pretty nearly came into our camp one morning, and I killed one there. Those are the only ones I ever saw."
"There are sheep up there," said Joe, pointing to a flat mountain not many miles away.
"Is that so?" said Jack. "I shouldn't think there'd be any as close to this camp as that. I should think the Indians'd kill 'em all off."
"Pooh!" said Joe; "these Indians don't hunt in the mountains, they hunt on the prairie, they kill buffalo, but they don't go much into the mountains, nor into the timber; they're afraid of bears. ”

“ Just before Jack and Hugh reached the water's edge, they heard behind them the thunder of many hoofs, and suddenly—driven by two Indian boys—there poured over the bank, almost on top of them, a [Pg 137] great band of horses, rushing forward at top speed, the younger ones bounding and plunging, with heads and tails in the air, nipping at each other, and lashing out with their heels in play. ”

“ Yes, that is so; the only thing that a man has got that's much use to him is his sense; a buffalo is bigger and stronger; a deer is swifter; a wolf can crawl around better out of sight, and all them animals are better armed than a man is. It's his sense that gives a man the pull on all of 'em, and makes him able to creep up on 'em and kill 'em, if he wants to; makes him able to tame horses, and makes him smart enough to get up guns and gunpowder, and railways and all them things. ”

“ Hugh seemed very glad to see the man and shook hands with him most cordially; then after speaking to him for a few moments, he called Jack to him and said, "Son, I want you to know this man; this is Last Bull. He is one of the best men of the tribe. He is getting old now, but in his time he has been a great warrior. He is not such a very old man as you would think from his white hair, he is one of those gray-haired people such as you see lots of in the tribe, and his hair has always been this colour since he was a little child. ”

“ At a little brook, they crossed on their homeward way, Jack dismounted and washed from himself as much blood of the bear as he could, and after that felt much more comfortable, so that before camp was reached, though his head still ached badly, he felt quite like himself again.
That night, in the lodge, when he told Hugh the story of the day, the old man found fault with him for carelessness and bad judgment.
"You hadn't never ought to ride close beside any man that's trying to kill on horse-back. If it's buffalo or bear, it's all the same. ”

“ Often mingled with a little group of buffalo would be a herd of antelope, feeding perfectly at home with their huge companions, and perhaps, if these started to walk in any direction, keeping along with them as if a part of the herd. ”

“ Luckily he had had his knife sharpened just before he left home, and so he worked pretty fast, and before Hugh had left the cow and begun to skin the other wolf, Jack was half through with his. They finished skinning at about the same time, and Hugh tied the two hides on the pack-horse; then he lit a pipe, sat down and smoked for a while.
"I don't grudge the time we took to kill these wolves," he said. "Killing wolves is part of the work on a ranch, just like taking calves out of a snow-bank, or branding colts is. It's something that's got to be did, and like all other work it takes time. ”

“ The boys mounted and galloped to the end of the camp, joined a throng of men and boys, who, passing across the valley, climbed the bluffs, and on the upper prairie stopped with the crowd that was waiting there. Most of the men were sitting on the ground holding the ropes of their horses which fed close to them. Out toward the prairie sat a line of twenty men, and Jack noticed that no one passed these men. All the hunters stayed between them and the stream. ”

“ Pushing their way through the crowd of people, who stood and sat about the Medicine Lodge, they reached the inner circle about which the men were seated.
Hugh whispered to Jack, "I am glad you are going to see this anyhow. These young men, that get up and make speeches, are counting their coups. They are telling the brave things that they have done in wars during the last year and you will notice whenever one tells of some very brave thing that he has done, the men sitting at the drums pound on them. ”

“ I tell you, the Indians depend a whole lot on dreams."
"Well, son," said Hugh to Jack later in the day, "don't you want to try your new horse? Let's saddle up and ride a few miles up the lakes and see what sort of a beast he is. I asked John Monroe about him, and he says he's a running horse, a good buffalo horse or a good pony for war."
"Yes, Hugh," said Jack, "I'd like to try him first-rate."
The two went out and saddled their horses and crossing the river, rode along the trail up the lake. ”