124 
FOREST AND STREAM, 
CAcG, 14. 1897, 
ting two not more than a quarter of a mile from where his 
lodge now was pitched. One of the grizzlies he killed in 
the dark, near a sawmill, where it had stampeded the 
whole sawmill outfit. This bear was shot at very close 
range, as it reared up hefore the old man in the dark. He 
struck it in the breast and killed it at the first shot. As a 
bear hunter, it was generally agreed the old man was a 
corker, and on this even Madame Monroe, who at times 
was wont to scoff at John's ability to carry a pack or hustle 
wood, concurred cheerfully and not without a certain 
pride. So we drew John out on the bear fight question, 
and he told us stories of the old days, such as the New 
York Stin would reject as lies, but which were really 
true. 
Killed a Grizzly v^/lth Bow and Arrow. 
"It was long ago," said John, in his polyglot language of 
Gree, Piegan, French and English, "long ago in the 'h'ole 
time,' " when he and a Crow Indian and a half-breed were 
going south into the Snake country to "trade for bosses." 
(It was likely such trade implied very little consideration). 
As they came down into a little flat valley, they saw a 
big animal of some sort ahead of them, and at first thought 
it was a buffalo bull. They wanted some meat, and yet 
they dared not use a rifle, for in this sort of horse trading 
it seems you don't want to let the other fellow know you 
are trading. John and his friends agreed that it would be 
best to kill the animal with the bow and arrow, and as 
John was the best hand with that weapon he was chosen 
for the work. He went but a little way forward when he 
found that his buffalo was a big grizzly, which did not 
seem to care much whether he went away or not. John 
concluded he would kill him anyhow, so he cut loose from 
horseback and put an arrow into the bear's ribs. The 
bear promptly came after him at full speed. (It needs the 
old man's description, gestures and all, to show the bear 
running, with red mouth open, his head going up and 
down, his paws swinging pigeon-toed as he ran.) The 
horse, of course, went off at speed, but run as it would, it 
could not shake off the grizzly, which closed up till it was 
fairly at the tail of the horse. John told how the bear 
struck and bit at the horse, and how the horse kicked it 
again and again — "boh-boh-bah" — landing full with its 
hoofs on the bear's ribs and making it bawl each time, but 
not stopping it. In the course of the kicking the saddle 
girth broke and the saddle started off the horse's back, 
but this did not unseat the plainsman, who kicked it free 
and sat the horse bareback, pulling up his legs to evade 
the jaws of the bear, and all the time riding as hard as he 
could to get away. It seems that even in this desperate 
situation he did not lose his nerve or forget his purpose, 
but plied his bow and arrows as often as he could — we 
may imagine with what effect upon a beast we dread even 
when we have the best of rifles. At last the pony got 
clear of the bear and lined out a course for the high tim- 
ber, but the bear did not quit. It came alongside yet 
again, running with its mouth open and growling. As it 
came up into sight from behind, the bareback hunter 
turned and drove an arrow deep into its neck. Then, as 
he showed us in all the sign talk possible, and all the elo- 
quence of his four or five languages, the bear stumbled 
and fell forward, and the butt of the arrow, striking upon 
the ground, drove the shaft clear on up, deep into the 
bear's chest, so that it was killed as it lay and never got 
up again. 
This story old John told us with no vainglory at all, and 
in the most matter of fact way, and I have no doubt what- 
ever of the truth of it. A wilder hunting story than this 
it would be hard to find, or a wilder picture than this man, 
mounted bareback, armed with so slight a weapon as the 
bow, yet winning in a fight with the most dangerous beast 
of this whole continent. There were men in those days. 
We plied old John with questions about the old days 
and old hunting methods, and he was willing to talk out 
of his wide and vivid history. Some things I remember 
he told of; how once, in the old bow and arrow days, when 
the Kootenai Indians hunted deer, wrapped in a buck's 
hide so that they could approach their game more closely, 
a mountain lion sprang upon one of them and killed him 
at once with a bite through the neck. John Monroe 
thought this was the only case he had ever knoM'n where 
the mountain lion had attacked a man, and this was be- 
cause of the disguise as a deer. Asked if he had ever 
heard a mountain lion scream, he was doubtful. (Yet 
Major Steell said that he had in Canada heard the panther 
scream, and knew it to be unmistakably the panther. Joe 
Kearney, a guide we had later, also said that the panther 
certainly did at times scream. "In the running season 
every animal has some way of attracting its mate," said 
Kearney. "Now there ain't many lions to the square mile, 
and they have to find each other. To do this they have a 
call, and a mighty loud one too, at times.") 
AVhile we were speaking of the game resources of the 
fine hunting region in which we now were, Schultz began 
in talk of goats, of which he had seen a great many killed. 
He said that this usually slow and stupid animal has a 
certain courage and daring of its oM'n quite out of keeping 
with its ordinary appearance. He said that a goat when 
bard pressed by dogs, or when wounded, will nearly 
always deliberatel}'^ commit suicide rather than lie down 
and wait for its fate. He related an incident to this effect 
out of his own experience some years ago, at the upper end 
of Red Eagle Mountain. He was watching some hunters 
on the mountain at some distance, and saw through his 
glass that a goat was crippled, and that it was being 
crowded hard toward the edge of a cliff, the cut face of 
which is at least 700ft. in sheer height. As he watched 
the retreating goat, he saw it turn deliberately to this 
precipice and as deliberately jump off. It fell whirling 
over and over, and Schultz could hear plainly, even where 
he sat, the sickening impact of its body at the foot of the 
cliff, where it was literally broken into bits.' He said there 
could be no possible doubt of the suicidal intent of the an- 
imal, which preferred that death to capture. 
Billy's Horse-Thief Story. 
Daring our session around the lodge fire that night we 
had all told stories, before we had finished our last supper, 
and before old John and Madame and Riley had gone home 
to their own lodge below us on the lake; but Billy Jackson 
had pleaded rheumatism, and was doctoring his back 
more than he was talking. "I'm payin' for too many sad- 
dle-blanket nights in the old times," said Billy, groaning; 
and in this he was at the truth very closely, for the life of 
hardship and exposure lived by the actual old-time plains- 
men rarely left them free of rheumatism or sowetliipg 
else of constitutional trouble later in life. But after we 
had dug my big trout out of the ashes and brewed an extra 
pot of tea (which, of course, did not count as a supper at 
all, but only as a sort of after-theater bite) we prevailed 
upon Billy to tell us a story, and he did, going for it back 
to his scouting days with the army, of which we always 
loved to hear him talk. 
"This was in March, 1877— just twenty years ago—" said 
Billy, "and I was with Gen. Miles at that time, near the 
mouth of the Tongue River, not far from where Miles City 
now is. We had been losing a good many United States 
horses, and Miles came to me and said that he wanted this 
horse-thieving broken up. He said we would have to get 
the horse-thieves, at any cost and any risk. 
"We had just had five head of horses stolen, and among 
these were two horses of my own. We thought it was a 
fellow by the name of Heenan who had taken the stock, 
and we knew, too, that Heenan was a bad man to go 
against But I was young and full of conceit, and I 
allowed I could take Heenan — or any other man — espe- 
cially as he had stolen a couple of horses from me. So I 
said I reckoned I could get him, all right, and Gen. Miles 
told me to take all the outfit I wanted; so I started out with 
Sergt. Burns and Deputy Marshal Tom Murray, and five 
privates and an ambulance. These things I didn't need, 
but I sort of had to take them ^ong, under the circum- 
stances. 
"We traveled along about eighty miles, to a place near 
the mouth of the Big Horn, and here we found a party of 
wolfers, who had two of the horses, which they said had 
been sold to them by a man wbo went on across coun- 
try. 
•'Of course, the ambulance was now a good way behind; 
, so we struck on pretty much alone, going on about twenty 
miles to a place on the Yellowstone known as Pompey's Pil- 
lar, where Yankee Jim then bad a sort of trading place on 
an island, where he was wolfing and trapping. Here 
Yankee Jim told me that Heenan had gone on through 
there, and that he was now no doubt holed up about 
twenty miles further on north, at a sort of tough, cut- 
throat ranch, a kind of whisky-trading place, near Baker's 
Battle-ground — where the Piegans w«re rounded up in the 
winter time and killed, in 1872, by Gen. Baker, you know. 
Murray didn't want to go on any further just then, and I 
was told that the best thing I could do was to stay away 
from Heenan, and wait for my ambulance and privates to 
get there. But I knew you couldn't catch a horse thief 
with an ambulance, and, as I said, I was pretty young and 
full of conceit, so I allowed I'd just go on alone and get 
Heenan all by myself, with nobody to divide credit with. 
Yankee Jim didn't say much, except 'You'd better not.' 
"Well, I made on off up there alone, like a fool, and 
finally I got there; and down by the corral blamed if I 
didn't see one of the horses, a buckskin, one of my own 
horses, that I wanted mighty bad. So I ties up and goes 
up to the house, allowing I'd get in quick and easy 
and work a surprise. Of course I had my six-shooter 
ready. 
"Well, there was a surprise all right; but it didn't work 
just the way I had figured it out. I pushed the door open 
and stepped in quick. When I got in I heard a fellow 
speak to me, rather quiet like, saying, 'What do you want, 
Billy?' And there was Heenan, a-squattin' down in the 
corner opposite the door, with a sort of smile on his face 
and a-lookin' right square through the sights of a big 
needle gun, which he had trained for about the center of 
my stomach. 
"I sort of passed the time of day with Heenan then, but 
he said that was all right. I told him frankly that I was 
after the horses I saw out at the corral, and he told me, 
quietly, 'Well, you won't git 'em.' Well, I said to him, a 
fellow had to take the worst of it once in a while, and I 
saw I was at the wrong end of the play. Heenan told me 
to drop my revolver belt on the floor, and just to oblige 
him I did it. Then I said I didn't see any use having 
hard feelings, and asked him to come up and have a drink, 
all the time watching him for a chance at him. There 
was a sort of bar there, where they handed out the whisky. 
Heenan allowed he didn't need any whisky, but asked me 
to step up, while he kept me covered with his rifle, and 
have a ''rink with myself, which I did, having come a 
good way in the cold. I saw there was no way in the 
world to get out of this, for he had me dead to rights, and 
the only wonder I had was that he hadn't hammered me 
long aeo. ("To hammer," in plains talk, means "to shoot, 
to kill.") 
"Finally Heenan seemed to conclude that I hadn't any 
more guns, so he stood his own gun up in the corner,kepp- 
ing it handy and out of my way. Then he said, 'Billy, I've 
got nothing against ;^ou. Now,you go on back the way you 
come. You ain't goin' to git no horses. You promise me 
not to follow me any further and I'll give you your own 
horse; I don't want to take it from you.' 
" 'I can't promise not to follow you, Heenan,' said I, 'for 
if I didn't follow you I might as well throw up my job.' 
" 'Well, you don't want to git too close,' said Heenan, 
'for if you do I won't let you off this way again.' He said 
all this as cool and easy, just the way he spoke to me when 
I stepped through the door. He was the coolest acting 
man I ever did see. 
"Well, anyhow, the upshot of it was that I agreed to 
stop back till Heenan got a good start across country, and 
he took my horse along with him, so that he had four 
horses now that he was getting away with, 
"I dropped back to Yankee Jim's, and had to tell how I 
had got rounded up; but then Burns said that he'd stay 
with me, and we resolved to go ahead with our hunt, 
waiting first for the rest of our outfit to come up. 
"We trailed Heenan fifty or sixty miles, oyer to the 
Crow Agency Here we heard he was in the lodge of 
Bravo, one of the chiefs. Naturally we were pretty care- 
ful, for we knew it meant fight if we jumped Heenan 
now. But we hung around the agency for over a day, and 
we couldn't find our man. At last an Indian told us that 
he had seen a man and four horses crossing what is called 
the Countryman's Bottoms, taking the wagon trail by the 
way of White Beaver, We allowed this must be Heenan, 
and we figured he'd be going into Carpenter's ranch. We 
knew of an Indian trail going over the divide to the same 
place by a good deal quicker way, so we all lit out and got 
over that way, just one night ahead of Heenan. 
"The next morning we were all sitting in Carpenter's 
ranch, eating breakfast, about 9 o'clock, when we saw a 
man coming up the trail, find we saw it was Heenan. We 
had our horsea all unsad41ed, but we didn't stop to saddl? 
up or to finish breakfast. We just piled out on horseback, 
barebacked, and lit out for Heenan. Heenan ran up a 
tide hill a little way and got down behind a pile of rocks, 
and there he pulled down on us, but didn't fire. I sup- 
posed he was waiting for us to get close in, but I allowed 
the only way to get this man was to rush, him, and not 
wait till he shot us all, so on we went, hard as we could 
go, closing in on him. He kept pointing that old rifle at 
us, but she didn't go off, and in a moment it was too late 
and we had him. 
" 'That you, Billy?' he said, quietly. 'I'll remember 
this.' . . 
"I asked him why he hadn't shot, and be showed me 
that his rifle had been wet, and the wood had swelled so 
the hammer would not go down. 'I'd a' got you first, if it 
hadn't been for that,' he said, quiet like. And I reckon he 
would, too. 
"Well, we took Heenan over to Bozeman, and finally he 
was taken over to Virginia City and bound over for trial. 
The last thing he said to me was: "We'll meet again, Billy.' 
And so we did. 
"When I got back to the regiment I was ordered off' on 
the Nez Perce business, notifying the 7th Regiment that 
they were going to be needed for the Clark's Fork fight. 
It happened that way that I did not appear when 
Heenan's case came up for trial, and he was turned loose 
after all, unpunished. I expect he felt pretty sore at me, 
on the whole, but we didn't have time in those days to 
figure on such things very much. We had to take our 
medicine when the time came, you know. 
"Three years later than this I was out of the army, and 
was doing a little Indian trading on my own hook; and 
another fellow and I had taken a wagon load of robes to 
Dutch Louis' place on the Yellowstone, about seven miles 
above the old Corral trading post, and about thirty-seven 
miles above the mouth of the Musselshell. We stopped 
here to spend the night, and in the evening we were out 
in front of the house, when we heard some one, away up 
the river, singing away as hard as he could, the voice echo- 
ing far away in the bluffs. We soon found the singer was 
in a boat, and that he was coming down stream. I kept 
watch up the river, and by and by saw the boat, with two 
men in it, coming around the bend and pulling in for our 
landing. I stepped down to meet the boat, not knowing 
who it was in it; but just as I reached out to take hold of 
the bow of the boat and ease her up as she came to the 
bank, the man in the stern satupstraighter and spoke out. 
'Hand me that rifle, quick, Charlie!' he said, reaching out 
for the gun, which" was forward in the boat from him. Of 
course I had on my own six-shooter, for, as I have said, a 
man had to eat and pray with his six-shooter on in those 
days. So I jerked, out my gun and said, 'No, Charlie, don't 
you do it; don't you hand him that rifle at all.' So Charlie 
didn't, and it's a good thing for everybody all around he 
didn't get to. It was my friend Heenan who was in the 
stern of the boat. I don't suppose he wanted to get me, 
nor nothing! 
"Well, I talked it all over with Heenan the best I could, 
and explained to him that I had had to go on after him 
as a scout, but that I had no grudge against him at alias a 
man. Heenan was full as a lord right then, and he had 
thirty gallons of whisky on board his boat, being bound to 
meet the steamboat which was expected up river about 
then, and allowing he would trade some with the Indians 
for robes at the Corral post. I watched Heenan pretty 
close, of course, but after a while he seemed willing to let 
it go at that, and the last I saw of him he was going on 
down the river, still pretty happy and singing again, as if 
he harbored no malice against any one in the world. I 
have never seen him from that day to this, nor ever heard 
of him again. One of the curious recollections I have of 
this little affair is the echo of Heenan's voice, which 
sounded so far off and so clear, as he was coming down 
the riverin the evening, before we saw him. 
"I probably never -will see Heenan again now. Since 
that time the old trading posts have gone, the Indians 
have gone, the army has gone, and I expect by this time 
Heenan has gone too, with the past and the old times. 
But he certainly was a cool one." E. Hough. 
1206 BoYca Buii/Ding, Chicago. 
THE ALASKA LIVE-MAMMOTH STORY. 
How we enlightened the Bering Straits Eskimos on the 
subject of the mammoth is an old story now, and my only 
excuse for bringing it up again is that it throws light on the 
origin of certain romances about the existence of the mam- 
moth in Alaska. 
I have recently been furnished with a number of news- 
paper clippings relatlDg to the existence of the mammoth in 
various parts of that territory. They represent but a small 
proportion of the live-mammoth stories that have been 
printed in the last two or three years. Some of them are 
told in a few lines only, while others are illustrated and oc- 
cupy the whole' page. They relate, for the most part, to 
mammoths said to have been seen by Stick Indians, about 
five years ago, on the headwaters of White River. 
This region is only about a hundred miles from the mining 
camps on the Yukon, where there are a couple of thousand 
miners and frontiersmen who are idle a good part of the 
year, but who are not sufliciently interested in mammoths 
to go out and bring one in. 
Most of the pictures accompanying these stories are fairly 
gocd representations of the mammoth, the tusks in some 
being inserted upside down, while others have both jaws 
decorated with a combination of elephant and walrus tusks 
that is truly remarkable. The moat elaborate article pur- 
ports to be an interview with an Alaskan trader, with whom 
I happen to be well acquainted, and who is certainly not re- 
sponsible for any such yarn. 
'The articles are pretty much in the same strain. A re- 
porter in San Francisco, or Ohicflgo, or New York, appears 
to have interviewed a traveler from Alaska, who has seen a 
trader, who has seen a native, who has seen a mammoth and 
made a drawing of it. This part of the story is generally 
brief, the bulk of it consisting of the reportei'd interview 
with some local geological oracle, to whom he has hopefully 
referred the matter for coDflrmalioa, but who sejdom says 
more than that, mammoth bones arc abundarit in Alaska. 
The reporter is, however, enamoured of the idea and works 
it up to make it look as plausible as possible, 
