Oct. 6, 1900.J 
FOREST AND STREAM* 
26S 
Old Fort Benton. 
Fort Benton, Mont.j was lor years the -greatest fur 
market in the world. There, season atter season, were 
gathered thousands and thousands ol" buflfalo robes, elk, 
deer and bear skins and the valuable pelts of the beaver, 
wolf and other iur bearing animals. The entire catch 
of half a dozen tribes of Indians, scattered over hundreds 
of miles of sui rounding country, and collected by a score 
or two of brave and enterprising traders, was brought 
here each year for shipment down the river to St. Louis, 
III the arlier days by fiatboats, and later by steamers. 
There was something in this occupation of Indian 
trading irresistibly fascinating. It was not work, but 
an exciting pastime. Few who entered into the business 
ever abandoned it for anything else until the buffalo 
disapiiearcd and other game became scarce and there 
were no longer any furs and robes to trade for. And, 
surprising as it may seem, not one in ten of these traders 
ever saved up money. They made enough, some of 
rlivm hundreds of thousands, but it came easily and was 
spent more easily. Even the wolfer, by half attending 
to business, could catch in a season a thousand wolves — 
every hide worth a five-dollar bill; hu\ ten to one he 
would start in the next fall without a dollar, and with 
provisions bought on credit. The only ones who really 
made any money in this business were, first the Ameri- 
can Fur Company, and later two or three firms who 
furnished the traders with goods at 300 and 400 per 
cent, profit, and who also traded directly with the In- 
dians. 
The first trading post in this country was built on 
the present site of Fort Benton, in 1846, by Alexander 
Culbertson, chief factor of the American Fur Company. 
It was made of adobe, was two stories high, and had 
bastions at each end mounted with cannon. It was im- 
pregnable to the Indians, for they could neither set fire 
lo it nor climb the high walls. 
In lliose days a "trade" was the occasion of no little 
ceremony. A tribe of Indians, having been out on a 
hunt long enough for each one to catch a bale or two 
of beaver (10 skins to the bale), would return and camp 
in ihe vicinity of the fort. The next morning everyone, 
including the women and children, would put on their 
"best clothes, " paint their faces and move in a body 
ti} wards lhe foft. 
First came the head-chief leading one of his finest 
horses, then the under-chiefs, after them the warriors, 
and lastly the women and children leading horses packed 
wi;h furs. It must have been an an imposing sight to 
witness, for then the Indians were dressed in their 
native costume, their clothing made of buckskin and 
cowskin, and ornamented with eagle feathers, weasel 
skins, elk teeth, and bear claws; and most of them car- 
riea their native weapons, a bow and quiver of arrows, 
a large, round and brightly ornamented shield, and stone 
knife. When close to the fort, the whole tribe, as with 
one voice, began to sing. Then from the cannon roared 
out salute after salute, the great Hag was raised aloft, 
and v/hile the cannon were booming and the Indians 
singing, the portals of the great gateway were thrown 
open and the factor, followed by one or two of his men, 
came forth and greeted the chiefs. Then the head-chief 
would say, "Now, to-day am I glad to meet my brother. 
The white men are my friends, they are as relations to 
me. Now, to-day I have brought my children with me, 
that they may give you their furs. And I have also 
brought this horse as a present for my brother." 
Then the factor would say: "1 am very glad my brother 
has come and brought his people, and I am glad to 
have this go©d horse. Come now, my brother, let us 
enter and eat and drink and let the other chiefs come 
with us." 
Then the chiefs entered the fort, where a hearty meal 
had been prepared for them. But first each one was 
served with a small dram of liquor. After eating, the 
great stone pipe was lighted and the head-chief related 
to the factor the incidents of the hunt, and while they 
talked various presents were placed before them, the 
head-chief, perhaps, receiving a gun, with flints, powder 
and balls. Then after awhile the chiefs went out and 
told their people the price of various articles and the 
trade began. As an instance of the profits of Indian 
trading in those days, I give below the value of several 
articles in beaver skins, each skin being then worth 
about $5: Flint lock gun, cost about $10, was sold for 
2 obeaver; a keg of po.wder, costing $5, for 10 beaver; 
sack balls, costing $5, for 10 beaver; butcher knife, cost- 
ing $1, for 2 beaver; paper of paint, costing 25 cents, for 
I beaver; 4 yds. red cloth, costing $4, for 20 beaver. 
After a hot competition for some years the American 
Fur Company sold out to the Northwest Fur Company. 
When this latter firm wound up its affairs, two or three 
dififerent firms started in the business. Besides trading 
directly with the Indians, these firms sold goods to 
smaller traders, who either followed the Indians on 
their hunts or built small posts of their own in different 
parts of the country. Although comparatively safe when 
once they had built their little fort and were settled in 
i., fiiese traders ran great risks journeying to and from 
Benton, for the Indians were quick to take advantage 
of a small traveling party. 
Before the International Boundary Survey the country 
in that region was rather debatable ground and was, of 
course, imsettled. Taking advantage of this, several 
Benton parties built trading posts out there, for it was 
the favorite country of the Bloods and Blackfeet, and 
buffalo were always plentj'. 
One of these traders. Mr. Jos. Kipp, established a post 
at the junction of the Belly and Old Man's rivers, 
in 1872. The buildings of this place formed three sides 
of a square and comprised two large warehouses, a 
trade room and three living rooms. The trade room" 
Joined on a warehouse, and in the partition were loop 
holes, where, when a "trade" was going on. were con- 
cealed several men with rifles, ready to nip in the bud 
any outbreak. A counter, shoulder high, ran nearly the 
whole length of the room, and behind it, on shelves, 
were stacked blankets and all kinds of goods. Under 
lhe counter and among the goods were concealed a 
mimber of revolvers and rifles, all loaded for instant use. 
On the .south side, forming the fourth side of the fort, 
was a high stockade, chinked and daubed, and in the 
center of this stockade, midway between the buildings 
was tht; big gate. Immediately in front of the buildings 
flowed the Belly River. This had always been a favorite 
camping ground of the Indians. On either side of both 
rivers were broad, rolling prairies, much frequented by 
buffalo, and the river bottoms afforded excellent shelter 
for horses. 
At this place Calf Shirt was killed. I think the story 
of his death is worth relating — not on account of any 
bravery displayed by the whites, for they were simply 
obliged to kill him, and did so — but because it illustrates 
a very peculiar and not uncommon trait of Indian char- 
acter. Calf Shirt was the head-chief of the Bloods. He 
was a renowned warrior and the greatest chief the Bloods 
ever had, from a time as far back as known. But he had 
an ungovernable temper, and in fits of ai "er had killed 
several of his own people, and for this he was hated and 
feared. Nor was he hked by the whites, for he openly 
boasted before them of the number of white scalps he 
had taken. He was a man of commanding presence, 
over six feet in height, weighing over two hundrc 1 
pounds, and with regular and comely features. 
It was in the summer time; robes and furs were 01 •; 
of season, and little trading was done. Calf Shirt ha I 
bought some goods of Kipp, and having no robes t > 
paj' for them he left his shield with the trader as security. 
Not long after, he one day entered the trading room 
and demanded his shield. Kipp happened to be the only 
one in the room at the time and he asked Calf Shirt 
what he had to pay for it. 
"Nothing," replied the chief, "I want to fight and must 
have my shield. You must give it to me." 
At this impudent reply Kipp thrust his hand into a 
pile of blankets lying on the shelf, in which was con- 
cealed the nearest revolver to him. But Calf Shirt was 
watching him, and raising his right hand from under 
his blanket in which he had all the time held a cocked 
revolver, he rested it over his left arm, pointed directly 
at the trader. Kipp, who had never taken his eyes off 
the Indian, saw at a glance that the red man had the 
best of it; and thus they stood. Kipp with his hand be- 
tween the blankets, Calf Shirt pointing a revolver at 
him,, when Geo. Scott entered the room. 
"George," said Kipp, "he has the drop on me; come 
behind the counter, get a pistol and kill him." 
George says that the next few moments seemed a 
year to him. His heart was in his throat, and he felt that 
most likely his time had come; but he tried to appear 
unconcerned, and acted as if he didn't see Calf Shirt. 
He whistled and fussed around and finally went behind 
the counter, dropped down on his knees, took a revolver, 
and started to crawl back around the corner of the counter, 
where, unperceived, he might get a good shot at the 
chief. But just then without saying a word Calf Shirt 
turned round and walked out of the door, and out of 
the stockade, never once looking back. Neither Kipp 
nor Scott fired at him, as they might have done, for they 
did not like to arouse the Indians if they could help it. 
Some of the whites in the stockade at this time were 
married to Indian women. About 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon one of these women came running into the 
stockade, scared and out of breath, crying: "Calf Shirt 
is coming! Calf Shirt is coming! He says he will kill 
you all." Just as she concluded, the chief himself came 
in through the open gates. He had on no clothing 
except breechclout and moccasins. He was painted 
for war, wore his eagle-feather war head-dress, and 
carried in his right hand a revolver. He advanced 
toward the trading room, singing a war song and 
dancing soleinnly and majestically forward, first on one 
foot and then on the other. Just at this time there were 
several men in the cook room playing cards, among 
them "Diamond R." Brown and Dick Berry. Dis- 
tracted from their game by the shrieks of the women 
and the war song, they rushed out and saw Calf Shirt 
advancing toward them. At the same time Kipp and 
George Scott came out of the trade room. Now what 
must have Calf Shirt have thought when he saw all 
those men come out, with pistols in their hands? He 
knew that his time had come, that he would never 
leave that place alive, but he did- not hesitate; he kept 
on singing and dancing. "Boys," said one, "he means 
business. There is no help for it — we must kill him" ; 
and he raised his revolver and fired. Then the others 
commenced. , Crack, crack, crack, crack went the 
pistols: and every time a bullet struck the chief. He 
stopped, turned round, and walked slowly back, but a 
little to the right, and all the time the revolvers were 
going crack, crack, crack, crack, and bullet after bullet 
was lodged in the chief's body, but he never flinched, 
he never even quivered when one struck him. He kept 
walking slowly on. Right in front of him was a pit 
where the earth had been dug with which to cover the 
roofs. Right into this he fell, prone on his face, but he 
slowly arose, turned round, emptied his revolver at the 
whites, and as he fired the sixth and last shot he fell 
once more, and died. There were sixteen bullet holes 
in his body, most of them mortal wounds. 
A peculiarity of Indian character, illustrated by the 
foregoing, is this: An Indian often gets so angry that 
in the face of certain death he will seek revenge. For 
some unknown reason Calf Shirt had left the stockade 
in the morning without killing the trader, as he might 
easily have done. He went to his lodge, sat down and 
l^rooded over his wrongs, real or imaginary, and grew 
angrier and angrier, until, throwing prudence to the 
winds, he put on his war paint and went back to get 
revenge. It is probable that he was fired on sooner 
than he had calculated. His object was to get close 
enough to make sure of Kipp; and after the first few 
shots he was probably reallj^ killed,' and what he did 
afterwards was done mechanically and not with intention. 
=iiiiiMiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiniiiiiiirE 
I REPORT YOUR LUCK | 
I With Rod and Gun f 
= To FOREST AND STREAM, | 
i New York City. = 
illlllllllilllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllli 
Blue Bunnies the Californian Fad, 
"Therk is always something on the side- of California 
that sets you guessing," said the man with tlie deterior- 
ated lung who had just hastened back to New York for 
the few weeks in each year which Make life tolerable to 
him. 
"If I want to live with this breathing mechanism of 
mine permanently out of alignment i have to go out to 
the coast for the winter. Just as soon as the early frosts 
begin to shed the fruit from the mince pie tree, just as 
soon as the fattening turkeys begin to cast mistaken 
defiance at the President's proclamation of Thanksgiv- 
ing in which I can but faintly participate, it is incumbent 
on me to slide out to California. If I should neglect the 
warning my executor would be put to the necessity of 
a 'here lies' oyer me, and cashing in my unused trans- 
portation in order to make the estate look big. When 
it comes to the therapeutic properties of the transcon- 
tinental systems I think that I may rank as an expert. I 
know just how every line deals with the one-lungster., 
I have been over the Isthmus. With luck I may last long 
enough to go through the Nicaragua Canal, if they are 
not too deliberate in building it. I have taclded the Sun- 
set Route, the Scenic Route, the old Central Pacific, the 
Shasta Route, the Great Northern, and way down South 
the Santa Fe. There is only one way that I have fore- 
gone, and that is by sail around the Horn, which might 
be damaging to me in the gales which live forever be- 
tween Staaten Island and Diego Ramirez. When it comes 
to the railroads I can give practical information on a 
point not set down in any gazetteer, jiamely, the compara- 
tive advantages of Sherman and Marshall's Pass on a 
man whose breath comes short and with difficulty when 
he gets a mile or so in the air. In the same way I might 
discourse, with practical experience, on the comparative 
advantages of the different climates of California com- 
prehended within the four cardinal points set forth in 
the jingle, 
From Siskiyou to San Diego, 
From the Sierras to the sea. 
"Rather shabby poetry, isn't it? But it brings down 
the house at any political convention in California No 
man knows just who was first guilty of it, but old man 
Sisson up m the Siskiyou country used to smile rather 
deprecatingly when he was charged with it. If he did 
do It that was the sum of his poetical offending and 
much may be forgiven a man who has his wisdom in 
beguiling trout. 
"I've been going to the ultimate West so long— at 
least It was the ultimate West until Hawaii and Dick 
Leary's moral side show of Guam and the Philippines 
were tacked on— that I can't drop the old expression all 
at once, that I do not have to give any thought to where 
1 shall go and how I shall get there. The one thing that 
sets me guessing when tbe time for my annual trip 
comes, and I may say the thing that keeps me guessing 
all the time I am out on the Coast, is what side show 
i am going to stack up against. That's no simple thing 
|t all, for there is always some new game, and the 
liastem one-lungster is the come-on who pays for the 
music and the free luncli and all the rest of the enticing 
accessories. " ■ - 
"Let me see. The first game I encountered was when 
i was set on the southern part of the State. It was 
boom land, lots of land, even more boom. I was con- 
vinced from the start, no man could help that when the 
California boomers got after him. I believe it was seed- 
less oranges that they landed me on first. Now that was 
a splendid proposition and I might have made a fortune 
if it hadn t been for the San Jose scale, and if I had given 
all my time to it. But there are a few weeks when I 
can live m New York, when I can live at what the 
geographies call the confluence of the Hudson and East 
rivers. Naturally I took the opportunity to come back 
and naturally the bugs took that time to get after my 
oranges when there was nobodv to pick them off 
"The next thing was English walnuts, in the Ojai 
Valley, and that was a game that spelt Wealth with a 
big W in every prospectus that came my way. As a 
permanent investment that is really a brilliant success 
The trees are already pretty fair saplings by now, and if 
nothing happens my heirs and assigns forever can amuse 
themselves gathering the crop. But for a quick return 
on an investment they are what you might call deliberate. 
"The next thing I was caught on was choice residence 
property and villa sites. I bought more of the San 
Bernardino desert laid out with neat stakes than you 
would believe. Each lot was a corner . property, right 
next the new university, or the leading church, and op- 
posite the park. They are there yet, they are waiting 
for the university and the church and the park to mater- 
ialize, but I shudder to read the local papers lest I may 
see my name in the list of sales for delinquient taxes. 
"Then I went in for shares in the grand international 
Monte Carlo, at Tia Juana, half in Mexico and half in 
California. That was a very enticing proposition, but 
somehow or other it fell through. After that I came 
north of Tehachipa, and went in for grapes, at Fresno, 
and_ eventuated in phylloxera. One year I devoted to 
raising watermelons in the San Joaquin valley, in com- 
petition with the big sugar companies. Prunes in the 
Santa Clara valley caught me one season; if you will 
only stop to figure out the number of boarding houses 
in the United States, and their average consumption of 
this flabby vegetable, you will see how easy it is to write 
an attractive prospectus when you have prune orchards 
to sell. Once I got caught on the northern citrus belt, 
at the Oroville fair it was, and I can tell you it takes a 
pretty smart man to see the joint when they glue the 
ripe oranges onto an orchard of willows or madroiio 
trees- 
"All those experiences have taught me a lesson that 
I can profit by. But this season I've got hold of the 
newest investment, and it's a corker. It's the Belgian 
hare. Now you may think you know something about 
rabbits. Of course you do; you've probably had plenty 
of white bunnies that you could carry around by the 
ears, but that's something entirely dift"erent. But the 
Belgian isn't a rabbit at all; it's a hare, the raw material 
of 'hasenpfeffer.' There is an ever' increasing market 
for hasenpfeffer, as people learn to eat it. Hitherto the 
great objection to hasenpfeffer at the restaurants has been 
the suspicion that would lurk that it was made of cats, 
