FOREST AMD STREAM, 
[March i, 
full of mush iee that I couldn't get across it save at 
Radford, sixteen miles away, where there was a railroad 
bridge. So I headed that way on Saturday morning. It 
was cold; my road led over two mountain ranges, and 
over streams in two valleys. It was woody for the first 
eight miles over the mountains. I crossed the brook on 
a log and failed to find the road, but taking a compass 
course along the side hill, ascending steadily I found the 
trail again after a while. 
In the next valley a wide brook was crossed on a foot- 
bridge of boards, with a wire hold-rail. It was novel in 
that it had two-inch thick wooden spools to grasp and 
slide along the wire from post to post — a dozen posts — 
so that one did not have to grasp the cutting strand. 
I got a ride of several miles from Price's on and then 
I walked till I struck the railroad. This I followed for 
a ways. At sunset I sat down by the track to let a train 
go by. ' It was my first look at a Southern river. Broad, 
rustling, yellow and shallow, I watched the mush ice flow 
by till nearly plumb dark. Then, by the light of the 
moon, I tramped on toward Radfor-d. Everywhere was 
evidence ©f the recent high water. In the trees were the 
peculiar matted tufts of drift from the waters with which 
I was soon to become exceedingly familiar, for I was 
looking forward to a boat ride down the Holston to the 
Tennessee River. 
On Sunday night I took the train to Rural Retreat, 
intending to stay there over Christmas, but found a sum- 
mer resort snowed under. I went on to Marion in the 
cars the following day, having gotten my mail at Rural 
Retreat, where I also crossed the divide between the 
New River and the Tennessee on the cars. 
A man on the train had lost his grip. He was a stu- 
dent bound home for Christmas. He inquired of all 
where it was. A friend pointed to my pack and said, as 
innocently as possible, "Is that it?" 
The searcher glanced at the great basket, blanket and 
stuff. His white collar, silk scarf and great overcoat 
fairly shivered at the sight. 
"No!" the fellow almost yelled. "That God d " 
Then he saw me out of the corner of his eyes. 
"No," he said, quietly, "mine's a leather grip 'bout 
so long." 
It was the prettiest bit of Southern courtesy and regard 
for a stranger's feelings that I had seen, but typical of the 
region. Raymond S. Spears. 
Floating on the Missouri. — III. 
After putting up the tent and getting camp in shape, 
I shouldered my rifle and started up the valley. There 
is a thin fringe of cottonwood and willow bordering the 
creek and for a time I tramped along the edge of it look- 
ing for signs of game. Water was standing in pools 
here and there in the creek bed. The ranchers away up 
in the Judith Basin have long since diverted Arrow Creek 
to irrigate their homesteads, and it is no longer a run- 
ning stream except during the June rains. Every one of 
the pools I came to was covered with ducks, mallards, 
widgeons, and teal. From the rose and buck bruck 
sharptail grouse were constantly rising ahead of me and 
lighting again after a flight of two or three hundred yards. 
And then, suddenly, a lone whitetail buck bounded out 
of a little grove of cottonwoods and made for the hills 
as fast as he could run. I fired at him twice, and was 
about to pull the trigger a third time, when he made 
a last leap and fell dead into the bottom of a coulee. 
I did not cut his throat, for by the location of the bullet 
hole I knew that he had bled internally, and upon open- 
ing him found that I was right. Sah-ne-to had heard 
my shots and joined me, and how pleased she was at my 
success. I cut off the buck's head, first taking the tongue, 
and then, shouldering the carcass, we returned to camp. 
It was not a large deer, only a three-year-old, but it got 
very heavy, and I had to rest often befoce we arrived at 
the tent. There was a convenient tree in front of it, and 
running a stick through the deer's gambrels I hoisted it 
up to the nearest limb, clear of the ground. A hunter 
never feels just right until he has hung up a piece of 
meat in camp. There may be ducks, and chickens, and 
geese galore strung around, but the feeling of absolute 
contentment never comes until a deer or an elk, a sheep 
or an antelope, sways to the breeze from a nearby limb. 
So, at least, I felt, and Sah-ne-to, too; we had the "real 
food," ni-tap-i-wak-sin, she had been longing for. And 
then, I felt rather proud of having killed the deer; for 
nineteen years I had not fired at a running animal, and 
yet I had dropped this one in two shots. Perhaps I 
owed my success to the Lyman sights. I had never be- 
fore used them, but subsequent experience leads me to 
believe that it is nearly as difficult to miss as to kill with 
them. . 
Dinner was over, the dishes washed, a quantity of dry 
wood piled behind the stove. Sah-ne-to lit the lantern 
and resumed work on a pair of moccasins she was em- 
broidering with a vine-like pattern of various colored 
cut beads. "Tell me," I said, "why this stream is named 
Ap-si-sak-ta— the Arrow River?" 
"It was given that name long ago," she replied, "by 
the ancient ones, on account of a strange, a very strange, 
thing which took place. One time in that long ago 
there was a beautiful young girl named Ah-we-kas — the 
Antelope— the daughter of a chief. She was as good 
as she was handsome, and very industrious. No one 
tanned whiter buckskin, softer robes than she. No won- 
der, then, that all the young men were her slaves, and 
longed to make her their wife. But to all of them she 
replied, 'No,' and remained with her parents, doing all 
she could for their welfare and happiness. One after an- 
other the great men, the rich men of the camp, made 
offers to the old people for her, offers of horses and other 
wealth, but always her parents would ask her if she was 
willing, and when she replied, 'Nay,' they did not urge 
her. So the girl grew up, year by year more and more 
beautiful, and reached womanhood. 'Tis said that her 
hair when unbraided almost swept the ground; that her 
large, soft eyes were like those of a fawn, deep and clear, 
with 'an expression in them— I cannot say just what— 
that made the heart of man beat furiously in his bosom. 
She was tall and slender, yet of a rounded and graceful 
figure. She could run like a deer, and swim with the 
speed of an otter. _ „ _ . 
"One spring the people were camping for a time some- 
where on this river. One day there came from the camp 
of the Blackfeet, for to the north, a young man to visit 
his Piegan relatives, and that very evening he was in- 
vited by the father of Ah-we-kas to come to his lodge 
and feast, The young woman set some food before him, 
took one look at his face and hurriedly returned to her 
seat. He had one glimpse into her lovely eyes and was 
so distraught that he could not eat. In that one glance 
both knew that they were made for each other. After 
that the young Blackfoot came to her lodge every day 
and talked long with her father of the north country, oi 
the doings of his people — of their wars, their hunts and 
adventures. But he never spoke to her, nor she to him; 
but if they gazed at one another shyly, bashfully, as lovers 
will — well, what harm? 
"At last, one day, the young man informed the chief 
that on the morrow he would return to his people. 'But,' 
he continued, T shall soon return, driving many horses 
before me.' 
"As he passed out of the lodge somehow his hand met 
that of the girl, and he gave it a gentle squeeze; she in 
turn pressed his, and then covered her head with her robe 
in shame of her boldness. 
" T wonder, now,' the old man mused, 'what he meant 
by that — that he would soon return driving many horses 
before him?' 
"Ah-we-kas was sure she knew, but made no reply. 
"Most importunate of all her suitors was Black Bull, 
a man of savage temper and a great warrior. He was 
tall, and broad, and heavy, of great strength, and as 
homely as he was strong. By his success in war he had 
become very rich; no one owned more horses, no one hud 
a greater store of weapons, fine garments, robes and 
furs, than he. Two wives he had already, women whom 
he forced to toil incessantly, and whom he cruelly beat 
when anything went wrong. And now he wanted Ah- 
we-kas for his third wife. Almost daily he sent word 
to her father, offering this and that for her, until finally 
the messenger carried this: 'Thus says the Black Bull: 
Take my whole herd and of the rest of my property what 
you will, and give me your daughter in return.' 
"But, as before, the answer went back: 'No, she re- 
fuses you.' 1 
"Then Black Bull became angry, beat his wives, and 
rushed madly out of his lodge and away he knew not 
where. Passing the trail to the river he met Ah-we-kas 
and raised his hand to strike her, a fearful scowl on his 
face. Then he. changed his mind and cried out: 'And 
so you refuse me; know, then, that you shall yet become 
my wife, or die.' 
"Twas but a few days after this that the young Black- 
foot returned, driving before him, as he had said he 
would, a band of fine horses, red and white, yellow and 
white, black and white; all of them spotted horses. And 
his relatives took the horses and tied them up about the 
lodge of the father of Ah-we-kas, and gave him the young 
man's message. 
" 'What say you now?' the old man asked his daughter. 
'What word have you for this new suitor?' 
"Burning with shame, her head bent low, she pressed 
his wrinkled hand and whispered: 'You may keep the 
horses.' 
"So they were married. When Black Bull heard the 
news he cursed them and his unpropitious gods, and 
swore to have revenge. A day or two later Ah-we-kas 
went to the river for water, and as she stooped down at 
the shore Black Bull sprung upon her, bore her to the 
ground, and lifted his knife to stab her in the side. But 
even as the blow was descending the knife dropped from 
his hand, and with a groan he fell quivering on her 
senseless form, an arrow buried in his back. And there 
he died. The girl, recovering from her faint, shrieked 
long and loud, and people came running to her aid. They 
drew the dead man away, and noticing the arrow sticking 
in his back, withdrew it. No one had seen its like before; 
the polished shaft was black and heavy, the tip was long 
and broad, and made of some white substance neither 
bone nor scone, but most resembling bone; the feathers, 
stiff and well wrapped on were from some unknown bird, 
and had all the colors of the rainbow. The warriors 
looked long and curiously at it as 'twas passed from hand 
to hand, and then bethought them to search for the one 
who had owned and shot it. But Mik-sik-um, wisest of 
medicine men, stopped them. 'Search not,' he cried, 'for 
'twill be of no avail; the owner of this arrow is not visible 
to mortal eyes. This man lies dead, the victim of his own 
bad heart and passions. 'Tis a judgment of the gods. 
Let his women bury him at once and get him from our 
sight.' 
"And so," Sah-ne-to concluded, "this river got its 
name." 
"And the arrow?" I asked. "Whence came it? Who 
shot it?" 
"How stupid you are," she replied. "For her good- 
ness and virtue Ah-we-kas was favored by the sun. In 
her time of need he aided her. He shot the arrow, of 
course. Mik-sik-um, the medicine man, knew that as 
soon as he saw it, for he was wise in the mysteries of his 
craft." 
"Well, anyhow, Sah-ne-to," I said, "'tis a good story, 
and we will not question the truth of it. Put another 
stick in the stove for the night is chilly." 
I lit a cigarette and after a little continue*: "But, say, 
Sah-ne-to, don't you think the young Blackfoot might 
have shot that arrow? It was of strange material and 
make, but he might have obtained it from some fa r 
northern tribe, people whom the Piegans had never 
heard of." , _. • . ■ l 
"No." , 1 
"Why?" ' " • 
"Because." 
I had no more to say, and smoked my cigarette in 
silence. When a woman says "because," a man is up 
against it. 
Somehow we were a little late in loading up the next 
morning and resuming our voyage. I didn't regret it, 
however, as I wanted to examine a place a mile or two 
further down the river where Lewis and Clarke had found 
the remains of one hundred and twenty-six head of buf- 
falo, the animals having been decoyed over a cut bluff 
by Indians. From this find they had named Arrow Creek 
"Slaughter River." But the name did not stick; the 
voyageurs who followed them, Joseph Kipp and others, 
learning the Indian name for it, continued to call it as 
they did. Arrow River or Arrow Creek. 
We had no difficulty in locating the scene of the 
"slaughter." A long level but narrow ridge runs south- 
ward from the edge of the valley to the water's edge, 
where it ends abruptly with a perpendicular drop of more 
than a hundred feet. In Lewis and Clarke's time there 
was quite a bit of shore between it and the river, but 
year by year the channel has shifted further and further 
to the north, and not only the shore but some of the bluff 
has been eaten away by the current. Landing just below 
the bluff, I climbed up to the top of it, expecting to find 
the rows of stone piles which generally mark one of 
these "buffalo pounds," as the old voyageurs termed 
them. There were none on it; if I had had time to walk 
back to where the ridge left the rim of the valley, I 
might have found them extending in V form out on the 
plain. My climb was not without reward, however, for 
on the way back to the boat I found an obsidian arrow- 
head. It was a very small and thin one, and precisely 
like those which are found about an old "buffalo pound" 
on the Two Medicine River, near the foot of the Rocky 
Mountains. 
From Arrow Creek the river flows nearly due east 
for five miles. On the south side the hills rise abruptly 
from the shore; on the north side are three small sage 
brush flats. Scattering pines grow in the breaks on either 
hand. Looking eastward down this stretch we could see 
in the distance the breaks of the Judith River, dark with 
their heavy growth of pine and fir. In due time, turning 
the bend to the north, we came in sight of a wide gap in 
the north side of the valley, a flat four or five miles long 
through which Sage Creek flows into the river. Here we 
entered Drowned Man's Rapids. That is an ominous 
name, but they are really the safest rapids in the river. 
The channel is very narrow here, choked in by hills on 
either side, and the water rushing through has great 
depth. Both shores are strewn with huge boulders, and 
there must be many of them lying down on the bottom 
judging from the leaping and swirling of the rushing 
water. We went over the long swells all too quickly to 
suit the oarsman, who was glad to rest a bit, but it must 
be confessed that the one who held the rudder gave a sigh 
of relief when we finally glided into still water. A mile 
below the rapids we passed the point of a bare ridge 
on the right, and came in sight of the wide, long flats 
of the Judith River, opposite those of Sage Creek. I 
had been told to look for a certain grave in this flat, 
and re-mark it if necessary. Below the point of the ridge, 
at the western edge of the first coulee, and two hundred 
yards from the river, was the place. We landed at the 
mouth of the coulee and looked long and carefully for the 
wooden cross which had marked it, but could not find 
even a grass-grown mound. Time and the constant wash 
from the hills had obliterated all traces of it. So all trace 
of the last resting place of Nathaniel Crabtree, one of 
the bravest and most careless of men, is lost. It was 
here he met his fate. He and George Croff had long 
been partners in the woodyard business, in trapping, 
hunting and trading. "In 1865," George told me, just 
before I left home for this trip, "we had a woodyard 
at the Coal Banks. Winter and summer buffalo were 
always in sight of our cabin, but just for a change and 
a little sport we used to go out to the Bearpaw Moun- 
tains once in a while and kill a wagonload of elk, deer, 
sheep, antelope and bear, using the fat of the latter in 
lieu of lard. The Indians were always prowling around 
in those days in search of the white man's scalp and 
horses, and one never knew when a war party might 
jump him. So on these hunts, after supper was over, 
we used to go some distance from the fire and make our 
beds in a dark piece of woods or brush. On such occa- 
sions I would always ask Nat. where he had placed his 
rifle, and nine times out of ten he would reply: 'Oh, 
I don't know; it's lying somewhere over there by the 
fire.' 
"Well, I'd lecture him about his carelessness, but he 
always laughed and declared there was no danger, and I 
usually had to hunt the weapon up and lay it by his side. 
He was as good a friend and comrade as a man could 
wish for, honest, brave, good natured, a tireless worker. 
But he was careless; your good natured, easy-going men 
generally are careless. 
"In the fall of '67 we moved down to the mouth of the 
Judith and started to get out wood for the steamboats 
there, having cut and sold all there was in the vicinity 
of the Coal Banks. We built a good sized cabin on the 
flat about two miles west of the creek's junction with the 
Missouri. Camp Cook, a temporary post of three or four 
companies of mounted infantry, was located on this 
stream, and some four miles from us, so we felt pretty 
secure from Indian raids. Still, they used to bother us 
some, and the soldiers, too. One night a guard saw what 
he took to be an Indian sneaking up to the tarpaulin- 
covered supplies he was watching, and called out Haiti' 
a number of times. But the Indian never stopped, and 
when he got up as close as he wanted to, he leveled his old 
fuke and gave the soldier a mortal wound. Of course, 
the whole camp rushed out then, and what do you sup- 
pose the officers did? They ordered their men to light 
a lot of lanterns and search the timber and brush for the 
Indians! They were a pretty green outfit, both officers 
and men. 
We had six men in our employ cutting pine up in the 
breaks and in the hills, but one of them was^ always on 
the lookout for any sneaking war party, while the rest 
worked. Nat. and I hauled the wood to the riyer with 
three yokes of bulls (oxen). We had no horses, and we 
took turns going after the cattle in the morning. On the 
5th of April, '68, I remember the date well, it was Nat's 
turn. I got up before daylight to prepare breakfast, and 
soon afterward he started out, leaving his rifle, as usual, 
I never went away from the cabin without mine. Well, 
daylight came, and at sun-up we had breakfast, but Nat. 
did not return. The men shouldered their axes and rifles 
and were just starting to their work when we saw the 
soldiers' herd of horses, some four or five hundred head, 
running up the long, sloping hill on the west side of the 
valley of the Judith. And behind them, whooping, yell- 
ing and lashing, rode a lot of Indians, urging them on. 
I felt at once that something had happened to Nat, and 
we started out to look for him. After going half a mile 
