284 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
t April in, igtii. 
he said, '*How are you?" He gave his whole attention 
for half an hour in an effort to explain about courts of 
chancery to an ambitious, influential young fellow. Heavy 
red-bearded, in Vandyke shape, a strong momentum of 
determination in his bearing, he contrasted strangely with 
the sleek, shrill, artificial man who tried to gain tavor 
by G S roups a assembled and then dissolved, some of oldish 
men some of the active men. Broad, red. leather belts 
glistened for a moment as the overcoats that al wore 
spread apart in front. Bulges on the right or left hips, or 
under the arm pits, told of a law regarded but not always 
obeyed. One is liable to a fine of $50 and six months m 
orison for carrying a revolver m Tennessee. 
P A furious politeness, a lack of definitive assertion, none 
of the hammering of one fist into the other palm ,W 
conspicuous. The day waned; night came on. but the 
air was quick with expectancy. From somewhere came 
Marion Legere, and some of his witnesses, 8^ to get to 
court unshot at. Then there was a rumor Dan Duskm, 
an important witness, had been run out of the country. 
The uneasy town went to a fitful slumber. 
J Raymond S. Spears. 
Floating on the Missouri.— VIIL 
We were now in the wildest part of the upper Missouri 
Valley, a country so interesting, of such vast extent ot 
canon-like ravines, of cliffs and buttes and weird, weather- 
carved sandstones, that I would have liked to pitch camp 
every four or five miles or so along down the river and 
explore 'all the interesting places. But the lateness of the 
season prevented. The river had frozen over the previous 
year Nov. 10 ; it nearly always freezes some time during 
that month, and the middle of the month had been passed. 
With regret we broke camp at the mouth of the beven 
Blackfeet and- resumed our voyage just ^as the sun ap- 
peared above the breaks to the east The channel here 
is on the north side of the river, and I had some difficulty 
in getting the Good Shield over the rocky bar out into 
deep water. At this point the river bends sharply to the 
north around a long, high broken ridge, a most likely 
lurking place for mountain sheep. On the south side of 
the stream high up in the breaks, there are scattering 
groves of pine, but the slopes are of barren blue clay, 
which wash away so rapidly under the influence of the 
rain and melting snow, that it is impossible for any kind 
of vegetation to flourish. A row of three miles took us 
to the Buffalo Shoals, a wide, rapid, shallow bit of the 
river. I told Sah-ne-to the name of the place, and, of 
course, she had something to say about the great herds 
which used to ford here. But her remarks were cut 
short by the jar of the boat as it bumped over some rocks 
and came to a dead stop. I stood up and tried to make 
out the channel, but here was one place where there was 
nothing to indicate it ; from bank to bank nothing but an 
undulating ripple of the water over the stones. I put on 
my waders and holding the boat firmly by the bow, 
dragged it back up stream a short distance, and slowly 
began to cross to the north side, until I found two feet 
of water, and then waded slowly down behind the craft, 
letting it float ahead of me. It ran aground several times, 
and I found that what channel there was wound like the 
letter S across the shoal. We had no more than floated 
into the deep water below it when Sah-ne-to espied an 
animal of some kind hurrying across the flat below to- 
ward the river. On it came, trotting rapidly, down on to 
the sandy bar and buried its nose in the water. Then 
we saw that it was a buck mule deer, and a very large 
one. I dared not row, for fear of alarming it, and picking 
up the rifle Waited for the boat to drift down within 
range. But the buck was in a hurry; he had important 
business somewhere back in the hills, and having satis- 
fied his thirst, trotted away as fast as he had come, while 
we were yet 500 yards distant. "Go," I said, "and good 
luck to you; I think there are fatter bucks than you to 
be found." 
All the same, I was disappointed ; it would have been 
so handy to kill the meat we needed right on the shore. 
We kept on running northward for three or four miles, 
and then the river bent to the east again past long, nar- 
row, almost treeless flats, and by rough hills and cliffs. 
After something like eleven or twelve miles of hard row- 
ing we came to a nameless creek, putting in from the 
south through .tall and fantastic portals of sandstone. On 
the west side of it, on top of a high ridge, stands a pecu- 
liar sandstone formation, which the United States engi- 
neers who surveyed the river named the Sphinx, and, 
viewed from a point on the river anywhere east of the 
nameless creek, it certainly does bear a striking resem- 
blance to that old monument of ancient Egypt. Looking 
at this and at the surrounding hills, the walled valley of 
the creek, I felt that I could not forego a ramble in such 
an interesting place. A mile or more below there was a 
wooded island, from which a sandy bar extended to the 
south shore; the channel ran in to its outer side, and we 
landed only a few yards from the grove. The Trees were 
scattering, the underbrush was interspersed with plots 
of tall grass that bore the impression of many a deer bed. 
In one of these open places the tent was pitched and a 
few blows of the ax on a large dead cottonwood brought 
down sheets of thick bark, sufficient for several days' 
fuel. That is one of the advantages of camping along 
this river; it is not necessary to do any chopping. One 
can quietly row to a cottonwood grove, pitch camp, secure 
fuel without disturbing the game in the immediate vicinity. 
The loose dry cottonwood bark can be pried from the 
trunk and noiselessly broken into convenient size for the 
stove. 
While I was eating a bit of lunch, Sah-ne-to strolled out 
on the wide sandy bar at the head of the island, and 
quickly returned with the information that she had seen 
a bear track. So, without any questioning, I knew that I 
was to have company on my ramble. Where the rifle is 
there will always be the madame when bears are around ; 
not for all the wealth of the country would she remain 
alone in camp after seeing the trail of one, for it was 
well known that they had even "carried women away to 
their dens and made slaves of them." 
We started, crossing the long sand spit connecting the 
island with the main shore, and thence up the hard mud 
margin of the river to the mouth of the nameless creek. 
Here were tracks of game galore ; of mountain sheep and 
mule deer, of wolf and coyote, and of the grizzly, which 
had been recently prowling along the shore in search of a 
dead fish or other morsel of food cast up by the eddying 
waters. We climbed the steep bank, twenty or thirty 
feet high, and stood on the edge of the long flat among 
the giant sage and greasewood, some of which was taller 
than our heads. Away up the creek was a bunch of 
horses. When they saw us they lifted their heads and 
gazed at us curiously"' for a moment, and then bounded 
away up the narrow valley as fast as they could go, 
startling a little bunch of antelope, which also scurried 
off across the flat and up into the breaks. Perhaps they 
were wild horses — horses which had never felt the touch 
of a lariat, nor the burning, sizzing brand. Here, if any 
place, in this vast extent of bad land lying between the 
Missouri and the Yellowstone, there should still be some 
of these untamed descendants of the Spanish conquista- 
dors' steeds. Once, traveling with Mr. Joseph Kipp from 
our trading post on the Missouri to the branch post on 
the Flat Willow, we saw a band of these wild horses. I 
think it was in the fall of 1880. W e had crossed Crooked 
Creek, and climbing to the top of a high pine-crowned 
butte, stopped to rest our horses and survey the country. 
War parties, we knew, were abroad — Sioux, Assinaboines, 
Crows and Cheyennes — and we didn't intend to run into 
any of them if we could help it. It was a broken bit of 
country we surveyed. Tall buttes, long ridges, deep 
coulees on either hand, with glimpses of the dead grass 
and sagebrush plain stretching away for untold miles 
to the verge of the horizon. Away to the north of us, 
across, beyond the dark breaks of the Missouri, loomed 
the Little Rockies and their terminating pine-clad butte, 
the Hairy Cap. West of them we could see the flat tops 
of 'the Bear Paws. To the south, near at hand, was the 
Black Butte, a dark, high, steep cone of volcanic rock, 
and still further on, the green slopes and bare peaks of 
the Snowy Range. As we sat there, smoking our cigar- 
ettes, and viewing this great expanse of plains and moun- 
tains, and rough country, a herd of wild horses, a hun- 
dred or more, came dashing down the valley of Crooked 
Creek, climbed the ridge near us, and swept on toward 
the Musselshell. Some were bays, some blacks, with no 
inconsiderable number of gray and dun-colored ones. 
Their exceedingly long and full manes and tails streamed 
out in the breeze. They were sleek-coated and fat, and 
by the way they arched their necks and pranced along 
they seemed to have a grand and invincible spirit, which 
I for one. would not have cared to attempt to conquer. 
Some wdlves, disturbed in their slumber, perhaps by the 
thunder of the horses' hoofs, trotted to the edge of the 
butte opposite us, and looked at them longingly, hungrily ; 
they prefer the flesh of the horse, it seems, above any 
other meat. Only a few moments after the band . had 
passed us, a large herd of buffalo came in sight from 
the same direction that they had. "There are no camps of 
hunting Indians near here," my companion remarked, "so 
these herds must have been scared by a war party. Let's 
go." 
We went. On and on, past groups of buttes and high 
ridges, over stretches of level plain, by many a herd of 
buffalo and antelope, and far in the night arrived at our 
destination, tired and hungry. We had no thought that all 
that game we saw was soon to vanish, and that the 
wide plains we crossed were soon to be dotted with vast 
herds of the accursed sheep. 
Well, the horses and the antelope vanished. Antelope 
are protected the year round in Montana, nevertheless 
if I could have got within range of one of the bucks I 
would have killed him. I believe in the protection of 
game. I will not kill a female, deer nor elk, nor any 
other species. But when I'm out of meat, the first buck 
of any kind I run across has got to fall if I can aim 
straight enough. If all hunters would forego the shoot- 
ing of females, we would have no need for game protec- 
tion. For instance, three years ago a friend of mine 
killed three does. There was no excuse for his doing 
so, as we had the meat of a good buck in camp. Now, if 
those three had lived, they and their increase would have 
numbered about fourteen head this coming spring. 
We crossed the flat, passing through a prairie dog town, 
where the little animals were so tame that they sat up on 
their mounds within fifteen or twenty yards of us, and 
scolded us unmercifully. Evidently they knew nothing 
about men and rifles. We left them, still barking and jerk- 
ing their tails, and began the ascent of the valley slope 
west of the little creek. The barren, blue clay hill, as 
usual, had a hard rasping crust, which afforded good 
walking. We climbed up easily, through a grove of scat- 
tering pine, past clumps of juniper, and coming to the 
foot of the Sphinx, were surprised to find that it rests 
on the edge of a high, long, cut sandstone wall. All along 
its base there were many bighorn tracks, and near by 
lay the skull and horns of a large ram. From the Sphinx 
southward to the next ridge, a distance of perhaps two 
miles, there has been a sudden sinking of the country, re- 
sulting in a rough grassy plain seamed with cracks, which 
would be difficult to cross. I had intended to go that 
way, but concluded to go back down and across the 
nameless creek, and hunt the opposite side. We were 
resting at the foot of the Sphinx and viewing the rough 
country to the west, tall steep buttes and cut cliffs, when, 
about quarter of a mile away a large ram appeared at the 
foot of the cliff we were sitting on, evidently following 
the trail of some of its kind. He would trot a ways, al- 
ways with his nose close to the ground, and often stop 
and circle a bit, and look around, as if having lost the 
scent. When we first saw him, he was coming toward 
us, but while still a long ways off, he began to climb 
the cliff on a place where it seemed as if it would .be 
impossible to sustain a foothold. Up he went, however, 
rapidly, and with apparent ease, and disappeared in some 
pines. I thought of following him, and, indeed, we 
traveled along three or four hundred yards in the direc- 
tion he had taken, and then we saw a bunch of the ani- 
mals bounding up the side of a butte some distance ahead. 
They paused on attaining the summit — there were between 
fifteen and twenty of them — looked at us a moment or 
two, and then ran on out of sight, their white stern ends 
bobbing up and down most ludicrously. Well, I reasoned 
that it was nearly if not quite past the rutting season, that 
a ram's meat would be unpleasantly rank, so I bade Sah- 
ne-to turn, and we retraced our way past the Sphinx and 
followed the ridge down into the valley. On the east 
side of the little creek are many thickets and groves of 
pine, dense beds of juniper brush, most likely places, I 
thought, for a mule deer's siesta. We climbed up through 
several of them, find'ng plenty of sign, deer tracks and 
beds, and presently an exceed.ngly large old buck slowly 
arose from a patch of brush on a ridge across a narrow 
coulee from us, and calmly stood gazing our way most 
inquisith'ely. I cocked the rifle and handed it to Sah- 
ne-to, and she hurriedly aimed and fired. The old buck 
made one jump up the hill and looked at us as before. 
Twice more Sah-ne-to fired before' the old feltow ran, and 
then he stopped before he had gone more than fifty yards 
and gave her another chance. But that wa-s the last 
one ; unhurt, untouched, he bounded stiffly up the ridge 
and over the crest of the hill. "Did you look carefully 
through the little hole in the rear sight, and get the ivory 
bead fairly on him?" I asked. 
"I_ don't know. I guess not." she replied. "I jt*st kept 
looking at him and snooting." 
That was what I had already guessed; she had been too 
excited to think of the sights. 
We continued our climb until we arrived at the foot 
of a steep wall, where we found a broad and hard-beaten 
game trail running along its base, used principally by 
mountain sheep. Sah-ne-to was becoming tired, so we 
climbed no higher, and followed the trail in the direction 
of the river and camp. Numberless deep coulees headed 
up against the cliff, and. we kept descending and ascend- 
ing them, until we finally came into one that extended 
back to the east further than we could see. Here the 
game trail branched, the main one crossing the coulee^ 
the lesser one continuing along "the foot of the cliff, whic'i. 
like the ravine, now bore away to the east, forming its 
southern wall. It was this one we followed, and after 
a while came into a sort of amphitheater, caused by the 
junction of a number of smaller coulees. Here on all 
sides, in every conceivable shape, domes, columns, and- 
all sorts of queer-shaped figures, was the blue clay, devoid 
of any vegetation whatever, nor could we see a living 
thing — no tree nor brush in any direction. Inadvertently- 
stepping into the bottom of the coulee, I went down into 
a soft alkali mud, but scrambled out of it before I pierced 
its depth: perhaps it had no end. I sat clown, and with a 
bit of rock was cleaning my leggins and shoes, when with 
a clatter and rush a band of sheep slipped out of a coulee 
back of us and in an instant were out of sight over the 
trail we had been following. We did not follow theim 
This was about as barren a bit of nature as I had ever 
seen. One could imagine that in the course of his work 
the hand of the world maker had been stopped and his 
plan had remained uncompleted. I expressed something 
of my thought to Sah-ne-to, and she said that Old Man 
had himself finished these plains, and caused the grasses 
to grow upon them, but afterward -he cut the gash where 
the Big River should run and from that cut the rains had 
kept wearing away the banks on either side, forming the 
deep coulees and hills, and carrying off the top soil which 
alone could support vegetation. 
We went up the coulee a ways further, climbed a steep 
ridge and got on top of a long, narrow point overlooking 
another coulee. All the morning during our ramble we 
had seen numerous deoosits of red iron rock, but here we 
found large quantities of it, always in flat, circular form, 
as if it had been melted in a furnace and moulded in this 
shape. I lifted one or two of the smaller cakes and found 
them very heavy. They were scattered promiscuously 
here and there on top of the clay. Crossing the next 
coulee, and over the next ridge we found that we were 
abreast our camp only a half-mile away across the 
flat, and as by this time Sah-ne-to was tired out, we 
turned homeward, seeing no more game, although there 
were fresh tracks everywhere. As we descended into the 
flat a dense low bank of dark fog rolled in from the north 
down the opposite slope, and a few minutes later a fierce 
cold wind was howling over the plains,, and it became so 
dark that we could not see our island. The sudden change 
chilled us thoroughly, and by the time we arrived at the 
tent our fingers and ears were tingling. In two or three 
minutes I had the stove red hot, the tent sufficiently 
warm, and Sah-ne-to began preparations for dinner. I 
have tried all sorts of temporary camps, from the bark 
shelters of the Adirondacks to the. skin lodge of the 
plains, but have found nothing to equal the tent and 
stOA r e for comfort. 
It had been another unsuccessful day, although in a 
section of country abounding in game, the camp was still 
bare of the juicy roasts, broils and rib stews necessary 
for our complete contentment. "Sah-ne-to, 'twas your 
fault ; if you had taken careful aim at the buck, his carcass 
would now hang on the tree just beyond the door- 
way." 
"It is done," she replied. • "The cartridges have been 
fired, the deer has bounded away into the hills; let us talk' 
no more about it." 
Thinking over the incidents of the day, of the ram so 
accurately trailing a band of his kind, reminded me of a 
young elk I used to see on Upper Arrow Creek. Some 
Indians had caught it when it was a calf and given it to 
Mrs. La Mott, whose husband kept a roadhouse. She 
raised it, feeding it milk at first from a bottle, and gradu- 
ally teaching it to drink from a pan, and it became so at- 
tached to her that ft would bleat most dismally whenever 
separated from her for a few moments. Sometimes to 
tease it Mrs. La Mott would put it outside by the front 
door and then leaving the house at the rear side run to the 
timber bordering the creek, and thence up the stream, 
crossing it several times, and finally make a circuit around 
back to the stables. It was never many minutes before 
the uneasy calf, strolling around to the back of the house, 
found her footsteps, and trailed her accurately around the 
course she had taken." Often balked where her mistress 
had jumped the creek or crossed on stepping stones, it 
would circle about until it found the trail once more, and 
hasten on with all speed, and how it would jump and 
buck and play around when it finally overtook her. The 
little thing was hated by the "mule skinners." The 
freight outfits were obliged to camp at Arrow Creek on 
account of water, and it was amusing to see the weary, 
dusty, thirsty mules take after the young elk as soon as 
they were unharnessed. The calf would start up the road 
at first on a walk, the mules crowding after it, all 
curiosity, crowding and kicking each other to get near it. 
From a walk it would change to a trot, and then to a 
swift lope, and presently there would be a straightaway 
run of fifty or a hundred mules and a calf elk for several 
miles, a turn, and as frantic a run back. Then how the 
wagon boss would "cuss" and swear vengeance an the 
little thing. 
