Juuir li, 1903.ll 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
43 
enough to partly load his two wagons, and had his team- 
sters leave town with apparent secrecy late in the evening. 
Hard had been watching, and followed them. As soon as 
he also took the trail for the north, the trader went to 
the river, made a raft of his cases of alcohol, and, with a 
few provisions, pushed out into the current. Without 
much difficulty he arrived at the mouth of Sun River 
several days later, and cached the spirits, burying the 
cyses in the sand, tn the meantime Hard had followed 
ihe teams, and when they reached the Indian country he 
swooped down upon them one morning with a satisfied 
grin. But that soon changed to one of consternation and 
anger, for a careful -search of the contents of the wagons 
revealed iiot even a flask of anything contraband. 
"Where's Raven Quiver?" he demanded. 
It was the teamsters' turn to grin. "I guess," said one 
of them, "he's back in Helena — 't any rate we left him 
there." 
The marshal saw at once that he had been led a wild 
goose chase, and back he went toward Helena, as fast as 
he could drive. 
After he had been gone an hour or two, the men loaded 
all the trade goods into one wagon, and one of them drove 
the empty one to the mouth of Sun River, where he found 
Raven Quiver waiting for him. Three days later the out- 
fit arrived safely in Canadian territory, and the laugh was 
again on the marshal. 
Fort Quiver consisted of a series of log houses 
forming three sides of a square. There was a cook room, 
living rooms, trade and store rooms. The windows of 
these were high, so one could not look in through them 
from the ground. Broad fire-places of mud-plastered 
stone furnished the necessary heat. While the men were 
building it the Bloods and other Indians often appeared 
and fired a few shots at them at long range. But Raven 
iQuiver had a .50 caliber Sharps rifle, and a few bullets 
from it plowing up the dirt near them always sent them 
away faster than they had come. When the fort was fin- 
ished, however, skirmishing ceased, and the Indians came 
readily enough to trade, knowing that their furs and robes 
-were wanted, and that they would not be harmed so long 
as they behaved themselves. It was an ideal place for a 
trading post. The broad, richly grassed plateaus lying 
ibetween the St. Mary's, Bell}', Kootenay and Old Man 
rivers were a favorite feeding ground for the buffalo, 
which swarmed over them in countless thousands, and 
there were three tribes of Indians — Blackfeet, Bloods, and 
North Piegans — camped along the streams and slaughter- 
ing the animals. The women could not convert the hides 
into soft tanned robes so fast as their lords and masters 
could furnish them. 
The trade room of the fort had a high, bullet-proof 
counter extending clear across it, so high that only the 
trader's head and shoulders were visible above it. Behind 
the counter were a few shelves, where tobacco, red and 
blue cloth, and various other articles were kept. Adjoin- 
ing this room, and communicating with it by passageways 
cut in the partitions behind the counter, were, on the one 
side, a store room for the robes, on the other the room 
where liquor and various bulky goods were kept. All 
across both of these partitions were small loop holes, 
where, in case the Indians should get ugly, the traders 
could shoot through at them without any danger to them- 
selves. When the room was thronged with them, several 
men were generally stationed behind these partitions, and 
the Indians knew it. They seldom made any disturbance 
inside, but sometimes a drunken crowd of them would 
shoot at the buildings under cover of tlie night, just for 
the fun of the thing. 
Although some whisky was used in the Indian trade, the 
greater part of the spirits sold was alcohol, properly 
diluted with water, the amount of the latter depending 
upon the condition of the purchaser. If he was sober, he 
got four parts of water to one of the spirits; if partly 
drunk the proportion was six to one, and if wholly drunk 
it was eight or \m to one. To the alcohol and water a 
small amount of burnt sugar and oil of bourbon was 
added to give it a whisky color and flavor. Really, it 
wasn't a bad drink — much better for the consumer, in fact, 
than cheap whisky. During the days of the northern 
trade, four good head and tail buffalo robes w"ere the 
price of a four-to-one gallon, and the robes were worth 
about six dollars each. The value of one gallon of alco- 
hol, which cost about $6 was therefore tAcnty robes, 
worth $120. There was some profit in the Indian trade! 
The Indians were wont to come to the trading post at 
all times of the day and night; sometimes singly, more 
often in parties of from three or four up to fifty or more. 
Bottles were scarce and they were required to bring a 
keg or some receptacle for the liquors. Some times they 
staid at the post, or, if the weather permitted, built a fire 
ill the nearby timber to have out their orgy. But more 
often they carried the liquor back to camp with them. 
I would like to know why all uncivilized races, as soon 
as they get their first drink of liquor, acquire an insatiable 
desire for more, and will barter their most valued posses- 
sions, even their wives, for it. The Blackfoot word for 
drunk is ah-wat-si, which means crazy-brave. It is said 
that in the very earliest history of the trade, when the 
American Fur Company occasionally let the chiefs have 
a little liquor, they got merrily full and were more kind 
and docile than ever. My own observations are that 
liquor made the Indians, as their word aptly expresses it. 
crazy-brave ; they fought with one another frequently, and 
it was generally a duel to the death. Yet I cannot say 
that they quarreled nearly as much or as seriously as so 
many white men would have done. One winter on the 
Missouri, when we had all of the Crees and Blackfeet of 
the north about us, there were only three deaths due to 
drunken fights. Some of the antics of the Indians when 
drunk Avere extremely ludicrous, and not infrequently 
pathetic. I once saw a brave, whom his wives were try- 
ing to catch in order to tie him, clinib to the top of a 
lodge by means of a travoi resting against it, and heed- 
lessly "~seat himself in the forks of the poles over the 
};moke holes, laughing and jeering at his pursuers. One 
of the women promptly threw an armful of dry grass 
upon the fire inside, and as the flame struck him — he had on 
nothing but a breech-clout — he gave a yell and leaped out, 
coming "caflop" to the ground. In an instant the women 
were upon him, securely bound his wrists and ankles, and 
carried him to his couch, where he soon dropped asleep. 
Others again, when under the influence, became exceed- 
ingly depressed, and would cry for hours, mourning for 
their dead. Like their white brothers, whisky made them 
sing; they had a number of "drinking songs,"_ nearly all 
songs without words. Some of them, especially when 
sung by both men and women, were extremely expressive 
of various emotions of love, hate, recklessness and sorrow. 
I remember one which was a favorite with the women. 
It was a simple little thing, yet the expression and ges- 
tures with which they rendered it would have done credit 
to an actor. Here it is, as nearly as our musical notation 
can express it: 
>.ol ^ i ! i J-t 
^ — ♦ 
3 Kaa ^<r 6 lv<r^ -jir • Km. 'fff> . 
0 KiX ^0 <f 4\o 
This, of course, was a drinking song, for the women 
also drank, but not to such a great extent as the men; 
and upon them liquor had the effect of making them ex- 
tremely good natured. 
It was inevitable that Fort Quiver should be the scene 
of several tragedies. Some Indians were killed in the 
trade room during quarrels among themselves, and Po- 
kah-ni-kap-i. Raven Quiver's partner, had a narrow 
escape; an arrow intended for him killed an Indian beside 
whom he was standing. It was here that Calf Shirt, chief 
of the Bloods, met his fate. He was a man of powerful 
physique, very brave, and very brutal. Five or six men 
of his tribe had been killed by him for no cause whatever, 
except that it pleased him to murder them. He was 
greatly feared by all the tribes with whom he was at war, 
as well as by his own people. One day when Raven 
Quiver was in the trade room alone, he came in quite 
drunk and demanded some liquor, which was refused him 
unless he produced something to pay for it. 
"I have nothing," said Calf Shirt, "but I am going to 
have sorne liquor, just the same, for I am the chief; yes, 
the chief of this country. I'll just kill you, young man, 
and take what I want." 
Whereupon he whipped out an old powder and ball re- 
volver and raised it to aim at the trader. Raven Quiver 
had been expecting some such move, and had picked up 
one of the loaded revolvers always kept behind the coun- 
ter. Quicker than the chief, he raised his weapon and 
fired point blank at the Indian's bosom. The chief stag- 
gered slightly, lowering his weapon, and turning, walked 
slowly out of the room and started across the courtyard. 
Raven Quiver followed as far as the door and had another 
shot at him. In one of the living rooms the employes and 
several wolfers, who were visiting the fort, were playing 
a game of poker. As soon as the first shot was fited, they 
rushed outside, saw the chief leave the trade room re- 
volver in hand, and promptly opened fire on him, too. 
Calf Shirt never looked at them, but kept walking slowly 
and steadily ahead, out through the courtj^ard and away 
from the fort. And the men of the fort kept shooting 
until they had emptied their revolvers, and then they 
looked at each other in surprise. Did the old fellow bear 
a channed life, they wondered. About one hundred yards 
from the fort was a deep excavation where the earth had 
been taken with which to cover the roofs of the buildings. 
Calf Shirt had kept walking straight toward it, and at its 
brink stepped forward as if he did not see it. Down he 
tumbled, and the traders, cautiously approaching it, found 
him dead, the revolver still firmly gripped in his hand. 
1 here were sixteen bullet holes in his body, every one of 
them a fatal shot; he had evidently possessed the vitality 
of a grizzly bear. 
The traders carried the body to the river and shoved it 
through a hole in the ice as the easiest way to get rid of it. 
Sorne Bloods, coming to the fort to trade, vTitnessed the 
closing scene, and expressed the greatest satisfaction over 
the death of their chief. None mourned for him except 
his wives. Calf Shirt had always told them that in case of 
his death, from any cause whatever, they should not bury 
him, for he would come to life on the fourth day after his 
demise. The day after he was shot his body was found 
cast up against a pile of driftwood, where there was an 
open place in the river caused by a large spring. His 
wives immediately carried it to the camp, and faithfully 
made medicine over it as he had told them to do for four 
days; they were surprised that he did not come J:o life 
again. They claimed that he did groan and move slightly 
once, and said that if they could have obtained possession 
of the body before it was cast into the river, they would 
surely have succeeded in reviving him. 
Besides the traders of Forts Quiver and Whoop-up, 
there were quite a number of wolfers and camp traders 
in the country. Coming and going all the time, with no 
buildings of any kind to shelter themselves from the at- 
tacks of the Indians with whom they traded, they led an 
exceedingly hazardous life. Their method of trading was 
to go into a camp, barter their liquor for what robes they 
could get in a short time, and then pull out before the In- 
dians had time to get drunk and ugly. They finally 
formed an association, derisively called by outsiders the 
Spitzee Cavalry, and notified all the established traders 
in Montana and the north that they must not sell the 
Indians any more ammunition under penalty of being 
burned out. The reply of Henry Kennedy, a trader on 
Badger Creek, Montana, to the delegation which notified 
him of their intentions, was short and to the point: "I 
shall keep on selling ammunition," he said, "so just turn 
yourselves loose when you get ready. There are not many 
of us here, but we'll try to make things interesting for 
ydu while you're doing the burning." 
They never attempted to carry out their threats; they 
had "put up a large bluff," but it didn't "go" with the 
class of men they had tried to work it on. 
In the summer of 1873 the Canadian Crees stole some 
horses from the Spitzee Cavalry, and the outfit followed 
them to the Cypress Hills, where they killed a large num- 
ber of the Indians, men, women, and children. It was 
another Baker massacre on a small scale, and, as it proved, 
was also wholly unjustifiable, for the camp they attacked 
had not taken their horses. This affair, together with the 
kirge liquor traffic the Americans were carri'ing on, was 
reported to the Canadian Government by the Hudson Bay 
Company, with a demand for protection. The various 
tribes of the Blackfeet no longer traded at their posts,; 
and they were losing a large amount of furs and buffalo 
robes, to which their charter entitled them. It will be 
remembered that they had a monopoly of the fur business 
in Canada. The following spring, 1874, the Government 
started a large force of mounted police westward from 
Winnipeg to stop all this lawlessness. They had no guides, 
no one knew the country, and it was by luck more than 
anything else that they struck the posts of the American 
traders on Belly River. They were out of provisions and 
all other supplies, and, although they had traveled 
through a country teeming with buffalo and other game, 
had no meat ! A hunting party of Indians discovered their 
approach and warned some of the traders that a lot of 
red-coated men with cannon and wagons were coming. 
Raven Quiver and the Whoop-up traders cached their 
liquors, and, although the police searched their outfits, 
not a drop was to be found, to their great disappointment. 
But they were more fortunate further up the river, catch- 
ing a trader named Weatherwax red handed. They con- 
fiscated his whole outfit, worth several thousand dollars, 
and fined him $300 besides. 
Thus ended the whisky trade in the north. It was a 
good thing for the Indians, for they were practically broken 
and demoralized. Nearly everything they possessed had 
gone for liquor — robes, furs and horses — and they were 
almost naked, and had scarcely enough energy left to go 
out and hunt for their daily meat. 
From this time on, until the buft'alo were finally exter- 
manated, Raven Quiver traded in different parts of Mon- 
tana, one year in one place, the next season somewhere 
else, wherever the buffalo and Indians were. He built 
posts on Badger and Dupuyer creeks, near the foot of the 
Rockies. In 1878 the buffalo left the Province of Alberta, 
Canada, and the plains adjacent to the Rockies in Mon- 
tana, as far south as the Missouri, never to return, moving 
east and southward. The winter of '78-79 Raven Quiver 
traded with the Piegans at the foot of the Bear's Paw 
Mountains. In '79 and '80 he had a post on the Judith 
River, near its confluence with Warm Spring Creek, and 
did a good business there, though he traded no liquor that 
year. The buffalo were still working eastward, arid the 
Piegans who were camped near the post were obliged to 
go to Armells Creek and the foot of the Moccasin Moun- 
tains to hunt. In '79 and '80 Raven Quiver rebuilt 
Carrol, on the Missouri, two hundred miles below Fort 
Benton. The Blackfeet, Bloods and Crees were there 
from the north and he got from them 4,000 robes and 3,000 
deer, antelope, elk and beaver skins. The succeeding 
season the trade fell to 2,400 robes. The next winter, '82- 
'83, although he had two trading posts, Carrol and another 
at the Round Butte further down the river, less than 
one hundred robes were taken in; the buffalo had been 
exterminated, almost the last remnants of the great herds 
being killed on the plains adjacent to the Musselshell 
River. A very few bulls and cows, perhaps fifty or sixty 
in all, escaped and for some years roamed in the almost 
impassable bad lands of the Missouri east of the Mussel- 
shell, but the French-Cree halfbreeds at last got them. 
So ended the buffalo trade, a most exciting and profit- 
able business. Of all the traders who succeeded the 
American Fur Company, Raven Quiver was undoubtedly 
the most successful, because he best understood the In- 
dians and had the enviable gift of getting them to do what 
he wanted. In the fall of 1879, for instance, the Piegans 
moved down on the Missouri, to winter near a trader at 
the mouth of the Judith. But Raven Quiver built a place 
seventy-five miles up the latter stream, and when he was 
ready rode down and induced them to move up to his 
place. In his time he handled about 50,000 robes, and 
nearly as many skins of the wolf, deer, elk, antelope and 
beaver. J. W. Schultz. 
Birds by the River. 
The river bridge near my home extends considerably 
beyond the water, over low ground, to a hill running par- 
allel with the stream. A long stairway takes one 
more directly from the bridge to the water's edge, and 
descending it I strolled down through the intervening 
flat. The river here dashes over a stony bed, nearing the 
end of a mile of rapids which required a portage in the 
early navigation. Large trees, more or less undermined, 
lean over the rushing current and invite the passer to 
seat himself on their roots and see the foaming water 
come down, first at the distant falls, then over the nearer 
dam and the slope below. Declining the invitation this 
tirne I kept the trail that marked the way to "the old 
swimmin' hole" and other attractions. Beside it spear- 
m.int was sprouting freshly, and a nibble took me back to 
boyhood in no time, by the magic that sometimes lurks in 
tastes and smells. In a bush a yellow warbler was busily 
hunting insects among the leaves. This is not the "yellow 
bird" known to all who notice birds. The latter, however, 
better named goldfinch, I found not far oft', shining in its 
spring suit of canary and masked with its jetty front- 
let. When it has assumed the subdued tints of the colder 
seasons there is more excuse for confounding the two. 
The warbler seen at a little distance seems of an old gold 
color. Closer observation shows darker markings on the 
hack and dull reddish streaks on the breast. Low trees 
and shrubs are its favorite haunts, and it is as likely to be 
found in town as on the farms. It flits restlessly among 
the boughs, repeating a quick, nervous little song. 
Here on the flat also was the dolorous phoebe, contrast- 
ing with its yellow neighbor. This and some others of the 
flycatchers seem to the beginner in ornithology more dis-- 
couragingly alike than even the sparrows. The wood 
pewee differs from the phosbe in having the lower mandi- 
