42 
FOREST AND STREAM: 
[July i8, 1903. 
Some Old Time Plainsmen. 
II.— Raven Quiver, the Trader. 
Raven Quiver^ as certain Indian tribes called him, was 
rrobably the best known and the most successful of all 
the old time traders. His father was a Canadian, for 
many years a partisan of the American Fur Company. His 
mother was a Mandan, the most interesting of all the 
northwestern tribes. Although members of the great 
Sioux family, as shown by their language, they had other- 
wise nothing in common with the other tribes of that 
stock. Their religion was different, they lived in villages, 
raised crops of various vegetables and corn and manufac- 
tured pottery and colored beads. It may be that they 
were part Sioux and part of some other stock. 
From his earliest youth Raven Quiver was an employe 
of the American Fur Company in one capacity or another, 
until the great firm, in 1865, wound up its affairs and sold 
cut. His first employment was as errand boy and horse 
herder at Fort Benton, in charge of partisan or factor 
Dawson, a rough, burly, but kind-hearted old Scotchman. 
Dawson took a great interest in the youth, and one fall sent 
him on one of the company's batteaus to St. Charles, Mo., 
to attend school. Some time before, Raven Quiver's father 
had severed his connection with the company, and was then 
living on his fine farm in that State. When the holiday 
vacation came the lad set out to visit him. After several 
days' journey he approached the place which had been 
pointed out to him as his father's residence, and met him 
on the road. The old man was surprised and delighted, 
embraced his son and asked anxiously for news of his 
mother and old friends in the far-away Northwest. The 
evening was warm, and they sat for a long time on the 
rail fence bordering the road, talking of western matters. 
At last dusk came, the air grew chilly, and the old man 
shivered. 
"My boy," he said, falteringly, "in yonder house lives a 
woman who considers that she is my wife, and two chil- 
dren of whom I am the father. I have not the heart to 
break the peace and contentment which there reigns ; so, 
in taking you there I must introduce you as a friend from 
the West. But remember this : You are my favorite, 
my best loved child. Come, if you love me, and help me 
conceal the events of my western life, of which they know 
nothing." 
Twice during many years of intimate acquaintance with 
Raven Quiver he reverted to this incident as the bitterest 
moment of his whole life. But such was his love for his 
father, and so perfect his control of his emotions, that 
he bore the ordeal of being introduced as a stranger 
into the home that was rightly his without showing in the 
least his real feelings. He met a pleasant faced, cheerful 
woman, who was very kind to him. He met a boy and 
girl who made friends with him at once, and insisted on 
his going shooting and fishing with them, and sharing 
all their childish pastimes. For ten days he remained 
there, having many long and intimate talks with his 
father, and then he returned to school, never to visit the 
place again. In after years the old gentleman lived a part 
of the time with him in the west, and when he died the 
greater part of his little fortune was found to be willed 
to the half-blood, who in all truth had been his favorite 
son. 
Raven Quiver remained two years at school, and by 
diligent application learned to read, write and figure, and 
then he returned to Fort Benton. When the company 
sold out he scouted for the army several years, and led 
the expedition under Col. Baker which massacred eighty 
ledges of the Piegan Blackfeet on the Marias River, in 
January, 1869. He did this unwillingly, for he had many 
friends among the Piegans. But he had sworn to defend 
the flag, and, moreover. Col. Baker detailed two soldiers 
to keep close behind him and shoot him should be fail in 
any respect to carry out his orders. Baker was after Black 
Weasel's band for the murder of a settler named Clark, 
and for various depredations, but instead Heavy Runner's 
damp was struck just at the dawn of a bitterly cold morn- 
ing. A terrible massacre ensued, men, women, and children 
being indiscriminately killed, and then burned on piles of 
their lodges and household effects. For his share in this 
the Piegans swore they would have Raven Quiver's life, 
and for some time he avoided meeting them, going on a 
prospecting expedition to the far north, until their anger in 
a measure cooled. But they never wholly forgave him, and 
for many years afterward, especially when drunk, made 
attempts to take his life. Raven Quiver eventually mar- 
ried a daughter of Heavy Runner, yet her brother, Red 
Ej'es, was his worst enemy, and every time he got drunk 
would try to kill him. Raven Quiver bore all his abuse 
with more patience than could have been expected, foiling 
every attempt he made. 
I must confess that I had not so much patience. He 
had taken a notion to pot me, too. One night he was howl- 
ing around outside the post, carrying a Henry rifle and 
swearing that he would kill us if he had to watch two 
days for us to come out. "This thing has got to end," I 
said. "It's wearing on my nerves and I can't stand it 
any longer." I picked up a rifle and started for the door, 
but Raven Quiver stopped me. "Don't !" he said. "He 
ought to be killed all right, damn him ! But there's my 
wife, you know ; she thinks a lot of him ; for her sake 
let's put up with it this time, and to-morrow, when he is 
sober, she'll give him a lecture." 
So things went on for years, and it was mere luck that 
Red Eyes didn't get one or the other of us. I think if I 
had had my way, there would be fewer gray hairs in m.y 
head than there are. Yet Raven Quiver's way was the 
best. Red Eyes is a ranchman now of staid demeanor. 
He lives in a two-story house, owns a fine bunch of cattle 
and horses, has cut his hair, and wears the clothes of 
civilization. Twenty years ago who could have believed 
that the wild buffalo hunter of the plains would become 
civilized ! 
Soon after the Baker massacre. Raven Quiver gave up 
the army and joined a prospecting expedition. The mem- 
bers of it were mostly employes of the American Fur 
Company, and were well outfitted for the undertaking. 
,Bg§j4^S sacjdle and pack horses tb^y §?Yera} wagons, 
Raven Quiver himself owning and driving a three-yoke 
team of bulls. They used Indian lodges for shelter, and 
were prepared for anything that might happen, from a 
bad storm to an Indian fight. They struck the eastern 
foothills of the Rockies about forty miles from the Mis- 
souri, and traveled northward, keeping as near the moun- 
tains as possible. EA'ery stream they came to was pros- 
, pected for placer gold, but only a few colors were found, 
and late in the fall they finally arrived at Fort Sas-katch- 
cwan, the Hudson Bay Co.'s post on the river of that 
name. Here the prospectors built several log houses and 
prepared to pass the winter. The endless forests and 
muskegs of the far north had a depressing effect upon 
Raven Quiver, the plainsman ; he became homesick, long- 
ing to traverse again the high, dry, sunny prairies of the 
Missouri. It was a long distance from there to Fort 
Benton, five hundred miles and more. The snow lay two 
leet deep on the muskegs, and the weather was bitterly 
cold. Yet Raven Quiver, in spite of the remonstrances 
and warnings of his friends, started forth one morning 
on the long journey, accompanied by a French Canadian, 
who had also tired of life in the north. Each man rode a 
good horse. Strapped to their saddles were a couple of 
blankets, a few pounds of pemmican, and, except their 
rifles and ammunition, this was about all they carried for 
the long trip. They were several days passing the timber 
country, and when they finally came out of the deep snow 
on to the rolling plains, their scant store of food was 
gone. The weather continued cold, but still and clear. 
They expected to find plenty of buffalo and other game, 
but not a living thing was to be seen except an occasional 
wolf, coyote, or fox, and these kept well out of range. 
Raven Quiver had a vial of strychnine in his war sack, 
and nightly they put some of it in the manure of their 
horses, hoping that a hungry fox or -coyote might eat it in 
that way and furnish them meat ; but the baits were never 
touched. The further south they traveled the less snow 
they found, but still there was no sign of game, not even 
on the Bow or the Red Deer River. 
On the morning of the sixth day after their food had 
given out, the Frenchman seemed to have lost his mind. 
Before, he had been continually praying' to the Bon Dieu 
and the Virgin to show them the buffalo and preserve 
them from starvation. But now he babbled of his far 
away home, and the incidents of his childhood. His rifle, 
which he had tossed away, Raven Quiver picked up; he 
looked at it absently and refused to lay it across his sad- 
dle again. Finally he would not even guide his horse, 
and his companion was obliged to lead- it. The young 
man's thoughts were sad. These plains were bare of life, 
yet they should have been dotted with buffalo. His com- 
panion had gone crazy; he himself was faint and weak 
from hunger; he had tightened his belt to the last possible 
notch. To-morrow — ^why to-morrow he also might lose 
his mind, and then both would pensh. He felt that he 
could no longer defer killing one of their horses, yet he 
was loath to do so, for with but one animal they would 
be at the mercy of any wandering party of Indians. And 
again, the distances between the different streams was 
great; if they should be overtaken by a blizzard far from 
one of the timbered valleys, they would surely freeze to 
death. 
Just when their situation seemed to be almost hopeless, 
the clouds suddenly broke away. In the head of a coulee 
near Belly River, Raven Quiver discovered a lone buffalo 
bull quietly feeding. By making a circle he succeeded in 
approaching the animal, still leading his companion's 
horse, and shot it. And then he hurriedly dismounted and 
began to cut it up. He gave the Frenchman a morsel or 
tAvo from the nose, a bit of liver and tripe, a slice of 
kidney, which the poor fellow devoured ravenously, and 
he ate a little himself. Then, loading the two horses with 
the choicest parts of the animal, they went on down to 
the river and unsaddled on an island, where there was a 
great pile of driftwood handy for fuel. That night they 
passed chiefly in roasting and eating meat, and, strange to 
say, the Frenchman recovered his wjts almost as quickly 
as he had lost them. 
From there on to Fort Benton, more than two hundred 
miles, they were never out of sight of the buffalo, and 
lulled meat whenever they needed it, At the Goosebill, a 
butte between the Marias and Teton riA^ers, a party of 
Blood Indians chased them". But they had taken great 
care of their horses, and were finally enabled to get away, 
although for a time they were in great danger, as the bul- 
lets of the enemy whizzed all around them. They re- 
turned the fire to the best of their ability, and succeeded 
in tumbling one Indian from his horse. That evening 
they arrived at Fort Benton, twenty days after leaving the 
Saskatchewan. Probably no men ever more thoroughly 
enjoyed the comfort of a warm log house and bright fire 
than they did that night. Their journey was one of the 
longest and most hazardous ever undertaken in the West 
in the winter time, and Raven Quivers friend listened 
attentively to the story he told them before the blazing 
fire in the wide mud hearth. 
After the American Fur Company sold out, the Indian 
trade was carried on by several firms in Fort Benton, and 
by a number of other traders who, getting outfits from 
these firms, would make short trips to the Indian camps, 
wherever they might be. The Indians eagerly exchanged 
tlieir buffalo robes and furs for sugar, coffee, bright 
clothes, red paint, beads, firearms, ammunition and to- 
bacco, paying enormous prices for them. Above all else, 
however,_ they prized the white man's liquor. At this time 
the trading of whisky was a dangerous business, for a 
United States marshal was anxious to catch anyone in the 
Indian_ country with liquor in his possession. He was 
authorized to confiscate the whole outfit of anyone so 
caught — ^teams, wagons, robes, liquor and all. From what 
Avas realized by the sale of all these, the Government re- 
tained only a small share, the officer getting all the rest, 
besides his salary and mileage. 
In 1869 the international line between Canada and the 
western United States had net been surveyed, but near the 
Rockies the northern boundary of Montana, the 49th 
parallel was thought to be Milk River. Beyond that 
a trader was safe from the marshal. Reasoning thus, the 
firm of Healy and Hamilton, with a very large outfit of 
goods and liquors, went north in the summer of 1869 and 
built a bastioned fort at the junction of the St. Mary's 
and Belly rivers, a few miles above the place vi'here the 
tq^vn gf Lethbridge, Province of Alberts, now stands, In 
their haste to cross the Indian country between Fort 
Benton and Canada and avoid an interview Avith the mar- 
shal, they had, in Western parlance, "whooped 'em up;" 
that is, they had urged on their teams with all possible 
dispatch, and hence they named their post Fort Whoop-uo. 
It was fitly named, for they whooped things up there 
also, doing an immense trade that winter with the Blood, 
Blackfeet, and North Piegan Indians, 
The following .summer Raven Quiver determined to go 
into the trade himself, despite the fact that these northern 
Indians were related to the band Col. Baker had mas- 
sacred, and so had no good will for the trader. He had 
a few hundred dollars, enough to purchase several Avagons 
and teams, and his credit was good; he could obtain all 
the goods he Avanted. The main thing was to get across 
the line Avithout being caught by Charles Hard, the mar- 
shal, Avho was extremely vigilant. His headquarters were 
in Helena, but he had the habit of turning up at Fort Ben- 
ton or Sun River crossing, a point midway between these 
two places, when least expected or wanted. The 3'oung 
trader easily found a few men to join him, all old time 
plainsmen, and ready for anything, from a squaw dance to 
a battle. One of these, Po-kah-ni-kap-i, or Child-old-man 
(I do not give the English names of these men for 
obvious reasons), was his full partner, the others, 
employes. 
The necessary outfit of provisions, trade goods and 
liquor were purchased at Fort "Benton, loaded into the 
wagons, and everything made ready for an early start in 
the morning, Avhen who should appear in town but Hard 
the marshal. Raven Quiver never lost sight of him from 
the time he struck town until he went to bed, and then he 
got the teams hitched up and the outfit pulled out for the 
north as fast as the heavy loads would permit, he alone 
remaining behind to keep an ej'e on the marshal. The 
wagons, after being loaded, had fortunately been drawn 
into a stable yard before the marshal arrived, and he had 
not seen them. Almost every man in the little frontier 
place was directly or indirectly interested in the Indian 
trade, and it was not likely that anj^one Avould inform him 
of what was going on. For two days the trader remained 
St the fort, and the marshal loafed around, seemingly hav- 
ing nothing more important to do than to smoke his pipe. 
Satisfied that he had not learned that his outfit had pulled 
out, Raven Quiver mounted his horse just forty-eight 
hours behind them, and overtook the train the next even- 
ing Avhen they Avere camped on the Marias River, eighty 
miles on the way to their destination; all Avas well. 
The next night they camped at the foot of Rocky Spring 
Kidge, and on the following day, as they approached 
Milk River, something happened. AAvay back in the dis- 
tance a dark object was seen rapidly coming on their trail. 
Raven Quiver Avas at once suspicious, and ordered his men 
to fo rce the teams into a trot. Nearer came the object, 
and it was seen to be a team and light Avagon, driven 
furiously by a single man. "The marshal!" cried the 
teamsters, and Avhipped their horses into a swinging lope ; 
Milk River was still several rniles aAvay. Raven Quiver 
finally saw that the marshal would overtake them before 
they could reach it, so he and Po-kah-ni-kap-i, both 
mounted, dropped back to intercept him. There are few 
men who Avill not stop Avhen coming face to face with a 
couple of rifles in determined hands. Hard was as brave 
a man as ever rode the plains, but he didn't attempt to 
pass those gmis; instead, he tried to run a bluff. 
"Well, boys," he sjid, "I've got you; been a hot chase; 
left the fort j ust two an' a half days ago, but I've caught 
you at last." 
"It looks to me," said Raven Quiver, as if we had 
caught you. _ We've crossed the line and will not turn 
back. And if you make us any trouble, or attempt to 
arrest us, just understand at once that you've got to do a 
lot of shooting." 
"What! Do you defy me? Me— a United States 
officer?" 
"You're no officer here; this is Canada. If it isn't, just 
shoAv us the' line. That's where Ave've got you. Hard, and 
you may as Avell stop bluffing. If we can't prove that this 
pcrticular place is in Canada, you can't prove that it isn't. 
If you arrested and took us back, our case would be 
thrown out of court, and you knoAv it." 
Hard gave in, but with no very good grace. 
"Well," he said, surlily, "I'll turn back. You will be 
sneaking more whisky out this Avay, and I'll be on hand ; 
I'll catch you yet" And Avithout another word he turned 
around and took the back trail. 
As soon as the teamsters saw that Hard had stopped, 
they eased up on their teams and drove on sloAvly. The 
Avhole outfit was in good spirits that night around the 
camp-fire; they had stood off the marshal, and there was 
no further trouble to be apprehended. 
The traders chose a broad, open bottom on the north 
side of Belly River, several miles above its junction with 
the Kootenay, for theii" trading post, and in commemora- 
tion of their experience with the marshal, named it Fort 
Stand-off. It Avas built of large logs cut and hauled from 
the timber bordering the river, was mud-chinked, dirt- 
roofed, fire and bullet proof. It was a fairly good loca- 
tion, and a number of robes were traded for that Avinter. 
But it Avas found that they Avould haA^e done better had 
they built further east, the Indians preferring to Avinter 
in the broader and more heavily timbered bottoms of the 
larger streams below. Their rivals at Fort Whoop-up had 
done a much greater business. Stand-off Avas abandoned 
in the spring, and after taking the result of their trade to 
Fort Benton, Raven Quiver and his partner returned north 
and built the fort which was named Fort Quiver. It stood 
at the junction of the Old Man's and Belly rivers, a few 
miles above Whoop-up. 
Hard kept his Avord, and it Avas with great difficulty 
thereafter that the northern traders eluded his vigilance 
and escaped into_ Canada Avith their contraband cargoes. 
Once RaA-en Quiver Avas obliged to go to Helena for 
spirits, as none Avas to be had in Fort Benton. Hard 
was there and folIoAved him about wherever he went. The 
trader spent some days trying to figure out a plan to elude 
his vigilance, but: he finally hit upon one which succeeded 
admirably. Having purchased tAventy cases of alcohol, a 
hundred gallons, he had the dealer quietly haul it to the 
banks of the Missouri, several miles beloAV town. Hard 
Avasn't Avatching the town teams; he kept an eye on the 
trader's wagon and horses at the feed stables. So long as 
they were in sight he felt easy. The alcohol safely carted 
to the rivefj Ravei) Quiver pureljp^d a lot of trade ^00^5^ 
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