2 
FOREST AND STREAM: 
[July 4, 1903- 
« 
Some Old Time Plainsmen. 
I — Beaver Bill, 
All the old timers knew Beaver Bill, and every one of 
them was his friend, because he was such a genial, gener- 
ous, companionable man, and so undeniably brave. It 
matters not wbat his real name was; some of us knew it, 
knew where he was born and raised. He (;ame of a good 
family back in an Eastern State, and there m his old age 
he returned, to pass his remaining days with an aged 
sister. I can imagine how he sat by the fireplace m the 
old homestead, snioking incessantly, thinking of his many 
adventures, and occasionally angrily thumping the floor 
when he felt an extra sharp twinge of rheumatism. And 
1 am sure that he thought often of an Indian's prayer we 
once heard : "Let me not live. O sun, to become old and 
infirm, and racked with pain. Grant that T may die while 
life is still pleasant; that I may die bravely m battle, sud- 
denly cut down bv the foe." ^ 
Reaver often used to speak of that prayer. There s a 
deal of sense in it," he would sa}^ "a whole lot of philoso- 
phy. It's the way I want to go— while life is still pleas- 
ant, and quickly; I don't care how, except that I do BOt 
suffer." 
Alas! The poor fellow suffered terribly for months 
and months before the end c^me. 
One spring we two were floating down a tributary of 
the Missouri in quest of beaver. 1 had joined the old 
plainsman merely for the -pleasure of the trip, and to learn 
something of the ways of the trapper and the trapped, It 
wa9 n small stream we were running, and one day our 
boat brousht up sliarp in a wire fence which spanned it 
from bank to bank. "Fenced the creek!" Bill muttered, 
"Damned if ^he^ haven't ! Pretty soen 't will be se that 
a man can't get "to a stream without asking some rancher's 
permission to go through his field. 
"Well, Bill," I said, "when that time Gofties you wul 
rot want to go through any fields, for the beaver will all 
be gone. As soon as the railroads are built into Montana 
all the streams will be settled upon. While you still have 
' your choice of thousands of good locations, why don't 
you select one and become a rancher yourself?" 
He looked at me in pained surprise. "I a rancher?" 
he exclaimed. "A rancher! getting up early in the morn- 
ing and milking a lot of cows. Plodding along behind an 
old plow; mowing and stacking hay; cutting and thresh- 
ing grain; going home every evening plumb petered out, 
too tired even to think, and tumbling into bed from the 
supper table. The same old round day after day, the same 
old grind year after year. And for what? That's what 
I want to know; for what? Is there any fun in such a 
life?" 
"No, 1 can't say there is any fun in it; but it is such an 
independent life — the rancher is his own boss -" 
"That shows how much you know about ranching," he 
'interrupted. "The rancher isn't his own boss; he's the 
slave of his cattle, his fields, and he's the plaything of the 
weather and the markets. But worst of all, his life is as 
uneventful as that of his barnj'ard cattle." 
In that brief denunciation of ranching, especially the 
last sentence, was explained the fascination the life of a 
trapper had for some men. They were as free as the air 
they breathed; they wanted constant change of environ- 
ment and they had it. They loved to contemplate nature, 
and lived close to her breast. They wanted adventure, 
constant excitement, and they found it in matching their 
skill against the cunning of animals, in penetrating the 
hunting ground of hostile Indians at the risk of their 
lives. 
None of the old time trappers I knew cared for the 
monetary returns of their occupation. They made large 
sums of money every season, from one to three_ thousand 
dollars; sometimes even more; but they spent it quickly, 
seemingly anxious to get rid of the burden and to return 
to the wilderness. And those others of a still more re- 
mote time, Jim Bridger and his contemporaries, wko, fol- 
lowing after Lewis and Clark, explored the whole Rocky 
Mountain region. They were trappers, but it was not the 
pursuit of the beaver that led them far across the plains 
and into the fastnesses of tlie mountains. It was their 
love for adventure; the beaver pelts merely provided the 
means for their expeditions into the great West. They 
were the men who informed the world that the Great 
American Desert was a myth, who blazed the Overland 
and Oregon Trails. They were the vanguard of the 
civilization which has in a few years penetrated to every 
nook and corner of half a continent. 
The northwestern trappers pursued the beaver almost 
exclusively. There were martin, fisher, otter, wolverines 
and mink in the heavily timbered slopes of the mountains, ■ 
but they were only to be taken by running long lines of 
traps on snowshoe.s during the cold winter months. The 
trappers had no relish for that sort of work; where they 
could go with pack and saddle horses, or by boat, the 
fur was safe. The vast number of beaver which in- 
habited the streams of the West was almost beyond belief. 
In their journal Lewis and Clark mention one place on 
the Upper Missouri where three acres of timber had been 
recently cut down by the bu.sy animals. On all the small 
streams the remains of their dams are still to be seen. 
There is one on the Two Medicine River, at the western 
edge of the Blackfeet Reservation, which is half a mile 
long and about eight feet in height. What a tremendous 
undertaking it was for such small animals. Tons and 
tons of earth and stones, cord upofi cord of tree cuttings, 
trunk, limbs and twigs were employed in its construction. 
And it w^as a fine piece of engineering work, for it ex- 
tends from slope to slope of the valley as straight as a 
line'could be surveyed. Tire dam backed up tlie waters of 
the creek for nearly a mile, and in the pond thus formed 
the beavers built their houses — conical structures of 
sticks, mud and stones, which extended from the bottom 
to several feet above tlie surface. The dam has long- 
since been broken through, and the beavers which built it 
probably furnished the fur for our grandmothers' cloaks. 
Beaver Bill was one of the bachelor trappers, so called 
lo distinguish them from those who were married to In- 
dian women. The latter generally lived and traveled with 
the tribe into which they had married. They were never 
so successful as the bachelors, for game of all kinds, and 
especially the timid beaver, fled from the vicinity of a 
great camp. As a class, Bill had a great contempt for 
them. "They are too lazy to live," he used to say. "The 
man catches a few beaver, his wife skins them, fleshes and 
stretches the hides. He shoots some buffalo, she takes 
care of the meat and tans the robes. She cuts the wood, 
carries the water, cooks, breaks and makes camp, sews 
moccasins and buckskin shirts for him while he just lies 
around and smokes. And then when they go to the fort 
to trade, -w'hat does she get for her work? Nothing but 
a thin calico dress and a red checkered shawl, while he 
just naturally blows himself, filling up on red liquor and 
bucking faro." 
In the spring of 1868, soon after the ice went out of the 
streams. Beaver Bill left Fort Benton to trap on the 
upper Milk River, about one hundred and fifty miles 
northwest of the fort. As usual, he went alone, riding a 
good saddle horse and leading three others, which were 
lightly packed with his small A tent, bedding, traps, and 
provisions. Beaver had chosen the Milk River for the 
spring trapping because at that time there were no Indians 
anywhere in that vicinity. The Bloods and Blackfeet 
were camped far north of there, on the Red Deer River, 
fuid the Piegans were somewhere in the vicinity of the 
Cypress Hills. Having arrived at the trapping ground, 
Bill located his camp in some pine timber at the foot of 
the mountains, and kept his horses hobbled in an open 
grassy park still further back, where any passing war 
party would not be liable to see them. Beaver were 
plentiful. At that point several small tributaries of the 
river converged, and each one of them was dammed every 
few hundred yards, every pond thus formed being in- 
habited by a number of beaver families. Bill had a dozen 
traps, and every morning found six or eigkt beaver in 
them, all he cared to skin, flesh and stretch in a daj'. "I 
was having a pretty good time," he said, in telling the 
si cry of the expedition. "No end of beaver, fine weather, 
and a good camp was enough to satisfy any trapper. The 
days were- warm and I used to sit out at the edge of the 
timber fleshing my morning's catch, where I could see 
far down the valle3^ and to the north and south of it. 
I alw ays went a heap on that old saying : 'Forewarned is 
forearmed.' If there were any war parties prowling 
around I wanted to see them before they did me. I had 
my scouts out, too ; the valley and the hills were covered 
with game, and I knew that they would start running in 
every direction at the approach of a party. I was careful 
not to alarm the game, doing all my trapping above camp 
on the streams in the timber. What I did scare there ran 
only a little ways, just out of sight, and went to feeding 
again. There were buffalo, elk, deer and antelope, in- 
numerable bands of them, and they often came within a 
few yards of camp, sometimes closer than I wanted them 
to ; that is, the buffalo, for the temper of an old bull is 
always uncertain. He will often charge a man without 
the least provocation. I never built a fire during the day- 
time; after dark I would start one back in the thick tim- 
ber and cook enough food to last until the next evening. 
The first night I made camp there a skunk came up close 
to the fire and nosed around among my things, attracted 
to the place, no doubt, by the smell of fresh meat. He 
and I got to be pretty good chums, and just as soon as 
night came he would appear for his supper, scraps of 
meat I used to toss him. Finally he became so tame that 
he would take food from my hand. I used to talk to him 
a good deal, and he would sit listening, his head cocked 
to one side, his eyes shining brightly, just as if he 
understood. 'Partner,' I used to say, 'here's a nice piece 
of fried meat ; come and get it, but mind that you behave 
as a gentleman should. You know what I mean, and a 
word to the wise is sufficient.' 
"So the days passed. In a couple of weeks I had 
ninety-five beaver skins. I was doing as well as any 
reasonable trapper could wish. Game was very poor, as 
it always is in the spring, I had used up the last of a 
deer I had killed, and concluded to go up on the moun- 
tain and get a bighorn. A young ram, or a ewe, I knew, 
would be pretty fat and good eating. So one day, after 
taking care of my morning's catch, I started out, and in 
an hour or more came to timber line. Beyond were the 
iKire rocks, shale at first, sloping steeply up to the broken 
cliffs which formed the summit of the mountain. Here 
and there on the shale slope were patches of grass-grown 
turf, fine feeding places for bighorn, but not one of the 
animals was in sight. There were some on the mountain, 
however, for I found their trails running in every direc- 
tion. I went on up tlte shale, and after a hard climb over 
the loose stuff came to the foot of the cliffs. They con- 
sisted of a series of shelves or reefs, one above the other, 
in places perpendicular, and here and there broken away. 
I was climbing up one of thesa broken places, stepping 
from one rock to another, when I landed on one that 
rolled. I lost my balance and went rolling down, too, for 
some distance. It was a wonder that I didn't break a leg 
or an arm in the fall, but I escaped with only some 
scratches and a bruise or two. When I lost my balance 
my rifle flew out of my hand and went clattering down 
among the rocks. Picking it up and looking it over to 
see if it had been injured, I could find nothing wrong 
with it, and resumed my course. I had not gone more 
than three hundred j^ards when a band of ewes appeared 
on the next shelf beyond, and stopped to see what it was 
approaching them. They had probably never before seen 
a man. There was a yearling ram in the bunch, and at 
him I took a careful aim and pulled the trigger ; the ham- 
mer clicked, but there was no report. I recocked the 
rifle and tried again, with the same result. 'A bad car- 
tridge,' I said to myself, and extracting it slipped another 
one into the chamber. The arm was a .50 caliber needle 
gun, considered a fine weapon in those days. The sheep 
were still standing, looking at me curiously. 'Now, then, 
my young fellow,' said I, as I raised the rifle to my 
shoulder, 'you are surely my meat.' But he wasn't; the 
hammer again clicked, that was all, and the sheep, start- 
ing off on a trot, disappeared behind a point of rocks. 
Then I sat down, threw up the breech block of the gun, 
and saw at a glance that the point of the firing pin was 
broken off. There had been a flaw in it, so that the two 
parts were held only by a thin bit of steel, and that had 
been snapped by the jar the weapon got on the rocks. 
Well, perhaps you can imagine how I felt. There I was, i 
at the mercy of almost anything that wanted me ; an old \ 
grizzly bear, a buffalo bull — why, even a bobcat might 
make a break at me, and I was his meat. But there was 
worse to come. From where I sat there was a splendid j 
view of the country down at the foot of the mountain 
and far out on the plains. The park where my horses 
were, although two miles distant, seemed, in the clear 
thin air, to lie almost at my feet. I could even dis- ' 
tinguish the color of the different animals. They were 
grazing peacefully enough, and then suddenly they all 
turned at once and jumped as fast as their hobbles would 
allow toward the upper end of the park. Out from the 
timber came a dozen or more dark figures, took after, 
surrounded, and caught them. In spite of all my pre- 
cautions, a war party had discovered my camp. 
"If I felt badly before, I was dazed now. The breaking ,| 
of the gun was a great misfortune, but I had decided to 
go in to Fort Benton with what furs I had and get it 
repaired or buy a new one. And now I was not only ii 
afoot, but without food, for of course the Indians would 'i 
take all my provisions. But, I reasoned, they will not 
take my t^-aps. If I had just one of them I could catch 
enough beaver for food, and gradually make my way to 
Fort Benton. 
The Indians led my horses out of the park, and after I 
a little while smoke began to curl up through the trees 
v.here my camp was located. No doubt they were having 
a high old feast with the provisions they found there — 
sugar, coffee, bacon, a batch of sour dough bread I had 
baked that morning, and a pot of baked beans. I sat 
there on the cliff for hours, trying to think of some way 
out of the predicament I was in, turning over a dozen , 
pjans in my mind, but rejecting them all. 
"There was but one way out of it: I must get hold of 
my traps or starve. About four o'clock the Indians filed 
out of the timber leading my horses, and, climbing the j 
north slope of the valley, disappeared in another point of I 
timber. I remained where I was until dark, but did not l| 
see them go out of it. I saw through their scheme at ' 
once. Some of the party had remained at the camp to 
pot me when I returned, the others had climbed over the 
ridge to lead me to believe that they were satisfied with , 
the plunder of my outfit and had resumed their journey. 
Well, they were not going to get my hair by any such 
ruse as that. I remained w^here I was until night came 
and the moon arose, and then went down the cliff, down 
over the shale slope and into the timber. The traps were 1 
set in two beaver ponds about three hundred yards above 
the camp. I made my way to the creek they were on, 
and followed it down, passing numerous ponds which I 
had not yet trapped. In every one of them the beaver 
were swimming and splashing about, and it made me 
mad to think that a lot of cussed Indians had knocked 
me out of trapping the best bit of fur country I had 
ever seen. At last I came to the upper one of the two 
ponds I was heading for, and approached the foot of a 
slide where I had set a trap. There was something lying 
across it at the water's edge; I picked it up and saw it 
was the stake to which the chain had been attached : the 
Indians had found and taken the trap. I concluded at 
once that they had taken them all; every trap had been 
set in the water at the foot of a slide, and the stake of 
each one was in plain sight, sloping out from the bank. 
I went on to the next sUde, more slowly and cautiously 
than before, for I thought that some of the enemy might 
be lurking in the brush thereabouts, as well as at the 
camp, waiting to get a shot at me. The trap which had 
been set at that place was also gone, and so was every one 
of the five at that pond. I hesitated some time about 
going on to the next one, which was nearer the camp, but 
finally made up my mind to do it; I was getting pretty 
hungry and wanted a trap. The shores and banks of this 
pond were more open, grassy parks studded with clumps 
of willow brush running back some distance to the pine 
timber. I got down on my hands and knees and crept 
along, keeping as near to the water's edge as possible, 
occasionally rising up and looking back into the brush 
and parks for any sign of the enemy. There was a full 
moon, and the night was nearly as light as day. It was 
the third or fourth time I had cautiously stood up and 
peered over the bank, that, just as I was about to stoop 
and crawl on, I caught the glint of metal in the shadow 
of some willow brush. Long and hard I looked at the 
place, and finally made out what I tooR to be two Indians 
sitting there muffled in their robes. Still, I could not be 
sure. Perhaps I stood five minutes staring at the dim 
figures, and then again I saw the gleam of metal, as if | 
one of them had moved his gun. That was enough; inch 
by inch I sank down below the level of the bank and be- 
gan to crawl back whence I had came. More carefulW, 
more silently than ever, you may be sure. And there was 
a choking lump in my throat, a creepy sensation in my , 
back, which was a fair target for the enemy if they came 
and looked over the bank. Yes, I was thoroughly scared, '■ 
and at the same time I was mad, just choking with anger. 
If my rifle had been in good condition I could have surely " 
plunked one of those silent watchers, perhaps both of- \ 
them, and escaped up the mountain before any of their 
brethren could have arrived from the camp. Well, I ' 
crawled on and on, stopping every now and then to listen, ' 
and finally got back to the other pond, arose, and sneaked 
through the forest up the mountain side. 
"At daylight I was back in my old place on the cliffs. 
Down at my camp smoke was again rising above the tree 
tops, and four Indians were riding my horses down the 
slope toward it. I had sized up their scheme exactly: 
They had tied the animals in the point of timber for the 
night, and then the most of them had sneaked back to | 
the camp to lay for me. Well, I still had a whole skin, \ 
but it was woefully empty. I had never been so hungry 1 
before, 
"Soon after sunrise I saw the war party file out of the ' 
timber and strike off toward the north on a trail used by 
the various tribes of the Blackfeet when traveling along 
the foot of the mountains. They were not riding my 
horses this time, but leading them, and from the size of 
the packs on them I doubted not that they were laden 
v/itli my whole camp outfit and beaver skins. I watched , 
the outfit for several hours, until they disappeared over 
the top of the big ridge which slopes down to the St. , 
Mary's River, and then started for my camp. I was sure ' 
that the war party had all left, having concluded that I : 
