My First Black Bear. 
(Concluded from the issiie of Se ; pi . 2.) 
I DID not at that time know anything about the 
different bands this Sioux tribe is split up into, but I 
think these were Teton Sioiix. I had a boy friend 
among them and he called himself a Teton. They had 
a good bunch of ponies, and seemed to be very well 
fixed, for Indians. There was a boy in one of the 
families who was about my age. He and I formed a 
close friendship, and did all our hunting in each other’s 
company. He taught me to handle and ride their 
ponies, and when we got to the buffalo country, taught 
me to kill buffalo. 
I had read all about these Sioux, and had been told 
how mean they were, and I would no more have 
thought of lying down at night with a Sioux and going, 
to sleep than I would think of doing it with the devil. 
But at that time if we were off on a hunt and had got 
too far from home, the Sioux boy and I would hunt a 
good place to camp, stake out our ponies — I rode one 
of his — then build a big fire and wrap ourselves in the 
same blankets and go to sleep. I was in no danger; 
that boy would no more think of hurting me than I would 
of hurting him. 
When Mr. Remington found out what kind of people 
these Indians were he was anxious to keep them with 
us. They knew every foot of this country, and could 
tell us where we could go with the wagon, and where 
we could not. There was a chain of mountains to the 
west of us that we would have to cross; the map said 
they were there, and we afterward found that in this 
case the map was correct, if it was not in regard to 
the desert. The mountains were just where the map 
said they were; and the Indians piloted me across 
them. They were the Laramie Mountains. Then again, 
we were always in danger of having our horses stolen 
by Indians; the only Indians we were likely to meet 
here were the Sioux and Crows. The Crows would not 
touch a white man’s horse; they have always been our 
friends; and while these Sioux were with us no band 
of Sioux would plnuder us. These were about the only 
Indians I have ever seen that were not continually 
begging “chuck-a-way.” They never asked for any- 
thing. If a squaw wanted something — and they seldom 
did — she would come to my fire, fold her hands, then 
stand there until I asked her what was wanted. It was 
generally salt; we had plenty of it and she always got it. 
Another thing that we had plenty of was smoking 
tobacco. There was half a, barrel of it in the wagon. 
It is called long-cut now; it was cut-and-dry then, and 
was sold in bulk, there being no tax on it then. We 
carried it for Indians, the men hardly ever using it. 
The Indian men and boys wanted it and got it. A 
handful of it would last the whole crowd a week. They 
smoked it in cigarettes and tried to get me to use it 
that way, but I had no use for cigarettes. 
When Mr. Remington found that these Indians were 
not begging from morning until night, he told me to let 
the squaws have anything they wanted, if we had it to 
spare; and I did so, but they would not ask for it. 
They used bows and arrows to hunt with. They had 
two old muskets of the kind the Hudson’s Bay Fur 
Company put out then. These had no doubt been out 
since the year i A.D., and looked to be dangerous only 
to the man who would try to use them. They had no 
powder for these, and got none from me; I did not 
want to see them kill themselves. But we shot ten 
times as much game as we could use; they got it, and 
got all our furs and skins. The squaws were kept busy 
part of the time taking care of them. 
I kept no account of time, but think we crossed the 
mountains down near their northern end some time in 
January, or probably later than that, as we kept close 
to the mountains, camping at the foot of them until 
about the first of April. 
We were in the Laramie Plains now, and began to 
meet buffalo. We also met a trader here, and got 
about all the supplies he would let us have. We did 
not meet him any too soon, either, as my wagon was 
nearly empty and Mr. Remington had about made up 
his mind to go to Fort Laramie after supplies. This 
trader came from there, and was on his way north to 
trade with the Indians. 
The only traveling we did for a long time now would 
be to move camp from time to time to find fresh grass 
and more wood. We and the Indians hunted buffalo 
now, the Indians getting the rohes and most of the meat. 
The first time I went for the buffalo I was mounted 
on an Indian pony — I never tried to kill them from one 
of our own horses. My Indian boy chum singled out 
a j'-oung cow, then telling me where to hit her, sent 
me after her. The pony carried me almost on top of 
her, then pointing my pistol — the one that I had shot 
the bear with — right where the boy had told me to, and 
almost close enough to touch the cow, I fired. The 
cow plunged forward and fell, while my pony carried 
me almost an eighth of a mile before I could pull him 
up; then I rode back to the cow, and getting off my 
pony, stood on top of her, wishing that I had a 
daguerreotype (there were no photographs then). 
We had visits every once in a while from Indians. 
They were generally Crows, and they did not seem to be 
in love with our Dacotas; in fact, as I afterward found 
out, had we not been here these Dacotas would not 
have come here at all — at least not this small party. 
One of the Crow chiefs paid us a visit one day when 
there was no one at home but me; the men were off 
on foot, hunting. I entertained him, gave him and 
his party a spread of coffee, bread, boiled ham and 
crackers, then proceeded to stuff him with an imaginary 
account of what great chiefs we were. He wanted to 
know what the Dacotas were doing here. “They are 
our guides. The Great Chief who lives here has them 
to show him the straight road. This Great Chief has 
been sent here by the Great Father in Washington to 
look at this country and see if the Indians are well and 
happy. When, I go back to the Great Father, shall I 
tell him that Little Bear is well?” 
Yes, he wished I would. Do I see the Great Father 
often? 
“Every day when I am at home. We all see him. 
We are his chiefs.” 
Millard Fillmore was the Great Father then; I had 
never seen him in my life. 
The chief gave our horses a' critical examination. 
Had he not been a Crow I should have been right at 
his heels lest one of these horses might get stuck to 
his fingers; but I did not go near him. My big team 
horses seemed to please him best. He called me out to 
know if these were the Great Father’s horses. They 
had no brand on them, he said — he had been looking 
for the “U. S.” 
“No,” I told him, “they belong to the Big Chief 
here. They cost many dollars. Little Bear has hardly 
ponies enough to buy one of them.” I gave him and 
his men a present of tobacco, and they got ready to 
go, when Little Bear wanted to know if we could not 
send those Dacotas home to their own country, He 
could show the Big Chief the road now. 
“Our road will be back in the Dacotas’ country; 
can Little Bear show us the road there?” 
Yes, he could; all over the Dacotas’ country; he 
knew it all. 
“But maybe the Dacotas won’t want you there.” I 
knew that the Crows and Dacotas were bad friends. 
“1 am a Crow,” he said, slapping his breast. “I 
don’t care if the Dacotas want me. I go.” 
He met us again later on, after we had sent the 
Dacotas home. We were not going into their country 
at all now, but were in his country, and I had to in- 
vent another story to account for our still being here. 
He kept us company for several days, and he gave me 
a history of the Cheyennes. He seemed to take a 
fancy to me, and wanted me to stop with his band, but 
Mr. Remington told him that the Great Father would 
not allow it. I had told Remington about the story 
I had dished out to this chief when he had been at 
our camp before, and Mr. Remington corroborated 
everything I had told them. We were all great chiefs, 
even if I was driving a wagon. 
A few days after the chief had paid us his first visit 
we were joined by two troops of cavalry that were out 
on scout from Fort Laramie, 
These were the first real soldiers I had ever seen. 
We had some at home — the National Guard, as they 
are called now; they were the Uniformed Militia then — • 
but they were only playing soldiers. These fellows, 
though, were the real ones that I had read about; they 
could fight Indians. I and my Indian chum put in half 
of our time in their camp trying to do everything that 
they did. 
There were three boys in the two troops. There 
should have been four, but one of the troops was a boy 
shy. These were the “wind jammers”' — trumpeters; I 
got one of their trumpets — they called them “bugles” 
then, and the Indian boy and I kept it going from 
morning until night. We dare not sound it in their 
camp, but we could in our own camp, only a few hun- 
dred yards away. There was no danger here of my 
raising a false alarm when I ground out, “Boots and 
Saddles,” or “Assembly.” 
The captain of the troop that was short of a boy tried 
hard to enlist me; but I was in the West now, and 
not half so anxious to “hunt the flag and take a 
blanket” as I had been a year ago, or as I often was 
years after this. 
A trick that these troopers were at every day was 
vaulting over a bare-backed horse. They caught his 
mane in the left hand, then resting the right hand on 
his withers, would spring. clear over him; then tell me 
to do it. After a few trials I could, if I took one of 
their fifteen hands high horses. A hand, four inches, 
in the height of the horse made a great difference, 
though; I always would land on the horse’s back when 
I took^a big horse. 
We lost our Indians here. The ranking captain, who 
was in command of the squadron, ordered them back 
to their own country again. It seemed that they had 
no- business on this side of the Laramie Mountains. 
Mr. Remington offered to be responsible for them and 
see that they went home when we did; but the captain 
said that as much as he would like to let them go, 
for he knew them and said that they were all right, 
still he had no option; his orders were to keep each 
band where they belonged. He could not do it always, 
he said, but must try. 
The Indians started on their return, loaded with 
robes, furs and dried meat, and all the rough supplies 
their ponies could carry. They had been lucky. They 
could not have come here at all had it not been for us. 
The officers told me that the Crows would have run 
them off long since had we not been here. 
We kept the cavalry company for a while; then 
struck out for ourselves, and in the next few months 
traveled over what are now the States of South 
Dakota, Wyoming, Nebraska and Kansas. It was all 
Indian territory then, except probably Kansas, which ' 
had been made a separate territory, I believe, and late 
in August we brought up at West Port, Missouri; it 
is Kansas City now. Here the expedition disbanded, 
Mr. Remington selling his whole outfit for more than 
he had paid for it a year ago.. They kept only their 
favorite shotguns, and sold everything else in a lump 
to a party of men who were going up through what is 
now Montana and Idaho on a prospecting trip. I 
came very near going also; they wanted me to go, and 
had it not been for Mr. Remington, I should have gone. 
He persuaded me to go home. Our horses were in 
splendid order, every one of them. I had always had a 
great liking for a horse, mule or dog, and although I 
did not know it then, I have since found out that I 
can do about what I please with either of them. I have 
never found a dog which, no matter how cross he was, 
would not obey me and follow me if I wanted him to 
do it; and never have had one offer to bite me — and I 
have handled horses and mules that no one else could 
do much with. I rode cavalry horses for twenty years 
and never had one for any length of time without teach- 
ing him to do about all that a horse can do. I had a 
horse taught to fold his legs under him, lie down, then 
let me lie behind him; and fire across his neck or back. 
This was years before our officers took it up; they 
have since drilled this in the cavalry. 
When I took charge of these two team horses, I 
began to make pets of them right away. They had no 
names. I named one John and the other Charley. 
They soon knew their names and would answer to them. 
I groomed them every day, whether they were working 
or not; fed them sugar and scraps of bread, and after I 
had them a short time never tied them out in the day- 
time unless the buffalo were around us, but let them 
run loose. When I wanted them, all I had to do 
would be to call them up to me. 
We were very ragged now, but the men got them- 
selves clothes here. They got me two suits of every- 
thing I could wear, from caps to shoes; then Mr. 
Remington paid me off, counting out $150 for me, $50 
for the bear skin and the rest for wages; he had prom- 
ised me only $8 a month if I suited him; he paid me 
$10. We went from here to St. Louis by water, the 
men paying my fare in the cabin with them. 
We had to wait in St. Louis a week before we got a 
boat that was bound for the Ohio. They were going 
to Piftsburg, if the water would allow them — it gets 
low at this time in the year' — and they meant to pay 
my fare home. They kept me with them in the hotel 
here. When the boat got in I found that the steward 
wanted a cabin boy, and shipped with him. 
We could not get any higher than Cincinnati, so 
we took the railroad here and at Pittsburg I bade my 
friends good-by. They were going on East, and I 
never saw them again. 
I had seen the West, about which I had read so 
much, and now there was still another part of the globe 
that I had been reading about and wanted to see next, 
but I did not see it just then; I had to wait eighteen 
years before I saw it. I had been reading “Robinson 
Crusoe,” “Cook’s Voyages,” and “The Mutiny of the 
Bounty,” and wanted to visit the islands they told about. 
In 1874, going to San Francisco, ' I shipped on a 
steam whaler bound for the South Pacific, but did not 
ship as a cabin boy this time, and in the course of a 
year visited the most of the islands. Cabia Blanco. 
Cabia Blanco* 
Clarksdale, Miss., Aug. 30 . — Editor Forest and 
Stream: A crippled hand has prevented me earlier from 
obeying the impulse to send tribute to the memory of 
Cabia Blanco, the announcement of whose death in your 
number of Aug. 19 made a painful impression upon me, 
as doubtless it did upon many others of your readers. 
There have always been some names among the con- 
tributors of Forest and Stream that were sought out 
first by me on opening a new number of the magazine, 
whose narrations were read first and with eagerness, as 
being the cream of the current contributions. Among 
these specialized names that of Cabia Blanco was con- 
spicuous. I do not know that I could give any better evi- 
dence of the esteem in which he was held by myself than 
this simple statement affords. 
A feature of Cabia Blanco’s writings, which chiefly 
gave them value, was the air of verity pervading them, 
which carried assurance to the mind of the reader that 
his narratives were relations of adventures that really 
transpired, and with the surrounding circumstances truly 
chronicled. 
The absence of this quality of verity utterly vitiates the 
most ingeniously contrived story, purporting to be a re- 
cital of actual happenings, a defect that no writer is in- 
genious enough to. conceal from all who read his ficti- 
tious lucubrations. It is to be hoped that all of Forest 
and Stream’s contributors shall continue to follow Cabia 
Blatico’s valuable example in this respect hereafter. 
Coahoma. 
