466 FOREST AND STREAM. (11^.9,405. 
In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
The Tragedy of the Marias. 
According to arrangement, I joined Berry at the end 
of August, and prepared to accompany him on his 
winter's trading expedition. He offered me a share 
in the venture, but I was not yet ready to accept it; 
I wanted to be absolutely free and independent for a 
few months more, to go and come as I chose, to hunt, 
to roam about with the Indians and study their ways. 
We left Fort Benton early in September with the bull 
train, creeping slowly up the hill out of the bottom, and 
scarcely any, faster over the level of the now brown and 
dry plains. Bulls are slow travelers, and these had a 
heavy load to haul. The quantity and weight of 
merchandise that could be stowed away in those old- 
time “prairie schooners'"' was astonishing. Berry’s 
train now consisted of four eight-yoke teams, drawing- 
twelve wagons in all, loaded with fifty thousand pounds 
of provisions, alcohol, whiskey, and trade goods. There 
were four bullwhackers, a night herder who drove the 
“cavayand” — extra bulls and some saddle horses — a cook, 
three men who were to build the cabins and help with 
the trade, with Berry and his wife, and I. Not a very 
strong party to venture out on the plains in those times, 
but we were well armed, and, hitched to one of the 
trail wagons, was a six-pounder cannon, the mere sight 
or sound .'of - which was calculated to strike terror to 
any hostiles. 
Our destination was a point on the Marias River, 
some forty-five miles north of Fort Benton. Between 
that stream and the Missouri, and north of the Marias 
to the Sweetgrass Hills and beyond, the country was 
simply dark with buffalo, and moreover, the Marias 
was a favorite stream with the Blackfeet for their 
winter encampments, for its wide and by no means deep 
valley was well timbered. In the shelter of the cotton- 
wood groves their lodges were protected from the oc- 
casional north blizzards, there was an ample supply of 
fuel, and fine grass for the horses. There were also' 
great numbers of deer, elk and mountain sheep in the 
valley and its breaks, and the skins of these animals 
were in constant demand; buckskin was largely used 
for the summer clothing and the footwear of the 
people. 
September on the- plains! It was the most perfect 
month of all the year in that region. The nights were 
cool, often frosty; but the days were warm, and the 
clear air was so sweet and bracing that one seemed 
never to get enough of it. Nor could one tire of the 
grand, the wondrous extent of plain and mountains, 
stretching out, looming up in every direction. To the 
west were the dark Rockies, their sharp peaks stand- 
ing out sharply against the pale blue sky; northward 
were the three buttes of the Sweetgrass Hills; east- 
ward dimly loomed the Bear Paws; south, away across 
the Missouri, the pine-clad Highwood Mountains were 
in plain sight; and between all these, around, beyond 
them, was the brown and silent plain, dotted with 
peculiar flat-topped buttes, deeply seamed with stream 
valleys and their numerous coulees. Some men love 
the forest; the deep woods where lone lakes sparkle 
and dark streams flow slow and silent; and it is true 
that they have a charm of their own. But not for 
me, not for me. My choice is the illimitable plain with 
its distant mountains, its lone buttes, its canons fan- 
tastically rock-walled, its lovely valleys beckoning one 
to the shelter of shady groves by the side of limpid 
streams. In the forest one is ever confined to a vie^w 
of a few yards or rods round about; but on the plains 
■ — often I used to climb to the top of a butte, or ridge, 
and sit by the hour gazing at the immense scope of 
country extending far, far to the level horizon in all 
directions except the west, where the Rockies rise so 
abruptly from the general level of the prairie. And 
how good one felt to See the buffalo, and the antelope, 
and the -wolves, scattered everywhere about, feeding, 
resting, playing, roaming about, apparently in as great 
numbers as they had been centuries before. . Little did 
any of us dreamThat they were all so soon to dis- 
appear. 
We were nearly three days traveling the forty-five- 
miles to our destination. We saw no Indians en 
jpute, nor any signs of them. On all xsidcs the buffalo 
and antelope grazed quietly, and those in our path did 
not run far to one side before they stopped, and began 
to crop the short but nutritious grasses. We en- 
camped the second night by a spring at the foot of the 
Goose Bill, a peculiarly shaped butte not far from the 
Marias. The wagons were drawn up in the form of a 
corral, as usual, and in the center of it our lodge was 
put up, a fine -new one of sixteen skins. Berry and 
his wife, a couple of the men and I slept in it, the 
others making their beds in the wagons, on the mer- 
chandise. We had a good supper, Cooked Over a fire 
of buffalo chips, and retired early. The night was 
very dark. Sometime after midnight we were awakened 
by a heavy tramping in the corral; something crashed 
against a wagon on one side of us, and then against 
another one on the other side. The men in the wagolls 
began to call out, asking one another what wa§ up; 
.Berry told us in the lodge to take our rifles and pile 
out. But before we could get out of bed something 
struck our lodge and over it went, the poles snapping 
and breaking, the lodge skin going on and undulatingly 
careening about the corral as if it were endowed with 
life; in the intense darkness we could just see it, danc- 
ing round and round, a fiendish dance to a step of its 
own. At once all was excitement. Mrs. Berry 
shrieked; we men shouted to one another, and with 
one accord we all fled to the shelter of the wagons and 
hurriedly crept under them. Some one fired a shot at 
the gyrating lodge skin; Berry, who was beside me, 
followed suit, and then we all began to shoot, rifles 
cracking on all sides of the corral. For a minute, per- 
haps, the lodge skin whirled about, and dashed from 
one end of the corral to the other more madly than 
ever; and then it stopped and settled down upon the 
ground in a shapeless heap; from under it we heard 
several deep, rasping gasps, and then all was still. 
Berry and, I crawled out, walked cautiously over to 
the dim, white heap and struck a match; and what 
did we see but the body of a huge buffalo bull, still 
almost completely enveloped in the now tattered and 
torn lodge covering. We could never understand how 
and why the old fellow wandered into the corral, nor 
why, when he charged the lodge, some of us were not 
trampled upon. Berry and his wife occupied the back 
side of the lodge, and he went right over them in his 
mad career, apparently without even putting a hoof 
on their bed. 
We arrived at the Marias about noon the next day, 
and went into camp on a fine timbered point. After 
dinner the men began to cut logs for the cabins, and 
Berry and I, mounting our horses, rode up the river 
in quest of meat. We had plenty of fat buffalo cow 
ribs on hand, but thought that a deer or elk would be 
good for a change. On our hunt that day we rode up 
to a point where the “Baker battle” afterward oc- 
curred. That is what it is called, “Baker’s battle,” and 
the place. Baker’s battlefield.” But that was no battle; 
’twas a dreadful massacre. The way of it was this: 
The Piegan Blackfeet had been waylaying miners on 
the trail between Fort Benton and the mines, and they 
had also killed a man named Malcolm Clark, an old 
employe of the American Fur Co., who was living 
with his Indian family near the Bird Tail divide. This 
man Clark, by the way, was a man of fierce and un- 
governable temper, and in a fit of anger had severely 
beaten a young Piegan who was living with him and 
herding his horses. Now if you have anything against 
an Indian, never try to obtain satisfaction by beating 
him; either get your gun and kill him, or leave him 
alone, for if you strike him, blood alone will wipe out 
the disgrace, and sometime or other, when you are 
least expecting it, he will surely kill you. This is 
what happened to Clark. The young man got a passing 
war party to back him, and he, murdered Clark. The 
War Department then concluded that it was time to 
put a stop to the Piegan depredations, and Col. Baker, 
stationed at Fort Shaw, was ordered to seek Black 
Weasel’s band and give them a lesson. It was January 
23, 1870, at daylight that the command arrived at the 
bluff overlooking a wooded bottom of the Marias, and 
there among the trees were pitched eighty lodges of 
the Piegans, not, however. Black Weasel’s band; these 
were under Chief Bear’s Head; but Col. Baker did not 
know that. Bear’s Head’s people were, in the main, 
friendly to the whites. 
In a low tone Col. Baker spoke a few words to his 
men, telling them to keep cool, aim to kill, to spare 
none of the etleffly, and then he gave the cottimaiid to 
fire. A terrible scene ensued. On the day previous 
many of the Men of the camp had gone Out toward the 
Sweet Grass Hills oil a grand buffalo hunt, so, save 
for Chief Bear’s Head and a fe-w old men, lione wdre 
there to return the soldiers’ fire. Their first volley 
was aimed low down into the lodges, and many of 
the sleeping people were killed or wounded in their 
beds. The rest rushed out, men, children, -women, many 
of the latter with babes in their arms, only to be shot 
down at the doorways of their lodges. Bear’s Head, 
frantically waving a paper which bore testimony to 
his good character aild friendliness to the white men, 
ran toward the command On the bluff, shouting to them 
to cease firing, entreating theih to save the wOnien dnd 
children; down he also went, with several bullet holes 
in his body. Of the more than four hundred souls in 
camp at the time, very few escaped. And when it 
was all over, when the last wounded woman and child 
had been put out of misery, the soldiers piled the 
corpses on overturned lodges, firewood and house- 
hold property, and set fire to it all. 
Several years afterward I was on the ground. Every- 
where scattered about in the long grass and brush, 
just where the wolves and foxes had left them, gleamed 
the skulls and bones of those who had been so ruth- 
lessly slaughtered. “How could they have done it?” 
I asked myself, time and time again. “What manner of 
men were those soldiers who deliberately shot down 
defenseless women and innocent children?” They had 
not even the excuse of being drunk; nor was their 
commanding officer intoxicated; nor were they excited, 
or in any danger whatever. Deliberately, coolly, with 
steady and deadly aim, they shot them down, bayonetted 
the wounded, and then tried to burn the bodies of their 
victims. But I will say no more about it; think it over 
yourself and try to find a fit name for men who did 
this.* 
On our way up the river we saw many doe and fawn, 
deer, a bunch of cow and calf elk, but not a buck nor 
bull of either species. On our way homeward, how- 
ever, along toward sunset, the male deer were coming 
in from the breaks and coulees to water, and we got a 
large, fat buck mule deer. Madame Berry hung a 
whole forequarter of it over the lodge fire, and there 
it turned and slowly roasted for hours; about ii o’clock 
she pronounced it done, and although we had eaten 
heartily at dusk, we. could not resist cutting into it, and 
it was so good that in a short time nothing was left 
of the feast but the bones. I know of no way of roast- 
ing meat equal to this. You must have a lodge, to 
prevent draughts, a small fire; suspend the roast from 
a tripod above the blaze, and as it cooks give it an oc- 
casional whirl; hours are required to thoroughly roast 
it, but the result more than repays the labor involved. 
The men soon cut and dragged out the required logs, 
put up the walls of our “fort,” and laid on the roof 
of poles, which was covered with a thick layer of earth. 
'When finished, it formed three sides of a square and 
contained eight rooms, each about sixteen feet square. 
There was a trade room, two living rooms, each of 
which had a rude but servicable fire-place and chimney, 
built of mud-mortared stones. The other rooms were 
for storing merchandise and furs and robes. In the 
partitions of the trade room were numerous small 
holes, through which rifles could be thrust; at the back 
end of the square stood the six-pounder. With all 
these precautions for defense and offense, it was 
thought that even the most reckless party of braves 
would think twice before making an attack upon the 
traders. But, of course, liquor was to be the staple 
*The Baker massacre, which took place Jan. 23, 1870, on the 
Marias River, was in its day a well-known event. The official reports 
declare that 173 Indians were killed and 100 women and children 
captured. Later and more accurate reports led to the belief that 
176 people were killed. Of the killed fifteen men were reported 
as fighting men between the ages of fifteen and thirty-seven, 
eighteen were middle-aged and old men between thirty-seven 
and seventy. The women killed numbered ninety, and the children 
under twelve years of age — many of them infants in arms — fifty-five. 
■VN^hen the news of the massacre reached the East, the newspapers 
took it up, and there was much excitement about it. Gen. 
Sheridan was bitterly assailed for his action. There never was 
any question but that the camp which Major Baker attacked was 
one of friendly Indians; people who had committed no depreda- 
tions. The village to which the murderers belonged was that of 
Mountain Chief, which at the time was camped on Belly River in 
Briti.sh America. Details of this destruction of life will be found 
in Manypenny’s “Our Indian Wards.” 
