In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
-^ri for Horses. 
(Continued from page 467.) 
The young and middle-aged men of the tribe were 
constantly setting out for, or returning from war, in 
parties of from a dozen to fifty or more. That was 
their recreation, to raid the surrounding tribes who 
preyed upon their vast hunting ground, drive off their 
horses, and take scalps if they could. It was an in- 
spiring sight to witness the return of a party which 
had been successful. A few miles back from camp they 
would don their picturesque war clothes, paint their 
faces, decorate their horses with eagle plumes and paint, 
and then ride quietly to the brow of the valley over- 
looking the village. There they would begin the war 
song, whip their horses into a mad run, and, firing 
guns and driving the animals they had taken before 
them, charge swiftly down the hill into the bottom. 
Long before they arrived, the camp would be in an 
uproar of excitement, and the women, dropping what- 
ever work they had in hand, would rush to meet them, 
followed more slowly and sedately by the men. How 
the women would embrace and hang on to their loved 
ones safely returned; and presently they could be heard 
chanting the praises of husband. Or son, or brother. 
“Fox Head has returned!” one would cry. “Oh, Ai! 
Fox Head, the brave one, has returned, driving before 
him ten of the enemies’ herd. Also, he brings the 
scalp of an enemy whom he killed in battle. Oh, the 
brave one! He brings the weapons of this enemy he 
killed; brave Fox Head!” 
And so it would go on, each woman praising the 
valor of her particular relative; and then the returned 
warriors, tired, hungry, thirsty, but proud of their suc- 
cess and glad to be once more at home, would retire 
to their lodges, and their faithful women folk, mother 
and wife, and sister, would hasten to prepare for them a 
soft couch, and bring cool water, and set out a feast of 
the choicest meat and pemmican and dried berries. 
They were so happy and so proud, that they could not 
sit still; and every now and then one of them would go 
out and walk about among the lodges, again chanting 
praise of the loved one. 
No sooner did one of these parties return than others, 
incited by their success and anxious to emulate it, 
would form a party and start out against the Crows, or 
the Assinaboines, or perhaps the Crees, or some of the 
tribes on the far side of the Back-bone-of-the-world, 
as the Rockies were called. Therefore, I was not sur- 
prised one morning to be told that they were about to 
start on a raid against the Assinaboines. “And you 
can go with us if you wish to,” Talks-with-the-buffalo 
concluded. “You helped your friend to steal a girl, and 
you might as well try your hand at stealing horses.” 
“I will,” I replied. “I’ll go with you; it is just what I 
have been longing to do.” 
When I told Berry of my intention, both he and his 
wife protested strongly against it. “You have no right 
to risk your life,” he said, “for a few cayuses.” “Think 
how your people would mourn,” said his wife, “if any- 
thing should happen to you.” 
But mymind was made up; I was determined to go, 
and I did; 'but not for the intrinsic value of any horses 
or other plunder that I might obtain; it was the excite- 
ment and the novelty of the thing which attracted me. 
There were to be thirty of us, and Heavy Breast, a 
grim and experienced warrior of some forty years, was 
to be our partisan or leader. He himself was the owner 
of a medicine pipe, which was considered to have great 
power. He had carried it on many an expedition, and 
it had alwa3rs brought him and his parties good luck, 
taken them through various conflicts unharmed. But 
for all this, we had to get an old medicine man to pray 
with us in the sacred sweat lodge before we started, and 
to pray for us daily during our absence. Old Lone Elk 
was chosen for this responsible position; his medicine 
was of great power and had found favor with the Sun 
these many years. The sweat lodge was not large 
enough to accommodate us all, so half of the party went 
in at a time, I remaining with my two friends and going 
in with the last division. At the entrance of the sweat 
lodge we. dropped our robes or blankets, our only cov- 
ering, and creeping in at the low doorway, sat around 
the interior in silence while the red hot stones were 
passed in and dropped in a hole in the center. Lone 
Elk began to sprinkle them with a buffalo tail dipped in 
water, and as the stifling hot steam enveloped us, he 
started a song of supplication to the Sun, in which all 
joined. After that the old man prayed long and earn- 
estly, beseeching the Sun to pity us; to carry us safely 
through the dangers which would beset our way, and 
to give us success in our undertaking. Then the medi- 
cine pipe was filled, lighted with a coal which was 
passed in, and as it was passed around, each one, after 
blowing a whiff of smoke toward the heavens and the 
earth, made a short praj^er to the Sun, to Old Man 
and mother earth. And when mj^ turn came, I also 
made the prayer, audibly like the rest, and to the best 
of my ability. No one smiled; my companions believed 
that I was sincere in my avowal to be one of them in 
word, thought and deed. I wanted to know these 
people; to know them thoroughly; and I considered 
that the only way to do so was for a time to live their 
life in every particular in order to win their entire con- 
fidence. And so I made an earnest prayer to the Sun, 
and I thought of something I had learned in other daj^s 
in a far-awaj^ country: “Thou shalt have none other 
gods before Me,” etc. I believed all that once, and 
listened to a blue Presbyterian preacher of a Sunday 
threatening us with hell’s fire and brimstone, and 
the terrible anger of a vengeful God. Why, after hear- 
ing one of those sermons I was afraid to go to bed, 
lest in my sleep I should be snatched into purgatory. 
But all that was now past; I had no more faith, nor 
fear, nor hope, having concluded that one can only 
say, T do not know.” So I prayed to the Sun with 
right good will in the furtherance of my plan. 
It was getting late in the season, and the Assina- 
boines were thought to. be a long \v?iy from us, some- 
where near the mouth of the Little River, as the Black- 
feet' named the stream we call Milk River. So it was 
decided that we should set out on horseback instead of 
afoot. The latter was the favorite way of making a raid, 
for a. party traveling in that manner left no trail, and 
could effectually conceal themselves during the day- 
time. 
So one evening, led by our partisan, we set forth and 
traveled southeastward over the dark plain, paralleling 
the river. My companions were not the befringed and 
beaded and painted and eagle plurne decked warriors 
one leads about and sees pictured. They wore their 
piain, every-day leggings and shirt and moccasins and 
either the blanket or the cowskin toga. But tied to 
their saddles were their beautiful war clothes, and in a 
small parfleche cylinder their eagle plume or horn and 
weasel skin head dresses. When going into battle, if 
there was time, these would be donned; if not, they 
would be carried into the fray, for they were considered 
to be great medicine, the shirt especially, upon which 
was painted its owner’s dream, some animal or star or 
bird, which had appeared to him during the long fast 
he made ere he changed from careless youth to re- 
sponsible warrior. 
We rode hard that night, and morning found us 
within a short distance of the mouth of Marias River. 
In all directions buffalo and antelope were to be seen 
quietly resting or grazing; evidently there were no 
other persons than us anywhere in the vicinity. “It 
will not be necessary to hide ourselves this day,” said 
Heavy .Breast, and detailing one of the party to remain 
on the edge of the bluff for a lookout, he led us down 
into the valley, where we unsaddled and turned our 
horses out by the stream— all but Weasel Tail and I; 
we were told to get some meat. A charge of powder 
and a ball meant much to an Indian, and as I had 
plenty of cartridges for my Henry rifle, and could get 
plenty more, it fell to me to furnish the meat — a pleas- 
ant task. We had not far to go to find it. Less than 
half a mile away we saw a fine band of antelope coming 
into the valley for water, and by keeping behind various 
clumps of sarvis and cherry brush, L managed to get 
within a hundred yards of them, and shot two, both 
bucks, in good order. We took the meat, the tongues, 
liver and tripe and returned to camp, and every one 
was soon busily roasting his favorite portion over the 
fire, every one except Heavy Breast. To him fell 
always the best meat, or a tongue if he wanted it, and 
a youth who was taking his first lesson on the war trail 
cooked it for him, brought him water, cared for his 
horse, was, in fact, his servant. A partisan was a man 
of dignity, and about as unapproachable as an army 
general. While the rest chatted and joked, and told 
j^arns around the camp-fire, he sat apart by himself, 
and by a separate fire if he wished it. He passed much 
time in prayer, and in speculating regarding the por- 
tent of his dreams. It often happened that when far 
from home and almost upon the point of entering an 
enemy’s village, a partisan’s dream would turn the 
party back without their making any attempt to ac- 
complish this object. The Blackfeet were ve'ry super- 
stitious. 
After leaving the Marias, we were careful to conceal 
ourselves and our horses as well as possible during the 
daytime. We skirted the eastern slope of the Bear’s 
Paw Mountains, the eastern edge of the Little Rockies 
. in Blackfoot, Mah-kwi’ is-stuk-iz: Wolf Mountains. 
We expected to find the Gros Ventres encamped some- 
where along here — it will be remembered that they 
were at this time at peace with the Blackfeet — but we 
saw no signs of them less than four or five months old, 
and we concluded that they were still down on the 
Missouri River. Wherever we camped, one or more 
sentinels were kept posted in a position overlooking 
the plains and mountains roundabout, and every even- 
ing they would report that the game was quiet, and that 
there was no sign of any persons except ourselves in 
all that vast region. 
One morning at daylight we found ourselves at the 
foot of a very high butte just east of the Little Rockies, 
which I was told was the Hairy Cap, and well was it 
named, for its entire upper portion was covered with a 
dense growth of pine. We went into camp at the foot 
of it, close to a .spring and in a fine grassy glade en- 
tirely surrounded by brush. Talks-with-the-buffalo and 
I were told to ascend to the summit of the butte and 
remain there until the middle of the day, when others 
would take our place. We had both saved a large 
piece of roast buffalo ribs from the meal of the previous 
evening, so, drinking all the water we could hold and 
lugging our roast, we climbed upward on a broad game 
trail running through the pines, and finally reached the 
summit. We found several war houses here, lodges 
made of poles, brush, pieces of fotten logs so closely 
laid that not a glimmer of a fire could shine through 
them.- It was the way war parties of all tribes had of 
building a fire for cooking or to warm themselves with- 
out betraying their presence to any passing enemy. 
We saw six of these shelters, some of them quite re- 
cently built, and there were probably more in the vicin- 
ity. My companion pointed out one which he had 
helped build two summers before, and he said that the 
butte was frequented by war parties from all the tribes 
of the plains, because it commanded such an extended 
view of the country. Indeed it did. Northward we 
could see the course of Milk River and the plains be- 
yond it. To the south was visible all the plain lying 
between us and the Missouri, and beyond the river 
there was still more plain, the distant Snowy and 
Moccasin mountains and the dark breaks of the Mussel- 
shell. Eastward was a. succession of rolling hills and 
ridges clear to the horizon. 
We sat down and ate our roast meat, and then Talks- 
with-the-buffalo filled and lighted his black stone pipe 
and we smoked. After a little I became very drowsy. 
“You sleep,” said Talks-with-the-buffalo,” and I will 
keep watch.” So I lay down under a tree and was soon 
in dreamland. 
It was about lo o’clock when he awoke me. “Look! 
Look!” he cried excitedly, pointing toward the Mis- 
souri. “A war party coming this way.” 
Rubbing my eyes, I gazed in the direction indicated, 
and saw bands of buffalo skurrying to the east, the 
west and northward toward us, and then I saw a com- 
pact herd of horses coming swiftly toward- the butte, 
driven by a number of riders. “They are either Crees 
or Assinaboines,” said my companion; “they have 
raided the Crows or the Gros Ventres, and fearing pur- 
suit, are hurrying homeward as fast as they can ride.” 
Running, leaping, how we did speed down the side of 
that butte. It seemed but a moment ere we were 
among our companions, giving our news. Then what a 
rush there was to saddle horses, don war clothes and 
head dresses and strip off shield coverings. And now 
Heavy Breast himself ascended the side of the butte 
