£)ec. 23 , 1^5.] 
PORESt AND stream 
607 
they go with a roar as they flush ahead of the dogs, and, 
spfeading out .fan-like, each one again Seeks individual 
rover tb burroW dowii deeply amid thb grass roots, therfe 
to defy the nose of the dog and remain quiet eVen -v^ith 
(he breath of the dog upon them. They know where they 
are safe, and save for being actually kicked out would 
ho doubt defy the dog and remain in cover. Was there 
ever such hunting as that, where the dogs are well broken 
.and the birds lie snug and close? And when the birds 
Hush, an open space and view unobstructed above the line 
of the prairie grass for miles between you and the 
horizon. Under such conditions one marvels that a 
prairie chicken can be missed — but missed they are, some- 
times more frequently than at others. 
How fresh the prairie breezes and how exhilarating the 
sport. How welcome is the dinner hour when beside the 
spring the hamper is opened up and its substantial spread 
out. How good to light one’s pipe and spread out upon 
tlie fragrant prairie grass and gaze upon the fleeing 
clouds overhead and think of the afternoon yet to come. 
The dogs lie dreaming by our sides and under the balmy 
influence of the sun’s rays we too drop asleep and walk 
the dreamland prairies. Charles Cristadoro. 
In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
Days 'With the Game. 
Who should roll in one day but Sorrel Horse, and his 
wife, with whom I had passed the summer, and with 
them came young Bear Head, and his Gros Ventre wife, 
whom I had helped him steal from her people. That is, 
I went with him on that expedition to the Gros Ventre 
camp, and gave him very good will in his undertaking if 
nothing more. Berry and his wife were as glad to meet 
them all again as I was, and gave them one of the rooms 
in the fort until such time as Sorrel Horse should have 
a cabin of kis own. He had decided to winter with us. 
trap beaver and poison wolves, and perhaps do a little 
trading with the Indians. With Bear Head to help him, 
he soon built a comfortable two-room cabin just back of 
our place, and put in two good fire-places like ours. I 
was glad of the fire-places, for I counted on spending 
s('me little time by them in the long winter evenings to 
come. Nothing on earth gives one such a sense of rest 
and abiding peace as a cheerful blaze in a wide fire-place 
when cold weather comes, and blizzards from the north 
sweep dov/n over the land. 
Among other things, I had brought west with me a 
' shotgun, and, now that the geese and ducks were moving 
south, I had some very good shooting. Whenever I went 
out for a few birds a number of Indians always followed 
■.me to see the sport ; they took as much delight in seeing 
;a bird fall at the crack of the gun as I did in making the 
;shot. Once I dropped eleven widgeons from a flock pass- 
iing by, and the onlookers went wild with enthusiasm over 
;it. But I could never induce them to accept any of the 
jfoiwl I killed; birds and fish they would not eat, regard- 
ring- the latter especially as unclean. All they cared for 
vws,^ ni-tap'-i wak-sin : real food, by which was meant 
d'he meat of buffalo and the various other ruminants. 
.1:11 (November many of the Blackfeet proper came down 
tfrom the north, where they had been summering along 
tlhe Saskatchewan and its tributaries, and following them 
came the Kai'-na, or Bloods, another tribe of the Black- 
feet. ■ The latter went into camp a mile below the Piegans, 
and the former pitched their lodges about half a mile 
above our fort. We now had, including women and chil- 
dren, something like 9,000 or 10,000 Indians about us, and 
tlie traders were kept busy all day long. Buffalo robes 
were not yet prime — the fur did not get its full growth 
until about the first of November — but a fair trade was 
done in beaver, elk, deer and antelope skins. About the 
only groceries the Indians bought were tea, sugar and 
coffee, and they cost them, on an average, $i per pint 
cupful. Blankets — three-point — were $20, or four prime 
head-and-tail buffalo robes, each; a rifle, costing $15, sold 
for $100; whisky — very weak, was $5 per quart, and even 
a package of Chinese vermillion sold of $2. There was 
certainly profit in the trade. As a matter of fact, there 
was not a single thing in the trader’s stock that was not 
an unnecessary article of luxury to the Indian. The 
trader’s argument was something like this : The Indians 
don’t need these things, but if they will have them, they 
must pay my price for them. I’m not risking my life in 
this business for anything but big profits. 
Of course Berry did not expect to get all the trade 
of the three great camps. Parties were continually going 
into Fort Benton with robes and furs, indeed, the larger 
part of the trade went there ; nevertheless, the little fort 
on the Marias did a fine business. 
Winter came early that year, in the fore part of Novem- 
ber. The lakes and streams froze over, there were sev- 
eral falls of snow, which the northwest winds gathered 
up and piled in coulees and on the lee side of the hills. 
It was not long before the buffalo began to keep away 
from the river, where the big camps were. A few, of 
course, were always straggling in, but the great herds 
stayed out on the plains to the north and south of us. 
After the snow fell they went no more to water anyhow, 
as they got enough of it in the form of snow, eaten with 
the grass. So long as they took water in this way they 
remained fat, no mattet how long and severe the winteir 
was; but aS Soon aS the snow began to melt and water 
stood everywhere on the plains in little pools, they drank 
it and lost flesh and fat rapidly. Since the buffalo came 
no more near the stream the Indians were obliged to go 
out on a two or three days’ camping trip, in order to 
get what meat and skins they needed, and several times 
during the season I went with them, accompanying my 
friends. Weasel Tail and Talks-with-the-buffalo. On 
these short hunts few lodges were taken, fifteen or 
twenty people arranging to camp together, so- we were 
somewhat crowded for room. Only enough women to 
do the cooking accompanied the outfit. As a rule, the 
hunters started out together every morning, and sighting 
a large herd of buffalo, approached them as cautiously 
as possible, until finally the animals became alarmed and 
started to run, and then a grand chase took place, and if 
everything was favorable a great many fat cows were 
killed. Nearly all the Piegans had guns of one kind or 
another; either a flint-lcck or percussion-cap, smooth-bore 
or rifle; but in the chase many of them, especially if rid- 
ing swift, trained horses, preferred to use the bow and 
arrow, as two or three arrows could be discharged at as 
many different animals while one was reloading a gun. 
And yet those old smooth-bores were quickly loaded. The 
hunter carried a number of balls in his mouth; as soon 
as his piece was discharged he poured a quantity of pow- 
der from the horn or flask into his hand and thence down 
the barrel ; then taking a ball from his mouth he dropped 
it down on top of the powder, gave the stock a couple of 
sharp blows to settle the charge, and primed the pan or 
put on the cap, as the case might be. When loaded in 
this manner the piece had to be held muzzle up else the 
ball would roll out ; and when ready to shoot the hunter 
fired the instant he brought the gun down to the level 
of the mark. Some of the hunters — fine shots and astride 
exceptionally swift and long-winded horses— often killed 
twenty, and even more, buffalo on a single run, but I 
think the average number to the man was not more than 
three. After one of these hunts the return to the main 
camp was a sanguinary sight. There were string after 
string of pack horses loaded down with meat and hides, 
and some hunters even slung a hide or two or a lot of 
meat across their saddles and perched themselves on top 
of that. There was blood everywhere; on the horses, 
albng the trail, on the clothing, and even on the faces 
of the hunters. 
I went on several of these hunts when the weather was 
so cold that a buffalo hide froze stiff as it dropped away 
from the cut of the knife; yet, the Indians skinned their 
quarry bare-handed. I wore the heaviest of undercloth- 
ing, a thick flannel shirt, a buckskin shirt, coat and waist- 
coat, a short buffalo robe overcoat, and buffalo robe 
"shaps,” and even then there were times when I was un- 
comfortably cold, and my cheeks and nose became sore 
from frequent nippings of frost. The Indians wore only 
a couple of shirts, a pair of blanket or cowskin leggins, 
fur cap, buffalo robe gloves and moccasins — no socks. 
Yet, they never froze, nor even shivered from the cold. 
They attribtuted their indifference to exposure to the 
beneficial effect of their daily baths, which were always 
taken, even if a hole had to be cut in the ice for the pur- 
pose. And they forced their children to accompany 
them, little fellows from three years of age up, dragging 
the unwilling ones from their beds and carrying them 
under their arms to the icy plunge. 
When on these short hunts there was no gambling nor 
dancing. Some medicine man always accompanied a 
party, and the evenings were, passed in praying to the 
sun for success in the hunt, and in singing what I may 
term songs of the hunt, especially the song of the wolf, 
the most successful of hunters. Everyone retired early, 
for there was little cheer in a fire of buffalo chips. 
You have perhaps noticed on the northwestern plains, 
circles of stones or small boulders, varying in size from 
twelve to twenty and more feet in diameter. They were 
used to weight the lower edge of lodge skins, to prevent 
the . structure being blown over by a hard wind, and when 
camp was moved they were simply rolled off of the 
leather. Many of these circles are found miles and miles 
from any water, and you may have wondered how the 
people there encamped managed to assuage their thirst; 
they melted snow ; their horses ate snow with the grass ; 
buffalo chips were used for fuel. The stone circles mark 
the place of an encampment of winter hunters in the long 
ago. Some of them are so ancient that the tops of the 
stones are barely visible above the turf, having gradually 
sunk into the ground of their own weight during suc- 
cessive wet seasons. 
By the latter end of November the trade for robes was 
in full swing, thousands of buffalo had been killed, and 
the women were busily engaged in tanning the hides, a 
task of no little labor. I have often heard and read that 
Indian women received no consideration from their hus- 
bands, and led a life of exceedingly hard and thankless 
work. That is very wide of the truth so far as the natives 
of the northern plains were concerned. It is true, that the 
women gathered fuel for the lodge, bundles of dry wil- 
low, or limbs fmm a fallen cottonwood. They also did 
the cooking, and besides tanning robes, converted the 
skins of deer, elkj antelope and mountain sheep into soft 
buckskin for family use. But never a one of them suf- 
fered from overwork; when they felt like it they rested, 
they realized that there were other days coming, and 
they took their time about anything they had to do. Their 
husbands never interfered with them, any more than they 
did with him in his task of providing the hides and skins, 
and meat, the staff of life. The majority — nearly all of 
them — were naturally industrious and took pride in their 
work; they joyed in putting away parfleche after parfleche 
of choice dried meats and pemmican, in tanning soft robes 
and buckskins for home use or sale, in embroidering 
wonderful patterns of beads or colored porcupine quills 
upon moccasin tops, dresses, leggins and saddle trap- 
pings. When robes were to be traded they got their share 
of the proceeds; if the husband chose to buy liquor, well 
and good; they bought blankets and red and blue trade 
cloth, vermillion, beads, bright prints and various other 
articles of use and adornment. 
Berry and some of his men made several flying trips 
to Fort Benton during the winter, and on one of them 
brought out his mother, who had been living there with 
her companion, the Crow Woman. Mrs. Berry, Sr., was 
a full-blooded Mandan, but very light colored, and brown- 
haired. She was tall and slender, good looking, very 
proud and dignified, but of great kindness of heart. She 
was very good to me, nursing me when ill and giving me 
strange and bitter medicines, always picking up and put- 
ting away with care the things I scattered about, wash- 
ing and mending my clothes, making for me beautiful 
moccasins and warm gloves. She could not have done 
more had she been my own mother; I was under obliga- 
tions to her which nothing could ever repay. When I 
contracted mountain fever, and one evening became delir- 
ious, it was she who tended me, and brought me safely 
out of it. Her companion, the Crow Woman, was 
equally kind to me. She was a woman with a romance, 
and one evening, after I became well acquainted with her, 
she told me the story of her life as we sat before the fire. 
Walter B. Anderson, 
[to be continued.] 
My Last Buffalo Hunt. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
In a part of the summer and all of the fall of 1879 I 
was engaged in helping our post carpenter, being carried 
on “daily duty.” This sort of work should have been 
“extra duty,” for which I would get extra pay, but it 
was not, in my case, ard I need not have continued at it 
more than ten days unless I wanted to do it. I did want 
it. That was why I was not put on the extra pay roll I 
suppose. The quartermaster knew he could get me with- 
out extra pay, then save my pay for some one else. 
After we had built an addition to the hospital and had 
done all other repairs in our line, I next went to painting. 
I was no more a painter than I was a carpenter, but could 
do a little at both these trades and several others besides. 
The new hospital and a row of officers’ quarters needed 
painting and I proceeded to paint them. My term of 
service would be up here about the middle of next De- 
cember, and I lay awake nights now studying how I could 
string out this job of painting so as to get it and my term 
done about the same day. The captain put in his time 
growling to himself and me about my continued stay with 
the quartermaster. He knew better than to do any of his 
growling when it might have some effect with the post 
commander. These captains try every way to keep their 
men out of the quartermaster’s employment; they need 
the men themselves, but some one has got to do this work. 
At last a happy thought struck me. I would get 
through with that painting job a few weeks before I 
would be through with all jobs here, then strike the cap- 
tain for a two weeks’ hunting pass; and I would not get 
it from him; but I theught I knew whom I would get it 
from— the post commarder. I’ll get that pass from the 
colonel’s wife, I told myself. She had the reputation 
among the men of being the real commanding officer. If 
she was, we might easi y have a worse one, but, in fact, 
she seldom meddled with any affairs but her own. 
When I had got to her quarters I painted them from 
top to bottom, doing everything just to suit her; and 
while doing it told her of my anxiety to go hunting next, 
but that I was afraid I could not, and told her why. 
“When you get through here,” she told me, “go to the 
Colonel for that pass. I will see him myself about it.” 
The colonel was only one by brevet, but we always 
addressed him as colonel, an act of Congress had told us 
at one time to stop the use of the brevet when addressing 
these officers, but we were not supposed to know how to 
read at that time, and the officers forgot to tell us, so 
we kept up the old custom, all of us except a few smart 
Alecs did, at least, and the smaik men would stand a good 
chance to be called down when they addressed a brevet- 
colonel or general as captain. I applied to the captain for 
that pass as soon as I was ready for it. It would be only 
a matter of form to ask him for it; I would not get it. 
