Dec. 30, 1905.1 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
8S7 
travel cautiously through the country and raid the herds 
of the first camp we found. We went on foot, traveling 
by night and sleeping ’during a part of the long, hot days. 
After many nights we arrived at the Big River (Missouri) 
above the falls, right opposite ‘where the Point-of-Rocks 
River (Sun River) joins it. Daylight had come; looking 
up the valley of the little river we could see the lodges of 
a great camp, and band after band of horses striking out 
into the hills to graze. Near us was a coulee where grew 
thick clumps of willows, we hurried to hide in them be- 
fore we -would be seen by any early risers of the strange 
camp. 
“The men held a long talk, planning just what to do. 
They finally decided that it would be best for us to all 
cross the river and then, after taking some of the best 
horses in the camp, strike out eastward instead of re- 
crossing right there. By going east for some distance 
before crossing back, it was thought that the enemy, 
should they follow us, would think us Crees or Assina- 
boines. On some high, dry, well-grassed place we were 
to turn and head for home. There the enemy would 
lose our trail, and keep on in the direction we had been 
traveling, while we could go homeward by easy rides, 
without fear of being overtaken. 
“Soon after nightfall we crossed the river, going up 
the shore until we found a couple of big logs left by the 
high water. The men rolled them into the stream, lashed 
them together, placed their weapons and clothes and us 
two women on the raft and then, hanging on with one 
hand, and paddling with the other and kicking hard, they 
soon got it safely across. As soon as we were landed 
they took off the lashings, pushed the logs out into the 
current, and carefully washed out our foot prints on the 
muddy shore. We had landed just below the mouth of 
Point-of-Rocks River, at the edge of a choke cherry 
thicket, and there we two women were told to remain 
until the men returned. Each of them was to enter the 
camp for himself, cut loose such horses as he could, and 
all were to meet as soon as possible at the thicket there. 
They started off right away, and we two sat down to 
await their return. We talked a little while and then fell 
asleep, for we were both very tired from our long jour- 
ney, and at no lime had we slept as long as we wished 
to. After a time I was awakened by the howling of some 
wolves neai'by ; I looked up at the Seven Persons (the 
Great Dipper) and saw by their position that it was past 
the middle of the night. I aroused my companion and 
we talked again for a time, wondering why none of the 
men had returned, saying that perhaps there was some 
late dancing, or gambling, or feasting in the strange 
camp, and that they were waiting until all would be quiet 
before entering it. Then we slept again. 
“The sun was shining when we awoke, and we sprang 
ip and looked about us; none of our party had returned, 
vve became frightened. We went to the edge of the brush 
and looked out ; away up the valley we could see the horse 
herds again, and riders here and there traveling on the 
hills. I felt certain that the men had been discovered 
and killed, or had been chased so hard that they could not 
return to us. So, also, thought my companion. We be- 
lieved that as soon as night fell again some of them would 
come for us. There was nothing for us to do but remain 
where vye were. It was a long, long day. We had no 
food, but that did not matter. My companion was ter- 
ribly worried. ‘Perhaps my husband has been killed,’ she 
kept saying. ‘Oh, if he has what shall I do?’ 
" ‘I know how you feel,’ I said, ‘I, too, once had a dear 
husband and I lost him.’ 
“ 'But don’t you love your Crow husband?’ she asked. 
“ 'fie is not my husband,’ I replied. ‘I am his slave. 
"We went to the river, washed ourselves and then re- 
turned to the edge of the brush where we could look out 
and sat down. My companion began to cry. ‘Oh,’ she 
said, ‘if they do not return here, if they have been killed, 
what shall we do?’ 
"I had already thought of that, and I told her that far 
to the east on the banks of the Big River my people lived, 
and I would follow it until I found them. There were 
plenty of berries; I could snare the brush rabbits; I had 
flint and steel and could make a fire. I was sure I could 
make the long journey unless some accident happened. 
But I was not to attempt it. Some time after middle day 
we saw- two riders coming along down the edge of Point- 
of-Rocks River, stopping here and there to get off theii 
horses and look at the shore, they were trapping beaver. 
We crawled back into the center of the brush and lay 
down, terribly .scared, scarcely daring to breathe. The 
thicket was a’l criss-crossed by wide buffalo trails, there 
was no good place to hide; if the trappers should enter 
it? They did, and they found us; and one seized me 
and the other took my companion. They made us get up 
on their horses and brought us to their lodges. All the 
people crowded around to look at us. This was not new 
to me, and I just looked back at them, but my friend 
covered her head with her robe and wept loudly. 
“This was the Blood tribe of the Blackfeet. I could 
not understand their language, but I could hand talk (the 
sign language). The man who had captured me began 
to ask questions. Who was I, where was I from, what 
was I doing down there in the brush? I told him. Then 
he told me that his people had surprised a war patty 
sneaking into camp in the night, had killed four of them, 
and pursued the others to the breaks of the river below, 
where they managed to get away in the deep, dark cut 
coulees. 
“‘Was one of those you killed,’ I asked, ‘a tall man 
who wore a real bear’s (grizzly) claw necklace?’ 
‘■-He made the sign for yes. 
“Then my Crow chief was dead ! I cannot tell you 
just how I felt. He had been good to me, very kind. But 
he, or those with him, had killed my young husband; 
that I could not forget. I thought of his five wives ; they 
would not miss him, all the great horse herd would be 
theirs ; they would be glad when I, too, did not return. 
“You have seen Deaf Man, the Blood who was here 
talking with me to-day. I lived in his lodge many years, 
and he and his wives were very kind to me. After a 
time I could think of my own people without crying, and 
made up my mind that I would never see them again. I 
was no longer called a slave, and made to do the work 
of others. Deaf Man would say that I was his youngest 
wife, and we would joke about the time he captured 
me. I was his wife and happy. 
“So the winters w-ent and wc grew’ old, and then one 
summer w’hen we w-ere trading in Fort Benton, whom 
should I meet but my good friend here, who had come 
up on a fire boat (steamer) to join her son. That was 
a happy day, for w-e had played together when we were 
children. She went at once to Deaf Man and pleaded 
with him to let me live with her, and he consented. And 
here I am, haopy and contented in my old age. Deaf 
Man comes often to talk wdth us and smoke his pipe. We 
were glad of his visit to-day, and when he went home 
he carried much tobacco, and a new blanket for his old 
wife. , 
“There, I have told you a long story, my son, and night 
fell long, long since. Go to bed, for you must be up early 
for your hunt to-morrow. The Crow Woman will awake 
you. Yes, these Blackfeet gave me that name. 1 hated 
it once, but have got used to it. We get used to any- 
thing in time.” 
‘'But wait,” I said. “You did not tell me all. What 
became of the others of your party when' you were at- 
tacked by the Crows?” 
“I did not mention that,” she replied, “for even to this 
day I do not like to think nor speak about it. There 
were many, many bodies scattered along the way of flight, 
scalped, naked, bloody, and dreadfully hacked up. Few 
escaped.” Walter B. Anderson, 
[to be continued.] 
Reese r. 
My first acquaintance with Reeser was brought about 
through a trip for trout when a friend and 1 stopped 
with him over night at his little cabin near the mouth 
of a mountain trout stream. After this I stayed with 
him frequently and learned to know him well. His 
house was very small, but kept scrupulously clean by 
his big, good-natured wife, who was. also an excellent 
cook. To see her climb the ladder to the loft at night 
always reminded me of a bear climbing a tree. I 
reached Reeser's cabin late one evening in the spring, 
and after supper my companion called me to one side 
and insisted that we must hitch up at once and drive 
seven miles to a village, where there was a little country 
hotel. On inquiry, I found that he believed that the 
dish of m,eat that we had eaten for supper had been 
the family cat. He argued that meat in such queer 
little chunks could come off no other animal. But he 
finally quieted down and we had a pleasant evening, 
and he ate many a meal afterward of Mrs. Reeser’s 
cooking. 
Reeser’s spare room was so nearly the exact size of 
the bed, which was a tight fit for two fishermen, that 
his guests usually undressed and dressed in bed. This 
room was on the first floor, and I was much disturbed 
one night by a fierce squeaking that went on all night 
under different parts of the house. . My curiosity was 
satisfied in the morning, however, when I learned that 
Reeser was taming a mink that spent most of its 
time under the floor. He also kept for several years 
a large, white duck that fished for trout and that was 
very skillful at catching under the stones the smaller 
trout that passed up the stream beside the house. 
Reeser’s standing joke was to offer to lend this duck 
to the unsuccessful fisherman of the party. 
Reeser himself was a small, gray-whiskered man, 
whose well-worn clothing so harmonized with the 
woods that I am sure that the trout always mistook 
him for a stump when he stood still. His movements 
were never violent, and his severe exertions were con- 
fined to his trips up the mountain brooks after trout. 
He seldom fished in the main creek, and I am of the 
opinion that he did not know how to fish where the 
water was big. But he was a passed-master of the art 
of fishing a brook with bait. He was never in a hurry, 
had infinite patience in maneuvering to get to the right 
place without being seen, and knew in just what part 
of the pool a trout would be. I stood behind a bush 
one day and watched him, and I could not help think- 
ing that he must be in some way related to the water 
animals. He was so quiet and stealthy in his move- 
ments, his colors blended into his surroundings so 
perfectly, he looked so cunning and so capable of 
beating the trout at its own game, that I wondered how 
any fish could escape him. He had great contempt 
for the town fisherman who arrayed himself in brilliant 
attire and then went plunging- along the stream like 
a colt. He fished with a comparatively stiff rod and 
always jerked toward the bank, so that the little trout 
fell into the bushes when not well hooked. 
Reeser used some stock phrases, and had a few 
superstitions that were amusing to the stranger. A 
man who worked systematically and got along well 
always ‘‘done things in rotation” for him. If asked 
what luck on a trout stream, he usually said that he 
caught “risin’ of seventy,” and then quit because 
“enough’s enough.” He usually prefaced his strong- 
est statements with the clause, “I ask you good morn- 
ing.” He believed that there was a silver mine back 
in the mountains that was occasionally revealed in Ihe 
night by a floating light in the vicinity, and he told of a 
ball of silver that had been found lying on top of a 
rock up one of the mountain streams. He thought 
that the Indians had worked the mines and that their 
ghosts still guarded it. He also knew of a bed of loose 
rocks on a mountain side under which ice lay all 
summer long within a few feet of the surface. 
There were many rattlesnakes in the mountains 
around his cabin, and while not much afraid of thein, he 
still had a wholesome respect for them. He believed 
that they had regular crossings from one mountain to 
another, and he would frequently show me in the 
morning in the dust of the road a track where one had 
crossed. Once he put his little dog on such a track and 
soon brought to bay in the bushes a large, yellow 
rattlesnake. I began to think after this that he knew 
snakes. This dog was once bitten in the lip by a 
large rattlesnake that he was watching to grab and 
shake, and he cured himself by burying in the moist 
earth under the house. VA'hen a heifer on the moun- 
tain side would bawl out suddenly, Reeser would say 
that a rattlesnake had struck at her and would hurry 
away to see what damage had been done. 
He did not hunt much, but occasionally in squirrel 
season he would visit what he called a “chestnut 
orchard” on a bench near the top of the mountain, and 
from which he would return with great stories of the 
black and gray squirrels to be seen there. He was 
always fond of impressing a strange fisherman with the 
number and ferocity of the bears in the neighborhood, 
and near nightfall, in the presence of the fishermen, 
would order Tommy to see to it that the sheep were 
well penned up, so that the bears would not carry them 
off. He was continually telling of some one who had 
seen “signs of a bear;” but I never knew him to kill 
anything larger than a catamount, nunrbers of which 
infested the mountains surrounding his little valley. 
Time has dealt leniently with him, and I suspect that 
in season he is still stealing along the mountain runs, 
dropping his book loaded with anglew'orms into the 
little pool under a log or the root of a tree and snatch- 
ing out of its home the unwary little trout, and that 
when the cold winter shuts him up in the house with 
nothing to see out doors but the black hemlocks 
against the white mountain sides and the blue sky, he 
snuggles close to the old wood stove and waits im- 
patiently for spring while he dreams his fishing 
pleasures over again; or, like the ancient mariner, lures 
the chance visitor into listening to his long-winded ac- 
. counts of his adventures on the waters, or how they 
did things “up in Gulley,” where his boyhood days were 
spent. Chas. Lose. 
The Biography of a Bear. — XIII. 
We broke camp the following morning at an early 
hour, caught up our horses and were soon on our way 
back to Summit Spring. Our bear. Jack, seemed de- 
lighted to be rolling away in the wagon again. We 
took care to have our tobacco and other groceries out 
of his reach, as since his prolonged^ excursion of two 
days before he was unusually voracious. Bread, with 
the short allowance of meat we could spare him, did 
not wholly satisfy his increased appetite, and we had 
observed him supplementing his rations with frogs, and 
now and then a water-snake from the swamp. 
There were plenty of deer and not a few bear in the 
vicinity of our last camp, but the jungles, forest, and 
the rocky gorges and canons, together with some steep 
mountain sides, made the region a difificult hunting 
ground. But it was mainly the spirit of unrest, a re- 
sistless energy that prompted us to keep going, to- 
gether with the fascination of continued surprises in 
the way of mountain and forest scenery. Enochs in 
particular was never content to remain in one place 
longer than twenty-four hours, or such a matter. We 
had killed little game, none of us having secured even 
a fair sized buck, although we had seen the tracks of 
many large ones. We did not remain in one camp long 
enough to hunt successfully. It has been my experience 
that it is a difficult thing to establish a camp in a real 
wilderness without alarming most of the game. It will 
disappear and remain hidden for some time, and it is 
necessary for the successful hunter, as a rule, to learn 
the range and runways. 
We had learned of a lake known as Manzenita Lake, 
lying at the base of Mt. Lassen, about fifteen miles 
south of us, and we decided to go to it. We still 
yearned for some big trout, and we had been told that 
this lake was so full of them that they had difficulty 
in getting water enough to keep them from being 
thirsty. To reach it with our wagon we had to return 
to a point on the main road, below Summit Spring, 
where we camped that night and the day following. We 
caught some more small trout in the headwaters of 
Cow Creek, and in the evening Dick and I watched 
a “salt log” a few rods from our camp and the road. 
This log had been salted two years before — several 
auger holes having been bored into it and filled with 
salt. The holes had been nearly gnawed out by deer 
and no salt was now visible, yet deer and many of 
them still gnawed and licked there, as was evidenced by 
the ground having been cut into dust by their hoofs. 
We watched the log from a scaffold in a tree, but no 
deer came until it was too dark for us to see them. 
We only heard them snapping brush, now and then 
snorting as though they suspected our presence. The 
mosquitoes tried to carry us away after sucking most 
of our blood, to which Dick at last objected and we got 
down out of that and went to camp. 
