July 21, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
89 
old friends. In most of the homes there was 
little, generally no food, and the people were 
sitting sadly around the stove, drinking wild tea.” 
In the hegira of the old-timers to the Reser¬ 
vation, Berry and I took part. Fort Conrad had 
been sold. Berry bought out the Reservation 
trader, good will and goods, for three hundred 
dollars. 
I got an insane idea in my head that I wanted 
to be a sheepman, and locating some fine springs 
and hay ground about twelve miles above Fort 
Conrad, I built some good sheds, and a house, 
and put up great stacks of hay.. The cattlemen 
burned me out. I guess they did right, for I 
had located the only water for miles around. I 
left the blackened ruins and followed Berry. I 
am glad that they did burn me out, for I thus 
can truthfully say that I had no part in the devas¬ 
tation of Montana’s once lovely plains. 
We built us a home, Nat-ah'-ki and I, in a 
lovely valley where the grass grew green and tall. 
We were a long time building it. Up in the 
mountains where I cut the logs, our camp under 
the towering pines was so pleasant that we could 
hardly leave it for a couple of days to haul home 
a wagon load of material. And there were so 
many pleasant diversions that the ax leaned up 
against a stump- during long dreamy days, while 
we went trout fishing, or trailed a deer or bear, 
or just remained in camp listening to the wind 
in the pine tops, watching the squirrels steal the 
remains of our breakfast, or an occasional grouse 
strutting by. 
“How peaceful it all is here,” Nat-ah'-ki once 
said, “How beautiful the pines, how lovely and 
fragile the things that grow in the damp and 
shadowy places. And yet, there is something 
fearsome about these great forests. My people 
seldom venture into them alone. The hunters 
always in couples or three or four together, the 
women in large numbers when they come to cut 
lodge poles, and their men always with them.” 
“But why are they afraid?” I asked. “I dqn’t 
see why they should be.” 
“There are many reasons,” she replied. “Here 
an enemy can easily lie in wait for one and kill 
without risk to himself. And then—and then 
they say that ghosts live in these long, wide dark 
woods; that they follow a hunter, or steal along 
by his side or in front of him ; that one knows 
they are about, for they sometimes step on a 
stick which snaps, or rustle some loose leaves 
with their feet. Some men, it is said, have even 
seen these ghosts, peering at them from behind 
a distant tree. They had terrible, big wide faces, 
and big wicked eyes. Sometimes I even have 
thought that I was being followed by them. But, 
though I was terribly afraid, I have just kept 
on going, away down there to the spring for 
water. It is when you are away off there chop¬ 
ping and the blows of your ax cease, that I am 
most afraid. I stop and listen; if you begin to 
chop again soon, then all is well, and I go on 
with my work. But if there is a long silence, 
then I begin to fear. I know not what; every¬ 
thing ; the dim shadowy places away out around; 
the wind in the tree tops which seems to be say¬ 
ing something I cannot understand. Oh, I be¬ 
come afraid, and I steal out to see if you are 
still there—if anything has happened to you—” 
“Why—how is that?” I interposed, “I never 
saw you.” 
“No, you didn't see me. I went very quietly, 
very cautiously, just like one of those ghosts 
they talk about; but I always saw you. You 
would be sitting on a log, or lying on the ground, 
smoking, always smoking, and then I would be 
satisfied, and go back as quietly as I came.” 
“But when you came out that way, why didn’t 
you come further and sit down and talk with 
me?” I asked. 
“Had I done so,” she replied, “you would have 
sat still longer idle, smoked more, and talked of 
those things you are ever dreaming and think¬ 
ing about. Don’t you know that the summer is 
nearly gone ? And I do so much want to see 
that house built. I want to have a home of my 
own.” 
Thereupon I would for a time wield the ax 
with more vigor, and then again there would be 
a reaction—rno're days of idleness, or of wander¬ 
ing by the stream, or on the grim mountain 
slopes. But before snow came we had our modest 
home built and furnished, and were content. 
It was the following spring that Nat-ah'-ki’s 
mother died, after a very short illness. After 
the body had been wrapped with many a blanket 
and robe and securely bound with rawhide thongs, 
I was told to prepare a coffin for it. There was 
no lumber for sale within a hundred and fifty 
miles, but the good Jesuits, who had built a mis¬ 
sion nearby, generously gave me the necessary 
boards and I made a long wide box more than 
three feet in height. Then I asked where the 
grave should be dug. Nat-ah'-ki and the mourn¬ 
ing relatives were horrified. "What,” the former 
cried, “burying mother in a hole in the dark, 
heavy cold ground? 
“No! our agent has forbidden burials in trees, 
but he has said nothing about putting our dead 
in coffins on the top of the ground. Take the 
box up on the side of the hill where lie the re¬ 
main of Red Eagle, of other, relatives, and we 
will follow with all the rest in the other wagon.” 
I did as I was told, driving up the valley a 
half mile or so, then turning up on the slope 
where lay half a dozen rude coffins side by side 
on a small level place. Removing the box from 
the wagon, I placed it at some little distance 
from the others and with pick and spade made 
an absolutely level place for it. Then came the 
others, a number of friends and relatives, even 
three men, also relatives of the good woman. 
Never before nor since have I known men to 
attend a funeral. They always remained in their 
lodge and mourned; so this was even greater 
prof f the lve and esteem in which Nat-ah'-ki’s 
mother had been held: 
Nat-ah'-ki, from the moment her mother had 
died; had neither slept nor partaken of food, 
crying, crying all the time. And now she in¬ 
sisted that none but she and I should perform 
the last- ceremonies. We carried the tightly wrap¬ 
ped body and laid it in the big box, very carefully 
and tenderly you may be sure, and then placed 
at the sides and feet of it various little buck¬ 
skin sacks, small parfleche pouches, containing 
needles, awls, thread and all the various imple¬ 
ments and trinkets which she had kept and 
guarded so carefully. I raised and placed in 
position the two boards forming the cover. Every 
one was now crying, even the men. I held a 
nail in position, and drove it partly down. How 
dreadfully they sounded, the hammer blows hol¬ 
lowly, loudly reverberating from the big, half 
empty box. I had kept up thus far pretty well, 
but the cold, harsh, desecrating hammering un¬ 
nerved me. I tossed the implement away, sat 
down, and in spite of all my efforts to control 
myself, I cried with the rest. “I cannot do it,” 
I said, over and over, “I cannot drive those 
nails.” 
Nat-ah'-ki came and sat down, leaned on my 
shoulder and reached out her trembling hands 
for mine. 
“Our mother!” she said, “Our mother! just 
think; we will never, never see her again. Oh, 
why must she have died while she had not even 
begun to grow old.” 
One of the men stepped forward, “Go you two 
home,” he said. “I will nail the boards.” 
So, in the gathering dusk, Nat-ah'-ki and I 
drove home. I unhitched the horses and turned 
them loose; and then, entering the silent house 
we went to bed. The Crow Woman, always 
faithful and kind, came later, and I heard her 
build a fire in the kitchen stove. Presently she 
brought in a lamp, then some tea and a few 
slices of bread and meat. Nat-ah'-ki was asleep; 
bending over me she whispered: “Be more than 
ever kind to her now, my son. Such a good 
mother as she had! There was not one quite 
so good in all the earth; she will miss her so 
much. You must now be to her both her man 
and mother.” 
“I will,” I replied, taking her . hand. “You 
know that I will,” whereupon she passed as 
silently out of the room and out of the house as 
she had come. It was a long, long time though, 
before Nat-ah'-ki recovered her naturally high 
spirits, and even years afterward she would 
awake me in the night, crying, to talk about her 
mother. 
* * * * * 
Since the rails of the great road had ciossed 
the land which White Calf said should never be 
descrated by fire wagons, I thought that we might 
as well ride upon them, but it was some time be¬ 
fore I could persuade Nat-ah'-ki to do so. But 
at last she fell grievously ill, and I prevailed on her 
to see a famous physician who lived in a not far 
distant city, a man who had done much for me, 
and of whose wonderful surgical work I never 
tired telling. So, one morning, we took seats m 
the rear Pullman of a train and started Nat- 
ah'-ki sitting by the open window. Presently we 
came to a bridge spanning an exceedingly deep 
canon, and looking down she gave a little cry of 
surprise and terror, dropped to the floor ana 
covered her face with her hands. I got her back 
on the seat, but it was some time before she rc 
covered her composure. "It looked so awfully 
far down there,” she said, “and supposing the 
bridge had broken, we would all have been 
killed.” 
I assured her that the bridges could not break, 
that the men who built them knew just how 
much they could hold up, and that was more 
than could be loaded on a train. Thenceforth 
she had no fear and loved the swift glide of a 
train, her favorite place in suitable weather being 
a seat out on the rear platform of the last Pull¬ 
man. 
We hadn’t been on the train fifteen minutes, 
when I suddenly realized something that I had nevei 
thought of before. Glancing at the women seated 
here and there, all of them dressed in neat and 
rich fabrics, some of them wearing gorgeous hats, 
I saw that Nat-ah-'-ki was not in their class so 
far as wearing apparel was concerned. She wore 
a plain gingham dress, and carried a shawl and 
a stm bonnet, all of which were considered very 
“swell” up on the Reservation, and had been so 
