In ihe Land of Tendoi. 
I.—Who Were the Broken Moccasins? 
On foot, in November, 1904, I crossed the 
summit of the Rockies by the pass between 
Horse Prairie, Montana, and Lemhi, Idaho. 
There is another pass further south, striking 
the Lemhi nearer its head, which was used by 
Joseph and his Nez Perces in 1877, just before 
their slaughter of Col. Shoup’s freighters on 
Birch Creek, but the former has the earlier his¬ 
tory, for it was here that Lewis and Clark first 
crossed the main range on their westward jour¬ 
ney in 1805. The valley on the east they named 
the Shoshone Cove, but in the days of Captain 
Bonneville, twenty-seven years later, it had al¬ 
ready become Horse Prairie, and so it has re¬ 
mained to this day. 
Lewis and Clark were enabled to find this 
easy pass with its “large plain Indian road” 
through the knowledge of a Lemhi squaw, the 
wife of Toussaint Charbonneau; and, in fact, 
had it not been for this remarkable woman and- 
the friendly assistance of the Lemhi Shoshones 
and their chief Cameahwait (Ke'mi'-a-waet)), 
could never have completed their journey that 
season, and a failure to do so then would prob¬ 
ably have meant the failure of the expedition. 
Though fairly well settled ‘(in the Western 
sensei on both sides of the mountains, this coun¬ 
try is still wild, and the “large plain Indian 
road is yet distinctly visible. In 1805, just 
west of the summit, Drewyer wounded an ani¬ 
mal which “seemed to Irelong to the fox kind, 
rather larger than the small wolf of the plains, 
and with a skin in which black, reddish brown 
and yellow were curiously intermixed” (a 
“skunk bear.” or wolverine), and in 1904 I 
found the fresh track of a mountain lion near 
the same place, where the Red Rock and Salmon 
City stage’ crosses the divide daily, and occas¬ 
ionally is held up in the good old style, and 
usually when there is plenty of dust aboard, too. 
A short distance down the western slope a 
band of Nez Perces, returning from the buffalo 
plains, once camped on the little stream where 
Captain Lewis “stopped to taste for the first 
time the waters of the Columbia,” built sweat 
lodges, and while the men were in the bath 
without weapons and defenseless, a war party 
of Blackfeet fell upon and slaughtered them, 
until, as the Indians express it, the little brook 
ran red with blood. But the Shoshones say that 
the Blackfeet “no savey fight,” that they will 
not run away when at a disadvantage, but will 
stand their ground until all are killed. I have 
heard the Crows say the same thing, which 
shows that the red man’s point of view as re¬ 
gards the philosophy of bravery differs in some 
respects from our own. 
It is an accepted fact that the Indian road was 
used constantly for generations by the tribes 
west of the mountains, who made annual ex¬ 
cursions to the eastern plains in search of buf¬ 
falo, but it is by no means so well known that 
there were also good buffalo ranges west of 
the divide, though naturally not so extensive. 
Upper Lemhi and Birch Creek were favorite 
ground for these animals. I have seen their 
bones in the valleys and high up in the moun¬ 
tain parks, as far west as Lost River. Gray 
Purcell, whose ranch is near the head of Lemhi, 
was told by an Indian that the year before the 
white settlers came in (1854) he had stood on 
the high ground now occupied by the Purcell 
house and had seen the valley black with buf¬ 
falo, though Lewis and Clark make no men¬ 
tion of them west of the Lemhi Pass. 
Following down the little stream which flows 
westward from this pass, one came to the camp 
of Tendoi, The Climber, Chief of the Shoshones, 
Bannacks and Sheep Eaters, who have occupied 
this region as far back as our history runs, but 
who were recently removed to a reservation 
near a big town and a railroad—a sinister com¬ 
bination for the primitive Indian. Tendoi died 
early in 1907, aged eighty-three, before the re¬ 
moval took place. He was (in 1904) an octoge¬ 
narian, and was one of the finest men of his 
race that I have ever known. He had always 
been friendly to the whites and received a life 
pension by special act of Congress, in acknowl¬ 
edgment of his services and influence in keep¬ 
ing his people neutral during the trying time 
of the Nez Perce war, when the latter Indians 
did all in their power to induce the Lemhis to 
join them. Tendoi was very much a gentleman 
and a man in every sense. I lived nearly three 
months in his camp as his guest and saw him 
daily during that time, so I may say I knew 
him fairly well. He was frank, intelligent and 
witty, with a natural dignity which was devoid 
of that ponderous, overbearing quality, so often 
characteristic of chiefs, especially of war chiefs. 
But I never heard him speak of his warlike ex¬ 
ploits—it was not necessary; the garrulous old 
Tissidimit did that for him. 
One day when they were both in my lodge 
the latter entertained me with an account of one 
fight they had with the Blackfeet (Pa'-ki-ha). 
A party of Shoshones on the plains east of the 
mountains were discovered by a superior num¬ 
ber of their hereditary foes who dogged them 
until, on the defensive, the Shoshones con¬ 
structed a fort of logs in which they took 
refuge. The enemy surrounded them, yelling 
defiance. Tendoi, by signs, suggested that they 
smoke. The reply, also by signs, was, “We 
are men, not squaws. Fight.” Tendoi answer¬ 
ed, “Good, Let us fight.” They fought. The 
Idiackfeet, finally retiring, left five dead on the 
field which the Shoshones scalped and muti¬ 
lated, cutting off hands and fingers until, as 
Tissidimit laughingly expressed it, they were 
“heap poor.” The old fellow evidently thought 
it a good joke on the Pa'-ki-ha. Tendoi made 
no comment, but as I watched his features I 
could detect a little fiery twinkle in his eye. 
Few old-time Indians past middle age—or 
white men either, for that matter—will ever 
knowingly mount a bad horse or a bucker, but 
Tendoi proved the exception. One morning 
when he was the only Indian in camp, all the 
others being away in the mountains, he came 
to my tent to have me write a letter to Ft. Hall, 
considering it important that it should go by 
that morning’s mail. The stage road passed 
within a quarter-mile of camp, and before I had 
fairly begun to write we heard the stage go 
rumbling through the mouth of the canon. It 
was all right, he said; he would catch it. So 
he brought up a fresh horse that had not been 
ridden for some some and flung on the saddle. 
The horse was restive and nervous, and as I 
held it for the old man to mount I anticipated 
trouble. Braced back, with his legs half bent, 
the animal waited, like a jack-in-the-box pre¬ 
pared for the loosening of the hook. No sooner 
was the chief in the saddle than up went the 
horse, bucking in a most spirited manner, and 
at about the fourth jump the old man landed 
on his back with a thud and a grunt that fright¬ 
ened me. I caught the horse and tried to per¬ 
suade the venerable rider to relinquish his pro¬ 
ject. I did not want any harm to come to him, 
especially when I was alone with him and miles 
from help, but remount he would and remount 
he did. At the second trial he sat through a 
series of awkward jolts, but finally got the horse 
straightened out and disappeared up the canon. 
That evening, when all returned, I had deter¬ 
mined to say nothing about it, for knowing that 
the old chief had the reputation among both 
Indians and whites of being an excellent horse¬ 
man, I thought he might be sensitive on the 
subject, but he related his experience very, sim¬ 
ply and good naturedly and seemed to enjoy the 
amusement it caused. 
A few nights later this same horse was stolen. 
He had tied it in the Indian fashion on the 
right (north) side of the lodge as you go in, 
and called me over in the morning to inspect 
the end of the rope. He professed to be in 
doubt as to whether the lariat had been cut or 
not, but a close examination showed that it had. 
Noticing his reticence on the subject I suspected 
that the horse had been stolen by some enemy 
in the trihe, and the fact that he had picketed 
it as he did was evidence to my mind that he 
had anticipated something of the sort, though 
these Indians were honest and absolutely friend¬ 
ly in their dealings with me. During my stay 
the nephew of the chief was killed by a white 
man off the reservation, but I could not discover 
any difference whatever in their attitude toward 
me, though among some tribe.s, with the rela¬ 
tives in mourning over such an occurrence, a 
white man in their camp, as I was. would have 
been an unwelcome guest, to say the least, if 
not in positive danger. 
Tendoi frequently came to breakfast in my 
tent, and after eating would usually express his 
satisfaction in sign language. Then he would 
become reminiscent, and knowing that I was 
familiar with several tribes and knew something 
of Indian history, he seemed to delight in talk¬ 
ing of old times, saying that I understood these 
things, but the young Indians knew nothing of 
them. He was an absolute master of the sign 
language and one of the easiest men to under- 
