8 i6 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[Nov. 21, 1908. 
Indians Killed by a Game Warden. 
Editor Forest and Stream: 
On Oct. 22 the newspapers contained a sensa¬ 
tional and exceedingly inaccurate account of the 
killing of four Indians in western Montana by 
Deputy Warden Charles B. Peyton and his com¬ 
panion, a ranch hand named Herman Rudolph. 
It was stated that Peyton was killed in a fight 
with Indians while attempting to arrest them 
for violating the game laws of the State. 
During a recent visit to the Flathead Indian 
Reservation in the interests of the Montana Na¬ 
tional Bison Range, I took particular pains to 
secure the actual details of this most lamentable 
affair. 
The shooting occurred in Swan River valley, 
directly east of the reservation, where a party 
of eight Indians had gone on their annual hunt. 
The party consisted of two hunters, Kahmel and 
Tsooe, with their wives and Tsooe’s two chil¬ 
dren, a girl of five and a boy between twelve 
and thirteen, whose name was Palasoway. They 
took with them, as is the custom of Indian camp¬ 
ing parties, an old camp man—a man whose busi¬ 
ness was to remain in camp with the women. 
This man’s name was Yellow Mountain. He was 
seventy-two years of age and nearly blind. His 
wife accompanied him. Before setting out, the 
old man obtained a permit from the Indian 
agent to leave the reservation. The three others 
—Kahmel, Tsooe and Tsooe’s boy—each pur¬ 
chased a hunting license, entitling the holder to 
kill one sheep, one goat, one elk and three 
deer. 
One day about the middle of October—said 
to have been Oct. 16—when the men were off 
hunting; Peyton, a deputy game warden, accom¬ 
panied by the ranch hand, Rudolph, visited the 
camp and asked to see the hunters’ papers. He 
was told that the men had their papers with 
them, but would show them to him if he would 
return when they were in camp. The next day 
he and his companion came back a little before 
noon. They entered both lodges and turned 
everything over, examining the contents, doubt¬ 
less for the purpose of ascertaining just how 
much game had been killed. The hunters were 
again absent, but had left their licenses, which 
were shown the warden by the women. The 
men went away, but returned again about sun¬ 
set the same evening. This time the hunters 
were in camp. It was the first time they had 
seen the game warden. He asked to see Yellow 
Mountain’s paper, whereupon the old man dug 
into his pocket and produced his permit to leave 
the reservation. Peyton looked at this paper 
and threw it back in the old man’s face, telling 
him it was not a license and was no good, and 
that he had a right to kill anyone, Indian or 
white man, who was found on the hunting 
ground without a license. The old man did not 
understand English and made no reply. The 
warden told Kahmel that he had better go home, 
but that Tsooe and the boy could hunt more if 
they wanted to. 
During the evening the Indians talked the mat¬ 
ter over and made up their minds that as the 
warden had already visited their camp three 
times, he meant to make them trouble and they 
had better leave, so they decided to pull out at 
daylight in the morning. The women, therefore, 
made ready for an early start, and at break of 
day the men set out to hunt the horses. Some 
of the horses had strayed, so that there was de¬ 
lay in finding them. They were found, however, 
and brought into camp about sunrise. 
The four guns were stacked against a tree. 
The riding horses were saddled and tied to 
bushes, then the pack horses were saddled and 
packed. Kahmel had taken his gun from the 
tree, and the members of the party were on the 
point of mounting to ride away when a shot was 
heard close by. The Indian women exclaimed 
that it must be the white men coming back. This 
proved to be the case, for the next moment Pey¬ 
ton stepped into camp, accompanied by the ranch 
hand, Rudolph, who had been with him on the 
previous visits. Addressing the Indians, Peyton 
said: “What are you doing?” Kahmel, stand¬ 
ing by his horse, ready to mount, with the bridle 
rope in his left hand and his rifle in its sheath 
under his right arm, replied: “We are going 
home. You said I had better go home, and we 
are all going home.” 
Peyton, pointing his finger at old man Yellow 
Mountain, said: “No! no! That man is not 
going.” He thereupon raised his rifle and Kah- 
mel’s wife seeing that he was about to shoot, 
called to her husband to look out, that the man 
was going to shoot. Kahmel, whose face was 
turned away from the game warden at the time, 
immediately stepped around to the other side 
of his horse. The warden instantly stepped 
where he could see him and without a word, 
fired. The bullet struck Kahmel in his left arm 
and passed through his chest, killing him in¬ 
stantly. The warden raised his gun again and 
shot old man Yellow Mountain, who. at the time 
was helping his aged wife upon her horse. Like 
Kahmel, he fell dead at the first shot. 
Tsooe’s wife called out to her husband: “Let’s 
grab his gun before he kills us all,” and rushed 
forward. At the same time her husband, un¬ 
armed, ran toward Peyton from the opposite 
side. Peyton, seeing the woman almost upon 
him, swung his gun around and fired hastily. 
She ducked and the ball passed over her head. 
Then, seeing Tsooe rushing at him from the 
opposite side, he whirled and fired. Tsooe at 
the same time ducked his head, but the bullet 
struck him in the back of the neck and plowed 
down the full length of his back, laying the 
bone bare as if he had been split open with a 
broadax, killing him instantly. 
During the few seconds in which all this was 
happening, no one had noticed the boy, Palaso¬ 
way. He, however, on seeing the game warden 
murdering his people, had evidently rushed to 
the tree where the three guns were standing, 
seized his rifle and turning quickly, fired and 
killed the game warden. At this, the man 
Rudolph, who was standing near by, instantly 
shot the boy, two balls striking him at the base 
of the neck, in front. Seeing him fall, his 
mother ran to him and raised his head on her 
lap. He lifted his eyes and tried to speak, but 
could not, and expired, with blood and froth, 
as his mother told me, pouring out from two 
holes in his throat and chest. 
The man Rudolph now disappeared and was 
not again seen by the Indians. 
Mrs. Tsooe was so overcome with grief that 
at first she declared she would never leave the 
dead bodies of her husband and son, but the 
broken-hearted cries of her little girl and the 
entreaties of the other women finally prevailed, 
and after covering up the bodies, the three 
women and the child traveled a number of miles 
through the woods to the camp of another In¬ 
dian. This Indian returned with them to the 
scene of the tragedy, but owing to the distance 
they were overtaken by night and did not reach 
the place until early in the morning. I after¬ 
ward talked with this man about the details of 
the affair. His story agreed exactly with that 
of the Indian women. I asked him where he 
found the guns. He replied that Kahmel had 
fallen on his, which was still in its sheath; that 
two guns were still standing against the tree 
where the Indians had placed them when sad¬ 
dling their horses, and that the fourth gun lay 
on the ground close to the boy. 
I was told by a number of white men in the 
region that Peyton was a surly, overbearing 
man, usually insulting in his attitude toward 
hunters whose camps he visited, and utterly un¬ 
fit for a position of responsibility. Several 
stated openly that they expected to hear that 
he had been killed, but not by an Indian. 
I was told by both Indians and whites that 
Kahmel and Tsooe, the two hunters who had 
been killed, were among the best men on the 
reservation. They never gambled, never drank, 
never quarreled, but were kind and industrious 
and set an excellent example to the other In¬ 
dians. One of them, Tsooe, had a small ranch 
in Mission Valley which he cultivated. 
The Indians were quiet, peaceable and sober 
and had done no wrong. They had not killed 
as much game as they were entitled to by their 
licenses. The only irregularity on their part 
seems to have been that the old man. Yellow 
Mountain, had no license to hunt. Kahmel ex¬ 
plained to the warden that the old man was too 
old and feeble to hunt, and that he was so nearly 
blind that he could not possibly see to hunt, and 
consequently had not taken a license. This seems 
to have angered the warden, who obviously was 
looking for a pretext to make trouble. 
C. Hart Merriam. 
The Point of View. 
Gifford Pinchot, Chief of the Forest Service 
in the Department of Agriculture, is the author 
of an article in the November number of The 
North American Review, which should be read 
by every intelligent American citizen. It is 
entitled, “The Foundations of Prosperity,” and 
deals regretfully with the wastefulness that has 
characterized our administration of the natural 
resources of the country, such as timber, coal 
and other minerals, oil, etc. Mr. Pinchot urges 
that these resources shall be dealt with so that 
our present use of them shall not impair their 
service to the generations of the future. He 
says: 
“What has it cost us to make this wonderful 
development? One very great and serious cost 
is the creation of an absolute false point of view. 
We have come to think that the things worth 
while, and the only things worth while, are the 
things immediately at hand, and that foresight 
and consideration of the welfare of those who 
are coming after us are negligible factors. This 
is the point of view of the nation as illustrated 
in what it does. The future is left out of ac¬ 
count in the race for immediate results, for the 
immediate dollar. That is the fundamental harm 
that has been done.” 
