Dec. 4, 1909.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
889 
explorers to their chief of a “piece of white 
money,” which was to be a talisman to shield 
them from harm at the hands of the whites as 
long as they kept it. This medal was nowhere 
to be found. I realized the importance of locat¬ 
ing it and bent every endeavor in that direction. 
The Indians evidently knew where it was, but 
their superstitious fears kept them from telling 
me. I ascertained after some years that the 
piece had been buried with the last man who 
owned it. This death happened about the time 
of the Joseph war and the Indians thought that 
the talisman had lost its potency, so there was 
no need of keeping it longer. The Government 
had broken trust with them and they would hide 
the symbol of its perfidy. 
There my information ceased. The medal was 
buried, but where, it was impossible to ascertain 
from the Indians. Even Charley Allen, tried 
friend as he was, when questioned about the 
matter, suddenly became afflicted with loss of 
memory. He did not know where the grave lay. 
He had seen the medal when he was a small 
boy, but it had been lost sight of for years. I 
had learned by this time that it is impossible to 
‘pump’ an Indian. If he does not choose to 
impart a certain piece of information, no amount 
of cross questioning will induce him to give 
it up. 
After several years of amateur detective work, 
and piecing little scraps of information together, 
I reached a conclusion as to the situation of the 
grave which held the medal. I bided my time, 
awaiting an opportunity to enter it. This was 
all the more difficult because, if my surmises 
were correct, the grave containing the medal lay 
right in the backyard of a good friend of mine, 
Natskin. Many times I had sat and talked with 
Natskin about this very medal and he never, by 
the wink of an eyelid, betrayed the slightest in¬ 
timation that he even knew of the location of 
the grave. To obtain the medal andi cover my 
tracks so that my friends would not be able to 
trace the desecration to my door was no easy 
problem. A few more years rolled away be¬ 
fore the opportunity presented itself. Natskin 
and his family decided to visit their cousins, 
the Flatheads, and one May day they loaded up 
their ponies, called the dogs and struck the trail 
across the Bitter Roots. The last tail of the 
hindmost canine had hardly rounded the hill out 
of sight before I was in that garden and on that 
grave with a shovel. In fifteen minutes I had 
unearthed the skeleton, proved my suppositions 
correct by finding the medal reposing upon the 
breast, thrust it into my pocket and was filling 
the grave again. I replaced the earth and kind 
nature assisted in hiding my crime by covering 
the earth with a rank growth of weeds. To this 
day the Sahaptins do not know that the famous 
‘hoi-hoi kitsu” of the first white man is no longer 
in the lonely grave in Natskin’s orchard. 
Natskin’s visit to the Flatheads reminds me 
of a potlatch. Now, a potlatch has nothing to 
do either with a pot or a latch either, but is a 
Chinook word signifying a gift or donation. It 
is used in many senses, but the most common 
one is where a neighbor by some stroke of 
good fortune comes in possession of a large 
supply of food and invites all his neighbors for 
miles around to come in and share it with him. 
A swell dinner at the Waldorf is a sort of civil¬ 
ized potlatch I should judge. 
We were now full fledged members of the 
tribe and as such entitled to be invited to a pot¬ 
latch, so when the irivitation came we did not 
send regrets, though afterward my wife wished 
we had done so. The potlatch was to take 
place some sixteen miles away at a point where 
a considerable stream joined the Kooskia. All 
day the Indians were streaming past, men, 
women, children, dogs, especially the latter. 
About noon we saddled our horses and joined 
the procession. The camp was made in a grove 
of cottonwoods that bordered the stream. This 
grove was filled and the overflow made camp 
on the level flat above. Fires were already 
lighted and the cooking pots were simmering. 
The women were busy as ants gathering up 
the driftwood for fires, while the men, wrapped 
in their blankets, were stalking about doing 
nothing. The horses were picketed on the 
grassy hills back of the camp. A tepee was 
already erected in a nice location for our use, 
and our horses were taken in charge by the 
Indians. While we were of them, they never 
lost sight of the fact that we were in a measure 
guests as well. 
Just before sunset there arose a great com¬ 
motion in camp. All eyes were turned toward 
the hills. Soon over the brow came a drove 
of cattle followed by six Indians, barebacked, 
and perfectly nude save for the breechclout. 
Right into camp they dashed driving the cattle 
before them, scattering things pell mell. The 
cattle came to a stand upon a narrow strip of 
sand, level and clear of brush, where the brook 
and river met. Each Indian was armed with a 
heavy revolver, and these they drew and began 
slaughtering the beeves. They kept up the 
fusilade until the last animal fell riddled with 
bullets. This whole show was gotten up in 
imitation of a buffalo hunt, and taking it al¬ 
together, was not a bad imitation. As soon as 
the last beef fell, the women were upon the 
carcasses with their skinning knives, and be¬ 
fore one was aware, the entire number were 
butchered and the parts assigned. Some of 
the more appetizing portions from the savage 
point of view were reserved and presented to 
us. I may suggest that appetite is largely a 
matter of education, we were too highly edu¬ 
cated to enjoy the portions assigned us. 
Courtesy, however, demanded that we at least 
make an attempt at cooking the feast. All 
around us cooking preparations were in pro¬ 
gress. Boils, stews, roasts were on every camp¬ 
fire. Pretty soon the Indians began feasting. 
They saw our poor success and came to us by 
the dozens with portions of their own food. 
Again courtesy demanded that we at least pre¬ 
tend to partake. I fear the partaking fell en¬ 
tirely to my lot; my .wife was unable to hold 
up her end of the hospitality. The feast ended 
some time in the night. It did not end, how¬ 
ever, until the last vestige of that meat had 
disappeared. An Indian makes it a religious 
rule to never leave anything uneaten.- After 
the feasting the blankets were spread and the 
gambling commenced. A great deal has been 
written about the propensity of the Indian to 
gamble and the evil results flowing from the 
vice. Personally I am unable to see the evil. 
An Indian will bet the last thing he has on 
earth, but in a community where things are held 
practically in common there is no deprivation 
if he loses. An Indian may lose his horse at 
gaming, but you never saw an Indian afoot 
He may lose his shirt, but is never shirtless, 
save from choice. He may lose his revolver, 
yet no Indian goes unarmed. 
The next day the assemblage broke up to 
reassemble at some other potlatch. An Indian 
will give a potlatch and eat up all his food and 
trust to God for more. He may not have the 
slightest idea where the next meal is to come 
from, but that fact does not dampen his charity 
and hospitality the least. 
The generosity of the Sahaptin is perfect. 
He likes best to divide his food with his friend. 
He will present you with anything, but it seems 
that they look upon food as being the most 
acceptible gift, a survival of their times of feast 
and famine no doubt. This dividing habit and 
the fact that they wished us to have the best 
once came near to destroying our appetites. 
One of our Indian friends had the good fortune 
early one spring to kill a doe. She was heavy 
with fawn, but the game law was not on his 
statute books, so that fact cut but little figure. 
When he dressed the animal he bethought him 
that his good friends, the white doctor and his 
wife, might enjoy a feast and what would be 
nicer than the unborn fawns. Be it under¬ 
stood that in presenting us with those fawns he 
was depriving himself of the greatest gastro¬ 
nomic treat he had had an opportunity of en¬ 
joying. He dressed the little chaps, and that 
evening carried them to us. My wife received 
the ofifering and thanked the donor profusely. 
Imagine her surprise when in unrolling the 
package she disclosed the animals nicely dressed 
with the heads left on. At first we were unable 
to realize that he intended us to eat them. Our 
friend went away with the happy look on his 
face of one who has pleased his friends. That 
night the moon looked down upon two unborn 
fawns reposing in a ditch behind the house, and 
before morning the prowling coyotes made 
merry feast off the food rejected by the white 
doctor and his wife. 
It has been so long accepted as an axiom that 
Indians are dishonest, that it may be somewhat 
of a shock to the reader to learn that they are 
not so, except in proportion to their associa¬ 
tion with the whites. In all our life with the 
Sahaptins we never had a thing stolen. An 
Indian, though, is a natural Socialist. He be¬ 
lieves that whatever he needs belongs to him 
for the time being, and no amount of education 
will change him in this respect. Consequently 
there were times when I went out to split 
enough wood for a fire that I could not find 
the ax. At such times I wished the savage a 
little less of a disciple of the teaching of Carl 
Marx, but the ax always came back. He had 
simply appropriated it to his own use for a short 
time. He never neglected to tell me that he 
had borrowed the tool. If an Indian saw a 
horse on the range and wanted to make a 
journey he unhesitatingly borrowed that horse 
just as he would expect another to borrow his 
horse under like conditions. This was pretty 
well understood by the few white men who 
lived in that country and they acted accordingly. 
They knew that the Indians would ride the 
animal for a day and turn it loose, when it 
would return to the range. When the country 
began settling up, however, this socialistic pro¬ 
pensity involved the Indians in much difficulty. 
The newcomers were constantly complaining 
of their horses being stolen. The horses were 
