









[JAN. 6, 1906. 


































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EE SPORTSMAN KH = 





In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
Hunting the White Buffalo. 
One evening in the latter part of January there 
was much excitement in the three great camps. 
Some Piegan hunters, just returned from a few 
days’ buffalo chase out on the plains to the north 
of the river, had seen a white buffalo. The news 
quickly spread, and from all quarters Indians 
came in to the post for powder and balls, flints, 
percussion caps, tobacco and various other 
articles. There was to be an exodus of hunting 
parties from the three villages in the morning, 
and men were betting with each other as to which 
of the tribes would secure the skin of the white 
animal, each one, of course, betting on his own 
tribe. By nearly all the tribes of the plains an 
albino buffalo was considered as a sacred thing, 
the especial property of the sun. When one was 
killed the hide was always beautifully tanned, and 
at the next medicine lodge was given to the sun 
with great ceremony, hung above all the other 
offerings on the center post of the structure, and 
there left to gradually shrivel and fall to pieces. 
War parties of other tribes, passing the deserted 
place, would not touch it for fear of calling down 
upon themselves the wrath of the sun. The man 
who killed such an animal was thought to have 
received the especial favor of the sun, not 
only he, but the whole tribe of which he was a 
member. A white robe was one thing which was 
never offered for sale; none who secured one 
might keep it any longer than until the time of 
the next medicine lodge, reli- 
gious ceremony. 
and 
the great annual 
Medicine men, however, were 
permitted to take the strips of trimming, cut to 
even the border of the finished robe, and to use 
them for wrapping their sacred pipes, or for a 
bandage around the head, only 
ever, on great occasions. 
Of course I began to make inquiries about 
albino buffalo. My friend Berry said that in all 
his life he had seen but four. One very old 
Piegan told me that he had seen seven, the last 
one, a very large cow robe, having been pur- 
chased by his people from the Mandans for one 
hundred and twenty horses, and, like all the 
others, given to the sun. I further learned from 
Berry that these albinos were not snow white, as 
is a white blackbird, or a crow, but cream col- 
ored. Well, if possible, I wanted to see the much 
talked of animal. see it in life skurry away over 
the plains with its dusky mates, so I joined one 
of the hunting parties the next morning, going, 
as usual, with my friends, Talks-with-the-buffalo 
and Weasel Tail. We planned the hunt in the 
lodge of the latter, and as it was thought that we 
might be some time away, it was decided to take 
one lodge and all its contents, and to ae no 
others to crowd in upon us. “That is,’ Weasel 
to be worn, how- 
Tail added, “that is, we'll do this, and take our 
wives along, too, if you think they will not get 
to quarreling about the right way to boil water, 
or as to the proper place to set an empty kettle.” 
His wife threw a moccasin at him, Madame 
Talks-with-the-buffalo pouted and exclaimed, 
“K’ya!” and we all laughed. 
We did not get a very early start, the days 
were short, and after covering about twenty miles 
made camp in a low, wide coulée. There were 
fifteen lodges of our party, all but ours crowded 
with hunters. We had many visitors of an even- 
ing dropping in to smoke and talk, and feast, but 
at bedtime we had ample room to spread our 
robes and blankets. We started early the next 
morning and never stopped until we arrived at a 
willow-bordered stream running out from the 
west butte of the Sweetgrass Hills and eventually 
disappearing in the dry plain. It was an ideal 
camping place, plenty of shelter, plenty of wood 
and water. The big herd in which the albino 
buffalo had been seen was met with some fif- 
teen or more miles southeast of our camp, and 
had run westward when pursued. Our party 
thought that we had selected the best location 
possible in order to scour the country in search 
of it. Those who saw it reported that it was a 
fair sized animal, and so swift that it had ran up 
to the head of the herd at once and remained 
there so far from their horses’ best speed, that 
they never got to determine whether it was bull 
or cow. We were the extreme western camp of 
Other parties, Piegans, Blackfeet and 
Bloods were encamped east of us along the hills, 
and southeast of us out on the plain. We had 
agreed to do no running, to frighten the buffalo 
as little as possible until the albino had been 
found, or it became time to return to the river. 
Then, of course, a big run or two would be made 
in order to load the pack animals with meat and 
hides. 
The weather was unfavorable, to say nothing 
of the intense cold, a thick haze of glittering frost 
flakes filled the air, through which aie sun dimly 
shone. Objects half a mile or less out on the 
plain could not be discerned. We were almost 
at the foot of the west butte, but it and its pine 
forest had vanished in the shining frost fog. 
Nevertheless, we rode out daily on our quest, 
south, west or northward by one side or the other 
of the butte toward the Little (Milk) River. We 
saw many buffalo, thousands of them, in bands 
of from twenty or thirty to four or five hundred, 
but we did not find the particular one. Other 
parties often dropped in at our camp for a bite 
and a smoke, or were met out on the plain, and 
they had the same report to make: plenty of buf- 
hunters. 
falo, but no albino: I must repeat that the 
weather was intensely cold. Antelope stood 
humped up, heads down, in the coulées; on the 
south slope of the butte, as we rode by its foot, 
we could see deer, and elk, and even big-horn in 
the same position. The latter would get out of 
our way, but the others hardly noticed our pass- 
ing. Only the buffalo, the wolves, coyotes and 
swifts were, as one may say, happy; the former 
grazed about as usual, the others trotted around 
and feasted on the quarry they had strung and 
pulled down, and howled and yelped throughout 
the long nights. No cold could find its way 
through their thick, warm coats. 
I cannot remember how many days that cold 
time lasted, during which we vainly hunted for 
the albino buffalo. The change came about 10 
o'clock one morning as we were riding slowly 
around the west side of the butte. We felt sud- 
denly an intermittent tremor of warm air in our 
faces; the frost haze vanished instantly and we 
could see the Rockies, partially enveloped in dense 
dark clouds. ‘Hah!’ exclaimed a medicine pipe 
man. “Did I not pray for a black wind last 
night? And see, here it is; my sun power is 
strong.” “1 
Even as he spoke the Chinook came on in 
strong, warm gusts and settled into a roaring, 
snapping blast. The thin coat of snow on: the 
grass disappeared. One felt as if summer had 
come. 
We were several hundred feet above the plain, 
on the lower slope of the butte, and in every di- 
rection, as far as we could see, there were buf- 
falo, buffalo, and still more buffalo. They were 
a grand sight. Nature had been good to these 
Indians in providing for them such vast herds 
for their sustenance. Had it not been for the 
white man with his liquor, and trinkets, and his 
lust for land, the herds would be there to this 
day; and so would the red men, leading their 
simple and happy life. 
It seemed about as useless as jooking for the 
proverbial needle, as to attempt to locate a single 
white animal among all those dark ones. We all 
d:smounted, and, adjusting my long telescope, I 
searched herd after herd until my vision became 
blinded, and then I passed the instrument to some 
one beside me. Nearly all of the party tried it, 
but the result was the same; no white buffalo 
could be found. It was pleasant sitting there in 
the warm wind, with the sun shining brightly 
upon us once more. Pipes were filled and lighted 
and we smoked and talked about the animal we 
were after, of course; each one had his opinion 
as to where it was at that moment, and they 
varied in locality from the Missouri River to the 
Saskatchewan, from the Rockies to the Bear’s 
Paw Mountains. While we were talking there 
appeared a commotion among the buffalo south- 
east of us. I got the telescope to bear upon the 
place and saw that a number of Indians were 
chasing a herd of a hundred or more due west- 
ward. They were far behind them, more than a 
mile, and the buffalo were widening that distance 
