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[JAN. 27, 1906. 




























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In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
X.—The Killing of a Bear. 
Towarp the end of April we abandoned the 
trading post. Berry intended to resume freight- 
ing to the mines as soon as the steamboats began 
to arrive, and moved his family into Fort Ben- 
ton. ‘Thither also went Sorrel Horse and his out- 
fit. The Bloods and Blackfeet moved north to 
summer on the Belly and Saskatchewan rivers. 
Most of the Piegans trailed over to Milk River 
and the Sweet-grass Hills country. The band 
with which I was connected, the Small Robes, 
pulled out for the foot of the Rockies, and I went 
with them. I had purchased a lodge, and half a 
dozen pack and train animals to transport our 
outfit. We had a Dutch oven, two fry pans, a 
couple of small kettles, and some tin and iron 
tableware, of which Nat-ah’-ki was very proud. 
Our commissary consisted of one sack of flour, 
some sugar, salt, beans, coffee, bacon and dried 
apples. I had plenty of tobacco and cartridges. 
We were rich; the world was before us. When 
the time came to move I attempted to help pack 
our outfit, but Nat-ah’-ki stopped me at once. 
“Aren't you ashamed,” she said. ‘This is my 
work; go up in front there and ride with the 
chiefs. I'll attend to this.” 
I did as I was ordered to do... After that I rode 
ahead with the big men, or hunted along by the 
way, and at evening on arriving at camp there 
was our lodge set up, a pile of fuel beside it, a 
bright fire within over which the evening meal 
was being prepared. The girl and her mother 
had done it all, and when everything was in order 
the latter went away to the lodge of her brother, 
with whom she lived. We had many visitors, 
and I was constantly being asked to go and feast 
and smoke with this one and that one. Our store 
of provisions did not last long, and we soon were 
reduced to a diet of meat straight.. Every one 
was contented with that but I; how I did long 
at times for an apple pie, for some potatoes even. 
I often dreamed that I was the happy possessor 
of some candy. 
Leaving the abandoned fort we followed up the 
Marias, then its most northern tributary, the Cut- 
bank River, until we came to the pines at the foot 
of ihe Rockies. Here was game in vast numbers, 
not many buffalo nor antelope just there, but 
elk, deer, mountain sheep and moose were even 
more plentiful than I had seen them south of the 
Missouri. As for bears, the whole country was 
torn up by them. None of the women would 
venture out after fuel or poles for lodge or tra- 
vois without an escort. Many of the hunters 
never molested a grizzly, the bear being regarded 
as a sort of medicine or sacred animal, many be- 
lieving that it was really a human being. It was 
commonly called Kyai’-yo, but the medicine pipe 

men were obliged when speaking of it to call it 
Pah’ksi-kwo-yi, sticky mouth. They, too, were 
the only ones who could take any of the skin of 
a bear, and then merely a strip for a head band 
or pipe wrapping. It was allowable, however, for 
anyone to use the bear’s claws for a necklace or 
other ornament. Some of the more adventurous 
wore a three or four-row necklace of their own 
killing, of which they were very proud. 
One morning with Heavy Breast I went up on 
the divide between Cutbank and Milk River. He 
said that we could easily ride through the pines 
there to the foot of a bare mountain where there 
were always more or less sheep. We wanted 
some meat, and at that season the mountain rams 
“were even in better order than were the buck an- 
telope on the plains. We found broad game 
trails running through the timber, and soon came 
near the inner edge of it. Dismounting and se- 
curing our horses, we went on carefully, and in 
a few moments could see, through the interlacing 
branches of the pines, a good-sized band of big- 
horn, all rams, trailing across the shell rock at 
the foot of a cliff. I let Heavy Breast have the 
first shot. and he missed altogether. Before he 
could reload I managed to get two of the ani- 
mals with my Henry. Both were very large ones 
with some little fat on their ribs, and having all 
the meat we cared to pack. we loaded our horses 
and started homeward. Passing out of the pines 
we saw, some four or five hundred yards dis- 
tant, a large grizzly industriously tearing up the 
sod on the bare hillside, in search of a gopher, 
or ants’ nest. 
“Let us kill him,’ I exclaimed. 
“Ok-yi’,’ (come on) said Heavy Breast, but 
with an inflection which meant, “All right, but 
it’s your proposition, not mine.” 
We rode along in the edge of the timber down 
under the hill, my companion praying, promising 
the Sun an offering, and begging for success. At 
the foot of the hill we turned into a deep coulée 
and followed it up until we thought we were quite 
near to the place where we had seen the bear; 
then we rode up out of it, and, sure enough, there 
was the old fellow not fifty yards away. He saw 
us as quickly as we did him, sat up on _ his 
haunches and wiggled his nose as he sniffed the 
air. We both fired and with a hair-lifting roar 
the bear rolled over, biting and clawing at his 
flank where a bullet had struck him, and then 
springing to his feet he charged us open-mouthed 
We both urged our horses off to the north, for it 
was not a wise thing to turn back down the hill. 
I fired a couple of shots at the old fellow as fast 
as I could, but without effect. The bear mean- 
time had covered the ground with surprisingly 
long bounds, and was already quite close to the 
heels of my companion’s horse. I fired again and 
made another miss, and just then Heavy Breast, 
his saddle and sheep meat parted company with 
the fleeing pony; the cinch, an old worn rawhide 
band; had~ broken. 
“Hai ya’, my friend!” he criéd, pleadingly, as 
he soared up in the air, still astride the saddle. 
Down they came with a loud thud not two steps 
in front of the onrushing bear, and that animal, 
with a dismayed and frightened “woof,” turned 
sharply about and fled back toward the timber, I 
after him. I kept firing and firing, and finally 
by a lucky shot broke his back bone; it was easy 
then to finish him with a deliberately aimed bul- 
let in the base of the brain. When it was all over 
I suddeniy remembered how ridiculously: Heavy 
Breast had appeared soaring on a horseless sad- 
dle, and how his eyes bulged as he called upon 
me for aid. I began to laugh and it seemed as if 
I never could stop. My companion had come up 
beside me and stood, very solemn, looking at me 
and the bear. 
“Do not laugh, my friend,” he said. ‘Do not 
laugh. Rather, pray the good Sun, make sacrifice 
to him, that when you are sometimes hard 
pressed by the enemy, or such another one as he 
lying here, you may as fortunately escape as did 
I. Surely, the Sun listened to my prayer. I 
promised to sacrifice to him, intending to hang up 
that fine white blanket I have just bought. I 
will now do better. I will hang up the blanket 
and my otter skin cap.” 
The bear had a fine coat of fur, and I deter- 
mined to take it and have it tanned.” Heavy 
Breast took my horse in order to catch his, which 
had run out of sight into the valley, and I set 
to work. It was no small task, for the bear was 
quite fat, and I wanted to get the hide off as clean 
as possible. Long before I accomplished it my 
friend returned with his animal, dismounted a 
little way off, sat down, filled and lighted his 
pipe. 
“Help me,” I said, after he had smoked. 
getting tired.” 
“TJ cannot do so,” said he. “It is against my 
medicine; my dream forbade me to touch a bear.” 
We arrived in camp betimes, and hearing me 
ride up beside the lodge, Nat-ah’-ki hurried out. 
“Kyai-yo’!”’ she exclaimed, seeing the bear 
skin. “Kyai-yo’!” she again exclaimed, and hur- 
ried back inside. 
I thought that rather strange, for when I came 
in from a hunt she always insisted upon ynpack- 
ing and unsaddling my mount, and leading the 
animal over to the lodge of a boy who took care 
of my little band. After I had done this I went 
inside; a dish of boiled boss ribs, a bowl of soup 
were ready for me. As I ate I told about the 
day’s hunt, but when I described how Heavy 
Breast had sailed through the air and how he 
looked when he cried out to me, Nat-ah’-ki did 
not laugh with me. I thought that strange, also, 
for she was so quick to see the comical side of 
things. 
Ba ac 
