418 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Marcu 17, 1906. 

men that they turned and fled, firing but few 
shots. They were utterly panic-stricken; their 
only thought was to escape. Better mounted 
than their women, they left these defenseless 
ones to the mercy of the enemy, seeking only 
to escape themselves. 
“From the point of meeting a fearful slaughter 
began. Big Lake, Little Dog, Three Suns and 
other chiefs kept shouting to their men to spare 
the women, but a few were killed before they 
could make their commands known. There was 
no mercy shown to the fleeing men, however; 
they were overtaken and shot, or brained with 
war clubs. So sudden had been the call that 
many men had found no time to select a swift 
horse, mounting anything they could rope, and 
these soon dropped out of the race; but the 
othtrs kept on and on, mile after mile, killing all 
the men they overtook until their horses could 
run no more and their club arms were well-nigh 
paralyzed from striking so long and frequently. 
Few of the fleeing party made any resistance 
whatever, never turned to look backward, but 
bent forward in the saddle and plied the quirt 
until they were shot or clubbed from their seats. 
For miles the trail was strewn with the dead 
and dying, through which fled their women, 
shrieking with terror—the women they had 
brought to care for the plunder. ‘Let them 
go!’ cried Big Lake, laughingly. ‘Let them 
go! We will do as did Old Man with the rab- 
bits, leave a few for to breed, so that their kind 
may not become wholly extinct.’ 
“A count was made of the dead. Only five 
of the Blackfeet had lost their lives, and a few 
been wounded. But along the trail over which 
they had so confidently marched that morning 
three hundred and sixty Crows and Gros Ven- 
tres lay dead. Many of them were never 
touched, for the victors had become tired of 
cutting and scalping. Their arms were taken, 
however, and in many cases their war costumes 
and ornaments, and then the two camps moved 
westward a ways, leaving the battlefield to the 
wolf and coyote. 
“As you know, the Gros Ventres asked for 
peace, and are again under the protection of 
our people. And now come these messengers 
from the Crows. Well, we will see what we will 
see.” And bidding us sleep well, Rising Woli— 
I never could call him Monroe—went home. 
When Berry was in camp, or anywhere within 
a reasonable distance of it, the Piegans did no 
business without consulting him, and they al- 
ways took his advice. He was really their 
leader; their chiefs deferred to him, relied upon 
him, and he never failed to advise that which 
was for their best interests. So, now he was 
called to attend the council to consider the 
Crow proposal, and I went, too, under his wing 
as it were. I wanted to hear the speeches. The 
Crow delegation, of course, was not present. 
Big Lake’s lodge was well filled with the chiefs 
and leading men of the tribe, including the 
younger heads of the different bands of the All 
Friends Society. Among them I noticed mine 
enemy, Little Deer, who scowled at me when 
I entered. He was beginning to get on my 
nerves. To tell the truth, I impatiently looked 
forward to the day when we would have it out, 
being possessed of a _ sort of unreasoning 
belief that I was fated some day to send his 
shadow to the Sand Hills. 
Big Lake filled his big stone pipe, a medicine 
man lighted it, made a short prayer, and then 
it was passed back and forth around the circle. 
Three Suns opened the subject for consideration 
by saying that he and his band, the Lone Eaters, 
favored the making of a peace treaty with their 
old enemy. He had no sooner finished than 
Little Deer began an impassioned harangue. 
He should have been one of the last to speak, 
older and men of higher position having pre- 
cedence over the younger; but he thrust him- 
self forward. Nevertheless, he was listened to 
in silence. The Blackfeet are ever dignified, and 
pass over without remark any breach of tribal 
manners and etiquette. In the end, however, 
the transgressor is made in many ways to pay 
the penalty for his bad conduct. Little Deer 
said that he represented the Raven Carrier band 
of the great society, and that they wanted no 
peace with the Crows. Who were the Crows 
but murderers of their fathers and brothers; 
stealers of their herds? As soon as green grass 
came, he concluded, he and his friends would 
start on a raid against the people of the Elk 
River (Yellowstone), and that raid would be 
repeated again and again while summer lasted. 
One after another each one had his say, 
many declaring for a peace treaty, a few—and 
generally the younger men—voicing Little 
Deer’s sentiments. I remember especially the 
speech of an ancient blind white-haired old 
medicine man. “Oh, my children!’ he began. 
“Oh, my children! Hear me; listen understand- 
ingly. When I was young like some of you 
here, I was happiest when raiding the enemy, 
killing them, driving off their horses. I became 
rich. My women bore me four fine sons; my 
lodge was always filled with good food, fine 
furs. My boys grew up, and oh, how proud of 
them I was. They were so strong, so active, 
such good riders and good shots. Yes, and 
they were so kind to me and to their mothers. 
‘You shall hunt no more,’ they commanded. 
“You grow old; sit you here by the lodge fire 
and smoke and dream, and we will provide for 
you. I was happy, grateful. I looked forward 
to many pleasant winters as I aged. Hai-ya! 
One after another my handsome sons went forth 
to war, and one after another they failed to re- 
turn. Two of my women were also killed by 
the enemy; another died, and she who remains 
is old and feeble. I am blind and helpless; we 
are both dependent on our friends for what we 
eat and wear, and for a place by the lodge fire. 
This is truly a most unhappy condition. But if 
there had been no war—ai! If there had been 
no war, then this day I would be in my own 
lodge with my children and grandchildren, and 
my women, all of us happy and content. What 
has happened will happen again. You who have 
talked against peace, think hard and take back 
your words. What war has done to me, it surely 
will do to some of you.” 
When the old man finished, nearly every one 
in the lodge cried “Ah!” “Ah!” in approval of 
his speech. Big Lake then spoke a few words: 
“IT was going to make a talk for peace,” he 
said, “but our blind friend has spoken better 
than I could; his words are my words. Let us 
hear from our friend the trader chief.” 
“T say with you,” Berry agreed, “that the old 
man’s talk is my talk. Better the camp of 
peace and plenty than the mourning of widows 
and orphans out in the darkness beyond the 
fires. Let us make peace.” 
“Tt shall be peace!” said Big Lake. “Only 
six of you here have talked against it, and you 


are far out-numbered. I shall tell the Crow 
messengers that we will meet their people at 
Fort Benton in the sarvis berry moon, and — 
Go you 
there make friends. I have said. 
forth.” 
We went our several ways; I to my lodge, 
where I found Rock Eater talking with Nat- 
ah’-ki. I saw at once that she was excited about 
something, and as soon as I had told our friend 
the decision of the council, she began: “See 
what we have discovered. His mother,” point- 
ing at Rock Eater, “is my mother’s cousin, my 
relative; he is my relative. How queer it is; 
he came into our lodge a stranger, and we dis- 
cover that he is of our blood, our very own 
family! And you say that we are to meet the 
Crows when the sarvis berries ripen. Oh, I 
am glad; glad! How pleased my mother will 
be to see her whom we thought was dead. ‘Oh, 
we will be good to her. We will make her for- 
get all that she has suffered.” 
I reached over and shook hands with Rock 
Eater. ‘Friend and relative,” I said, “I am glad 
to hear this news.” ‘ 
And indeed I was glad. I had taken a strong 
liking to the young man, who in his plain and 
simple way had told us of his sufferings and 
humiliations among a partly alien—one may say 
wholly alien—people, for, after all, the mother’s 
kin, and not the father’s, are almost invariably 
the chosen kin of the offspring of a marriage 
between members of different tribes or nations. 
The All Friends Society gave a dance in 
honor of the visitors, a Parted Hair, or Sioux 
dance, which was indeed a grand and spectacu- 
lar performance. Not to be outdone, the Crows 
decided to give one of their own peculiar dances, 
one called, I believe, the Dog Feast dance. But 
at the very mention of it, the Piegans suddenly 
lost all interest. Not but that they wanted to 
see the dance; they were anxious to see it. The 
hitch was about the dog. To them it was a 
sacred animal, never to be killed, nor worse 
still, to be used as an article of food. None of 
them dared even, dreading the wrath of the 
gods, to give the visitors one, knowing that it 
would be killed and eaten. I solved the prob- 
lem by buying one of an old woman, pretending 
that I wanted it for a watch dog, and then giv- 
ing it to the Crows. ’Twas a large, fat, ancient 
dog, well-nigh toothless, purblind and furred 
like a wolf. The Crows led it down into the 
timber by the river, and when next I saw it, 
it was hanging in a tree, dressed and scraped, 
its skin as white and shiny as that of a newly 
butchered pig. The next day they wanted a 
kettle in which to stew the dog, and no one 
dared loan one for such a purpose. Again I 
went to the rescue, “borrowed” two empty five- 
gallon alcohol cans from Berry and donated 
them. In these the dog meat was cooked to 
perfection. 
These Crows had about the handsomest war 
costumes I ever saw. Every eagle tail feather 
of their headdresses was perfect, and the hang- 
ing part of them swept the ground at their 
heels. Their shirts and leggins were elegantly 
fringed with weasel skins, scalp locks and buck 
skin, and embroidered, as were their belts and 
moccasins, with complex designs in perfectly 
laid porcupine quills of gorgeous colors. The 
steaming cans of dog meat were carried to a 
level, open place between the camp and the 
river, and placed by a freshly built fire. Two 
of the Crows began to beat a drum, and the 
