626 
FORESTAND ST REANL 
[APRIL 21, 1906. 

over to the chief’s couch, raised his knife and 
gave him one deep stab right in the heart, then 
another and another. The man did not cry out, 
but he kicked a little and the old woman beside 
him awoke. Queer Person at once seized her 
by the throat and strangled her until she lay 
still. Then he scalped the chief, took his 
weapons, and ran back to the raft. The woman 
was waiting for him, and together they waded 
out, pushing the logs, and when they got into 
deep water they swam, holding on to the logs 
with one hand. Thus they crossed the river and 
dressed and started on the long walk to the 
Arickaree village. Back across whence they had 
come, all was quiet; the trouble there had not 
yet been discovered. 
“What a proud old woman White Flying was 
when her grandson returned home with his 
pretty wife, with the scalp and the weapons of 
the terrible chief. He had made a great name: 
in time he himself would be a chief. And he 
did become one, the head chief of his people. 
No one any longer called him Queer Person: 
he took the name Three Stabs, and all were 
proud to call him that. He and his good wife 
lived to great age. They had many children and 
were happy.” 
“Get up!” Nat-ah’-ki commanded, grasping 
my arm and nearly pulling me out of bed. “Get 
up! It is very happy outside.” 
“Why did you awake me?” I asked. 
having such a good dream.” 
“Of course you were, and you were talking, 
too. That is why I awoke you; I don’t want 
you to dream about her. Tell me, quick, what 
the dream was, and what she said.” 
“Well, if you must know, she said—she said— 
she said—” 
“Yes, hurry! What did she say?” 
“She said, “It’s time for you to arise and 
wash. I have your morning food cooked, and 
we are going hunting to-day.’ ” 
“Oh, what a lie he can tell,” she exclaimed, 
turning to the Crow Woman. “He was not 
dreaming about me at all, because he spoke in 
his own language.” 
I insisted that I was speaking the truth. “In 
the first place,’ I said, “there is no ‘her’ but 
you, and even if there were, her shadow could 
not come away out here to visit me in my sleep, 
because it would be unable to find the trail.” 
This reasoning was convincing, and closed the 
argument. It was indeed a lovely morning. 
There had been a heavy frost during the night, 
the grass in the shadow of the Fort was still 
white with it, but the sun was shining in a clear 
sky, a warm southwest wind had started up— 
everything was auspicious for a perfect autumn 
day. 
We breakfasted, saddled our horses, and rode 
out across the river, up the slope of the valley, 
and out on the plain. Nat-ah’-ki began to sing 
one of the women’s songs of her people. “Be 
still!’ I told her. ‘This is no way to hunt; you 
will scare away all the game.” 
“TI do not care if I do,” she said. “What mat- 
ter? We have still some dried meat on hand. I 
can't help singing; this happy morning just 
makes me do it.” 
As she said, it did not matter. It was pleas- 
ant to see her so happy, to see her eyes sparkle, 
to hear her laugh and sing. A not distant band 
of antelope scampered away over a ridge; out of 
a nearby coulée rushed a small band of buffalo 
and loped off westward; a lone coyote also ap- 
“T was 
peared, sat down on his haunches, and stared 
at us. “Hai’-yu, little brother,” said Nat-ah’-ki, 
addressing him, “are you also happy?” 
“Of course he is,’ she continued. “His fur 
is so thick and warm that he does not fear the 
coming cold, and he has plenty, oh, always 
plenty of food. Some he kills for himself, and 
he can always feast on the remains of the ani- 
mals his big relations kill. Old Man gave him 
and the wolf great intelligence.” 
We rode on and on aimlessly ‘across the 
plain, talking and laughing, very, very happy, 
as two young people should be who love one 
another and who haven’t a care in the world. 
Often, on reaching the top of some little emi- 
nence, we would dismount and let the horses 
graze while I smoked and swept the country 
with my telescope. Nat-ah’-ki also loved to use 
the glass, and watch the various animals it 
would bring so near to one, as they rested or 
grazed, or the young bounded and skipped and 
chased each other in their exuberance of spirits. 
It was a powerful glass, that old telescope, re- 
vealing even the dead old cones and dark 
abysses on the surface of the moon. But that 
was an object at which I never succeeded in 
coaxing her to level the instrument. Night 
light to her was no dead old globe, but a real 
and sacred personage—wife to the Sun—and 
not to be scrutinized and studied by mortal 
eyes, 
It was mid-afternoon when we decided that it 
was time we should get the meat we had started 
after and return home. We were about to 
mount and ride toward a coulée to the west, 
where a few buffalo were feeding, when, away 
to the north, we saw columns of dust rising, and 
nearer, some bunches of buffalo, loping in vari- 
ous directions, but mostly toward us. A few 
moments later a number of horsemen came in 
sight, and behind them, on the top of a long 
ridge, appeared a long column of riders and 
loose animals. 
“Ah!” T said, “the Pe-kun-ny are moving in.” 
“My mother is there. Let us go to meet 
them,” said Nat-ah’-ki. 
Some of the startled buffalo were making 
almost a bee-line for the place where we stood, 
so I told her to lead the horses back out of 
sight, and I myself moved down, so that I could 
just look over the top of the ridge. In a short 
time some thirty or forty of the animals came 
within easy range. I aimed at a big. cow, and 
broke the left front leg the first shot; she 
dropped behind the others at once, and a second 
shot laid her low. She proved to be very fat, 
and her coat was fine, not quite of full length, 
perhaps, but very dark and glossy. 
I was about to cut the animal open on the 
back, intending to take only the boss ribs and 
the tongue, when Nat-ah’-ki came up and in- 
sisted that I should properly skin it for a head- 
and-tail robe, and cut up all of the meat for pack- 
ing. “We will give the hide to my mother,” 
she said, “and get her to pack in the meat for 
Uses 
So I did as I was told, of course; the butcher- 
ing taking some little time. Meanwhile Nat-ah’- 
ki went to the top of the ridge, but soon re- 
turned to say that the people were pitching 
camp near where we had discovered them, and 
that it would be pleasant to remain with them 
for a night. 
“All right,’ I said, “we'll go over and stop 
with Weasel Tail. We'll take a little of the 
meat and leave the rest and the hide for your 
mother to pick up in the morning.” 
But that, it seemed, would not do. “Either 
the wolves will feast upon it in the night,” she 
said, ‘‘or some one will find and take it in the 
early morning; so, to be sure, let us pack it 
into camp.” 
I spread the great hide over her horse, en- 
tirely covering the animal, saddle and all, from 
neck to tail, and then hung the greater part of 
the meat across it over the saddle, covering it 
all by folding and refolding the hide. The rest 
I put in two large meat sacks and tied behind 
my saddle. Then I helped Nat-ah’-ki to get up 
and perch on top of her load, mounted my ani- 
mal, and we wended our way to camp and in 
among the lodges. There were pleasant greet- 
ings and pleasant smiles for us on every hand, 
and some jokes were made about the young 
married hunters. We dismounted in front of 
Weasel Tail’s lodge. My good mother-in-law 
ran and met her daughter, the two affectionately 
embracing and kissing each other, the former 
repeatedly saying, ““My daughter! My daughter! 
She has arrived.” 
And the good woman looked at me and smiled, 
but gave me no greeting. Even in being in my 
vicinity, to say nothing of smiling at me, she had 
broken a strict rule of Blackfoot etiquette, of 
which I have already spoken, which is that 
mother and son-in-law must never meet nor 
speak to each other. For my part, I trans- 
gressed this form at the very first opportunity. 
I came upon the good woman when she could 
not escape, nor help listening, and told her that 
with us it was to be different; that white people 
had no such custom. “Wherever we are,” I 
continued, “you are to come and live with us 
when you will, and I shall go where you are 
when occasion to do so arises.” 
I am sure that my words pleased her, as they 
also pleased Nat-ah’-ki. In time she became 
used to the new order of things, in a way, but 
was always rather backward about directly ad- 
dressing me. Very often, when I asked her for 
information about something, she would turn 
to her daughter and say, “Tell him that it was 
in this way,” etc. WALTER B. ANDERSON. 
[TO BE CONTINUED. | 
The Roosevelts and Early Mississippi 
Navigation. 
A WHILE ago you published a brief account of 
a trip from Pittsburg to New Orleans in a flat 
boat “with a huge box containing a comfortable 
bedroom, dining room, pantry and a room in front 
for the crew’’—in brief, a houseboat, built in 1809 
by Nicholas G. Roosevelt. It seems that this 
Nicholas G. was great uncle to the present Presi- 
dent of the United States, and I venture to send 
you an account of the building of the first Mis- 
sissippi steamboat by this Roosevelt and the trip 
of-himself and his plucky and admirable wife to 
New Orleans. She was a Miss Latrobe, of Bal- 
timore, and seems to have been an excellent graft 
on the Roosevelt stock. 
On his houseboat trip Roosevelt told the peo- 
ple of Cincinnati, Louisville and other cities of 
the success of steamboating on the Hudson, but 
they reminded him of what he well knew, the 
swift currents of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, 
and predicted that no steam or other boat could 
be built to go up stream. 
