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In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
The Ways of the Northland. 
A LAw prohibiting the sale of liquor to Indians, 
or even its transportation across the Indian coun- 
try, had been practically a dead letter ever since 
Congress passed it. Along in the fall of 1860, 
however, a new United States marshal appeared 
in the country and arrested several traders who 
had liquor in their possession, confiscated their 
outfits, and made them all sorts of trouble. So 
long as this man remained in office it seemed as 
if the trade was doomed, and Berry wisely hit 
upon the plan of crossing the line into Canada 
and establishing a post there. True, there would 
be some trouble in transporting the forbidden 
goods from Fort Benton northward to the line, 
but chances had to be taken, 
Miss Alice Lant, author of “Lords of the 
North,” “Heralds of the Empire,” etc., in her 
“Tales of the Northwest Mounted Police” has 
this to say about the exodus: “It was in the 
early seventies that the monopoly of the Hudson’s 
Bay Company ceased and the Dominion Govern- 
ment took over judicial rights in all that vast ter- 
ritory which lies like an American Russia be- 
tween the boundary and the North Pole. The 
ending of the monopoly was the signal for an in- 
rush of adventurers. Gamblers, smugglers, crim- 
irals of every stripe, struck across from the Mis- 
souri into the Canadian territory at the foothills 
of the Rockies. Without a white population, 
these riff-raff adventurers could not ply their 
usual ‘wide-open’ traffic. The only way to wealth 
was by the fur trade; and the easiest way to ob- 
tain the furs was by smuggling whiskey into the 
country in small quantities, diluting this and trad- 
ing it to the natives for pelts. Chances of inter- 
ference were nil, tor the Canadian Government 
was thousands of miles distant without either 
telegraph or railway connection. But the game 
was not without its dangers. The country at the 
foothills was inhabited by the Confederacy of the 
Blackfeet—Bloods, Piegans and Blackfeet—tigers 
of the prairie when sober, and worse than tigers 
when drunk. The Missouri whiskey smugglers 
found they must either organize for defense or 
pay for their fun by being exterminated. How 
many whites were massacred in these drinking 
frays will never be known; but all around Old 
Man’s River and Fort Macleod are gruesome 
landmarks known as the places where such and 
such parties were destroyed in the early seventies. 
ihe upshot was that the Missouri smugglers 
emulated the old fur traders and built themselves 
permanent forts; Robbers’ Roost, Stand Off, 
Freeze Out, and most famous of all Whoop-Her- 
Up, whose name for respectability’s sake has been 
changed to ‘Whoo-Pup,’ with an innocent sugges- 
tiveness of some poetic Indian title. Whoop-Up, 

as it was known to plainsmen, was palisaded and 
loop-holed for musketry, with bastions and cannon 
and an alarm bell. The fortifications of this place 
alone, it is said, cost $12,000, and it at once be- 
came the metropolis of the whiskey smugglers. 
Henceforth only a few Indians were allowed in- 
side the fort at a time, the rest being served 
through the loop-holes, 
“But the Blackfeet, who loved a man hunt bet- 
ter than a buffalo hunt, were not to be balked. 
The trail by which the whiskey smugglers came 
from Fort Benton zig-zagged over the rolling 
prairie, mainly following the bottoms of the pre- 
cipitous coulées and ravines for a distance of 
200 miles to Whoop-Up. Heavy wagons with 
canvas tops and yokes of fifteen and twenty oxen 
drew the freight of liquor through the devious 
passes that connected ravine with ravine. The 
Blackfeet are probably the best horsemen in the 
world. There were places where the defiles were 
exceptionally narrow, where the wagons got 
mired, where oxen and freight had to be rafted 
across rain swollen sloughs. With a yelling of in- 
carnate fiends that would have stampeded more 
sober brutes than oxen drawing kegs of whiskey, 
down swooped the Blackfeet at just these hard 
spots. Sometimes the raids took place at night, 
when tethers would be cut and the oxen stam- 
peded with the bellowing of a frightened buffalo 
herd. If the smugglers made a stand there was 
a fight. If they drew off, the savages captured the 
booty.” 
Miss Lant’s informants have most grievously 
imposed upon her. The men who participated in 
the trade across the line were not “criminals of 
every shape,” but honest, fearless, straightforward 
fellows. Very many of them are living to-day, 
and they feel that they have been wronged by 
Miss Lant’s statements. Neither were they smug- 
glers into the country, for that part of Canada 
was then to the Canadians an unknown land, 
without any laws or white residents. Away up 
on the Saskatchewan was the Hudson’s Bay 
Company selling rum to the Indians, as they had 
been doing for many years. *In the opposition of 
the Americans they saw the end of their lucrative 
trade, and complained to the Dominion Govern- 
ment about it, finally getting relief with the ap- 
pearance of the Northwest Mounted Police. 
Neither were there any drinking frays in which 
whites were massacred. One man named Joe 
Neufrain was killed for cause by the Blackfeet 
at Elbow, about 100 miles north of Belly River. 
Two men, a Frenchman named Polite, and Joseph 
Wey, were killed at Rocky Springs, on the trail 
from Fort Benton north. The Assinaboines, not 
the Blackfeet, shot them. The fact is that the 
trail did not follow precipitous coulées and ra- 
vines, but ran straight over the open rolling: plain, 
the freighters thereon were not attacked by the 
Blackfeet, and their cattle stampeded. Nor did 

they freight whiskey in heavy loaded bull trains. 
In crossing the Indian country south of the line 
they had the United States marshal to elude; the 
whiskey was transported by four-horse teams 
which traveled swiftly across by a route which 
the marshal was unlikely to know. 
In the fall of 1870 Berry established Stand-Off, 
after that Whoop-Up and Fort Kipp were built. 
There were one or two other minor posts at 
Elbow, on High River, and Sheep Creek. In all, 
from 1870 until the arrival of the Mounted 
Police in 1874, there were fifty-six white men at 
these various places or camped out on the plains 
wolfing. They were not massacred by the Black- 
feet. When the Mounted Police came they also 
got along peaceably with the Confederacy, be- 
cause the Baker massacre had taken all the fight 
out of them. So much by way of explanation. 
* * * 1K * *K * * * 
Starting north from Fort Benton with a good 
outfit of stores, Berry, I and several others ar- 
rived at Belly River, at a point some twenty-five 
or thirty miles above its mouth, and built Stand- 
Off, a place of a few rude cabins. This is why 
we gave it the peculiar name: The marshal got 
on our trail and overtook us soon after we had 
crossed the North Fork of Milk River and were 
descending the slope to the St. Mary’s. 
“Well, boys,’ he said, smiling grimly, “I’ve 
caught you at last. Turn around and hit the back 
trail with me.” 
“I don’t think we will,” said Berry. “We're 
across the line. Better turn around and go back 
yourself.” 
A warm argument ensued. The line had never 
been surveyed, but we knew that according to the 
treaty it was the goth parallel. We were on the 
Arctic slope watershed, consequently we were in 
Canada; the marshal said that we were not. 
Finally Berry told him that he would not turn 
back, that he would fight first, as he knew that 
he was right. The marshal was powerless to take 
us, as he was alone. We “stood him off,” and he 
sorrowfully turned back. 
Another time Berry went in to Fort Benton for 
liquor and the marshal trailed him around day 
and night. Nothing was to be done there, so he 
hitched up his four-horse team and with another 
man traveled up to Helena. Still the marshal fol- 
lowed, but Berry was a man of resource. He 
went to a certain firm there and got them to de- 
liver thirty cases of alcohol to him on the banks 
of the Missouri a few miles below town, where 
he made a raft for them, got aboard and pushed 
out into the current. Meanwhile the marshal was 
watching the four horses and wagon at the livery 
stable. That night Berry’s helper got them out 
and started on the back trail. In a little while the 
officer caught up with the outfit, but lo, the wagon 
was empty and Berry was missing. He turned 
