

[May 12, 1906. 


















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XXIV.—The Story. of Ancient Sleeper. 
As DrAna would not agree to the camping 
trip, Ashton did all he could to make her visit 
pleasant in other ways. He bought a horse and 
saddle for her—a wholly unnecessary proceed- 
ing, as we had plenty of both—and went riding 
with her up over the plains, and across into the 
Teton Valley, or wherever she chose to go. 
Every evening she came into the lodge and sat 
with us, sometimes happily talking, again silent 
for long intervals, dreamily watching the flames 
of the little fire. The girl was a puzzle to me. 
I wondered if she were in love with Ashton, or 
merely regarded him as any girl would a kind 
and indulgent father. . I asked Nat-ah’-ki if she 
had ever speculated about it, and she replied 
that she had, but could not make up her mind 
how the girl felt. 
It may have been ten days after Diana arrived 
that one afternoon she requested Nat-ah’ki to 
pass the night with her, and of course the latter 
complied. I thought it a girlish whim. Diana 
was unusually silent all of that evening, and 
many times, when Ashton was unaware of her 
gaze, I saw her looking at him with an ex- 
pression in her eyes which I could not interpret 
as anything but intense affection. We retired 
‘early and, as usual, slept. soundly. 'We were 
none of us early risers, and Nat-ah’-ki’s warn- 
ing call aroused us for breakfast. We arose 
and went into the house and took our places at 
the table. Diana was not at hand, and I asked 
Nat-ah’-ki why she did not call her. For reply 
she handed Ashton a note and fled from the 
room. He glanced at it and turned white. 
“She’s gone back!” he said. ‘‘She’s gone back!” 
He sprang from his chair, seized his hat, and 
rushed out toward the levee. 
“What’s all this?” I asked Nat-ah’-ki, whom I 
found in the old women’s room, sitting scared 
and still. ‘Where is the girl?” 
“Gone back to her reading and writing work,” 
she replied. “I helped take her things over to 
the fire-boat, and it went away.” And then 
she began to cry. ‘She’s gone!” she wailed. 
“My beautiful daughter is gone, and I know 
that I shall never see her again!” 
“But why?” I broke in. “Why did she leave 
without saying anything to Never Laughs? It 
was wrong; you should not have helped her; 
you should have come and told us about her 
plan.” 
“T did as she asked me to, and would do so 
again,” she said. “And you must not blame me. 
The girl was worrying, worrying, worrying. 
She believed that her chief was not pleased be- 
cause she had come up here away from where 
he had placed her, and she goes back alone, be- 
PORTCIMAN 
In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
cause she feared that he would feel he must ac- 
company her. She does not wish him to lose 
a pleasant summer, a big hunt somewhere, on 
her account.” 
Ashton came back from the levee. “She has 
certainly gone,’ he said, dejectedly. “What 
madness possesses her? See this!’ handing me 
the note. { 
“Dear Chief,” it read, “I go back in the 
morning at daylight. I hope you will have a 
good time and kill lots of game.” 
“What possesses the child?” he continued. 
“And to think that I could have a ‘good time’ 
while she is traveling down this cursed river un- 
protected.” 
I told him what I had learned from Nat-ah’-ki, 
and he brightened perceptibly. “She does care 
then,” he said. “I didn’t understand, I have 
never felt that I knew her; but if this is the 
reason she went—well, I’ll go back, too, and 
I'll be at the levee in Saint Louis to meet her.” 
And he was as good as his word, leaving on 
the stage the next day for the Union Pacific 
Railway, by the way of Helena and Corrinne. 
My parting words to him were these: “Old 
man,” IJ said,” never doubt but what your 
protégé loves you. I know that’she does.” 
The days passed monotonously. Berry fidgeted 
around, and was cross, and I "became nervous 
and cross, too. We didn’t know what to do with 
ourselves. “My father always told me,” he said 
one day, “that a man who stayed in the fur 
trade was a fool. One might make a stake one 
winter, but he would be sure to lose it another 
season. He was right. Let’s give it up, buy 
some cattle with what we have left, and settle 
down to stock raising.” 
“All right,” I agreed. 
suits me.” 
“We'll do some plowing,’ he went on, “and 
raise potatoes and oats and all kinds of garden 
stuff. I tell you, it’ll just be fine.” 
Berry’s bull train had just pulled in from a 
trip to Helena. We loaded it with some lum- 
ber, doors and windows, what furniture we had, 
plenty of provisions and some tools, hired a 
couple of good ax-men and started it out, we 
going on ahead with the women with a four- 
horse team. We chose a location on Back Fat 
Creek, not far from the foot of the Rockies, 
and less than one hundred miles from Fort 
Benton. We selected a site for the buildings, 
and then leaving me to superintend their erec- 
tion, Berry went away with a couple of men to 
purchase some cattle. It didn’t take long to 
haul enough pine logs from the mountains for 
a six-room shack, a stable and corral, and by 
the time Berry returned with the cattle, about 
four hundred head, I had everything fixed for 
winter, even enough hay for a team and a couple 
of saddle horses. 
“Tt’s a go. Anything 
The Piegans were scattered that winter. Some 
were on the Marias, some on the Teton, and a 
number of lodges of them occasionally trailed 
in and stopped near our place for several weeks 
at atime. Buffalo were fairly plentiful, and up 
in the foothills there were all kinds of game. 
We had some trouble with the cattle at first, 
but in a few weeks they located, and thereafter 
it required little riding to keep them close 
herded. I can’t say that I did much of the 
riding, but Berry enjoyed it. We had a couple of 
men, so I went out on little hunts with Nat- 
ah’-ki, poisoned wolves, caught trout in the 
deep holes of the creek, and just stayed with 
the women, listening to Crow Woman’s and old 
Mrs. Berry’s tales of the long ago. 
The room Nat-ah’-ki and I occupied had a 
rude stove and mud fire-place, as did all the 
others except the kitchen, where was a good big 
stove. Previous.to this, except when in Fort 
Benton, the women had always used a fire-place 
for cooking, and they still used one for roasting 
meat, and baking beans in a Dutch oven. Be- 
sides a bed and a chair or two, our room had 
a bureau—one of those cheap, varnished affairs 
—of which Nat-ah’-ki was very proud. She 
was always washing and dusting it, although it 
was never in need of such care, and arranging 
and re-arranging the contents of the drawers. 
Also, we had curtains to the window, tied back 
with blue ribbons, and there was a table which 
I made of a dry goods box, covered with a 
bright blanket. At one side of the fire-place 
was a buffalo robe couch, willow back rests at 
each end. We had some argument over that. 
When I explained what I wanted, Nat-ah’-ki 
objected to its construction. “You disappoint 
me,” she complained. “Here we have built a 
home, and furnished it with beautiful things, 
pointing to the bureau, bed and curtains, and 
we are living like white people, trying to be 
white, and now you want to spoil it all by fixing 
up an Indian couch!” But of course I had my 
way. 
One evening we visited a camp of some thirty 
lodges, of which one, Ancient Sleeper, was the 
head man. He owned a medicine pipe and 
various other sacred things, and did some 
doctoring, in which, besides various concoctions 
of herbs that were given the patient internally 
or externally, a mountain lion skin, and prayers 
to that animal, played an important part. When 
we entered his lodge, I was welcomed and 
motioned to a place on his left, Nat-ah’-ki of 
course taking her seat near the doorway with 
the women. Above the old man, securely tied 
to the lodge poles, hung his medicine pipe, 
bound in many wrappings of various skins. 
Spread over the back rest at the right end of 
his couch was the sacred lion skin. In front 
of him his everyday pipe of black stone rested 
