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In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
XXVI.—A Game of Fate. 
WE returned tothe fort early in September, 
and shortly afterward Ashton and Diana went 
east. Nat-ah’-ki for a time well-nigh 
prostrated over the separation, for she fairly 
worshipped Diana. Indeed, we all felt sorry to 
see them depart, for they were truly, both of 
them, very near and dear to us all. 
During the summer we had put in a good 
stock of merchandise, expecting to have a fine 
winter trade at the fort, but now came the dis- 
quieting news, that there were practically no 
buffalo to the north, the west, or the south of 
us. We could not believe it at first; it seemed 
Was 
impossible; somewhere away to the north we 
the great herds still roamed, and in 
due time they would return. But theory soon 
Save for a few hundred in the 
Slave. Lake country, and a few more 
scattered about the Porcupine Hills, the buffalo 
had drifted southeastward from the plains of 
Northwestern Canada into Montana, and they 
never recrossed the line. This was the winter 
of 1878-79, it will be remembered. At the same 
time the herds which had ranged along the 
argued, 
gave way to fact. 
Great 
foot of the Rockies from Canada south to the 
Missouri River left that part of the country never 
to return. South of the Missouri to the Yellow- 
stone and beyond, in all Montana, save on the 
headwaters of M!lk River, the Marias, Teton and 
along Sun River. and _ into Dakota, 
the buffalo were, however, apparently as plenti- 
ful as ever. 
western 
The Piegars had intended to winter in the 
vicinity of Fort Conrad and trade with us, but 
of course they were obliged to change their 
plans and go to buffalo, and we had to accom- 
pany them to get any trade at all. We left it to 
the women whether they would remain at home 
or accompany us, and all but Nat-ah’-ki elected 
to stay at the fort. Her prompt decision to ac- 
company me was exceedingly pleasing, for I 
had felt that it would be well-nigh impossible to 
go alone, even for a few months; that the life 
would be unendurable. 
I demurred: 
her. 
Yet for her own sake 
“You love this place,’ I said to 
“You can be comfortable sitting here be- 
fore the fire when Cold Maker comes down from 
the north. You had better remain.” 
“Ts it because you love me no more,” she 
asked, “that you tell me this?” And when I re- 
plied that I was thinking only of her comfort, 
she added: “I am no white 
housed and waited on. It is my duty to 
go with you and do the cooking; keep the lodge 
warm; do all I can to make you comfortable.” 
“Oh!” I said, “if that is why you would go, 
just because you think you must, why, remain 
woman, to be 
up, 
here. I'll live with Weasel Tail; his wife will 
take care of us.” 
“How you can use words!” she exclaimed. 
“Always, always you search around with them 
and make me say all that is in my mind. Know 
then, if you will, that I go because I must fol- 
low my heart; you have taken it.” 
“That is exactly what I hoped you would say; 
but why could you not have told me at first 
that you wanted to go because you cared for 
me.” 
“e 
“Know this,’ she replied: “A woman does 
not like to be always telling her man that she 
loves him; she likes to think it and to keep it 
deep down in her heart, lest he tire of it. That 
would be terrible, to love and have your love 
cast aside.” 
Many and many a time I have thought of that 
talk by the evening fire, and I wonder, I wonder 
now, if all women are that way, chary of ex- 
pressing their innermost thoughts. Women, I 
take it, are generally past men’s understanding; 
but I believe that I knew Nat-ah’-ki. I believe 
I knew her. 
We pulled out, Berry, Nat-ah’-ki‘and I, with 
a couple of four horse team loads, leaving a 
man to look after the fort and the women. 
Traveling by way of Fort Benton, we were 
several days passing the mouth of the Marias. 
Just beyond that point the sight of buffalo on 
all sides gladdened our eyes, and we found the 
Piegan camp, pitched at the foot of the Bear 
Paws, red with meat, littered with drying hides. 
Nat-ah’-ki’s mother was on hand as soon as we 
came to a stop, and the two women put up our 
lodge while Berry and I unharnessed and cared 
for the stock. We finally turned them over to a 
boy who was to herd for us. 
Big Lake’s shadow had sometime since de- 
parted for the Sandhills. Little Dog, another 
great leader and friend of the whites, had been 
dead a still longer time. White Calf was now 
the head chief of the tribe, and after him, Kun- 
ning Crane, Fast Buffalo Horse, and Three 
Suns were the principal men. They were men. 
Big-hearted, brave, kindly men, every one of 
them, ever ready to help the distressed by word 
and deed. Our lodge was no sooner set up and 
supper under way than they came in to smoke 
and feast with us, Nat-ah’-ki’s mother having 
gone around to invite them. Also came Weasel 
Tail and Talks-with-the-Buffalo and Bear Head 
and other friends. The talk was mainly about 
the disappearance of the buffalo in the nortn 
and west. Some thought that they might have 
crossed the mountains; that the Nez Percés or 
some other tribe of the other side had found 
some means to drive or decoy them to the plains 
of the Columbia. Old Red Eagle, the great 
medicine pipe man, declared that his dream had 
reliably-informed him about the matter: “‘As it 
happened before in the long ago,” he said, “‘so 
it is now. Some evil one has driven them into 
a great cave or natural corral in the mountains, 
and there holds them in his hate of us to whom 
they belong. They must be found and released, 
their captor killed. Were it not that I am blind, 
I would undertake to do it myself. Yes, I would 
start to-morrow and keep on, and on, and on, 
until I found them.” 
“Tt may be that your dream speaks truth,” 
said Three Suns. 
“Have patience; in summer our young men 
will go out to war, and they will search for the 
missing herds.” 
“Ail Ai!” the old man grumbled. “Have 
patience! Wait! That is what they always say. 
It wasn’t so in my day; was there something to 
do, we did it, now it 1s put off for fear of winter’s 
cold or summer’s heat.” 
White Cali closed the subject by saying that 
even if some one had cached the northern herds, 
there seemed to be a plenty left. “And they're 
on our own land, too,” he added. “If any of 
the other side people came over here to hunt, 
we'll see that they never return; some of them 
at least.” 
We had been asked to trade, even before we 
unhitched our horses, but Berry said that noth- 
ing would be done in that line until evening. 
The feast over, and our guests departed, people 
began to flock in. One for a rifle; another for 
cartridges; others for tobacco, or sugar, coffee, 
and some, alas! for spirits. We had nearly-a 
wagon load of alcohol, which we diluted, 4 
to I, as occasion required. Before bedtime we 
sold over five hundred dollars’ worth of gocds 
wet and dry, and it was easy to see that Berry 
would be kept pretty constantly on the road all 
winter, hauling our furs to Fort Benton and re- 
turning with fresh supplies of merchandise. 
There was an unusual craze for gambling that 
winter. By day the men when not hunting 
played the wheel and arrow game, rolling a 
small bead-spoked disk down a beaten path and 
trying to throw, or cast an arrow into it as it 
whizzed along. At night the camp resounded 
with the solemn, weird, gambling chant from 
many lodges. There the players sat, the two 
sides facing each other, and played the “hide the 
bone game,” striking with small sticks the outer 
rail of the couches in time to the song. Even 
the women gambled, and many were the alterca- 
tions over their bets. 
In a lodge near us lived a young couple, 
Fisher and his woman, The Lark. They were 
devoted to each other, and were always to- 
gether, even on the hunts. People smiled and 
were pleased to see the untiring love they had 
for each other. They seldom went visiting, but 
were always making little feasts for their friends. 
Fisher was a fine hunter and kept his lodge well 
