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In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
XXVII.—Trade, Hunt and War Party. 
Our trade flourished. Berry was almost con- 
stantly on the road, so I had few opportunities 
to do any hunting. There were days when I saw 
a band of buffalo ‘loping swiftly over the dis- 
tant plain pursued by the hunters, or when some 
friend came into our lodge and told of an excit- 
ing chase—l found camp life irksome at such 
times, and longed to be able to go and come as 
I pleased. 
“To-morrow you shall be trader,’ I said to 
Nat-ah’-ki one evening, “and I will go hunting. 
I must have a ride. I am getting weak sitting 
here in the lodge day after day.” 
“You shall go,” she said. “Why didn’t you 
tell me long ago? I can trade as well as you 
can. I know just how much to give for every- 
thing. But I will not put my thumb in the cup 
when I measure out sugar or coffee or tea.” 
“The cup has no handle,’ I interposed. 
“But there are other cups of the very same 
size with handles. You and Berry ought to be 
ashamed of yourselves, to so cheat these poor 
people. Now, here is the one’—picking up a 
new tin one that Berry had just brought from 
the Fort. “This is the one I shall use. See, it 
has a strong handle and—and’’—— she turned it 
over and over, examining inside and outside. 
“Why, what a strangely made cup; it has two 
bottoms; it will hold only a little more than 
half as much as a real cup. Oh, what rascals 
you traders are!” 
“Wait!” I exclaimed, “you do not understand. 
There is another trader in this camp. He gives 
four cups of sugar for a wolf skin; with this 
one we have had made we will give seven cupfuls 
or sugar, or four of coffee, or five of tea. The 
people will get just as much for a skin or robe 
as they did before, but the other trader has no 
false cup; he cannot give as many real cupfuls; 
we will drive him out of here and get all of the 
trade.” 
And that is just what we did. As I have re- 
marked before, Berry was the man to get trade; 
no one could successfully compete with him. 
I went hunting in the morning as I had planned. 
There were six of us, including Big Plume and 
his nephew, a very bright, handsome, likable 
young man named Moccasin. There were eight 
or ten inches of snow on the ground and the 
weather was cold. Thick, low clouds drifting 
southward obscured the sun, and snow fell inter- 
mittently at times so fast that we could not see 
objects a hundred yards away. We rode east- 
ward for four or five miles, before we saw any- 
thing save a few seattering bulls, and then a lull 
in the storm permitted a temporary view of a 
large scope of country. A half dozen bands of 
buffalo were in sight, one of several hundred 



head not half a mile farther on and across a wide 
coulée, a branch of which extended to where we 
were. We sat very still on our horses until an- 
ether flurry of snow came down and blotted out 
the landscape, when we rode into the side coulée, 
down it and across the large one, and climbed the 
hill on the other side. When we topped the rise 
we were right in the herd, and then it was every 
man for himself. Jt was all very misty and un- 
certain chasing the white-covered creatures in 
the snowstorm, and haif blinded by the stinging 
clouds of snow their sharp hoofs threw into our 
I trusted to luck to ride safely among the 
hidden paririe dog and badger holes, and to 
bring down the quarry when I fired. The muf- 
fled reports of my companions’ rifles sounded 
very far off, my own seemed more like the dis- 
charge of a toy pistol than anything else, yet 
before I had emptied the magazine I saw three 
different victims stop, and stagger, and fall, and 
I felt that I had killed my share of the game, 
and brought my excited horse to a stop. The 
others did even better than I, and we were sev- 
eral hours skinning our kill and preparing the 
meat for packing. Not that we intended to do 
that; the hunters’ women would come for it the 
next day, and Big Plume was to have my share 
taken in for one of the hides and part of the 
meat, 
It was all of 2 c’clock when we started home- 
ward, after tying to our saddles the tongues and 
other choice parts of the buffalo. The wind had 
veered to west northwest and was blowing 
harder, driving the snow in clouds before it. We 
had not progressed more than a mile, shielding 
our faces with our hands or blankets, and trust- 
ing to our horses to find the back trail, when 
some one cried out: “A war party ahead! Look! 
See them run!” And, sure enough, there they 
were, a couple of hundred yards distant, five men 
running as fast as they could for the shelter of 
a nearby coulée. Moccasin was away ahead of 
us and he put the whip to his horse as soon as 
he sighted them, regardless of his uncle’s cries 
to wait and be cautious. Long before we could 
overtake him he had charged after them, firing 
his carbine rapidly, and we saw one of them fall. 
They, too, fired at him, and we saw that they 
carried muzzle-loaders. He was now almost on 
top of the four fleeing men when the one who 
had fallen rose up as he was passing and dis- 
charged a pistol at him, and doubling over in 
the saddle he hung on for a moment, then fell 
limply to the ground, his horse turning and run- 
ning wildly back to us. 
Big Plume hurried over to where he lay and 
dismouning beside him, raised him up in_ his 
arms. The rest of us made short work of the 
war party. One or two of them succeeded in 
reloading their guns and firing at us, but they 
did no damage and fell one after another, rid- 
dled with bullets from our Henry and Win- 
eyes. 
chester repeaters. They were Assinaboines, of 
course, sneaking around in the cold and snow of 
winter as usual, and they had met their just de- 
serts. My Piegan companions were for once 
quiet over their success, not even letting out a 
single shout of victory. They felt too badly over 
the fall of Moccasin, and quickly scalping and 
taking the weapons of the dead, they gathered 
around him in mute sympathy. It was plain to 
be seen that he had made his last run, fired his 
last shot. Cold as it was, beads of perspiration 
gathered on his pale face, and he writhed in 
pain. He had been shot in the abdomen, His 
horse had been caught and stood with the others 
nearby. “Help me to get into the saddle,’ he 
said faintly. “I must get home. I want to see 
my woman and my little girl before I die. I 
must see~them. Help me up.” 
Faithful old Big Plume was crying. He had 
raised the young man and been a father to him. 
“T can do nothing,’ he sobbed, “nothing. Some 
of you lift him up. Some one ride ahead and 
tell them what has happened.” 
“No,” the wounded man said, “no one shall go- 
first; they will learn about it soon enough. I am 
badly hurt, I know, but I am going to live to 
reach my lodge.” 
We got him up into the saddle and one, mount- 
ing behind, supported his drooping form. An- 
cther led the horse, and thus we resumed our 
homeward way. Twice he fainted, and we stopped 
in a sheltered coulée, spread blankets and laid’ 
him on them, bathed his brow with snow and fed 
him snow when he revived. He was thirsty, call- 
ing for water, water, continually.’ The way 
seemed terribly long and coming night added to 
the general gloom of our party.. We had started 
out so happily, had been so successful, and then 
in an instant death had come among us, our 
swift home going had been changed into a 
funeral trail, a life full of happiness and love 
and contentment was going out. That was the 
way of it on the plains; the unexpected was 
always happening. 
We came to the edge of camp at dusk and filed 
in past the lodges. People gathered and inquired 
what had happened. We told them, and some 
ran on ahead spreading the news. Before we 
came, Moccasin’s wife ran from her lodge to- 
meet us, sobbing heart-brokenly, cautioning us to 
be careful and carry him in as easily as possible. 
We laid him on his couch, and she leaned over 
and held him to her bosom, kissed him fervently 
and called on the Sun io let -him live. I went 
out and to my own lodge. Nat-ah’-ki met me 
at the doorway, She, too, was crying, for Moc- 
casin was a distant relative. She looked at me 
anxiously to see if there was any blood on my 
clothes, and there was, plenty of it, buffalo blood. 
“Oh,” she gasped, “and they have shot you, 
too? Show me, quick, where is it? Let me call 
for help.” 
