JUNE 9, 1906.] 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
905 
a = 

Still I had no comment to make, but I thought 
of those lines of the old tent-maker: 
And many a knot unravelled by the way, 
But not the knot of human fate. 
But what a beautiful thing it is to have faith. 
He who has it—that simple, unquestioning, un- 
reasoning faith of our ancestors; why, his heaven 
has begun right here on earth. 
As the summer wore on the questions of food 
became a very serious one to the Piegans, and we 
heard that the more northern tribes of the Black- 
feet were also suffering. The Piegan agent, in 
his annual report to the Department of the In- 
terior, had deplored the barbarism of his charges, _ 
their heathenish worship of strange gods, but he 
told nothing of their physical needs. “I have 
nothing for you,” he said to the chiefs. “Take 
your people to buffalo and follow the herds.” 
This was in August. They all moved down 
near our place, and while the hunters rode the 
plains after antelope, the chiefs conferred with 
Berry, planning for the winter. 
cided to move to the Judith country, where the 
buffalo were thought to be still plentiful and 
where, of course, there were practically as many 
elk and deer, beaver and wolves as ever. In 
September we also trailed out, Berry, the Crow 
Woman, Nat-ah’-ki and I, and in a week or more 
went into camp on the Judith River, only a mile 
or two above the mouth of Warm Spring Creek. 
In Fort Benton we had engaged a couple of extra 
men, and with their help we soon threw up a row 
of log cabins and a couple of rude fire-places. We 
were located in the heart of an extensive cotton- 
wood grove, sheltered from the northern winds, 
and right beside us ran the river, then fairly 
alive with big, fat trout. According to agree- 
ment, the Piegans came and pitched their lodges 
near us, and a part of the Blood tribe moved 
down from the north and mixed with them. We 
certainly had enough hunters, and if the buffalo 
were rather scarce in our immediate vicinity there 
were great herds of them only a day’s journey 
to the eastward. As for the deer and elk, the 
country swarmed with them, and antelope, too. 
Up on Warm Spring Creek there was a cattle 
ranch which had been located the previous year. 
A man named Brooks was its manager, and it 
was owned by a great firm which had large mer- 
cantile interests in Helena and Fort Benton and 
Fort Macleod, and also the tradership at the 
Blackfeet Agency, which the Piegans had left in 
search of game. This was, I believe, the only 
cattle ranch at that time in all the vast country 
lying between the Highwood Mountains and the 
Yellowstone. Since then that once rich grassed 
-country has supported hundreds of such ranches. 
And then came the sheep and fed it off. It would 
make the old-time hunters weep to see those bar- 
ren plains and hills as they are to-day. I don’t 
wish ever to see them again, I prefer to remem- 
ber them as I last saw them, before they were 
despoiled by the white men’s herds and flocks. 
Just think how many centuries those rolling 
plains furnished sustenance to the countless herds 
of buffalo and antelope which roamed them, and 
how many more centuries they might have lasted 
but for the white man’s greed. I believe with the 
Indian that the white man is a terrible destroyer. 
He leaves the grassy plains mere brown wastes; 
before him the forests disappear, and only black- 
ened stumps mark where once stood their green 
and lovely aisles. Why, he even dries up the 
streams, and tears down the mountains. _ And 
with him are crime, and hunger, and want such 
They finally de- - 
as were never before known. Does it pay? Is it 
right that the many must pay for the greed of 
the few? 
Once only, during the winter, did I find time 
for a hunt, as Berry was on the road much of 
the time. Nat-ah’-ki and I went once after buf- 
falo, camping with Red Bird’s Tail, a genial man of 
thirty-five or forty years. There were few lodges 
of us, but many people, and we traveled as light 
as possible. We found buffalo toward the close 
of the first day out, but went on until noon of 
the next one, and camped on the head of Armills 
Creek, I had never seen the buffalo more plenti- 
ful than we found them there. From a little 
butte nearby we could see that the prairie was 
black with them clear to the breaks of the Mis- 
souri, and to the eastward where the buttes of 
Big Crooked Creek and the Musselshell loomed 
in the distance. The Moccasin Mountains shut 
off the view to the south, but westward, whence 
we had come, there were also buffalo. 
“Ha!” exclaimed Red Bird’s Tail, who had rid- 
den up beside me. “Who. says the buffalo are 
about gone? Why, it is as it has always been; 
the land is dark with them. Never have I seen 
them more plentiful.” 
“Remember that we have come far to find 
them,” I told him; “that the plains to the west, 
and away in the north, are barren of them.” 
“Ah, that is true, but it will not be for long; 
they must have all moved eastward for a time, 
as our fathers tell us once happened before. They 
will go back again. Surely, the good Sun will 
not forget us.” 
I had not the heart to destroy his hopes, to tell 
him of the vast regions away to the east and 
south of us, where there were no longer any 
buffalo, where the antelope, even, had been prac- 
tically exterminated. 5 
Red Bird’s Tail was the leader of our party, 
and the hunters were subject to his orders. We 
had ridden out on to the butte very early, and 
after getting a view of the country and the posi- 
tion of the herds, he decided that a certain herd 
southwest of us should be chased, as they would 
run westward into the wind, and not disturb the 
larger ones grazing here and there in other direc- 
tions. We returned then to camp for our morn- 
ing meal, and to wait until everyone had sad- 
dled his favorite horse and was ready to start. 
It was a warm day, some snow on the ground, 
but a mild chinook wind blowing, so Nat-ah’-ki 
accompanied us, as well as most of the other 
women. The lay of the land was favorable and 
we succeeded in riding right into the edge of 
the herd before they became alarmed, and then 
they ran, as Red Bird’s Tail had predicted, south- 
westward into the wind and up a long slope, an 
outlying ridge of the mountains. That gave us 
an advantage, as the buffalo were not swift run- 
ners on an up-grade. On a down-hill run, how- 
ever, they could easily outstep the swiftest horse. 
All their weight was forward; there was not 
enough strength in their small, low hindquarters 
to propel their abnormally deep chests, huge 
heads and heavy hump with any noticeable speed 
when they went up hill. 
Nat-ah’-ki was riding a little mare of gentle 
mien and more than quiet disposition, which had 
been loaned her by one of our Blood friends for 
the trip. All the way from the Judith she kept 
plying her quirt and calling it sundry reproach- 
ful names, in order to keep it beside my more 
lively and spirited mount. But the moment we 
came near the herd, and the hunters dashed into 
it, the animal’s demeanor suddenly changed. It 
reared up under her restraining hand, pranced 
sideways with arching neck and twitching ears, 
and then, getting the bit firmly in its teeth, it 
sprang out into the chase as madly as any other 
of the trained runners. Indeed, that is what it 
was, a well-trained buffalo horse, but the owner 
had not thought to tell us so. It was even 
swifter than mine, and I felt no little anxiety as 
I saw it carry her into that sea of madly-running, 
shaggy-backed, gleaming-eyed animals. In vain 
I urged my horse; I could not overtake her, and 
my warning shouts were lost in the thunder and 
rattle of a thousand hoofs. I soon saw that she 
was not trying to hold in the animal, but was 
quirting it instead, and once she looked back at 
me and laughed, her eyes shining with excite- 
ment. On we went, up the slope for a mile or 
more, and then the scattering herd drew away 
from us and went flying down the other side of 
the ridge. 
“What made you do it?” I asked as we checked 
up our sweating, panting horses. “Why did you 
do it? I was so afraid you would get a fall, 
perhaps be hooked by some of the wounded.” 
“Well,” she replied, “at first I was scared, too, 
but it was such fun, riding after them. Just 
think of it, I struck four of them with my quirt! 
I just wanted to keep on, and on, and I never 
thought of badger holes, or falling or anything 
else. And once a great big cow looked up at me 
and snorted so hard that I felt her warm breath. 
Tell me, how many did you kill?” 
“Not one,’ I replied. I hadn’t fired a shot; uy 
had noticed nothing, seen nothing but her as she 
rode in the thick of it all, and I was more than 
glad when the run ended. We looked back down 
the slope and saw the hunters and their women 
already at work on the carcasses of their kill, 
which dotted the snow. But we—we were meat- 
less. It would never do for us to return to camp 
without some, so we rode on for a mile or two 
in the direction the herd had gone, and then 
turned off into the mountains. Up ‘among the 
pines there were deer, both kinds, and here and 
there were groups of elk feeding or lying down 
in the open parks. While Nat-ah’-ki held my 
horse I approached some of the elk, and by good 
luck killed a fat, dry cow. We built a fire and 
roasted some of the liver, a piece of tripe, and, 
after a hasty meal, we rode back to camp with 
all the meat our horses could conveniently pack. 
WALTER B. ANDERSON. 
[To BE CONTINUED. | 

Yellowstone Park Atlas. 
Tue notice of the publication of the Geological 
Atlas of the Yellowstone National Park, which 
appeared in the ForEsT AND StreAM of April 7, 
aroused interest in not a few readers and brought 
us several questions as to where the atlas might 
be obtained. The volume is sold by the United 
States Geological Survey, Washington, D. C., for 
$3.75 bound in cloth, or for $2.80 in paper covers. 
As already pointed out, it consists of twenty- 
four large sheets which show the topography and 
geology of the Yellowstone Park and of the Ab- 
saroka Range, together with special sheets cover- 
ing the Mammoth Hot Springs, Norris Basin, 
Fire Hole Excelsior and Shoshone Geyser Basin. 
There is a sheet which shows the geology of the 
shores of the Yellowstone Lake. The atlas is one 
that ought to be in the hands of every good 
American, since every good American must feel 
a strong pride in the wonderland in whose own- 
ership we all have a part. 
