







FOREST AND STREAM. 


[JUNE 23, 1906. 









np fran sani 
= ut local nani 
a: SS 
See ————————— 










Tis 


In the Lodges of the Blackfeet. 
XXX.—Crees and Red Rivers. 
Home again at Fort Conrad. Somehow Nat- 
ah’-ki and I liked that place better than any we 
had lived in. The river, murmuring and 
gurgling by window, the lovely green 
groves in the grassy bottoms, the sloping rise 
of the valley, the rude room itself built of 
massive logs, cool in summer, warm in winter 
and alight with the blaze in the hearth, seemed 
to us all that we could desire. “Let us never 
leave here again,” she said; “let us stay right 
here in peace and comfort.” 
But I told her, as I had before, that we could 
not always do as we wished; that in a few weeks, 
or months, we might be obliged to take the trail 
to buffalo again. 
Berry made a flying trip through the buffalo 
country in May, and upon his return we made 
preparations to establish a trading post on the 
Missouri at a place named Carrol, something 
like a hundred and fifty miles below Fort Ben- 
ton. Steele and Broadwater, partners in the 
“Diamond R.” outfit, which was a great trans- 
portation company, had started the place some 
years before with the view of hauling freight 
from the steamboats there directly to Helena, 
but for various reasons this plan had failed, and 
their buildings had long since fallen into the 
ever-encroaching river. We chose the location 
because it lay south of the Little Rocky Moun- 
tains, north of the Snowies, had good wagon 
roads leading out of it, and above all because 
it seemed to be in the very center of the remain- 
ing buffalo country. We sent a trusty Indian 
north into Canada to notify the Blackfeet and 
Bloods of our intention, and they agreed to 
move down there as soon as possible. So did 
our near neighbors, the Piegans. We counted 
on having a big trade, and as it turned out, we 
were not mistaken. 
It was about the first of July (1880) that we 
embarked on the Red Cloud at Fort Benton, 
Berry, the Crow Woman, Nat-ah’-ki and I. 
There went with us also a French half-breed, 
named Eli Guardipe, the best rifle shot, the 
best buffalo runner and all-around hunter I ever 
knew. He was six feet two in height, rather 
slender, and I never saw any one who could 
keep up with him walking or running, for he 
had the wind and the muscle to endure. At the 
mouth of the Judith we came to the buffalo, the 
bottoms covered with them, the river black with 
them swimming across, some north, some south. 
And we saw herds of deer and elk and: antelope, 
and on the bare cliffs and buttes many a flock 
of bighorn. The sight of all the game glad- 
dened our eyes, and astonished the tenderfeet 
passengers. ‘They made a rush for their rifles 
and shotguns and toy pistols, but the captain of 

our 
the boat forbade any shooting. He told 
Guardipe, however, that he would like to eat 
some roast bighorn saddle, and gave him per- 
mission to kill one. Soon afterward we saw a 
fine big ram standing near the top of a butte 
watching us. It was at least three hundred 
yards away, but a moment after Guardipe’s rifle 
cracked it toppled over and rolled and bounded 
down into the river with a mighty splash. The 
captain reversed the big stern wheel, and waited 
for it to float alongside, when the roustabouts 
drew it on deck. That was about as difficult a 
shot as I ever saw made. The tenderfeet 
gathered around Guardipe, and stared at him in 
open-mouthed wonder. 
We arrived at Carrol late in the afternoon. 
We had tons and tons of trade goods aboard, 
and it was wonderful to see how quickly the 
deckhands put the stuff ashore. Berry’s bull 
train had preceded us, overland, and the men 
had already put up a commodious two-room 
cabin, which was to be our kitchen and dining 
room. We took possession of it at once, and 
the women cooked us a good meal. 
By the middle of September we were in good 
shape for the. winter, having built a large log 
store and warehouse 4ox125 feet, a smoking 
house for curing buffalo tongues, and a row of 
sleeping quarters. True to their promise, the 
Blackfeet and Bloods came down from the north, 
and a little later came about two thousand 
Canadian Crees, under Chief Big Bear. There 
also trailed in a large number of Red River 
French and English halfbreeds with their awk- 
ward, creaking, ironless, two-wheel carts. 
Surely, we were not going to lack for customers. 
An opposition trader had started a small store 
about two hundred yards above us. He had 
never been in the Indian trade, but boasted of 
his commercial successes in the States, and said 
that he would soon put us out of business, even 
if he didn’t have such a large stock of goods. 
When the Blackfeet appeared on the opposite 
side of the river, he went across and invited the 
chiefs to feast with him. They all got into his 
boat and came over, but the moment they 
stepped ashore a bee-line was made for our 
place, and the welcome they well knew awaited 
them. The trader was about the most 
chagrined man you can imagine. We made 
things interesting for him before the winter was 
over. 
The north Blackfeet were friendly with the 
Crees; had intermarried with them to some ex- 
tent. The two tribes camped side by side in the bot- 
toms near us all'winter. The Bloods,’ however, 
were not so friendly to them, and hunted out 
south of the river, along the foot of the Snowies. 
The chiefs of the two tribes made a sort of 
armistice, agreeing that for the winter, at least, 
there should be no trouble between them. But 
the Piegans would not meet their long-time 

enemy, and hunted in the country to the west 
of us, occasionally sending out a war party to 
kill a few of the Crees and drive off their stock 
We got none of their trade. 
Nat-ah’-ki and the Crow Woman were highly 
indignant when they saw the Crees pull in from 
the north. “By what right,” asked the latter, 
“are they here? The soldiers ought to drive 
them back to their brush swamps. It is wrong 
to allow them to kill the buffalo and other game 
belonging to our people.” 
“They are dog-eating dogs!” Nat-ah’-ki ex- 
claimed. “If you are going to ask their chiefs 
in here to feast, you can find some one to do 
the cooking, for I will not.” And she kept her 
word. Seeing how she felt about it, I found an 
English halfbreed family to take charge of the 
mess. Nat-ah’-ki had lost a brother and an 
uncle in war with the Crees, and I could not 
blame her for feeling as she did toward them. 
The Piegans, however, had always beaten the 
Crees, as they were braver, better armed, and 
better horsemen. Where the town of Leth- 
bridge, Alberta, now. stands, they once had a 
battle with them in which two hundred and forty 
of the Crees were killed, and many more 
drowned while attempting to escape by swim- 
ming the river. : 
I cannot explain why I also had a deep 
hatred for the Crees unless it was that Nat-ah’- 
ki’s enemies were naturally mine, too. I am 
ashamed to say that I did hate and despise 
them, their looks, manners and even _ their 
language. I soon learned their words for the 
different articles of trade, but would never use 
them, pretending that I did not understand, and 
obliging them to tell me what they wanted either . 
in Blackfoot, which most of them spoke, or by 
means of the sign language. Their chief, Big 
Bear, was a short, broad, heavy-featured, small- 
eyed man, with a head of hair which seemed 
never to have known the comb. Why he was 
a chief I could never learn. He did not seem 
to have even ordinary intelligence, and his war 
record did not compare with that of the average 
Blackfoot. : 
Even more than the Crees, I disliked their 
half brothers, the French-Cree Red River 
breeds. They were not dark, but actually black 
skinned like the negro, and they dressed in black, 
both women and men, the latter wearing a bit 
of color, a bright red sash around the waist. 
The women’s kerchiefs even were black, And 
then the men had such a despicable way of wear- 
ing their hair, cut straight off just above the 
shoulders, and standing out around the head like 
a huge mop. But it was not for their looks that 
I disliked them so much as it was their habits 
and customs. They ate dogs, for one thing; 
they pretended to be faithful and zealous mem- 
bers of the church, but were the worst set of 
liars and thieves that ever traveled across the 
