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The Peril of Lone Man 
A Blackfoot Indian Tale 
By J. W. SCHULTZ 
S the country merchant loves to ride out 
beyond the bounds of his own town and 
look the broad fields of the 
yellow with ripening grain ready for 
the reaper, so the old-time Indian trader loved 
over 
farmers, 
to look upon the big camp of the plains people, 
red with drying meat and white flesh side of 
newly 
y for tanning into 
that in the heart of the 
Indian trader there was a kindlier feeling, less 
stripped hides ready 
robes. But I fancy 
of a spirit of grasping than these same merchants 
have. The Indian trader was an anomaly, If 
he charged his customers enormous prices for 
his goods, he also gave to the needy and to 
with a prodigal hand. 
his interest in the welfare of the people to whom 
his friends Generally 
he had become attached was greater than his 
desire for gain; and so it came to pass that when 
the buffalo were finally killed off, not one in 
fifty of these men could show much of a bal- 
ance on the credit side of his ledger. I merely 
mention this to explain why, as we rode into 
the the Blackfoot autumn 
afternoon in the long ago, my old friend Berry 
“Plumb 
My! but they’re happy.” 
edge of camp one 
exclaimed: red and white, isn’t it! 
And so the people were; from several quarters 
of the great the and 
laughter of playing children, could be heard the 
camp, above shouts 
beating of drums; and voices raised in gambling, 
and feast, and dancing songs. 
between the lodges, 
Passing along women 
ceased from their occupation to look up at us 
with smiling faces, and make some joke about 
and here and there a man shouted 
You shall 
our coming; 
out: ~~ Our 
feast with us. 
And yet most people believe that the Indians 
are a silent, taciturn people! 
friends have arrived. 
oh 
Well, they do ap- 
pear to be so before those whom they instinc- 
tively know despise them. 
We rode on and dismounted in front of Lone 
Man’s lodge; a youth sprang to take charge of 
our horses, and we entered the home of our 
friend. “Welcome, welcome,” he said heartily, 
motioning us to seats on either side of him, 
and then shaking hands with us, his comely, 
intelligent face alight with pleasure. One by 
one his three young wives came in, three fine 
looking, long-haired, clean and richly dressed 
sisters. us, and 
evening 
and our 
saddles, guns and bridles were brought in by 
the youth and piled in the empty space. 
It was a fine lodge, that one of Lone Man’s; 
about 22 feet in diameter, of good height, made 
of twenty white soft tanned 
artistically cut and sewn together. 
They, too, were glad to see 
said so, as they began to prepare the 
meal. Again the door was drawn back 
cowskins 
All around 
close to the poles was a brightly painted lining, 
between which and the outer covering the air 
new, 
rushed up and out through the top, carrying 
the smoke of the cheerful fire along with it, 
Here and there were luxurious buffalo robe 
couches, with painted willow back rests covered 
with buffalo robes, and in the spaces between 
them were piled set after set of bright, pretty- 
figured parfleches, containing the 
clothing and finery of the family, 
stores of 
Suspended 
above the head of our host, securely fastened 
to the lodge poles, was a long, thick buckskin- 
wrapped roll, containing a medicine pipe. At 
each end of it were some red-painted, long- 
fringed, rawhide sacks filled with various sacred 
things. Our friend was a medicine man. Once, 
when very ill, he had paid fifty horses for the 
pipe, and through its miraculous power, the Sun 
had listened to his supplications, and restored 
him to health. The sick now came to him, and 
he unrolled the sacred bundle with the pre- 
scribed ceremonies and songs, painted the 
sufferers’ faces with red symbols of the sky 
and prayed for their the 
igrant smoke of tobacco and burning sweet 
gods recovery as 
fre 
grass arose, 
We exchanged such news as we had to tell, 
while the roasting of fresh buffalo tongues, the 
frying of thin flour cakes, and making of coffee 
progressed. In those days Lone Man was one 
of the few Blackfeet who cared for bread and 
other white man’s food. Meat of various kinds, 
prepared in various ways, and without salt, was 
all the most of them had. Meat was ni-tap’-i- 
wak-sin: real food. Flour, beans, rice, corn and 
the like they called kis’-tap-i-wak-sin: useless 
food. 
Some visitors came in and we repeated what 
we thought would interest them, and told why 
we were there: to learn how they were going 
to winter; if in one locality, or in moving about. 
We had our own view of matter; we wanted 
them to remain where they were, at the foot of 
the Snowy Mountains, and I may as well say 
here that before we left camp they promised 
that they would. So we built a substantial 
trading post there, and had a very good trade. 
To look at our good friend, Lone Man, as he 
sat there in the glow of the little lodge fire that 
night, laughing and joking, and at his three un- 
usually handsome wives, happy in ministering to 
the wants of their husband’s friends, one would 
not have thought that they had ever known 
trouble; but they had. For years a grim spectre 
had hovered over them. Death in the form of 
some unknown enemy, in most unexpected 
ways, at the most unusual times, had more than 
once nearly overtaken Lone Man, the popular, 
the kind, the helping friend to the poor and 
afflicted. Why he, of all men, rich and kind and 
generous, should have an enemy, and that enemy 
a member of his own tribe, was a mystery 
which had never been solved. He had never 
quarreled with any one. Not a man nor woman 
was there in all the tribe at whom the finger of 
suspicion could be pointed. 
The winter previous to this time Lone Man 
had paid us a somewhat long visit, and one 
night he told us in detail the story of his es- 
capes from this mysterious foe. “It began,” he 
said, “the very day after I married my first 
wife, when I was feeling happier than I ever 
had before, and I had always been a pretty 
happy youth. I was very proud, too, that morn- 
ing. Why should I not have been, with just 
the prettiest girl in camp riding by my side— 
well, maybe not any prettier than my Pwai-é-ta 
and my youngest woman, Pus-ah’-ki. You re- 
member how they looked in those days, don’t 
you? Such smooth-cheeked, bright-eyed, quick 
and graceful girls as they were. And don’t you 
remember their hair, how the long braids of it 
almost touched the ground as walked 
along? 
“We had eaten our first meal together, Si’-pi- 
ah-ki and I, and then we rode out to round up 
my herd of horses and drive them into water, 
I held my head pretty high as we passed on 
between the lodges. Many a young man, I 
knew, was gazing at me enviously; nearly every 
one of them, at one time or another, had tried 
they 



