Jack the Young Explorer

Frenchman, formerly in the service of the American Fur Company, but now living on his li

another ranch, on the Pend d'Oreille coulée, where lived a man whom H

ks walking solemnly from a little slough to the house. When they reached it the woman drov

et your ducks, F

hed and then got them and brought them in and raised them. I did have nine, but the coyotes and foxes got away with all but

ggy. It appeared that he had come into the country twelve or fifteen years before an

hat he has killed two or t

t that, but nobody that ever talked to me

ry and were supposed to have money disappeared on this road and nobody ever knew what became of them. Each time Frogg

"we don't know an

n country and I'm not a pilgrim any longer, but isn't s

roggy, and then the country will be better off; but it isn't your funeral nor y

es seem as if the world and the territory wou

"but, as I say, it isn't

reek, and Hugh and Joe said that to

he number of times I've been up here and camped with these Piegans tha

Before that they only came in once in a while, but not long before they saw the last of the buffal

o Canada and have tried to make the two other tribes, the Blackfeet and the Bloods, give them help. I don't know what help they could have given them, because those people up there m

y going to do now? The buffalo won't

fed until they learn to do something for themselves, either to raise crops or raise cattle, or get jobs as hands on the steamboats or as hands f

have a pretty melanchol

hey only knew how, but as yet they don't know anything. Joe says though-you heard him the other night-that they were trying to learn to farm, but this cou

alley of a little stream running from the west, an

ans have their camps and their cabins up and down this stream, and from here on, wherever there is

flat, through which flowed a stream bordered by willows, with a few tall cottonwood trees. As they drew nearer, the buildings seemed to Jack to increase in size, and presently they stopped at the little one-story trading post, a hundre

ars old, smooth-shaven, keen-eyed, thin and wiry. Hugh had often spoken to Jack about him and Jack looked at him with great interest. He was the son of James Bruce, who was an important figure in the fur t

s Jack learned a little later, live

in 1862 and '63 it was said in joke that when Price's army was defeated in Missouri in the early part of the war, the left wing got separated from the others and started westward, and never stopped until it

ngs, and to live at his mess until they started on their way again. Joe, whose people were camped on another creek further t

gle, but he was anxious to go up to the Agency and to get inside that gray

said, "Well, son, let's go on up to the Agency and see the age

come on," said Jac

ooked as if they had been built there for purposes of defense; probably, however, they were built only in imitation of the store and warehouse buildings that formerly flanked the gates of all old fur-trading posts. Once within the

efore and had first met his starving people. He talked with much feeling about their sufferings and the heroic way in which they had borne them, and while he said nothing in definite terms about his predecessor,

s they drew nearer they could see that Major Allen was giving instructions in the art of plowing to some of the people. When they reached the group, they were bus

easy work for the red men. The handles of the plow jerked from side to side, the point either coming out of the ground or plunging so deeply into it that the man hold

iously in the ribs, he cut a fair furrow for six or eight feet. Then, however, the point ran deep into the ground, and the old man was thrown forward and nearly fell down. Meanwhile, the Indians

ows and cottonwoods marking the course of the stream; to the west the mountains with their clear-cut outlines sharply defined against the blue sky; the gray stockade stood near at hand, and farther off the conical white lodges of the Piegans up

ugh and Jack to come up to his house, where they talked ov

nd they easily become discouraged. They have never been used to handling horses hitched to wagons, and they don't know at all what horses can do. They hitch these little riding ponies of theirs to a big wagon and then pile it up with mu

en would. For example, they often dug up their potatoes to see how fast they were growing, and as soon as they grew large enough to eat they tried to sell them, although if they had left them in the ground they would have continued to grow for a month longer. Now that the Indians have teams and

t these Indians, who all their lives have been

't look for it. I am very well satisfied with the way th

ar they've had such a hard time that I think they're

oath, explaining that everybody who serves the Government has to be sworn in, and that they must do as all the other public servants. They take an oath which I l

I have. I would like to hear it,

, 'The sun is good,' and then, 'The earth is good,' and bending down they touch the ground with the hand; an

horses, and yet they never, so far as I have heard, complain. They're a good lot of people, and I ask for nothing better than to stay here and work

"that must have be

d to Hugh, "Now, Hugh, what do you think will become of these Indians? Of course, the buffalo never can come back, so hunting d

s have no money and no means of earning any money to buy cattle with. They certainly can't hire out to work, because there is no one in this country that will hire them and pay wages. If they had cattle and would take care of them they might do well, because this is one of the finest grazing ranges in the world, but you know very w

they wanted food they went out and killed something, and th

y don't come to understand it very soon they will have

mighty hard lines; it's h

an awful lot of suffering before they got to the point where 'most every man realized that he had to work hard for a living, and I reckon i

nd generous and hospitable that I feel a personal sympathy for each one o

l, of course. You know these peop

ore dinner was ready, and after dinner they