With the Indians in the Rockies

firearm shop in St. Loui

Fox

le & Re

muni

es & Fowl

To

partner in the business. Longer than I could remember, he had been

to cook bread, cakes, puddings and pies. I have seen him make what he called a delicious breakfast on nothing but buttered toast and coffee. That was because he did not get any bread where he lived ex

s-just a good-sized town. I liked best to go with him to the levee and see the trappers and traders coming in, their bateaux loaded down with beaver and other fur pelts. Nearly all these

tribes. And once he brought me a Sioux scalp, the heavy braided hair all of four feet in length. When I asked him where he got it he laughed a little and said, "Oh, I got it up there near Fort Union." But

g wide awake, I couldn't help hearing. My mother was taking Uncle Wesley to task. "You know that the presents you bring him only add to his interest in

gentle voice, "and then becoming such a preacher as his grandfather was before him. You must h

t with a tremendous collar, knee-breeches, black stockings, and shoes with enormous buckles. I thought that I should not like

ierre Chouteau, the head of the great fur company, came to our house and had a long talk with him, with t

o hours on Saturday afternoons. There were very few American boys in the town in those days. Most of my playmates were French Creoles,

e years, and old as I am, the thought of it still hurts. In February of the following winter m

I felt that there was nothing in the world for me, until one day Pierre Chouteau himself came for me in his

should like to carry out your father's and mother's plans for you, Tom," he said. "The only way to do it, so far as I can see, is to send you to Cynthia Mayhew,

e. How could he be so cruel as to send me far away among strangers? And t

two or three times, and his voice wasn't steady as he t

. I'll take you up the river with me for a year, or until you get good and strong. But we'll pack your study books along, and a g

of buffalo. There was nothing in St. Louis now to keep my uncle or make his stay there a pleasure. As quickly as possible he dis

rst steamboat ride. As the stern-wheel craft swung out from the levee and steamed rapidly-as it seemed to me-up-stream, the novel experience gave me

oad it, so as to be ready to shoot buffalo. I was terribly disappointed when he told me that many days must pass before we should see any of the animals. But to

e said. "Now take a fine sight at the end of that little

the water splashed just over the tip of the log, and a

ur shooting at different objects in the water and on the banks. One morning I fired at one of a pair of wild g

. "I killed it! Wasn't t

moment, and th

it will be the only one. A true hunter never

t to heart, and all my life I have not only profited by it

quent, especially white-tail deer, of which we soon had some for the table. The boat was always tied to an island or to the shore at sundown, and during the short remainder of daylight we would all scat

fort, we sighted the first of the buffalo herds, a small band of bulls that splashed out of the river not far ahead of the boat, and took to the hills. About four o'clock that afternoon, the port eng

at we never could have penetrated it but for the game trails crossing it in every direction. From the looks of

the tracks of the deer differed from those of elk, and how these differed again from the tracks of the buffalo. I was taught, too, t

hose tracks?

nd replied that I thoug

. "They seem very fres

ite me. My heart thumped rapidly and I found it difficult to breathe. I was afraid, and kept looking intently in all directions-even behind me, for

gs, close at Uncle Wesley's heels. So close was I that when he suddenly stopped, I bumped into him, and

hing back and drawing me to his si

d. How big they were! How majestic and yet uncouth they loomed before me! They had apparently no necks at all. Forgetting entirely our purpose in coming there, I stared at t

ad been sorely taxed to shoot with it, but now, in my tense excitement, it fairl

the bulls running across the bottom; the other was swaying, staggering round and round, with bl

r with a crash

sing the shot I had made, and added that the animal was in fine condition and would weigh all of a ton. He had me lie down on it, my feet eve

ndlass, or any of the other things regarded as indispensable by farmers and by professional butche

t the same time heaving up the back, and in a moment or two the animal lay prone on its belly, propped up in that position by the head. If the skin had been wanted, t

and even under the body, by propping the head one way and then another, and slanting the carcass so

These dorsal ribs rose gradually from the centre of the back to a length of twenty inches

he unjointed a hind leg at the gambrel-joint, and with that for a club he hit the tips of the ribs a few blows

removed the after part; severed the neck from the big ribs, cut them apart at the brisket, and smashed one side of them free from the backbone

ou know how to butcher. Let's hurry to the boa

and more plentiful and tame. At last, several days after passing Fort Clarke, we came to the American Fur Company's

of logs ten or twelve feet long, set up on end, side by side, protected the buildings, and this, in turn,

d of Indians and company men, headed by the factor, gathered at the shore to greet us. My uncle and I were escorted

ng accounts of what they saw and did in the Upper Missouri country, which I commend to the reader, Maximilian's "Travels in North America" especially; for I went up the river from Fort Union just as he did, and there had been practically no change in

he factor went on a trip to the States. When we arrived in Fort Union he was told that he must go on to Fort Benton, where the factor needed his help. At that time, since the company's steamboats went no farther than Fort Union, all the

of the boat and crew. The Minnie was sixty feet long, ten feet wide, and was decked over. The crew consisted of thirty French-Canadian cordelliers, or towmen, a cook, a steersman and two bowmen, and a hunter with his horse. In a very small cabin aft there were two bunks. Forward there was a mast and sail for use when the wind was

l before. It was a painful sight, those thirty men tugging on the long tow-rope as they floundered through water often waist-deep; through quicksand or mud so tenacious that the more unfortunate were dragged out of it gasping for breath and smeared with the stuff from head to foot. They frequently lost th

current, drifted against two sawyers, and began to turn turtle. The lower rail was already under water, and the horse had lost its footing and tumbled overboard, where it hung strangling, when by the greatest good fortune first one and then the other of the sawyers snapped under the strain, and the boat righted and swung in to the bank. We now had time to see what was going on above. The bear was just leaving the opposite shore and making for the timber; the men, dripping from their hasty bath, were gathered in a close group near the carcass, and were talking and gesticulating as only Frenchmen can. We suspected that something was wrong,

us. The food of these men was meat-nothing but meat, washed down with a little tea. Sometimes they managed to dig a few pommes blanches, white, edible roots that were very palatable when roasted in the coals. Uncle Wesley and I had a box of

mes that distance round by the channel. Sometimes when we came to such a place Uncle Wesley and I would hunt across the bott

furs. Should anything happen to it while he was away from it, even for an hour's hunt, his hope of eventually becoming a member of the great company would ha

the position he now held in preference to others with more pay which the Chouteaus had offered him. When we started out in the morning, I would climb up behind him on the gentle old horse, and we would ride for miles up one side or the

stantly scanned the bottoms and the hills for signs of Indians. They were the great terror

lshell River, which my Uncle Wesley said Lewis and Clark had so name

nd we started out to hunt at the same time that the cord

island. One small band of antelope was the only game in sight between us and the Musselshell. On the other side of it, at t

to remain with the horse while he crept out to the herd and made a killing. I did not like being left alone. There were many fresh grizzly tracks on the river sands just

rising in the stirrups I could just see the backs of some of the distant buffalo. A sudde

ble than a whole band of grizzlies: an Indian crossing toward me. I saw his face, painted red with blue bars across the cheeks; I noted

Indian in the act of letting an arrow fly at me. I yelled and gave the horse such a thump with the stock of my rifle that he made a long, q

dians all up and down the stream were leaving the timber and running toward me. I looked ahead and saw the smok

nt later. The buffalo suddenly circled and came back into the bottom, and I saw that they had been turned by some Indians at the edge of the hills. Indians were strung out clear across

ere now quite near him. I saw him raise his rifle and fire at the one in the lead, then turn and run a few steps and spring

ked over my shoulder, and saw that the nearest of the Indians were not three hundred yards

of C