CHAPTER XXIII
OUR NORTH EXPEDITION
We brought in our horses at daybreak and were on our way to Canada soon after sunrise, following an old Indian trail northward over the prairie; winding along the benches of round-topped ridges and down their long slopes, through wide grassy valleys and across streams and blue-gray rivers, clear and icy cold, always following the best grade like an old buffalo trail.
The first day we traveled far; we did not stop until evening shadows were touching the rounded summits of the grass-covered hills, camping for the night at an old Indian ground thickly strewn with buffalo bones from former feasts. Broken tepee poles were scattered about, bare frames of old sweat-lodges and blackened stones of camp-fires.
On the summit of a high ridge stood a pile of stones, sharp and clear against the sky of evening, like the solitary figure of a sentinel, marking the grave of a chief named Red Blanket.
That night Onesta told me to picket my saddle horse close to camp because of a ghost. He warned me, saying:
“Old Red Blanket, who is buried on yonder hill, was a good man and kind; but his ghost is mean. It does not like people to camp here and drives away their horses in the night. That hill was his favorite haunt when he was alive. For many years he went there to meditate and dream. When he was dying he asked his family to place his body there.”
We did not heed Onesta’s warning and turned our horses loose to feed in the night. Strangely enough they were all gone in the morning—driven by the ghost, Onesta said. We had to walk a long distance to find them.
Our next camp was on the open prairie east of Divide Mountain, a triangular peak of the Rockies, where two great watersheds meet—the Hudson Bay Divide, a smooth ridge running east and west, and the Rocky Mountain chain extending north and south.
That evening our women had time to prepare the meat for our journey, boiling the boss-ribs in a kettle; the rest was cut into strips and stretched on poles to dry over a fire.
In the meantime with Little Creek I went to the camp of a widow named Katoya. The bodies of her husband and children were on a hill near her home. The lonely old woman welcomed us to her lodge and was glad to tell about the past. In our talk with her she said:
“How happy we used to be at this time of year, the beginning of summer, when our hunters came home with plenty of meat. Then I said to my husband: ‘Invite now our friends; this night we shall have a feast.’
“Then he would ask some of the old people in for a smoke. Near the time of the first big snow in the autumn, we hastened to move away from the mountains and camp on the prairie. We went down a river, stopping to camp at our favorite camp-grounds and waiting for buffalo to come near. We were careful to choose the best place for our long winter camp. In those days we were happy. There were no white men and we wandered where we pleased. The buffalo were plentiful; the antelope of the prairies were fat and made good eating.
“After my husband killed some buffalo, we brought in the hides. I tanned the skins, stretching them on the ground to dry in the sun; I oiled them with the brains and liver and made them soft by working them. Some of the skins I used for making clothes, and others for parfleches and berry-bags. After I had finished tanning our robes for winter, I had nothing to worry about. My husband and children had plenty to eat; they all slept warm on the coldest nights.”
Then we left the old woman and returned to our own camp. Instead of taking time to pitch our tepees, the women made an ingenious shelter by stretching a canvas sheet over a wagon tongue for a ridge pole and fastened it to the ground on both sides. I made my bed outside, on the grassy bank of a small stream, where the night wind blew fresh from the mountains, bearing the fragrance of pine forests and flowery meadows.
That night we sat by our camp-fire and talked about ghosts. Because of the near-by graves on the hill, the Indians thought that spirits were near. Onesta said:
“The worst kind of ghosts are the ‘haunting spirits.’ I have always been afraid of them. They prowl around at night and try to harm people. They are unhappy in the spirit world and envy the living. They are the ones who use the ghost arrows, which bring sickness and death. Outside in the dark, they shoot at people. Sometimes they strike people on the head and make them crazy; they paralyze the limbs of people and make their faces crooked. Some ghosts don’t like to see people eat in the night, so they punish them by pulling their mouths crooked; and sometimes they kill people that are ill.
“I have heard ghosts make a noise at night by striking the lodge-poles; sometimes they make a queer sound like whistling, overhead in the smoke-hole of the tepee, and sometimes they laugh. But they never come inside if a fire is burning; and they are always afraid of the smell of burning hair.”
Here Onesta stopped abruptly. Just outside the bright circle of our firelight, we heard something moving through the grass. It sounded like an animal walking stealthily. Little Creek seized his rifle and was ready to shoot. This “thing” glided slowly along and into a thicket of willows. Onesta said it sounded like a cougar. But Strikes-on-Both-Sides said it acted like an Indian who came to watch our camp. Then they all agreed it was a ghost. And next morning, when we went back to see the widow, Katoya, in her tepee, she confirmed that belief. For she said:
“Last night I could not sleep. I lay awake thinking of the happy days of the past. Just before dawn, the ghost of my dead son came to see me. He has been my protector for many years and often visits me at night. Last night he was hungry. After I gave him food, he said: ‘Mother, there are strangers here. Be not afraid; they are good people and will do you no harm. This night I watched their camp. I saw Little Creek, Onesta, and White Weasel. They were seated beside a fire. I went too close and they heard me. Little Creek was going to shoot. I was afraid this might frighten you, so I came away. Then I met the ghost of my father coming down the hill from his grave. He said he was coming to watch over you because of strangers. But I told him to go back to his grave and rest in peace. I promised him no harm would come to you.’ ”
After that the old woman bowed her head and sat in silence. So we went away and left her to the companionship of her ghostly dead.
Then came one of those violent changes in the weather, which are common on the high plateau country of the northwest. Dark clouds came down from the north and settled over prairies and mountains. We broke camp in a hurry, and got under way before the storm set in. A bank of angry clouds advanced rapidly over the prairie; from it extended curving black streaks, moving in waves downwards toward the earth—the sign of a severe hail storm.
When the temperature fell, we stopped and unhitched our horses, tying them with long ropes to the wheels, while we got under the wagons—just in time. The sky became dark and we heard the distant roar of falling hail. Then the storm broke with lightning and thunder, and a deluge of hail that covered the ground.
Heavy clouds enveloped us all the way to the summit of the Hudson Bay Divide. But on the other side, the northern slope, it was a glorious day with the sun shining in a clear sky. Before us lay a vast expanse of grass-covered prairie, level to the horizon; west was the main range of the Rocky Mountains, peak after peak, snow-capped and snow-mantled, stretching northward out of sight.
Descending from the divide, we entered a broad and fertile valley, where our trail led along a shallow stream. At the head of this valley rose the sharp peak of Chief Mountain, 4000 feet above the surrounding plain, and an altitude of 9056 feet above the sea. It is a lone citadel of rock, an eastern spur of the Rocky Mountains, a landmark of the international boundary line between Canada and the United States. The Indians named it “Chief,” because they could see it so far from the plains. It overlooked the Old North Trail of the Indians, which ran north and south along the foot of the Rockies. In those days of long ago, what sights could have been seen from the precipitous slopes of Chief Mountain—great herds of buffalo and graceful antelope, deer, wapiti and moose, and bands of primitive red men moving north and south over the broad plateaus and along the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.
We came that night to a broad stream called Green Banks by the Indians (St. Mary’s River), and camped near the lodge of an old medicine man named Spotted Eagle, a friend of Mad Wolf, my Indian father.
He had a wrinkled, merry old face, with gray hair which was separated into braids over his shoulders by bands of otter-skin. I found him lying on a couch of robes and blankets fanning himself with the wing of an eagle. The day was warm and he was naked except for a loin-cloth.
When I entered, he gave an odd exclamation of surprise, intended to be humorous. Then he sat up, and made his toilet, shaving by pulling the straggling gray hairs from his wrinkled face with a pair of small tweezers, and combing his hair with the bristly tail of a porcupine; and all the time he talked.
He liked to joke and had a reputation as a wit. After each of his jokes he laughed and winked. At the barking of a dog or neighing of a horse, he would give a startled cry as if frightened; and made a grimace. He did this as a joke and to make me laugh, which I always did to please him. He loved funny stories, especially of Old Man (Napi), a strange and mythical character known to many Indian tribes. He was a sort of creator and teacher, but at the same time a trickster who played evil pranks. Some of the tales about him were brutal and obscene. But Indians, both old and young, always liked the Old Man Stories, because of their power to entertain and make people laugh. Spotted Eagle told them to me, as he would tell fairy tales. He enjoyed them because of his keen sense of humor.
After dark by his lodge-fire, when the air had the chill it always takes after sunset near the foot of the Rockies, Spotted Eagle told me the story of
OLD MAN AND THE SQUIRRELS
“Old Man was always on the move; he never stayed long in one place. He could talk with the birds and animals, and often conversed with them on his travels. One time he came to a place where some squirrel-people were having a game. They were running around a fire, squealing and having a big time, all chasing one squirrel. As soon as that squirrel was caught, they would bury him in the ashes near a fire until he squealed; then they threw him out in a hurry. After that another squirrel ran until he was caught and was buried in the ashes. But, as soon as it got hot and he squealed, they always dug him out.
“Old Man watched them for a while and then said: ‘Let me do that too.’
“The leader of the squirrels replied: ‘Come on, elder brother, we will bury you first.’
“Old Man was careful to squeal as soon as the squirrels covered him with ashes; and they quickly dug him out.
“Then he said: ‘Now younger brothers it is your turn; since there are so many of you, I shall bury you all at once.’
“So the squirrels lay down together, and Old Man covered them with hot ashes. But he told a mother squirrel that stood to one side of the fire: ‘Just go away from here, so that there may be some young squirrels for the future.’
“Soon the ashes got too hot and the squirrels squealed to be taken out. But Old Man heaped on them all the ashes he could. He did not pull them out until all the squirrels were cooked. Then he sat down and ate his fill. There were so many he could not eat them all. He put the rest on poles and lay down to sleep, telling his hind-end, which always watched for him, to waken him if anything came near.
“Old Man was asleep only a little while, when he heard a noise. He jumped up and looked around; but he saw only a crow sitting in a tree. This made him angry, and he said:
“ ‘Is it for that bird you make such a noise?’
“He went to sleep again and a lynx came around, but Old Man slept on. When he woke up at last and looked for the squirrels, they were all gone. The lynx had eaten them up.
“Then Old Man followed that lynx and found him asleep after eating all the squirrels. Old Man seized him and shouted: ‘I have you now.’ He took him by the ears and banged his nose against a rock and made it flat. He stood him on his hind legs and stretched out his body and his legs to make them long. He broke off most of his tail and left only a stump. Then he took some hair and stuck it on his nose for whiskers, and said:
“ ‘You bob-cats will always look like that. You will have flat faces, long bodies and long legs and a stump of a tail; and you will be so short-winded you cannot run far.’
“Old Man was so angry with his own hind-end for not waking him, that he struck it with a fire-stick. And when the burned place began to hurt, he held it towards the wind to cool it off and shouted: ‘Let the wind blow harder and harder.’
“Then the wind came so hard Old Man was blown away. He felt himself going and caught hold of anything within reach; he tore up trees and bushes by the roots. At last he held to some birch trees, and they did not break.
“After the wind went down, Old Man got up and shouted:
“ ‘Mean old birches! You spoiled all my fun. I was having a good time being blown by the wind, until you stopped me.’
“He grabbed the birches and slashed them with his knife; all up and down the trees he cut, until they were covered with slashes. ‘Now you will always look like that,’ he cried. ‘And forever, all the birches shall have these same cuts.’ They came from the slashes Old Man made long ago with his knife.”
By this time it was late, and the old medicine man ended by saying: “Now the dogs are scratching the ground, having had their evening meal.” An Indian way of saying: “My story-telling is finished.”