Chapter VI: Ni-Na Us-Tak-Wi (chief Mountain) 233 (5)

"And just then One Horn's women set before him and the other Crows dishes of rich berry pemmican, the best of dried meat and back fat, and they ate with the outside chief. Then they smoked again and went home, the Crow chief saying that he would soon give a call for a council, and would send for the Blackfoot to join in it.

"It was not until near sunset, however, that a youth came to invite One Horn to the Crow chief's lodge. He found assembled there all the head men of the tribe, and the chief told him that, after long talk, they had decided that they, too, were tired of war, and would be glad to make peace with the Blackfeet.

"'But be not in a hurry to return home,' the Crow chief concluded. 'Make us a long visit, and during it we will decide together where and when our two tribes shall meet to make this lasting peace treaty.'

"Answered One Horn: 'I shall be glad to camp here with you for the rest of this moon.' And all those present signed to him: 'Yes. Remain here with us for a time.'

"One Horn and the Crow chief became friends. They hunted together, visited often in each other's lodge, and together were invited to other lodges to feast and smoke, and join in the warriors' tales of raids and battles and adventures along far trails.

"The River Crows were at this time encamped just over the ridge from the Inside Lakes, on Little River, and some of them came frequently to visit their Mountain brothers at the foot of the lakes. Among others came a man who was always counting his _coups_. In a gathering of the warriors he would wait until all had told what they had done in war against their enemies, and then he would count one _coup_, only one, that was far greater than any of theirs.

"On a day when One Horn was visiting in the Crow chief's lodge, this man was one of the guests. The talk was of war, and after many there had told what they had done, he said that, with a friend, he was approaching the Blackfeet camp, and they were discovered and surrounded by all the warriors of the tribe. His friend soon fell, as full of arrows as a porcupine is full of quills, but that he, charging this way, that way, shooting arrows fast and killing many Blackfeet, made them give way before him and he escaped from them, although wounded in the back. Later on, when safe from pursuit, he had drawn out the arrow, and still had it, proof enough of the truth of his tale.

"This man then turned to One Horn, and said, by signs, of course, 'We have all of us here told about our fights, and now it is your turn: tell of your brave deeds.'

"'I have nothing to say that will interest you; mine have been just the common experiences of those who go on raids. No, I have nothing to say,' he answered.

"'But you must tell us one great thing that you have done,' the River Crow insisted.

"And again One Horn answered: 'What I have done would not interest you. I have nothing to say.'

"The man then turned to the Mountain Crow chief and said: 'This is a poor kind of a friend for you to have! He has done nothing; he is no chief, he is a woman!'

"'I do not know for sure, but I think that he is a chief, that he has a big war record,' the host answered him.

"And then the guests went their several ways, the River Crow laughing shrilly, contemptuously, as he left the lodge.

"It was not long after this that the River Crow came over again from Little River, and again was one of a party of guests in the lodge of the chief of the Mountain Crows. Once more the talk was of war, and when it came this man's turn to talk, he drew an arrow from his quiver, laid it on the ground in front of him, and said: 'There! No one here, nor in the camp of the Mountain Crows and the camp of the River Crows, has ever equaled what that stands for. That is the arrow that I drew from my back after my partner was killed, and I fought my way single-handed through the hundreds of Blackfeet warriors, killing many of them, and so frightening them that they dared not pursue me.'

"One Horn leaned over, looked at the arrow, and gave an exclamation of disgust: 'That is my arrow,' he signed. 'I know this man now. At dawn, one morning, I discovered him and his partner asleep near our camp. I crept up to them and shouted, thinking that they were our horseherd watchers, and when they sprang up, I saw that they were enemies. I shot one of them dead. This man turned and ran, never even firing at me, and I shot an arrow into his back, but he kept on going and escaped from me in the brush! Yes. That is the very arrow I shot into him!'

"'It is a lie! A big lie!' the River Crow said, and signed.

"For answer to that, One Horn went to the door of the lodge and shouted to his women to bring over his quiver of arrows. It was soon handed in to him, and he said: 'I have here two kinds of arrows: hunting arrows and war arrows. Here are the war arrows.' And he laid them beside the arrow in front of the boaster. All there saw at once that they were exactly like it in every way, had the same private mark just back of the point. And suddenly, with jeers and cries of 'Liar!' 'Coward!' they took handfuls of ashes and earth from the fireplace and threw them in the River Crow's face and on his head, and he ran for the door and was gone, leaving the arrow behind. One Horn picked it up and put it in his quiver, and said: 'That no doubt ends his lying bragging!'

"Some days after this exposure of his lying, the River Crow, watching his chance, entered the lodge of the Mountain Crow chief and said to him: 'That Blackfoot has shamed me. I was a chief, but now all people laugh at me. I want revenge. Let me kill that friend of yours and I will give you three of my best horses!'

"'What you ask is impossible!' the chief replied. 'He is my friend! We have smoked together, have eaten together. I cannot allow you to kill him. And for your lying you deserve what you got!'

"The River Crow sneaked away, but on the next evening, when none but the chief and his women were at home, he came again. And this time he said: 'Let me do what I want to do; you know what that is; and I will give you five of my best horses and my beautiful young daughter.'

"And this time the chief did not give him a short answer. He thought over the offer for a long time. He knew that it would be a terrible thing to betray his Blackfoot friend, but the temptation was great. His women were getting old. He wanted that beautiful girl. And at last he gave way to the temptation: 'It shall be as you wish,' he told the man. 'All is arranged for to-morrow; we go with the hunters on a big buffalo hunt, and there will be no chance for you to do what you want to do. Come the day after to-morrow and I will help you--if you need my help--to kill the Blackfoot.'

"Very early the next morning the hunters started out after buffalo, One Horn taking with him one of his women to help in the butchering and packing in of the meat. They were no sooner gone than one of the Crow chief's women hurried to One Horn's lodge and told his other woman all about the plan to kill him. She told it because she was jealous; she did not want her man to take another wife!

"So it was that, when One Horn came home that evening, this wife ran to him and embraced and kissed him as though she would never let him out of her arms. This strong showing of love was unusual with her, and he asked her the cause for it.

"'Because to-morrow you are to die, and sister and I are to become slaves. See now what you have done by coming to try to make peace with these Crows!' And she told him all about the plot to end his life.

"But One Horn just laughed: 'Wipe away your tears and take courage,' he told her. 'These Crows will not kill me, a bear medicine man, and a chief. They cannot kill me. I will show you to-morrow something that will surprise you!'

"That night he kept his favorite war horse picketed close to his lodge, and the next morning he carefully dressed himself in his beautiful war clothes, painted himself and his horse, took his bow and arrows, his shield and spear, and rode into the center of the big camp, and called upon the Crow chief to come out. He did come out, also dressed for battle, and One Horn cried out to him, at the same time making signs, so that he would be sure to understand, 'Your plot is discovered. So you and that River Crow are going to kill me. Where is he? Call him. I want to fight you both. I am a bear. I fight like a bear. Come! Hurry! Let us fight. Ha! I am going to fight my true friend, the chief of the Mountain Crows, he who smoked and ate with me, he who was going to join me in making a lasting peace between our two tribes. Come! Let us fight! Shall it be on horseback or afoot? I give you the choice.'

"The Crow chief gave him no answer. Some of the people, looking on, were beginning to show their anger and shame at his betrayal of a friend. He turned and went back into his lodge, and would not come out again.

"While this was going on, several men had hurried to the River Crow man, stopping in the far end of camp: 'Your plan to kill the Blackfoot is discovered, and he is dressed and armed and mounted, waiting to fight you. He is like a raging grizzly, and his, you know, is the bear medicine. What are you going to do?'

"The man did not answer them. He mounted his horse, and, hidden from One Horn's sight by the lodges, struck out for the River Crow camp on Little River, and fear was with him. He often looked back to see if he were being pursued by this dreadful bear medicine man who had once wounded him, and was now so anxious to meet him face to face.

"One Horn rode back to his lodge. 'Take down the lodge, pack up everything. We will not stay another day with these treacherous Crows,' he told them, and rounded up and caught what horses were needed for packing and riding.

"Just before they were ready to leave, the Crow chief sent one of his women to say to One Horn that he was sorry for what he had done, very sorry that he had ever listened to the River Crow, and wanted to make reparation. He wanted to give his Blackfoot friend ten head of horses.

"'Tell him that I will not accept anything from him,' One Horn answered the woman. And he and his outfit started for the north and were soon out of sight of the Crow camp.

"Some days afterward they arrived at the camp of their people on the Big River of the North, and had no sooner set up their lodge than One Horn called a council of the chiefs and told them where he had been and for what purpose.

"'Although I accomplished nothing, I am glad I went,' he told them. 'I now know the Crows. They are liars all, and not to be trusted. I advise that we begin a steady war against them.'

"The other chiefs agreed to that. Messengers were sent to the brother tribes, the Bloods and the North Blackfeet, and to the Gros Ventres, friends of the Blackfeet, and the war was started. Little by little, summer after summer, they drove the Crows southward, killing many of them, and were not satisfied until they forced them to the country south of the Elk River,[11] where they have ever since remained. So, because of their treachery, the Crows lost a great and rich country."

[11] Po-no-ka´-ĭs-i-sak-ta. Elk River; the Yellowstone River.

_August 18._

THE ELK MEDICINE CEREMONY

Not in many, many years have I been so affected as I was this morning. For some days I have had a high fever, and have slept but little at night. In-si-mak´-i (Growth Woman), Yellow Wolf's wife, had been doctoring me with the good old remedy for fevers, sweet sage tea, but it seemed to have no effect. So Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill announced that he would have his Elk Medicine ceremony for my benefit, and that he was sure that it would cure me of my illness. We had it this morning, and to-night I have a normal pulse and the fever has left me. I will not go so far as to say that it was his prayers that cured me,--prayers far better, far more earnest than those of any Christian preacher I ever heard,--but yet, I am well! To me, all religions are nothing more than the codified superstitions of the ages, but of them all, Christian and pagan, I like best the faith of these, my people, faith that the sun is the conservator of all life and the orderly ruler of this, our earth. And what absolute faith they have in their Sun-religion! Should Christians live as closely to their beliefs as the Blackfeet do to the laws of conduct given them by their Sun god, what a different, what a happy world this would be!

Before I relate the details of the ceremony, I must tell something of the medicine itself.

The Blackfeet believe that, when they lie down and sleep, their shadows, or, as we say, their souls, their spiritualities, leave the body and go on far adventure. Their name for this is Ni-pup´-o-kan (my dream; my vision); and when they awake they really believe that they have experienced all the incidents of their dream, and relate them as having been of actual fact.

When men and animals were first created, they had a common language, and the latter had the power to change themselves at will into the form of man. It was in that long ago time that a man seeking knowledge, and praying earnestly for it, was in his vision visited by an elk in the form of a man, whose name was Po-no-kai´-ût-sĭn-in-ah (Elk-Tongue Chief).

"I have heard you praying, asking for help. What is it you want? Perhaps I can help you," the elk man said.

The man answered: "I seek some way to relieve my people from sickness; some way to give them long life and happiness. Help me if you can do so."

The elk man answered: "I can help you; I will help you. Through what was given me in my vision I am in great favor with the sun, and all the gods of the earth, the deep waters, and the blue above. That medicine you shall have. I give it to you now!" And having said that, he gave the man a painted lodge, a medicine pipestem, beautifully decorated with a down-hanging set of tail feathers of the sage hen, and wound with strips of the fur of the bear and various water animals. And with it, wrapped in clean buckskins, were the skins of birds and animals, all those that live upon the water and in the water, and feed upon the life in the water, fish, and all the various water insects. And having given the man all this, he taught him how to use it, with all the prayers and ceremonies that go with it. The man took all this to his home, and used it, and found that it was great medicine, and ever since that time the Elk Medicine Lodge and the things that go with it have been handed down from generation to generation, to this day.

So now we come to the ceremony that was given to-day for the curing of my illness. It was my lucky day! Early in the morning Mr. Herford T. Cowling, chief photographer for the United States Reclamation Service, arrived at the Great Northern Railway Company's St. Mary's Camp and I went to him and asked if he would take moving pictures of the ceremony, provided the Indians were willing to have him do it. He enthusiastically replied that he would be very glad to take it all in with his crank-machine, so I went to my people to ask if they would permit it to be done. They objected, saying that the ceremony was so sacred that even the presence of white people, antagonistic all of them to their religion, would profane it. They did not count me. I was one of them!

Said I: "Listen, my relatives, and brothers all! We are all soon to die, and as we pass away the whole of the old life goes with us. Your children, taken away from you by the whites, put in school and taught the white men's religion and manner of living, will know nothing about the way their fathers lived unless I put it all down in writing for all time to come. That I am doing. And how much more interesting it will be if I can have pictures to go with it! Say yes! Let us have, with this that you are to do to-day, the living pictures of it all!"

There followed a long silence, all considering my request. Finally, my best of friends, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill, wiped tears from his eyes, and said, brokenly: "Ap-i-kun´-i is right. The whites take our children from us and teach them false beliefs. But they teach them to read, and it may be, that, after we have all gone on to the Sand Hills,[12] they will read our brother's writings and see us as we were, making our prayers to the gods, and, having read and seen the pictures of it all, return to the one true faith. I say, let the picture man come!"

[12] The Sand Hills (Spät-si-kwo). The drear after-life abode of
the Blackfeet. Their shadows there had a cold, cheerless imitation
of life.

"Ai! Ai! Let him come!" all cried, and I sent a messenger for him.

During the ceremony he took six hundred feet of it, and so for all time to come is preserved the interesting ceremony of the Elk Medicine.

The ceremony is always given in a closed lodge, but this time we threw the front of it wide open, so that the lens of that moving-picture machine could take it all in.

As I have said, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill is old, feeble, half-blind, and is himself unable to go through parts of the ceremony. So, on the evening before this came off, he sent for Chief Crow and his wife, living near, to help him out. Chief Crow is also a medicine man, his wife, of course, a medicine woman, and he owns the Seizer's medicine pipe. Four other medicine men were there, all of them taking part in the ceremony. In each of the three tribes of the Blackfeet there is a secret society of the medicine men, and the members help one another in their ceremonies, and they and they only can dance with the sacred symbols of their rites.

When I went into the lodge the sacred medicines were hanging directly over the owner's couch, opposite the doorway. They were the sacred pipestem and many skins of water animals and birds enclosed in various wrappings, and a buffalo rawhide painted pouch containing sacks of various colored sacred paints. On Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill's left sat his medicine wife. I took my seat close to him on his right. Back of me, and all around the right side of the lodge from me, were a number of women. On the other side, opposite them, were the men and Chief Crow's medicine wife.

The ceremony opened with a prayer by Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill, beseeching the gods to look with favor upon what was to be done. Then his wife arose and undid the fastenings of the medicines, and slowly, reverently, laid them on the couch between her and her husband. The opening song then began, the song of Po-no-kai´-ût-sĭn-in-ah (Elk-Tongue Chief). Oh, how I would like to inscribe that song here! Alice Fletcher says--and I know that she is right--that all Indian music is classical. But their tonal scale is far different from ours; we have not one musical instrument that can reproduce it. Never, never lived a white man who could sing these Blackfeet songs. As a boy, year after year, I tried to sing them, and always failed; one has to take them in with his mother's milk in order to sing them correctly.

The song ended. The medicine woman, with a pair of sacred red-painted willow tongs, took a coal from the fire, placed it just in front of the sacred medicines, and dropped upon it a pinch of sweet grass. It burned, and, as the perfumed smoke arose, she and her man grasped handfuls of it and stroked their bodies, thus purifying themselves before handling the medicines. Then, all present joining in, they sang the song of the real bear, the grizzly, while the medicine woman unfastened the outer wrapping of the medicine pipestem roll, which was bound with a strip of fur from a grizzly's back; and at the same time, in keeping with the time of the song, they made the sign for the bear, closed hands held upon each side of the head, representing its wide, rounding ears.

That song finished, the song of the buffalo began, the medicine man and the medicine woman clenching their hands and alternately putting one out before the other, representing the deliberate, ponderous tread of the animals as they traveled to and from the water. When that song was finished--and it was one to stir one's inmost soul--another wrapping, bound with buffalo fur, was undone, and all present besought the gods to have pity upon them.

Next came the fourth and last song, the song of the beaver, chief of water animals. And while it was being sung, the medicine woman unrolled the fourth and last wrapping, and the sacred medicine pipestem lay in sight of us all. At that all the women gave shrill cries of triumph, of victory; and all the medicine men beginning a solemn chant to the Sun, Chief Crow advanced, received from the medicine wife of my old friend the sacred stem, and, extending the fan of feathers drooping from it, held it aloft and danced in time with the song to the doorway of the lodge and back again, and returned the stem to my friend, who reverently took and embraced it, and made a short prayer to the gods for the long life, good health, and happiness of us all, especially the little children of the tribe.

Next came my part in the ceremony. My old relative and friend felt around in his medicine pouch, got out a small sack of _a-san´_, the sacred red paint, and painted my face with it, at the same time beseeching the gods to give me, his brother, Ap-i-kun´-i, long life, good health, and prosperity in all things. Then, having finished the painting and the prayer, he had his wife hand Chief Crow, his helper, the long red-painted wooden flute that goes with the medicine, and the latter, holding it aloft, danced with it almost to the doorway of the lodge, where he blew several soft, clear notes to the four corners of the earth, and then returned the flute to the woman. This was the Elk Medicine whistle, for imitating the weird call of that animal, and was used just now to call him, the ancient Elk god, to give me his favor, his pity. My friend then facing me, upon his knees began the thunder song, in which all joined, and, spreading his blanket-clad arms wide to represent the thunder bird wings, hovered before me, fanned me with his wings, the intent being to waft to me from him the sacred power. That over, all arose, and passing in line from the lodge, Chief Crow leading, danced through the camp and back again, and the ceremony ended.

I cannot begin to express how I felt all through the ceremony. I honored my people for their sincere faith, their reverence for their gods. And my thoughts went back to the time when they were the lords of these plains and mountains and knew not want. And not so very long ago they were a tribe of three thousand members, and now they number only eight or nine hundred, and those who have gone have mostly gone from want, from their susceptibility to disease because of lack of proper nourishment. Do you wonder that they feel bitterly toward the whites, who have taken from them everything that made their life worth living?

_August 27._

Because we were to-day to embark upon the deep, dark waters of this lake, we yesterday had a little ceremony on the shore, beseeching the dread Under-Water People to have pity upon us and allow us to pass in safety over their domain. We had a little fire close to the water's edge, and having filled and lighted his pipe with a coal taken from it with his sacred red tongs, old Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill smoked and made his prayers, at the same time casting into the water a little sack of his medicines as a sacrifice to the gods. It was a short ceremony, but satisfied even the most timid of the women that all would be well with them during their voyage upon the lake.

And so, where we once had rude rafts of logs, lashed together with rawhide ropes, we this morning embarked in good boats and went all up the beautiful lake, past Red Eagle, and Little Chief, and Almost-a-Dog Mountains to the head of the lake, and looking back at the slope of Milk River Ridge saw the far-apart, enormous footprints of Heavy Runner, keeper of the buffalo.

Away back in ancient times, after Old Man had made buffalo and they had increased and covered the plains, they had great desire to wander westward and see what might be on the other side of the great mountains. The people--the Blackfeet--learning of this were greatly distressed. The far side of the mountains, away west and still westward to the shores of the Everywhere-Water, was the country of their enemies, many tribes of them, and should they get possession of the buffalo herds they would never let them return. What to do about it they had no idea, so they called upon Old Man for help.

Said he: "I made the buffalo to be plains animals, and here upon these plains they shall remain, and other-side tribes shall come to you and ask permission to kill a few of them now and then. So, don't worry. Go home now and attend to your affairs. All shall be well with you."

The people went home. They saw that the buffalo remained upon the plains in apparently as great numbers as ever. But some of the hunters, to learn for sure if they were all there, ascended the different passes of the mountains and went down the other side for some distance. There were no buffalo, not even a few straggling bulls on the other side, and they wondered how Old Man was keeping them back. They soon learned. In a vision it was revealed to an old medicine man that a huge god, a man of enormous stature, was patrolling the mountains from far south to the everlasting snow of the north, and with a club driving the buffalo back eastward as fast as they came anywhere near the summit of the range. And so it was that the other tribes--those of the west--never got the buffalo.

* * * * *

On our way down the lake we passed the beautiful Sun Camp and the chalets of the Great Northern, perched upon the very spot where Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and I killed many a bighorn and goat in times gone by. It was a favorite wintering place of the animals, for the winds kept the steep mountain slope practically bare from snow. And passing the mouth of the creek just above the camp, I remembered that I had named it after Thomas, and Colonel Robert, and the Honorable Cecil Baring, of London, with whom I often hunted back in the eighties. In those days there were many bighorn and goats, and not a few grizzlies back in the basin at the head of the creek. And what amusing and sometimes exciting adventures we had with them! One morning we espied a big "billy" goat on a ledge, and just as we saw him he moved to the back side of it and lay down, showing only an inch or two of the top of his back.

"Who will go up and rout him out, so that I can get a shot?" asked Colonel Baring, and Jack Bean, of Yellowstone fame, volunteered.

It was to be a steep, almost straight-up climb, so Jack laid down his rifle and started without encumbrance of any kind. At last he reached the shelf and stood up on it, and that "billy" came for him, head down! And Jack! Never have I seen a man come down a dangerous cliff so fast as he did! And he kept coming, falling, sliding, rolling, and then Colonel Baring fired and dropped the goat, and man and animal came the rest of the way to the foot of the place together! We had been too much concerned for the safety of our friend to laugh, but when he at last stood up and faced us, bloody, half-naked, but not seriously hurt, we roared. But Jack never even smiled: "Who would have thought that a blankety-blank goat would go for a fellow!" he exclaimed; and he went to the creek to repair the damages to his person.

On this day, halting here and there along the lake, we took some views of the scenery and of our people, and at sunset were back in our lodges. For some of us it is a last trip over the old, familiar ground. My two old friends, Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and Yellow Wolf, must soon go on to their Shadow Land!

* * * * *

We were not too tired to-night for story-telling, so, after the children had been put to bed and all was quiet, Takes-Gun-Ahead gave us the following, the story of tobacco, which is called

NA-WAK´-O-SIS

"In that long ago time when the earth was young, and people had not long been made, a man threw some weeds upon a fire and found that the odor, the smoke from their burning, was very pleasant. That night he had a vision and learned that this plant was strong medicine; that, when smoked in a pipe, which his vision explained to him how to make, it would be the right thing with which to offer prayers to the gods. He also taught the man the prayers and all the ceremony that went with the prayers; and told him how to plant the weeds, from the seeds on their tops, so that he could always have plenty of it.

"This man was very much pleased with what he had learned. He went to his three brother medicine men and told them all about it, and the four of them formed a society of themselves and no others, for the raising of the weed and its proper uses. But they were very stingy with this weed, which they named _na-wak´-o-sis_, and would only now and then give the people a leaf of it, although they raised large numbers of the stalks in every summer time.

"A young man named Lone Bull was very anxious to become a member of this medicine society, but because he had no medicines and knew not the rites of it, he was told that he could not join it. At that time the camp of the people was close under Chief Mountain. He left it, with his woman and his pack dogs, and moved up to the river running out of the Inside Lakes, and there set up his lodge. Said he then to his woman: 'I have come up here to get medicines; in some way to find things that will enable me to become a raiser of _na-wak´-o-sis_. If I can do that, I shall be of great help to the people. Now, then, I am going to hunt and collect all the medicine skins I can find, and you stay at home, take care of the lodge, gather wood, and cook what meat we need. I shall bring in plenty of fat meat along with the skins.'

"The man went hunting every day, and the woman remained at home. One day, when the man was gone, she thought she heard singing; beautiful singing; but look where she would she could see no singers. She spoke to the man about it when he came home that evening, and made him feel uneasy: 'If you hear it again, look about more carefully,' he told her.

"She heard it the next day, and this time located it, right under the lodge. She went out to the bank of the river and looked at the bank: there, under the water, were beaver holes in it, and beaver cuttings upon the sandy bottom, and by that she knew that the lodge had been set up above a bank beaver's home, and that beavers were the singers. She went back to the lodge, lay down and put her ear to the ground, and could then hear them plainly, and was pleased. Their singing was so good that it was all that she could do to stop listening to them and begin cooking the evening meal.

"When Lone Bull came home that night she told him what she had learned, but he could hear nothing, although he put his ear close to the ground. Nor could he hear the singing the next evening, nor the next, although his woman could hear it plainly. So now the woman got her knife and cut a round hole in the ground, and Lone Bull laid his head in it and could then hear the singing. He told her to make the hole deeper; larger. She did so, and cut clear through the ground, and looking down he could see the beavers sitting in their home, singing beautiful songs, and dancing strange and beautiful dances in time to them.

"'Younger brothers, have pity on me!' he cried. 'Oh, my young brothers, teach me your medicine!'

"They looked up and saw him, and one answered: 'Close the hole that you have made, because the light disturbs us, and we will soon be with you.'

"They soon came in through the doorway, four fine-looking men, beautifully dressed. They had changed themselves from beavers to men. They took seats, and then one of them said to Lone Bull: 'Elder brother, what is it that you want of us? How can we help you?'

"Lone Bull told them what it was: his great desire to obtain _na-wak´-o-sis_ and grow it for the people.

"'We have that plant; like us it is from the water, a water medicine,' the beaver man told him; 'but before you can use it you have much to do, much to learn. You have to learn all our songs and prayers and dances and different ceremonies, and gather for the ceremonies a skin of every animal and bird that is of the water, one of each except the beavers, and of them there must be two. You know these animals and birds: otter, mink, muskrat; different kinds of ducks; the fish hawk, and all the other birds that get their food from the life of the water. Why? Because there are two great life-givers of this world: the sun, which gives heat, and water, that makes growth, and in our ceremonies the skins of these different animals are symbols of the water.'

"'I shall collect them all, so teach me everything,' Lone Bull told them. And they began that very night.

"Day after day Lone Bull hunted the animals and birds, brought in their skins for his woman to cure, and night after night the beavers taught him their medicine, all the sacred prayers and dances and ceremonies of it. And at last he knew them all thoroughly.

"Then, one night, the beaver chief handed him some stalks of _na-wak´-o-sis_, the top stems all covered with little round seeds.

"'These,' said he, 'are the children of the big-leaved plants; put them into the ground and they will grow and make other plants that bear children. And now, I must tell you just how to plant: Gather a great, long, wide pile of old dry logs, dry brush and weeds, and set it afire. The heat from it will burn the ground, burn the sod, and make everything soft under it. Then, when the place has cooled, gather from around badger holes, squirrel holes, and wherever you can find it, plenty of the brown earth they have thrown out, and mix it with the burned black earth, so that it will not pack hard around the seeds, and keep them from coming up into the sunlight.

"'After you have taken all the seeds from the stems, you must put them in a sack and not touch them again with your hands. With an antelope horn you will make row after row of little holes all across the burned ground and only a hand apart, and with a buffalo-horn spoon drop a seed into each hole. When that is done, and it will require a long time, you and yours are to dance along each row of seed, singing the sacred songs, your feet lightly pressing down the ground over the seed. At the end of a row you must step across to the next row, and dance backward on that one, and forward on the next, and so on until the last row has been pressed down, and all your songs have been sung. Then you can go away from the place for a time. Return after one moon has passed, and you will find that the young plants have grown above the ground. Watch them, that insects do not destroy them. Give them water if the rains fail you. They will grow all summer, and fade with the ripening of the choke-cherries. Cut them then, care well for them, and you and your people will have a plenty for your winter smokes and ceremonies. There! I have told you all!'

"It was planting-time then. Lone Bull moved right up to the foot of the lower one of the Inside Lakes, and did everything that he had been told to do, his wife helping him in every way. People hunting from down Chief Mountain way came and saw his growing plants, and went home and told about them. The four medicine men just laughed. 'Ha!' They cried. 'He has no _na-wak´-o-sis_! He wanted to join us and we would not let him into our society. He but plants some useless weed.'

"But later on, just as their planting was getting ripe, a terrible hailstorm came along and destroyed it all; every leaf was cut into fine pieces! They cried from grief! Then they said among themselves: '_Na-wak´-o-sis_ we must have or our medicines will be without power. It may be that this Lone Bull really has the true plants: let us go up and see them.'

"They went, all the people with them, and saw that he had the sacred plants. The hailstorm had come nowhere near his place.

"Said they to him then: 'You have a big planting, and we will help you gather it, and you and we four will use it. You shall join us.'

"Lone Bull laughed long before he answered: 'I need no help from you. You shall each have a little of my planting for your own use, and you shall pay me well for it. The rest, excepting what I need, I shall give to the people, and hereafter they will always have all that they need of the plants.'

"And as he said that he would do, so he did, and the people gave him great praise and honor for it all, and he lived to great age. Kyi! Why not? He had the beaver--the water medicine! It is a powerful medicine to this day!"

* * * * *

A visitor in our camp this evening told a tale that ill pleases us. There is a tourist camp away up in Gun-Sight Pass, one of the most weirdly beautiful places in this whole country. There, the other day, an employee was putting up a table on which were painted arrows pointing to the different mountains, the name of each peak alongside its particular arrow.

A tourist standing near and watching the work suddenly exclaimed: "Why, over there is a peak that has no name. Can you not name it after me?"

"Certainly I can," the employee answered; and painted another arrow and inscribed beside it: "Lehnert Peak."

"And over there is a fine waterfall," the tourist said. "Will you please name it after my little daughter?"

"Sure!" said the man; and painted another arrow pointing to "Mary Frances Falls."

Enough said!

V

IKS-I´-KWO-YI-A-TUK-TAI (SWIFT CURRENT RIVER)

_September 1._

We moved up here the other day and made camp beside one of the most lovely lakes in all this Rocky Mountain country. In my time we called it Beaver Woman's Lake. It is now McDermott Lake. And what a name that is for one of Nature's gems! There are names for other lakes and peaks here just as bad as that, but we shall have nothing to say about them here. Only by an act of Congress can we get what we want done, and we have faith that within a reasonable time all these mountains and lakes and streams will bear the names of the great chiefs, medicine men, and warriors who traversed them before the white men came.

Some of us--all excepting our two old men and the women--have been riding over the different trails here, viewing the glaciers and other places of interest, especially Iceberg Lake, where we saw a mass of ice as large as a house part from the glacier, splash down into the deep lake, and disappear, and after a time come up from the depths to the surface and create another commotion of the waters. It was a grand sight!

Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill says that the lake with the unpronounceable white man's name--McDermott--should be called Jealous Women's Lake; that away back in the days of his youth, when the Kootenai Indians occasionally came to camp and hunt with the Blackfeet, he had a youthful friend of the mountain tribe who told him the following story:--

THE JEALOUS WOMEN

"In those days a young Kootenai, good of heart, a great hunter, and very brave, married twin sisters so alike that except for one thing they could not be told apart: one was a slow, the other a very fast, talker.

"In time the fast talker, named Marmot, became jealous of her sister, Camas, complaining all the time that she had to do the most of the lodge work, and that she was sure Camas said bad things about her to their man. Camas denied all this. 'I have never tried to place myself first with our man,' she said. 'We are twins; I love you dearly; our man's heart is so big that it holds us both in equal love. Now, be sensible! Cast out your bad thoughts for they are all wrong.'

"But Marmot persisted in believing that she was neglected; that her sister had all their man's affection; and she finally went to him with her complaint. He laughed. 'I love you just as much as I do your sister,' he said. 'Now, just think back and show me when and in what way I have shown that she is first with me!'

"Marmot sat down and thought. She thought a long time; remained silent. The man was very patient with her; he waited for her answer, but it did not come. At last he said: 'Well, you have thought a long time. Have you found one thing in which I gave her preference?'

"'No, I haven't, but all the same I believe that you love her best,' Marmot answered; and got up and went about her work.

"The man shook his head, made no answer to that, and took up his weapons and went hunting down the river. At the time he was camped right here at this lake.

"The man had not gone far, moving slowly, carefully, through the timber and brush along the river, when he heard ahead a great splashing in the water, and, going closer, found that it was caused by two otters playing. They would chase each other in the water, then climb the bank and go as swift as arrows from a bow down a slide that they had made, and again chase and tumble each other over in the water. The man crept closer to the slide, an arrow in his bow, another in his hand, and, watching his chance, shot one of the players. He tried to get the other, but it dived and was gone before he could fit the other arrow to his bow: 'It is too bad that I didn't get the other. I would have liked a skin of these medicine skins for each of my women,' he said to himself.

"He took the otter home and handed it to Camas. 'That is yours,' he said. 'There were two of them. To-morrow, Marmot, I will get the other for you, and then you will each have a strong medicine skin.'

"Marmot said nothing, but looked cross.

"The man went hunting the next day but he could not find the other otter. He searched the river for many days and could not find one.

"And as the days passed, Marmot became more and more angry, and finally said to her sister: 'I have proof now that our man loves you best. He gave you the otter; he does not even try to get one for me. He hunts other animals every day, bighorn, goats, animals that live nowhere near the haunts of the otter.'

"'Now, don't be foolish!' Camas answered. 'You know as well as I do that he has tried and tried to get the other otter for you. But at the same time he has to get meat for us: that is why he hunts the mountain animals.'

"'Camas, the two of us can no longer live in this lodge,' cried Marmot. 'You are a bad woman! I hate you! I will fight you any way you say to see which of us shall be our man's one wife!'

"Then it was that, for the first time, Camas became angry: 'We have no weapons to fight with,' she answered, 'but I propose this: We will swim this lake across and back and across and back until one of us becomes tired and drowns! Now, crazy woman, what do you say to that?'

"'Come on! Come on!' Marmot cried, and ran to the shore and tore off her clothes. So did Camas, and the two rushed into the water and began their swim of hate. They crossed the lake; turned and came back; crossed again and started back, Camas well in the lead. She reached the shore in front of the lodge, dragged herself out on the shore, and turned. Her sister had gone down. There was not even a ripple on the still water. Marmot was drowned. Hardly knowing what she did, she put on her clothes and went into the lodge and cried and cried. The man came home. She was still crying. He asked her where Marmot was, and she cried all the harder, but at last told him all. Then the man cried. Together the two mourned for a long time, and searched the lake for the body of the lost one, and could not find it. So they moved away from the unhappy place and returned to the camp of their people, but it was a long time, a very long time, before they ceased mourning, and never again would they go anywhere near the lake.

"Yes, this is the Lake of the Jealous Women!"

VI

NI-NA US-TAK-WI (CHIEF MOUNTAIN)

_September 7._

We came up here the other day to the foot of this great landmark of the country, and made camp beside a running spring in the edge of the timber. The mountain is most appropriately named. It is the outer one of an eastward projecting spur of the range, and is higher than any of the peaks behind it. A chief, a leader, should always be taller, more conspicuous in every way than his followers. This mountain gradually slopes up eastward from the one behind it to an altitude of 9056 feet, then drops in a sheer cliff several thousand feet to its steep slope running down to the plain. From several hundred miles to the north, and an equal distance to the south, and from the Bear Paw Mountains to the east, it can be plainly seen, grim, majestic, a veritable Chief of Mountains, and for that reason the Blackfeet so named it in the long ago.

The way to climb the mountain is by the long, narrow, and in places cut-walled ridge running up toward its summit from the west, and then one has but one cliff to surmount, the one almost at its crest. Only men and goats and bighorn can scale that cliff, but on the extreme summit lies an old buffalo skull, taken there by a Blackfoot in the long ago for a pillow rest while getting his medicine dream. There he fasted for days, and at last, in his weakened condition resulting from want of food and water, got his vision, his medicine which was to be his guardian through life. Who was it that came to him in his fasting dreams? Ancient Buffalo, perhaps; or, maybe, Morning Star. Whoever it was, he went staggering down the mountain and to camp, absolutely certain that he had found his guardian spirit, his medium for favor with the greatest god of all, the Sun, supreme ruler of this earth.

We are here again upon our own ground, the Blackfeet Reservation, and so once more have meat in camp, fat bighorn and fat mule deer, killed by our hunters. This was once a great wintering place for deer and elk, and, higher up, for bighorn. Some years ago a hunter, Na-mik´-ai-yi by name, trailed a band of elk around to the ridge behind the mountain and up its narrow way until they came to the foot of the cliff near the summit and could go no farther. There they turned back toward him and he fired one shot and dropped the leader. The others, afraid to try to dash past him, chose the one alternative: they rushed to the high cliff there on the north side of the ridge, and sprang from it, and were all killed by the fall, eighty head of them!

_September 8._

Last night, after our feast of _ni-tap´-i-wak-sin_ (real meat) we gathered in Yellow Wolf's lodge for a smoke and a talk, and our host gave us a little story that I must here set down, the story of

THE WISE MAN

"Here, under this mountain, the people were encamped and two of them were Wise Man[13] and his woman. He was so named because he was always finding out how to do useful things.

[13] Mo-kûk´-i In-ah.

"Up to the time of this encampment the people had had nothing to wear but the plainest kind of garments, shirts, leggins, gowns, moccasins, all made of plain tanned leather of different kinds. Wise Man thought long about this, and finally said to his wife: 'Let us move away from camp for a time, and go farther into the mountains. I have a plan that I want to try by myself.'