Chapter II: Part 2

The next fall, my parents started me to school, for my father wanted me to learn English. The mission house was a half mile from our village; I went each morning with a little Mandan companion, named Hollis Montclair. We wore Indian dress, leggings, moccasins, and leather shirt.

At noon Hollis and I would return to the village for our noon meal; and sometimes we would go to school again in the afternoon. We went pretty faithfully all the fall, and until Christmas time, when our teacher told us we were to have a Christmas tree.

Hollis and I had never seen a Christmas tree; and when Christmas day came, we could hardly wait until the time came for us to go to the school house. It was a cheerful scene then, that met our eyes. The tree was a cedar cut on the Missouri bottoms, lighted, and trimmed with strips of bright colored paper. Mr. Hall and his family sat at the front, smiling. My teacher moved about among the children, greeting each as he arrived, and speaking a kind word to those that were shy. About fifteen school children of the age of Hollis and myself were present.

We had music and singing, and Mr. Hall explained what Christmas means, that it is the birthday of Jesus, the Son of God; and that we should be happy because He loved us. Presents were then given us; each child was called by name, and handed a little gift taken from the tree.

And now I grieve to say, that Hollis and I acted as badly as two white children. There was a magnet hanging on the tree, a piece of steel shaped like a horse shoe, that picked up bits of iron. Hollis and I thought it the most wonderful thing we had ever seen. We each hoped to receive it; but it was given to another child. This vexed us; and we left upon the floor the gifts we had received, and stalked out of the room. The last thing I saw as I went out of the door was my teacher with her handkerchief to her eyes. I did not feel happy when I thought of this; but I was an Indian boy, and I was not going to forgive her for not giving me the magnet!

I told the story of the magnet to my parents; and finding I was unwilling to go back to the mission, they sent me to the government school that our agent had just opened; but I did not go there long. I was taken sick, and my former teacher came to see me in our earth lodge. She was so kind and forgiving that I forgot all about the magnet, and when I got well I went back to the mission school.

I grew to love my teacher, although I was always a little afraid of her. We boys were not allowed to talk in study hours; but when our teacher’s back was turned, we would whisper to one another. Sometimes our teacher turned quickly, and if she caught any of us whispering, she would come and give each of us a spat on the head with a book; but it did not hurt much, so we did not care.

We used to sing a good deal in the school. One song I liked was, “I need Thee every hour.” I loved to sing, although the songs we learned were very different from our Indian songs. Indians are fond of music; I have known my grandfather and three or four cronies to sit at our lodge fire an entire night, drumming and singing, and telling stories.

I found English a rather hard language to learn. Many of the older Indians would laugh at any who tried to learn to read. “You want to forsake your Indian ways and be white men,” they would say; but there were many in the village who wanted their children to learn English.

My grandfather was deeply interested in my studies. “It is their books that make white men strong,” he would say. “The buffaloes will soon be killed; and we Indians must learn white ways, or starve.” He was a progressive old man.

I am sorry to say that I played hookey sometimes. Big dances were often held in the village; especially, when a war party came in with a scalp, there was great excitement. The scalp was raised aloft on a pole, and the women danced about it, screaming, and singing glad songs. Warriors painted their faces with charcoal, and danced, sang, yelled, and boasted of their deeds. Everybody feasted and made merry.

When I knew that a dance was going to be held, I would hide somewhere in the village, instead of going to school. The next day my teacher would say, “Where were you yesterday?” “At the dance,” I would answer. She would then tell me how naughty I was; but she never punished me, for she knew if she did, I would leave the school. My parents also scolded, but did not punish me. I am afraid I was a bad little boy!

One day, on my way to school, I was overtaken by a very old white man, with white hair. I had been going to school about a year and could talk a little English.

”What is your name, little fellow?” the old man asked. He had a friendly voice.

“My name is Goodbird,” I answered.

“But what is your English name?”

“I have none.”

“Then I will give you mine,” the old man said, smiling. “It is Edward Moore.”

It is a common custom for an Indian to give his name to a friend; so I did not know the old man’s words were said in fun. At the school, I told Mr. Hall what the old man had said, and he laughed. “I think Moore is not a good name for you,” he said. “Moore sounds like _moor_, a marshy place where mists rise in the air, but Edward is a very good name.“

So I have called myself Edward Goodbird ever since.

Every Friday Mr. Hall gave a dinner in the mission house to his pupils. We Indian children thought these dinners wonderful. Many of us had never tasted white men’s food; some things, as sour pickles, we did not like. Mr. Hall wanted us to learn to eat white bread and biscuits, so that we would ask our mothers to bake bread at home. He hoped this would be a means of getting us to like white men’s ways.

On Saturdays we had no school, and Mr. Hall would go around the village, shaking hands with the Indians and inviting them to come to church the next morning. Later, Poor Wolf acted as his crier, and on Saturday evenings he would go around, calling out, “_Ho Washte, Ho Washte!_ Come you people, to-morrow, and sit for him!” He meant for them to come to church the next morning and sit in chairs.

Mr. Hall’s janitor, a young Indian named Bear’s Teeth, swept out the mission house, made the fires, and got the school room ready for the services. There was no bell on the mission, so a flag was run up as a signal for the congregation to gather.

Not many came to the services, fifteen or twenty were a usual congregation, sometimes only ten. Mr. Hall preached, and to make his sermons plainer, he often drew pictures on the blackboard.

My father thought the missionary’s religion was good, but would not himself forsake the old ways. “The old gods are best for me,” he used to say, but he let me go to hear Mr. Hall preach. I cannot say that I always understood the sermon. Sometimes Mr. Hall would say, “Thirty years ago, my friends, I saw the light!” I thought he meant he had seen a vision.

But I learned a good deal from Mr. Hall’s preaching; and my lessons and the songs I learned at school made me think of Jesus; but I thought an Indian could be a Christian and also believe in the old ways.

It came over me one day, that this could not be. A story of our Indian god, _It-si-ka-ma-hi-di_, tells us that the sun is a man, with his body painted red, like fire; that the earth is flat, and that the sky covers it like a bowl turned bottom up; but in my geography, at school, I learned that the earth is round.

In our earth lodge, that night, I said to my parents, “This earth is round; the sun is a burning ball!” My cousin Butterfly was disgusted. “That is white man’s talk,” he grunted. “This earth is flat. White men are foolish!” This I would in no wise admit, and I came home almost daily with some new proof that the earth was round.

As I grew older and began to read books, I thought of myself as a Christian, but more because I went to the mission school, than because I thought of Jesus as my Saviour. I loved to read the stories of the Bible; and Mr. Hall taught me the Ten Commandments. Some of the Indian boys learned to swear, from hearing white men; but I never did, because Mr. Hall told me it was wrong. I thought that those who did as the Bible bade, would grow up to be good men.

I had a cousin, three years older than myself, in the Santee Indian school, who had become a Christian. One day I received a letter from him. “I believe in Jesus’ way,” he wrote. “I believe Jesus is a good Saviour. I have tried His way, and I want you to try to join in and have Him for your Saviour.” This letter set me to thinking.

In these years, my life outside the school room was wholly Indian. We Hidatsa children knew nothing of base ball, or one hole cat, or other white children’s games, but we had many Indian games that we played. Some of these games I think better than those now played on our reservation.

In March and early April, we boys played the hoop game. A level place, bare of snow, was found, and the boys divided into two sides, about thirty yards apart. Small hoops, covered with a lacing of thongs, were rolled forward, and were caught by those of the opposite side on sticks, thrust or darted through the lacings. A hoop so caught, was sent hurtling through the air, the object being to hit some one of the opposing players.

The game was played but a few weeks, for as soon as the ice broke on the Missouri, we boys went to the high bank of the river, and hurled our hoops into the current. We were told, and really believed, that they became dead buffaloes as soon as they had passed out of sight, beyond the next point of land. Such buffaloes, drowned in the thin ice of autumn and frozen in, came floating down the river in large numbers at the spring break-up. The carcasses were always fat, and the frozen flesh was sweet and tender.

After the first thunder in spring, we played _u-a-ki-he-ke_, or throw stick. Willow rods were cut, peeled, and dried, and then stained red, with ochre, or a bright green, with grass. These rods, darted against the ground, rebounded to a great distance. The player won whose rod went farthest. _U-a-ki-he-ke_ is still played on the reservation.

In June, when the rising waters have softened the river’s clay banks, we fought sham battles. Each boy cut a willow withe, as long as a buggy whip, and on the smaller end squeezed a lump of wet clay. With the withe as a sling, he could throw the clay ball to an astonishing distance. Hidatsa and Mandan boys often fought against one another, using these clay balls as missiles.

It was exciting play, for we fought like armies, each side trying to force the other’s position; when an attack was made, a storm of mud balls would come whizzing through the air like bullets. A hit on the bare flesh stung like a real wound. Once one of my playmates was hit in the eye, and badly hurt. I was just over fourteen, when my parents let me join in the grass dance, or war dance, as the whites call it. The other dancers made me an officer, and my father was so pleased, that he hung up a fine eagle’s feather war bonnet in our lodge. “If enemies come against us,” he said, “my son shall go out to fight wearing this war bonnet!”

One evening, Bear’s Arm, a lad of eighteen years, came in from hunting a strayed pony; he was much excited. “I saw two Sioux in war dress, hiding in a coulee,” he told us.

Our warriors ran for their ponies. “Put on your war bonnet,“ my father said to me. “I am going to take you in the party. Keep close to me; and if there is a fight, see if you cannot strike an enemy!“

We rode all night, Bear’s Arm leading us. We reached the coulee and surrounded it a little before daybreak, and with the first streak of dawn, we closed in, our rifles ready; but we found no enemies.

This was my one war exploit.

VI

HUNTING BUFFALOES

The summer I was twelve years old, our village went on a buffalo hunt, for scouts had brought in word that herds had been sighted a hundred miles west of the Missouri. My father, Son-of-a-Star, was chosen leader of the hunt.

My tribe no longer used travois, for the government had issued wagons to us. These we took apart, loading the wheels into bull boats while the beds were floated over the river. We made our first camp at the edge of the foot hills, on the other side of the river.

The next morning, we struck tents, loaded them into our wagons, and began the march.

My father led, carrying his medicine bundle at his saddle head; behind him rode two or three elder Indians, leaders of the tribe, also on horseback. Then followed the wagons in a long line; and on either side rode the young men, on their tough, scrubby, little ponies.

Some of our young men as they rode, drove small companies of horses. Neighbors commonly put their horses together, and a young man, or two or three young men, acted as herders. Sometimes a girl, mounted astraddle like a man, drove them.

Now and then a youth might be seen reining in his pony to let the line of wagons pass, while he kept a sharp watch for his sweetheart. She hardly glanced at him as she rode by, for it was not proper for a young man’s sweetheart to let him talk to her in the marching line. The time for courtship was in camp, in the evening.

Toward five or six in the afternoon, we made camp. The wagons were drawn up in a big circle, and the women pitched the tents, while the men unhitched and hobbled their horses, and brought firewood. The women brought water and lighted the fires.

Water was carried in pails. I have heard that in old times, they used clay pots made of a kind of red clay, and burned; a thong went around the neck of the pot, for a handle.

My mother, an active woman, often had her fire started before her neighbors. While she got supper, my father sat and smoked. Friends frequently joined him, and they would sit in a circle, passing the pipe around, telling funny stories and laughing. My father was a capital story teller.

For supper we had deer or antelope meat, boiled or roasted, and my mother often fried wheat-flour dough into a kind of biscuits that were rather hard. Corn picked green the year before, and boiled and dried, was stewed in a kettle, making a dish much like the canned com we buy at the store. More often we had succotash, hominy boiled with fat and beans. We drank black coffee, sweetened; my mother put the coffee beans into a skin, pounded them fine with an ax, and boiled them in an iron pot. You see, we were getting civilized.

When supper was ready, my mother would call “_Mi-ha-dits_—I have done!” and my father would put up his pipe and come to eat. My mother gave him meat, steaming hot, in a tin dish, and poured coffee into a cup; another cup held meat broth, which made a good drink also. We did not bring wooden feast bowls with us, as some families did.

My mother and I ate with my father, much as white families do; a robe or blanket was spread for each to sit upon.

I wore moccasins and leggings; and my hair was braided, Indian fashion, in two tails over my shoulders, but my mother had made me a white man’s vest, of black cloth, embroidered all over with elk teeth. I was proud of this vest, and cared not a whit that I had no coat to wear over it.

The seventh day out, we made camp near the Cannon Ball River. My father had sent two mounted scouts ahead, with a spy glass, to see if they could find the herds; at evening, they returned with the report, “There is a big herd yonder!” Everybody got ready for the hunt the next morning, and my father made me happy by telling me that I might go along.

We arose early. My father saddled two ponies, one of them a pack animal; and I mounted a third, with a white man’s saddle. My father’s were pack saddles, of elk horn, covered with raw hide; ropes, looped up like a figure 8, were tied behind them to be used in binding the packs of meat we would bring home from the hunt.

There were about forty hunters in our party, mounted, and leading each a pack horse; eight boys, of twelve or fifteen years of age, and three old men. I remember one of the old men carried a bow and arrows, probably from old custom. Only the hunters expected to take part in the actual chase of the buffaloes; they were armed with rifles.

The party’s leader, _E-di-a-ka-ta_—the same who led our tribe to the Yellowstone—rode ahead, and we followed at a brisk trot. Five miles out of camp, the two scouts were again sent ahead with the spy glass. We saw them coming back at a gallop and knew that the herd was found, and we urged our horses at the top of their speed. I remember the _slap_ of the quirts on the little ponies’ flanks; and the _beat-beat, beat-beat!_ of their hoofs on the hard ground. Indians do not shoe their horses.

We drew rein behind a hill, a half mile to leeward of the herd, and, having dismounted, hobbled our led horses. Our hunters laid aside their shirts and leggings, stripped the saddles from their ponies’ backs, and twisted bridles of thong into their ponies’ mouths; it was our tribe’s custom to ride bare-back in the hunt.

_E-di-a-ka-ta_ went a little way off and stood, facing in the direction of the herd; from a piece of red cloth he tore a long strip, ripped this again into three or four pieces and laid them on the ground. I saw his lips move, and knew he was praying, but I could not hear his words. The pieces of red cloth Were an offering to the spirits of the buffaloes.

Our hunters remounted and drew up in a line facing the herd, _E-di-a-ka-ta_ on the right, and at a signal, the line started forward, neck-and-neck, at a brisk gallop. A guard, named _Tsa-wa_, or Bear’s Chief, rode in advance; if a hunter pressed too far forward in the line, _Tsa-wa_ struck the hunter’s pony in the face with his quirt.

We boys and the three old men rode a little behind the line of hunters; we did not expect to take part in the hunt, but wanted to see the kill.

As we cleared the brow of the hill we sighted the buffaloes, about four hundred yards away, and _E-di-a-ka-ta_ gave the signal, “_Ku’kats_—Now then!” Down came the quirts on the little ponies’ flanks, making them leap forward like big cats. The line broke at once, each hunter striving to reach the herd first and kill the fattest. An iron-gray horse, I remember, was in the lead.

We boys followed at breakneck speed—unwillingly on my part; my pony had taken the bit in his mouth and was going over the stony ground at a speed that I feared would throw him any moment and break his neck and mine. I tugged at the reins and clung to the saddle, too scared to cry out.

_Bang!_ A fat cow tumbled over. _Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!_ The frightened herd started to flee, swerved to the right, and went thundering away up wind, in a whirl of dust. Buffaloes, when alarmed, fly up wind if the way is open; their sight is poor, but they have a keen scent, and running up wind they can nose an Indian a half mile away.

For such heavy beasts, buffaloes have amazing speed, and only our fastest horses were used in hunting them; indeed, a young bull often outran our fastest ponies.

Only cows were killed. The flesh of bulls is tough and was not often eaten; that of calves crumbled when dried, making it unfit for storing.

Some buffalo calves, forsaken by the herd, were running wildly over the prairie, bleating for their mothers; two of our hunters caught one of the smallest with a lariat, and brought it to me. “Here, boy,” they said, “keep this calf.”

I caught the rope and drew the calf after me; but my pony, growing frightened, reared and kicked the little animal; paying out more rope, I led the calf at a safer distance from my horse’s heels.

The hunters came straggling back, and my father seeing the calf, cried out, “Let that calf go! Buffaloes are sacred animals. You should not try to keep one captive!“ I was much disappointed, for I wanted to take it into camp.

My father had killed three fat cows, and these he now sought out and dressed. The shoulders, hams, and choicer cuts he loaded on our led horse, covering the pack with a green hide and tying it down with the rawhide ropes brought for the purpose; the rest he left in a pile on the prairie, covered with the other two hides. We intended to return for these with wagons, the next day.

As my father was cutting up one of the carcasses, I saw him throw away what I thought were good cuts; I did not like to see good meat wasted, and when I thought he was not looking, I slyly put the pieces back on the pile.

We returned to camp slowly, at times urging our ponies to a gentle trot, more often letting them walk. My father had to dismount several times to secure our pack of meat, which threatened to slip from our pack horse’s back. In our tent that evening, I heard him telling my mother of my part in the hunt. “Our son,” he said, “is no wasteful lad. He put back some tough leg pieces that I had thrown away. He would not see good meat wasted!” And they both laughed.

Stages were built in the camp, and for two days, every body was busy drying meat or boiling bones for marrow fat. The dried meat was packed in skin bags, or made into bundles; the marrow fat was run into bladders; and all was taken to Like-a-fish-hook village, to be stored for winter.

VII

FARMING

The time came when we had to forsake our village at Like-a-fish-hook Bend, for the government wanted the Indians to become farmers. “You should take allotments,” our agent would say. “The big game is being killed off, and you must plant bigger fields or starve. The government will give you plows and cattle.”

All knew that the agent’s words were true, and little by little our village was broken up. In the summer of my sixteenth year nearly a third of my tribe left to take up allotments.

We had plenty of land; our reservation was twice the size of Rhode Island, and our united tribes, with the Rees who joined us, were less than thirteen hundred souls. Most of the Indians chose allotments along the Missouri, where the soil was good and drinking water easy to get. Unallotted lands were to be sold and the money given to the three tribes.

Forty miles above our village, the Missouri makes a wide bend around a point called Independence Hill, and here my father and several of his relatives chose their allotments. The bend enclosed a wide strip of meadow land, offering hay for our horses. The soil along the river was rich and in the bottom stood a thick growth of timber.

My father left the village, with my mother and me, in June. He had a wagon, given him by the agent; this he unbolted and took over the river piece by piece, in a bull boat; our horses swam.

We camped at Independence in a tepee, while we busied ourselves building a cabin. My father cut the logs; they were notched at the ends, to lock into one another at the comers. A heavier log, a foot in thickness, made the ridge pole. The roof was of willows and grass, covered with sods.

Cracks between the logs were plastered with clay, mixed with short grass. The floor was of earth, but we had a stove.

We were a month putting up our cabin.

Though my father’s coming to Independence was a step toward civilization, it had one ill effect: it removed me from the good influences of the mission school, so that for a time I fell back into Indian ways. Winter, also, was not far off; the season was too late for us to plant corn, and the rations issued to us every two weeks rarely lasted more than two or three days. To keep our family in meat, I turned hunter.

There were no buffaloes on the reservation, but blacktailed deer were plentiful, and in the hills were a good many antelopes. I had a Winchester rifle, a 40.60 caliber, and I was a good shot.

To hunt deer, I arose before daylight and went to the woods along the Missouri. Deer feed much at night, and as evening came on, they would leave the thick underbrush by the river and go into the hills to browse on the rich prairie grasses. I would creep along the edge of the woods, rifle in hand, ready to shoot any that I saw coming in from the feeding grounds.

I was careful to keep on the leeward side of the game; a deer running up wind will scent an Indian as quickly as a buffalo.

I loved to hunt, and although a mere boy, I was one of the quickest shots in my tribe. I remember that one morning I was coming around a clump of bushes when I saw a doe and buck ahead, just entering the thicket. I fired, hardly glancing at the sights; I saw the buck fall, but when I ran up I found the doe lying beside him, killed by the same bullet.

Independence was a wild spot. The hill from which the place took its name had been a favorite fasting place for young men who sought visions; at its foot, under a steep bank, swept the Missouri, full of dangerous whirlpools. Such spots, lonely and wild, we Indians thought were haunts of the spirits.

Once, when I was a small boy, my father took me to see the Sun dance. A man named Turtle-no-head was suspended from a post in a booth, and dancing around it. Turtle-no-head’s hands were behind him, and he strained at the rope as he danced. Women were crying, “_A-la-la-la-la-la!_” Old men were calling out, “Good; Turtle-no-head is a man. One should be willing to suffer to find his god; then he will strike many enemies and win honors!”

I was much stirred by what I saw, and by the old men’s words.

“Father,” I said, “when I get big, I am going to suffer and seek a vision, like Turtle-no-head!”

“Good!” said my father, laughing.

At Independence, I thought of this vow made years before. One day, I said to my father, “I want you to suspend me from the high bank, over the Missouri.”

When evening came, my father stripped me to my clout and moccasins, and helped me paint my body with white clay. He called a man named Crow, and they took me to the bank, over the Missouri. My father fastened me to the rope, and I swung myself over the bank, hanging with my weight upon the rope. “Suffer as long as you can!” called my father, and left me.

I did not feel much pain, but I became greatly wearied from the strain upon my back and thighs. Toward morning I could stand it no longer. I drew myself up on the bank, and went home and to bed; and I slept so soundly that no dream came from the spirits.

A year later, I again sought a vision. This time my father took me to a high hill, a mile or two from the river. He drove a post into the ground, fastened me to it, as before, and left me, just at nightfall.

I threw myself back upon the rope and danced around the post, hoping to fall into a swoon and see a vision.

It was autumn, and a light snow was falling; the cold flakes on my bare shoulders made me shiver till my teeth chattered. The night was black as pitch. A coyote howled. I was so lonely that I wished a ghost would sit on the post and talk with me, though I was dreadfully afraid of ghosts, especially at night. I grew so cold that my knees knocked together.

About two o’clock in the morning, I untied the rope and went home. For an hour I felt sick, but I soon fell into a sleep, again dreamless.

I was eating my breakfast when my father came in. “I have seen no vision, father,” I told him; he said nothing.

The next year the government forbade the Indians to torture themselves when they fasted. My father was quite vexed. “The government does wrong to forbid us to suffer for our gods!” he said. But I was rather glad. “The Indian’s way is hard,” I thought. “The white man’s road is easier!” And I thought again of the mission school.

Other things drew my thoughts to civilized ways. Our agent issued to every Indian family having an allotment, a plow, and wheat, flax, and oats, for seeding. My father and I broke land near our cabin, and in the spring seeded it down.

We had a fair harvest in the fall. Threshing was done on the agency machine, and, having sacked our grain, my father and I hauled it, in four trips, to Hebron, eighty miles away. Our flax we sold for seventy-five cents, our wheat for sixty cents, and our oats for twenty-five cents a bushel. Our four loads brought us about eighty dollars.

I became greatly interested in farming. There was good soil on our allotment along the river, although our fields sometimes suffered from drought; away from the river, much of our land was stony, fit only for grazing.

My parents had been at Independence eight years, when one day the agent sent for me. I went to his office.

“I hear you have become a good farmer,” he said, as I came in. “I want to appoint you assistant to our agency farmer. Your district will include all allotments west of the Missouri between the little Missouri and Independence. I will pay you three hundred dollars a year. Will you accept?“

“I will try what I can do,” I answered.

“Good,” said the Major. “Now for your orders! You are to measure off for every able-bodied Indian, ten acres of ground to be plowed and seeded. If an Indian is lazy and will not attend to his plowing, report him to me and I will send a policeman. In the fall, you are to see that every family puts up two tons of hay for each horse or steer owned by it.”

I did not know what an acre was. “It is a piece of ground,” the agent explained, “ten rods wide and sixteen rods long.” From this I was able to compute pretty well how much ten acres should be; but I am not sure that all the plots I measured were of the same size.

I began my new duties at once, and at every cabin in my district, I measured off a ten-acre plot and explained the agent’s orders. Not a few of the Indians had done some plowing at Like-a-fish-hook village, and all were willing to learn. Once a month, I took a blacksmith around to inspect the Indians’ plows.

Rains were abundant that summer, and the Indians had a good crop. Some families harvested a hundred bushels of wheat from a ten-acre field; others, seventy-five bushels; and some had also planted oats.

The government began to issue cattle in payment of lands sold for us. The first issue was one cow to each family, and the agent ordered me to see that every family built a barn.

These barns were put up without planks or nails. A description of my own will show what they were like; it rested on a frame of four forked posts, with stringers laid in the forks; puncheons, or split logs, were leaned against the stringers for walls; rough-cut rafters supported a roofing of willows and dry grass, earthed over with sods.

More cattle were issued to us until we had a considerable herd at Independence. The cattle were let run at large, but each steer or cow was branded by its owner. Calves ran with their mothers until fall; the herd was then corralled and each calf was branded with its mother’s brand. My own brand was the letters SU on the right shoulder.

Herders guarded our cattle during the calving season; we paid them ten cents for every head of stock herded through the summer months.

I had been assistant farmer six years and our herd had grown to about four hundred head, when Bird Bear and Skunk, our two herders, reported that some of our cattle had strayed. ”We have searched the coulees and thickets, but cannot find them,” they said. Branding time came; we corralled the herd and found about fifty head missing.

We now suspected that our cattle had been stolen. Cattle thieves, we knew, were in the country; they had broken into a corral one night, on a ranch not far from Independence and killed a cowboy named Long John.

Winter had passed, when the agent called me one day into his office. “Goodbird,” he said, “I want you to take out a party of our agency police and find those thieves who stole your cattle. Start at once!”

I got my party together, eight in all; Hollis Montclair, my boyhood chum; Frank White Calf, Crow Bull, Sam Jones, White Owl, Little Wolf, No Bear, and myself. Only Hollis and I spoke English.

We started toward the Little Missouri, where we suspected the thieves might be found. I drove a wagon with our provisions and tent; my men were mounted. We reached the Little Missouri before nightfall, and camped.

The next morning, we turned westward; before noon, we crossed a prairie dog village, and shot three or four prairie dogs for dinner. The hair was singed off the carcasses, and they were drawn, and spitted on sticks over the fire. Prairie dogs are not bad eating, especially in the open air, by a good wood fire; I have never become so civilized that I would not rather eat out of doors.

Toward evening we met a cowboy. “How!” I called, as I drew in my team. “Have you seen any stray cattle, with Indian brands, ID, 7 bar, 7, or the like?“ And I told him of our missing cattle.

“I know where they are,” said the cowboy. “You will find them on a ranch near Stroud’s post-office; but don’t tell who told you!”

“Have no fear,” I answered.

Stroud’s post-office was farther west, near the Montana border; we reached it the third or fourth day out.

We made camp, and after supper, I went in and told Mr. Stroud our errand.

“Yes,” he said, “your cattle are three miles from here, on a ranch owned by Frank Powers; he hired two cowboys to steal them for him.”

The next morning my men and I mounted, and leaving our wagon at Stroud’s, started for Powers’ ranch. I was unarmed; the others of my party had their rifles.

We stopped at the cabin of a man named Crockin, to inquire our way. A white man came in; after he had gone out again, I asked Crockin, “Who is that man?”

“He is Frank Powers,” said Crockin.

I turned to my men and said in their own language, “That is the man who stole our cattle.”

Little Wolf drew his cleaning rod. “I am going to give that bad white man a beating,” he cried angrily.

“You will not,” I answered. “We will go into Powers’ pasture and round up his cattle; and I will cut out all that I think are ours. If that bad white man comes out and says evil words against me, do nothing. If he shoots at me, kill him quick; but do not you shoot first!“

My men loaded their rifles, and about two o’clock I led them into the pasture. Powers’ cattle were all bunched in a big herd; we drove them to a grassy flat, and I began cutting out those that were ours.

Powers saw us and came out, revolver in hand, and two or three white men joined him. He was so angry that he acted like a mad man; he grew red in the face, talked loud, and swore big oaths; but he did not shoot, for he knew my men would kill him.

I cut about twenty-five head out of the herd, all that I found with altered brands on the right shoulder or thigh. Maybe I took some of Powers’ cattle by mistake, but I did not care much.

Powers left us after a while. My men rounded up our cattle, and we drove them back to Stroud’s and camped.

After supper, I asked Mr. Stroud to write a letter to our agent, telling him what I had done. “To-morrow,” I told my men, “we will set out for home. You drive our cattle back to the reservation in short stages, so that they will not sicken with the heat. I will go ahead with Mr. Stroud’s letter.”

I set out before sunrise; at four o’clock I reached Independence, eighty miles away; and at sunset, I was at Elbowoods.

It was Decoration day, and the Indians were having a dance. The agent was sitting in his office with the inspector, from Washington.

“I have found our cattle,” I said; and I gave him Mr. Stroud’s letter.

He read it and handed it to the inspector.

“Report this matter to the United States marshal,” the inspector said to him. “Tell him to have Powers arrested.“

VIII

THE WHITE MAN’S WAY

My thirty-fifth winter—as we Indians count years—found me still assistant farmer; but time had brought many changes to our reservation. Antelope and blacktailed deer had gone the way of the buffalo. A few earth lodges yet stood, dwellings of stern old warriors who lived in the past; but the Indian police saw that every child was in school learning the white man’s way. A good dinner at the noon hour made most of the children rather willing scholars.

The white man’s peace had stopped our wars with the Sioux; and the young folks of either tribe visited, and made presents to one another. I had visited the Standing Rock Sioux and had learned to rather like them. Indeed, I liked one Sioux girl so well that I married her. We had a comfortable cabin; my wife was a good cook, and my children were in school.

Living so far from the mission, it was not possible for me to attend church services at the mission house; but Mr. Hall came to Independence and preached to us. Until a school house was built, he often held his meetings in my cabin.

I usually interpreted for him. He would speak in English and I would translate into Hidatsa, which the Mandans also understand. Indians are good linguists; not a few young men of my tribe speak as many as four or five languages.

I drew no salary as interpreter; but I felt myself well repaid by what I learned of the Bible. Interpreting Mr. Hall’s sermons made them sink into my heart, so that I would think of them as I went about my work.

As time went on, there grew up quite a company of Christians at Independence. One of their active leaders was Frank White Calf; and he and Sitting Crow called a kind of praying council at Two Chiefs’ cabin. All the Independence Christians came; and I was invited to meet them.

Some of the Indians prayed; and Frank White Calf asked me, “Goodbird, why do you not join us in this Christian way? Tell us your mind!”

I arose and spoke: “My friends, I learned of this Christian way at the mission school. It is a good way. You ask me my thoughts. I answer, I have tried to live like a Christian and I love to read my Bible, but I have not received baptism; I am now ready to be baptized.”

A few days after this, Frank White Calf said to me, “Mr. Hall wants you to come to the mission house and be baptized.”

I went the next Sunday with my family, and was received into the church. My sons Charles and Alfred were baptized at the same time.

In part, I was influenced to become a church member by the thought that it was the white man’s way. Our Indian beliefs, I felt sure, were doomed; for white men’s customs were becoming stronger with us each year. “I am traveling the new way, now!” I thought, when I was baptized. “I can never go back to Indian ways again.”

But for some years, even after I became a church member, I was not a very firm Christian; and I did not keep God’s commandments very well, because I did not believe all that the missionaries taught me. I was unwilling to trust any white man’s words, until I had proved that they were true. I did not want to take anything on faith.

Mr. Hall made Independence a preaching station, and put an assistant in charge; I interpreted for her. Sometimes Mr. Hall, or his son, preached to us.

The missionary teacher let me know each week what was to be the next Sunday’s lesson, and she gave me books to read. Knowing something of her subject, I was better able to interpret for her. In this way, also, I learned more of Christ’s teachings; and I learned how to study my Bible.

This study of the Bible influenced me a great deal; and my having to interpret made me fall into the habit of going to church regularly. My interest in church work grew.

In 1903, the government abolished the position of assistant farmer. In October of the following year, Mr. Hall’s son said to me, “We need an assistant missionary at Independence, and my father and I want to appoint you. Come and talk with my father about it.”

I went to Elbowoods and saw Mr. Hall. “Edward,” he asked, “are you willing to be our assistant missionary?”

“Yes,” I answered.

I knew some one must preach to the Independence Indians; and I thought I could do this, because I could speak their language as well as read English. I felt also that I was closer to God than I had been when I was baptized.

So I became Mr. Hall’s assistant, and have been in charge of the Independence station ever since. Every Sunday I preach to the Indians in the Hidatsa language. My text is the Sunday-school lesson of the week, for we Indians do not care for sermons, such as white men hear. Our older men cannot read English, and we do not have the Bible in our own tongue; we like best to hear the Sunday-school lesson because it explains the stories of the Bible, which my people cannot read for themselves.

Things do not always go smoothly in an Indian congregation. Frictions and misunderstandings arise, as I have heard they do in white churches; and Indians sometimes seek to become church members from unworthy motives. Our former life makes us Indians clannish; members of the same clan feel bound to help one another, and many Indians seem to look upon the church as a kind of clan. Sometimes a young man will say, “I will be baptized and join your church. Then all the Christians will work to make me agency policeman!”

Others, again, will say, “I want to join the church because I am sick; perhaps God will make me well!”

Some, with clearer faith, say, ”I want to become a Christian because I believe Jesus will save me to be a spirit with Him.” They mean that they hope Jesus will take them to live with Him when they die.

My uncle, Wolf Chief, says of the Christian way: “I traveled faithfully the way of the Indian gods, but they never helped me. When I was sick, I prayed to them, but they did not make me well. I prayed to them when my children died; but they did not answer me. I have but two children left, and I am going to trust God to keep these that they do not die like the others. I talk to God every day, as I would talk to my father; and I ask Him for everything I want. I try to do all that He bids me do. I hope that He will take my spirit to travel in that new heaven about which I have learned. I cannot change now. I can never go back to the old gods!”

Wolf Chief has been a strong Christian for more than eight years. He has given much to our mission work; and he is never absent from Sunday services.

Six years ago, we Christians at Independence became dissatisfied with our log meeting house, and began to talk of building a chapel, or church-house, as we call it. A council was called in Wolf Chief’s cabin.

It was an evening in December; all the leading Christians of Independence came with their wives—Wolf Chief, Tom Smith, Frank White Calf, Mike Basset, Hollis Montclair, Sam Jones, Louis Baker, and myself. Each woman brought something for a feast, and we ate together. We had fried bread, tea, pie, tomato soup, and other good things.

When our feasting was over, Wolf Chief made a speech. “We Christian Indians,” he said, “should have a chapel. We should raise the money to build a house to God, where we can go and worship!“

Tom Smith and others spoke, and we called for subscriptions. Frank White Calf’s wife gave five dollars. Wolf Chief’s brother, Charging Enemy, although not a Christian, gave a pony. Others promised, some ten, some fifteen, and some twenty-five dollars.

I was appointed treasurer to make collections, and get more subscriptions. I wrote a letter to Water Chief’s dancing society and asked them to give something. The dancing Indians are pagans; but they gave us a subscription.

Mr. Hall gave us fifty dollars; Mr. Shultis, our school-teacher, gave us ten dollars; and other white friends gave us subscriptions; but most of the money was given by the Indians.

When we had collected three hundred and fifty dollars, we began buying lumber.

Wolf Chief wanted to give us the land for our chapel; but the Indian commissioner wrote, “No, you may sell your land, but you must not give it away.” So we bought the land for a dollar an acre; but Wolf Chief gave the money back to us, outwitting the commissioner after all!

We bought ten acres. “When white men build a house,” said Wolf Chief, “they leave land around it for a yard. We should be ashamed not to have some land around God’s house!“ Our ten-acre plot makes a fine big church yard; at one end is our Indian cemetery.

Wolf Chief also gave us a colt, and much money, and bought paint and nails.

We Indians think Wolf Chief wealthy. He owns five hundred acres of land, thirty head of cattle, eight horses, and pigs and chickens; he has a potato field and a corn field, and owns a trading store.

More than fifty were present when we dedicated our chapel. A minister from Minneapolis preached the sermon, and I interpreted for him. A young white lady sang, and played the organ, and my cousin played a clarionet. Our school teacher had lent us his phonograph, and it sang “There are ninety and nine,” just like a choir in a city church. I asked for subscriptions to clear off our debt, and we raised eighty-three dollars in money, and Wolf Chief gave us another colt. The minister prayed God to bless our chapel, and we went home, all very happy.

Older Indians, who came from Like-a-fish-hook village, find their life on allotments rather lonesome. Cabins are often two or three miles apart and the old men cannot amuse themselves with books, for they cannot read. In old times, Indians often met in big dances; but pagan ceremonies are used in these dances, and Mr. Hall does not like the Christian Indians to go to them.

That our Christian Indians may meet socially now and then, we now observe many white men’s holidays; and at such times, we make our chapel the meeting place. In August, we hold a Young Men’s Christian Convention, when families come from miles around, to camp in tents around the chapel. At Christmas, we have feasting and giving of presents; and our chapel is so crowded that many have to stand without, and look through the windows. Of late years, we have also observed Decoration Day at Independence.

Our camp last Decoration Day was ten or more tents, with two or three families in a tent. We made a booth, after old custom, of leafy branches and small trees. In this we gathered at about ten o’clock.

Our school teacher began our exercises with a speech telling us what Decoration Day should mean to us. We sang “America,” and other hymns, and had speeches by Indians. A committee had been appointed to choose the speakers.

Rabbit Head spoke, “I do not know anything about your way, but I encourage you! Go on, do more. I have nothing against your going the Christian way!” Rabbit Head is a chief in the Grass dance society, and a pagan.

Wounded Face spoke, “I do not belong to this church, I am a Catholic; but I thus show that I like white men’s ways!”

After dinner we made ready to decorate our graves. Every family having a son buried in our graveyard, hired a clan father to clean the grave of weeds and stones; if a daughter, a clan aunt was asked. An Indian calls the members of his mother’s clan, his brothers and sisters; members of his father’s clan, he calls his clan fathers and aunts.

At two o’clock we formed a procession and marched to the cemetery. Two aged scouts led, High Eagle and Black Chest; High Eagle bore a large American flag. We marched by two’s in a long line, the men first, then the women and children. Having marched around the graveyard, we stood and sang some hymns, and I made a speech:

“All you relatives and friends of these dead, I want to make a speech to you!

“It seems sad to our hearts to come here, and yet we are glad, because we come to remember our loved ones at their graves; so both gladness and sorrow are in our hearts.

“These warrior men, that you see here, fought against our enemies. They fought to save us, so that to-day we are not captive, but free. Some of the brave men who fought to save us, died in battle. Also, some of your loved ones have died and are buried in this graveyard. Many of these loved ones did not die fighting against enemies, yet they were brave warriors against evil and temptation. Now they are gone from us. They are in a new world, the ghost land; they are with God. I am sure they are in a safe, happy place.

“Now come forward, all who want to put flowers on the graves.”