CHAPTER XV

LONE WOLF’S BAY PONY

It did not take Jack long to skin the lynx, but before he had finished stretching it, Hugh and Joe came back and reported that the horses were all right.

By this time the sun had come out and was shining hot, and the snow melting rapidly. A warm breeze blew down the valley from the westward, and as they watched the mountainsides above them, the boys thought that they could see the dark patches not covered by snow increase in size as they looked at them.

“Well, boys,” said Hugh, “if you want to climb up and look over into Belly River, go ahead and do it, and get back as early as you can. This spot here is mighty pretty, but I reckon we’ve seen about all of it that we want to, and unless you’ve got some special chore that you want to attend to, we might as well pack up and go up one of the other forks. I don’t see any special reason for stopping here. We’ve got what meat we need, and what we want to see is new country.”

“That’s so, Hugh,” said Jack; “we’ll go up to the top of the mountain and then come back and move down to the forks as soon as you like.”

“And look here, son,” said Hugh, “why don’t you go up there alone, and while you are gone, Joe and I will start in to dry this meat we’ve got cut out.”

“All right,” said Jack. “I’ll do that, or if you like, I’ll not go up there, but stay here and fix the meat.”

“No,” said Hugh, “you go on and make your climb, and Joe and I’ll fix the meat, and if you get back in time maybe we can move camp down below this afternoon, or if not we can start the first thing in the morning.”

“All right,” said Jack; and he took up his rifle and started up the mountainside.

It was a long, slow climb. For the first half, the way was over steep open mountainside, dotted here and there with small spruces and cedars, and the soil was now wet with the melting snow, and often slippery. Still he made good time. The side of the mountain was seamed with ravines, and broken here and there by low rock ledges; and two or three times as he went on he found himself within easy shot of little bunches of goats. When Jack saw these, if he could do it without losing time, he crept as close to them as possible, and then showing himself, hurried on. Some of the goats seemed quite shy and ran off, while others looked at him for a long time until he got quite close to them, and then turned and paced slowly off along the hillside.

When he reached the rocks, he found, as Hugh had told him, a break in the wall, cut by falling water, and entering this, began to climb among the steep rocks and ledges, which it often required some care to surmount, but which were not difficult nor at all dangerous.

An hour and a half of climbing of this sort brought him to the crest of the wall, and creeping upon this he hung over and looked down into a wonderfully deep and dark canyon beyond. From the other side of the canyon a great mountain rose sharply, and its summit was covered with a vast snowbank which lay upon a great mass of ice. Evidently, thought Jack, here is a glacier. The mass of ice was apparently moving toward the valley and would break off over this cliff and then fall a thousand feet into the valley below.

It was a wonderfully impressive sight, yet Jack stayed but a little time. He was wet with perspiration, and up here the breeze blew strong and cold. Besides, he thought of his friends in camp, and was anxious to get back to them and help them with their work. So after some minutes’ study of the scene, during which he tried to impress all its features upon his memory, he turned about and slipping off the crest of the rock wall, picked his way down the ravine.

The journey to camp seemed much shorter than the climb, and when Jack strode up to the fire warm and muddy and wet up to the knees, the afternoon had not half gone.

Hugh and Joe had built a large platform of poles supported on four crotched sticks. Under this they had kindled a slow smoky fire, and on the poles rested flakes of elk meat, which were being dried by the sun above and the fire and smoke beneath. A part of the meat had evidently been already partially dried and was hanging in bundles from the branches of one of the trees.

“Well, son,” remarked Hugh, “you’ve got back, have you? Quite a climb, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Jack, “it was quite a climb, but I think it was worth it. That’s a mighty pretty view from the top of that ridge, and I’m glad I saw it. You’re getting on pretty well with your meat, I see.”

“Yes,” said Hugh, “we’ve given it all a little touch of the sun and smoke, and I don’t believe the flies will get at it right away.”

“What are you going to do?” asked Jack. “Wait here and finish with the meat, or go on down and camp at that lake we passed?”

“Why,” said Hugh, “I believe we might as well get up the horses and ride down to the lake. It won’t take us more than a couple of hours, and we can stop there to-morrow and put this meat out again, go up that short fork that lies in the middle, and then the next day poke over and see if we can get up the other fork that lies beyond the lake.”

“All right,” said Jack. “Shall I go out and bring in the horses?”

“Say you do,” said Hugh. “Joe and me’ll pull down the tent and make up the packs, and it’ll take us a mighty short time to get started.”

The snow had disappeared from the valley. The horses were in sight and Jack got around them and brought them in. Joe helped him catch and saddle them, and by the time this was done, the tent was down and Hugh’s packs were mostly made up. The work of packing was speedily finished, and a little later the three were following back their trail of a few days before.

Instead of stopping by the lake, where there was but little feed and not a very good camping place, Hugh went on to their old camp, where the tent was pitched and the scaffold erected and covered with meat. A good breeze was blowing, and Hugh declared that if they stayed here one day more, the meat would be in shape to pack.

By the time the camp was made, the sun was touching the western mountains, and it was too late to do anything that day.

“If we had a little more daylight, son,” said Hugh, “I’d send you out with that fishing rod of yours to catch some trout, but it’s too late for that. Now, I’ll just get supper, and we’ll have a good long night and to-morrow morning we can all go up the middle fork of this creek, and see what there is there.”

The wind fell with the sun, and after supper they sat around the fire, resting. Toward the mountains they could hear the never-ceasing rumble of the falls from the river, and now and then this sound would be drowned by a thunderous roar from the mountains, ending in a long, hissing sound. After the boys had listened to these noises for some time, Joe said to Hugh, “What is this we hear, White Bull? It sounds like the Thunder Bird flapping his wings at first, and then kind of dies off into a smaller noise.”

“Why,” said Hugh, “those are snowslides coming down from the mountains here and there. You see to-day has been pretty warm, and the sun has shone hot and heated up the rocks, and in lots of places the snow has melted so much that it lets go its hold on the steep slopes and rushes down the mountainside. You boys have never been in the mountains at this time of the year, but you’ll find that when the snow is melting in spring, it’s always sliding down the mountains. It’s a mighty dangerous time to be in the high hills, because a man can never tell when one of these snowslides is going to start, and when it does, it gets going so fast there’s no chance for a man to dodge it. Lots of men have been killed by being covered up by such slides, and often they are so big and come so hard that they smash everything that gets in their way.”

“Yes, White Bull, that’s so,” said Joe. “Jack and I saw two places near where we were camped yesterday where the snow had come down and broken off big strong trees, trees bigger around than your body.”

“Yes,” said Hugh. “There are lots of such places in the mountains, and we’re likely to see more of them before we get out. These mountains,” he went on, “are a great place to see what wind and water can do. There’s no place that I know of where the wind can blow so hard; there’s no place where the snow is worse, and there’s no place where the floods are more powerful. Of course, none of those things lasts very long, but any one of them can do a heap of damage in a mighty short time. Down in the high mountains of Colorado I have seen some bad snowslides, and I knew a little fellow down there that used to carry the mail over the range that got caught in a snowslide once. Luckily, he only got caught on the edge of it and it didn’t kill him. It just carried him along a little ways, rolling him over and over, and fetched him out on a point of solid rock that he managed to hang on to, but although he wasn’t in the snow more than a minute or two, he was all bruised up and felt for a good many days afterward as if he’d been beaten with a club.

“Joe Bruce, too,” he continued, “got caught in a snowslide once when he was crossing the mountains, and came pretty near being killed; but he, too, only got caught on the edge and got thrown around some and came out with his life.”

“Well,” said Joe, “I never heard him speak about that.”

“No,” said Hugh, “I reckon not. You know Bruce ain’t no great talker; he ain’t much of a hand to tell about things that have happened to himself. And that reminds me, did I ever tell you about the way Bruce got back a horse that was stolen once from Carroll & Steele, when they ran a trading-post down in Benton in the early days? That’s a pretty good story, but it’s better to hear Joe Bruce tell it than anybody else. Still, maybe I can give you an idea of what happened.”

“That’s bully, Hugh,” said Jack, “I love to hear your stories.”

“I’ve forgotten,” went on Hugh, “what year it was, but it was in the early ’60’s that Matt Carroll and George Steele were running their trading-post in Benton. Both Carroll and Steele had been working for the American Fur Company in years gone by, but now they had formed a partnership, and were trading on their own account. The country was full of buffalo and there was a big trade in robes. Of course the Piegans did all their trading at Benton, and every now and then a party of Bloods and Blackfeet would bring in a lot of robes from the north. These Indians were masters of the whole country then, and they were pretty independent. They were fighting all their enemies and now and then they killed a white man, when they got a good chance. Of course, they were not openly at war, but any Indian who saw a white man that had something that he wanted was liable to kill him if he got a good chance. Now, at this time in one of the Piegan camps close to Benton there was a young fellow named Lone Wolf, who did his trading with Carroll & Steele, and one day George Steele bought a horse from him, a bay pony, that Lone Wolf said was an awful good horse and a good buffalo runner. After Lone Wolf had sold the horse he got sorry that he had done so, and he used to come to the store and sit around looking sullen and sad; his heart was pretty bad.

“Bruce, who was then only a boy, noticed that Lone Wolf was sulky, but he did not know what the matter was. He had charge of the horses, and, of course, fed and watered those that were kept in the barn, a big log-stable with a padlock and chain on the door.

“One morning as he was coming back from watering the horses and drove them into the stable, he saw Lone Wolf sitting on the ground not far off. Bruce followed the horses into the stable, tied them in their stalls and fed them, but before he had finished, someone called to him, and he went out of the barn to find out what was wanted.

“He wasn’t gone more than a few minutes, and when he came back and went into the stable he saw in a moment that the bay horse was missing. He ran to the door and looked out. Lone Wolf was gone, too; up and down the flat and along the bluffs he could see no sign of the Indian nor of the horse, nor was there any dust rising to show where they had gone.

“Bruce went into the store and told Steele, and Steele blew him up for his carelessness. Of course, there was nothing to be done, but Steele told him that he must look out and not lose any more horses.

“It made the boy feel pretty badly to have had the horse taken right under his nose, and to have had an Indian play such a trick on him. Bruce made up his mind that he would try to get the horse back, but he knew that this was going to be quite a job.

“For some time after that Lone Wolf was not seen in Benton. If he wanted anything at the store, he sent in for it by his wife or some other Indian and did not send to Carroll & Steele’s, but to the other trading-store.

“Old Four Bears--the same one that you boys know--used to come into town every day to Carroll & Steele’s and tell Bruce about the good luck that Lone Wolf was having chasing buffalo with his fast horse. Every day or two he’d come in and report that Lone Wolf had killed six buffalo or four buffalo or eight buffalo or eleven, and when Four Bears made these reports, why, he used to laugh over them as if they were the best jokes in the world, but you can imagine that they didn’t seem very funny to Bruce.

“Every day, when he went out to ride a horse, Bruce would go off toward the Piegan camp, and hide in the brush or on top of some hill, and watch the camp with a field glass, so as to find out how they were treating the stolen horse, in the hope that some day he would have a chance to steal it back again. There didn’t seem to be much likelihood that this would happen, because the camp was a big one, and when the horses were sent out they were almost always herded by one or two boys. Besides that, Bruce found that they had tried to change the looks of the pony. His ears were tied back so that he looked crop-eared, and they had painted him with white clay in spots, so that at a distance he looked like a pinto. However, after a while Bruce found out which horse it was and then discovered that he was always necked to another horse.

“After a while, the camp that Lone Wolf lived in moved further away from Benton, so that when Bruce wanted to go to it he had about a thirteen-mile ride to make. It seemed that his chances of getting the horse were growing smaller. However, one afternoon he started out feeling pretty desperate and made his ride and got as close as he could toward the Indian lodges, and commenced to watch again. At length he saw a boy drive the horses to water, and keeping behind some hills and timber he managed to ride within two hundred yards of the place where the horses were drinking, and stopped there, hidden behind some brush. Presently, he saw the boy who was herding them go into a lodge, and in a moment he rushed out, dashed between the horses and the lodges and started the band off toward the prairie. As soon as he got them going he rode through them, roped the bay pony, cut it loose from its mate, and shortening up his lariat and sticking the spurs into his own mount, he started off over the bad land bluffs.

“As he looked back he saw the Indians rushing out of the lodges and looking after him, shading their eyes from the sun. Then they rushed back to get their guns, and the boys brought in the horses.

“It was not long before a string of Indians were riding hot after Bruce. His horse was grain-fed and strong and tough and better able to run for a long time than the Indian ponies, which, of course, had been fed on grass. The captured pony could go fast enough, as he had no load to carry, so Bruce commenced to ride across the roughest country that he could find, down the side of one clay bluff and up the next, following a road that was heartbreaking to a rider. More than that, the sun was about to set, and before long it would be dark.

“For a little while, all the same, the Indians seemed to gain on him, and he did not feel any way sure how matters were coming out. He managed to keep ahead, however, and when it got dark, turned sharp off his course and followed the ravine down to the river, while the Indians kept riding as hard as they could in the direction that he had previously been following, and nobody knows when they stopped.

“Bruce rode down to the river and crossed to an island where he tied the bay horse in the brush with a rope that he had previously left there. Then he went on to the post and went to bed.

“The next morning he went to Steele and asked him what he would give to get the bay pony back again. Steele knew Bruce pretty well, and said to him at once, ‘You’ve got him.’

“‘Well,’ said Bruce, ‘I think I know how I could get him.’

“‘Well,’ said Steele, ‘if I were to get him he’d only be stolen again, and if you’ve got him you can have him.’

“So, presently, Bruce went over to the island and got the horse and brought him back and put him in the stable. He hadn’t much more than tied him and got out of the stable again, when he saw old Four Bears coming. Four Bears had not heard the news, because his band was camped in a different place from that of Lone Wolf, and the old man came up bubbling over with joy and told Bruce how many buffalo Lone Wolf had killed yesterday. He thought this was just as good a joke now as he had the first time he had told a similar story, and Bruce thought it a much better one. However, Bruce after a while remarked, ‘Steele’s got a new black horse in the stable. Don’t you want to come in and see it?’ Four Bears went along and went into the stable and looked at the black horse, and then saw the hips of the horse in the next stall, and stepping forward where he could see the whole of the animal, he recognized it. He hadn’t a word to say, but just clapped his hand over his mouth in surprise and walked out without a word. You can bet that Bruce watched that stable good after that, so that there was no chance for Lone Wolf to steal the horse back again.”

“Well,” exclaimed Jack, “that’s a bully story, but, what became of the horse finally?”

“Well,” said Hugh, “if you’ll hold your horses a little bit I’ll go ahead. The story ain’t half finished yet.”

“I beg your pardon, Hugh,” replied Jack, “I was in a little too much of a hurry.”

“Well,” said Hugh, “Bruce took good care of the horse and whenever he rode him after that kept a bright lookout. Nothing happened, and after a while he got a little careless, and one day, as he was riding along and went around a point of the bluffs he saw, not a hundred yards away, Lone Wolf riding along the trail toward him, with his rifle across his saddle. Bruce had a revolver, but he didn’t dare to reach for it, because he knew that would mean a fight, and at the distance which separated the two men, the rifle would be likely to get him before he could do anything with his pistol. He was afraid to turn and run, for Lone Wolf might paste him in the back, so he kept on, never letting on that he noticed Lone Wolf, or had any feeling about him. He played with his quirt some and finally after twisting it about a little, let his hand fall on the handle of his pistol. All the time he was getting nearer and nearer to the Indian, which gave him a lot of comfort.

“Lone Wolf never said or did anything, and presently Bruce rode up to him, and turning his horse so as to bring him on the side opposite the butt of the rifle, told Lone Wolf that Steele had sent him out to look for him to ask him to come to the post, where he had a present for him, because he wanted to make friends. The Indian looked at the pony and smiled a little and then said he’d go, and the two rode side by side into the fort, talking in a friendly way, but each one of them on the watch, you can bet.

“When they got to the store Lone Wolf was fed and given a lot of tobacco and ammunition, and he made Steele a present of a handsome parfleche, which he had on his saddle.

“Bruce kept the horse, and Lone Wolf and he never had any trouble again. Lone Wolf was killed a few years afterwards by the Crows.

“Well, that’s the end of how Bruce got the horse; and now, if you like, I’ll tell you what finally became of him.

“It was some years afterwards, in the late ’60’s, and the Indians were bad. A good many men had been killed, miners and trappers and freighters; and a lot of horses had been run off. People did not like to go far from the post, and at night they had a guard round the town, fearing that maybe the Indians would attack them. The horses were on short commons; there was mighty little hay in town and the only place folks dared to pasture them was down on the flat where the feed was mighty poor, because that was where the freighters camped and fed their stock. There were a few people whose horses were on ranches at some distance from the post, and as there was nobody traveling back and forth in the country, most of these people thought that their horses were gone and made up their minds to pocket the loss. However, a friend of Matt Carroll’s had a couple of fine driving horses that were running on a ranch about fifteen miles below Benton. This man needed his team.

“Two or three times Carroll had tried to get men to go for the horses, but nobody was willing to make the ride. At last it occurred to Carroll that Bruce might go, and he offered him fifty dollars to ride down and bring up the animals. With a good horse, it would take him only two hours to go down and perhaps three more to return, so that by making an early start, he could get back to the post in time for dinner. Bruce never was afraid of much of anything, and he had a good deal of confidence in his luck, and fifty dollars to him looked like a lot of money; so he agreed to go.

“That evening, feeling pretty good about the money that he was going to earn, Bruce started out for a good time in the barrooms and dance-houses of the town, but about the middle of the night, when he started to go home, he remembered that he was on patrol duty for the morning watch, so instead of going to bed he simply slept a little in a chair by the barroom stove until called to go on patrol.

“After breakfast, Bruce saddled up the bay pony that he had got from Lone Wolf and started.

“He was pretty stupid and dull from lack of sleep, and rode much more slowly than he intended to. When he reached the bottom of a steep ravine, down which his horse went slowly and carefully, he was suddenly grabbed by a dozen hands, pulled out of the saddle, his gun taken from him, his horse captured, and a half dozen Indians were standing about him, one of whom had a butcher knife at his throat. He thought they intended to kill him right there, but an old man who was with them stopped the young men, and said that the captive must be taken before the chiefs. Accordingly they stripped off all his clothing, except his drawers, undershirt and moccasins, and then took him up to where a group of warriors were gathered on the bluff.

“The old man who had saved his life was present and seemed to be watching him. It was a war party that had got him. There were no women, no travois, no pack ponies, and the men, wrapped in blankets and robes, carried nothing but their arms.

“Of course, you know that Bruce talks half a dozen languages--Sioux, Mandan, Blackfoot, some Crow and two or three more.

“As they were approaching the group, the old man told him that they were going to question him and that he must answer them truthfully.

“‘If you do this you will be protected. You and I have slept in the same lodge and have eaten together, but you must answer the questions. The hearts of these young men are bad, and they want horses and scalps.’

When they had got to the chiefs, who were sitting about on the ground, Bruce was asked how many men were at the post, how they were armed, whether they were on the watch for enemies, how many horses there were, and where they were herded.

These questions had to be answered, and answered as truthfully as possible, and when it was proposed to kill Bruce and take his scalp first, for luck, his old friend objected. At last they decided to take Bruce down to the river and send him across, because when he was on the other side, it would be impossible for him to give the alarm. So they tied his hands to the tail of a horse ridden by one man, while another rode behind--to keep him from pulling back, I reckon--and they started for the river.

“His moccasins did him little good now and his underclothing tore at every bush they passed. The horses galloped at an ordinary rate and Bruce had to keep up, for if he had fallen he would have been dragged and kicked to death.

“It took but a little time to reach the river, but it seemed a long time to Bruce, whose feet and legs were cut, and his back and shoulders creased with blows from the quirts.

“When they got to the river, his hands were loosened and the Indians dismounted, took the covers off their guns and signed Bruce to jump in. He jumped and swam under water just as far as he possibly could hold his breath.

“The current was swift, and when he came up he was a long way below the Indians, but he took only one breath and dived again, keeping on until at last he reached a shallow place and dragged himself out on the north side of the river, where he sat down to get back his breath and think what he could do.

“Before this he had no time to think. The prospect had been so black for him that he had been looking only to see what would happen the next minute. He was now in bad shape, bruised and bleeding and half frozen to death, and he just broke down and cried like a little child.

“At last he climbed the bank and found himself at an old cabin, long abandoned. Here, looking aimlessly about, he happened to find an old Colt’s revolver, which had been lost or thrown away. It was now entirely useless, and, besides, even if it had been in good order he had no ammunition.

“He took this up, however, and started back toward the post, going in low places and traveling out of sight, like an Indian.

“It was well along in the afternoon when he heard on the wind, that was blowing hard, faint sounds of yelling and shooting. The noise sounded as if it came from the post, but he was not going to take any risks, so he hid himself until after sunset. It was bitter cold by that time, and he was obliged to start on or freeze to death.

“He now traveled at a better speed, and quite early in the evening rounded a lofty bluff and kept along on top of it. Presently on the rising wind he heard the sound of voices, but he could not tell whether they were those of the whites or Indians. He lay flat on the ground and waited, and as the sounds came nearer, presently he could distinguish the forms of men against the sky.

“They stopped not very far away and talked, and he thought then that they were the Indians, and had almost made up his mind to drop over the bluff and take his chances of being killed by the fall, when a sudden whiff of wind brought him some words in English, and he knew that the men were from the post.

“The gale made it useless for him to try to call to them, but he felt that he must do something, for at any time they might see his white clothing and shoot at him. He gave a shout, calling, ‘Don’t shoot, don’t shoot,’ and holding both his hands above his head, ran forward and found himself in the midst of a party that had been sent out to look for him. A raid on the town had captured a few horses and had cost the life of a white man, while two of the Indians had been killed, but among the horses lost was Lone Wolf’s bay pony, which, so far as I know, was never heard of again.”

“That certainly is a bully story, Hugh,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said Joe, “that story is good. I have heard the people talk about it sometimes, but I never heard it all, as White Bull has told it to us to-night. I like it.

“Those Indians were Gros Ventres,” he went on, “and at that time they were still enemies of my people, but soon after peace was made.”