Chapter 9

George Northrup was but a boy of fifteen when his father died. Having nothing to keep him at home, he went to the Indian country, which at that time was in Minnesota. He had a boyish notion that he could go through to the Pacific Ocean by making his way from one tribe to another. When he was eighteen years old, a few years before the Civil War, he tried to make this journey. He loaded his provisions into a handcart, and took a big dog along for company. For thirty-six days he did not see anybody, or hear any voice but his own. Then he found paths made by Indian war parties. He knew, that, if one of these parties should find him, he would be killed.

One morning he found all his food stolen from his handcart. Either Indians or wolves had taken it. He now saw how foolish his boyish plan had been. He turned back, and at last reached a trading post, almost starved to death. For days he had had little to eat except such frogs as he could catch.

After this the Indians always called him "The-man-that-draws-the-handcart."

As he grew older, he became a famous trapper and guide. He knew all about the habits of animals. He could shoot with a better aim than any Indian or any other white man on the frontier. He often walked eighty miles in a day across the prairie. He could manage the Indians as no other man could.

This strange young man lived among rough and wicked men. But he never drank or swore, or did anything that anybody could have thought wrong. He never even smoked, as other men about him did, but he lived his own life in his own way. Everybody loved him for his gentleness. Everybody admired him for his courage and manliness. All the spare money he got he spent for good books.

When winter time came, he would sometimes hire other trappers, who did not know the country so well as he did, to work for him. He would go away beyond the settlements and set up a camp. He would teach the other men how to trap. When spring came, he would bring many furs into the settlement. One winter he camped in the country of the Yankton Indians. He had six men with him. The Yanktons were wild Indians, and Northrup was in some danger. But he had a friend among the Indians, a chief called by a good long name, Taw-ton-wash-tah.

But all the Yanktons were not friendly to the white men. There was one chief whose name was Old-man. He got together a party to go and rob Northrup and drive him away. Taw-ton-wash-tah tried to keep these Indians from going, but he could not do it.

Northrup did not know that a party had been sent out against him. His men went on with their trapping, while George went hunting to get food for them. They had only a small bag of flour, and this they did not eat. They kept the flour for a time that might come in which they could not find any animals to kill for meat.

One day George followed the tracks of an elk. He overtook it six miles from his camp. He crept up to it and shot it. Then he loaded his gun, so as to be ready for anything that might happen. While he was skinning the elk, he looked up and saw the heads of Indians coming up over a little hill. He quickly jumped into the bushes. He saw that there were thirteen Indians in the party. He put his hand on his bullet pouch, and knew by the feeling of it that there were fifteen bullets in the bag. "Every bullet must bring down an Indian," he said to himself.

One of the Indians called out in his own language, "Is The-man-that-draws-the-handcart here?"

George quickly replied in their language, "Stop! If any man comes one step nearer, I will kill him. Tell me whether this is a war party or a hunting party."

One of the Indians stepped out in front and fired off both barrels of his gun. This was a sign of friendship.

Northrup did not think this offer of peace worth much; but, if he refused it, he would have to fight against thirteen Indians. He could only accept it by firing off both barrels of his gun. This would leave him with his gun unloaded.

But he slipped the cap off one barrel of his gun. Then he fired the other barrel, and brought down the hammer of the one from which he had taken the cap, so as to make it seem that that barrel of his gun was empty. Then he slyly slipped the cap back on his gun, so as to have one barrel ready for use.

He went with the Indians to their camp, where he was a kind of prisoner, but he managed to load the empty barrel of his gun by going behind a tree where the Indians could not see him.

He knew that the Indians would try to get to his camp before he did. As his men did not know how to manage Indians, the Indians could steal everything in the camp. If they should take his provisions, George and his men might starve on the prairies, which were covered with snow.

So George made up his mind that he must get to his camp before the Indians, or lose his life in trying.

He said to the chief, "Old-man, I am going home."

He did not wait for an answer, but started along the trail leading to his camp. He expected the Indians to shoot him, but they only fell into line and marched behind him.

George knew that if the Indians got into the camp with him, they would find everything scattered about. Before he could get things together, they would steal most of them. So he tried once more what he could do by boldness. He turned and said to the chief, "My men are new men. They do not know Indians. If you should go in with me, they might shoot. It is better that I should go in first, and tell them that you come as friends."

Old-man said "Ho," which is the way that a Yankton has of saying "All right."

Northrup went into the camp, and gathered everything together in one place, and told his men to keep watch over the things. The Indians staid about the camp two days, trying to get a chance to rob the white men, but Northrup kept his eye on them. Once he found one of his men without a gun.

"Where is your gun?" he said.

"The Indians are sitting on it," said the man. "They will not give it up."

George found several Indians sitting on the gun. He took hold of the gun and looked at the Indians. They all got up. It seemed that they could not help doing what he wanted them to do. Northrup gave the gun back to its owner, and told him not to let it go out of his hands again.

George had a fine double-barreled rifle. An English gentleman whose guide he had been had sent him this gun from London. When he was in his tent one day, he heard the Indians on the outside of it disputing who should have his gun. He knew by this that they meant to kill him.

George patted his rifle as though it had been an old friend, and said, "Well, old gun, whoever gets you will have to be quick." After that his hand was always on his gun, and his eye was always on the Indians.

He asked his men where the sack of flour was.

"Old-man has it," said one of his men.

To let the chief keep the flour was to run the risk of starving, but Northrup knew that if he took it away there might be a battle. He stepped up to the chief and took the bag of flour from his side and started away without saying a word.

"Man-that-draws-the-handcart," said the chief angrily, "bring back my flour."

George stopped, and opened his coat. He pointed toward his heart and said,--

"Old-man, if you want to kill me, shoot me, but you shall not take away my flour and leave me to starve."

"Very well," said the chief sternly, "then, Man-that-draws-the-handcart, you shall go south."

In the language of these Indians, to go south means to die. They think the soul journeys to the southward after death. Old-man meant to say that Northrup should die.

"Very well," said George, looking the Indian in the eye, "I will go south, then; but if I go south, you shall go with me, and just as many more as I can take. Remember, Old-man, you must go south if I do."

Old-man knew Northrup very well. He knew that if anybody tried to kill him, George's sure aim would be taken at Old-man first of all. George had also told all of his men to shoot the chief if there should be any trouble.

After lingering for two days, the Indians stole a bag of chopped buffalo meat, or pemmican, and an old gun. With these they went off, and George hurried away to a better camping place, where they could not find him again.

THE LAZY, LUCKY INDIAN.

Out in the country we now call North Dakota there once lived an Indian known as "Lazy-man." When he was young, he had been lazy about hunting. When the other Indians had skins to sell, the lazy Indian had nothing. He grew poor. His blanket was ragged. His leggings were worn out. His wigwam was so wretched that all the tribe laughed at its tumble-down look.

Every winter the tribe went off to the great plains to hunt buffalo. They took their little ponies along, to carry home what they got. They brought back the skins of the buffaloes and buffalo meat dried over a fire. They also brought back pemmican, which is made by chopping buffalo meat very fine, and mixing it with the tallow from the animal. Lazy-man was ashamed to go on the hunt. He had no ponies to carry the meat and the skins he might get.

One winter, when the tribe went off on its regular hunt, Lazy-man and his wife staid behind as usual. They sat lonesome in their teepee, as a wigwam is called in their language. The weather grew colder. It was hard to find anything to eat. The lake near them was frozen, so that they could not fish. There were not many animals living in the country about. The lazy Indian and his wife were nearly starved.

The buffaloes had never come down to this lake shore. But one day the lazy Indian looked out and saw a herd of them coming. They were running out on the point of land where his teepee stood. He knew that when they got to the ice on the lake they would turn back.

"Quick, quick!" he called to his wife. The two ran right into the midst of the herd. It was a dangerous thing to do, but they were so hungry and miserable that they did not mind the danger. By running into the herd they separated the buffaloes out on the point from the rest.

When the buffaloes on the point came to the ice, they paused and turned back. They were soon running in the other direction, but the lazy Indian and his wife faced the animals as they came. They waved their ragged blankets at the buffaloes. They shouted in Indian fashion, "Yow-wow, yow-wow, yow-wow!" They ran to and fro, waving and shouting.

Once more the buffaloes stopped and looked. Lazy-man and his wife now ran at them, throwing their blankets in the air, and yelling more wildly than ever. The scared buffaloes turned about again. They were so badly frightened this time that they ran out on the ice on the lake.

The ice was as smooth as glass. The buffaloes could not stand up on it. One after another they slipped and fell. The lazy Indian was not lazy that day. He saw a chance to get out of his poverty. He ran about on the ice, killing the buffaloes.

For many days he and his squaw worked. They skinned the buffaloes, and dried the skins. They prepared the stomachs of the buffaloes, and stuffed them with the chopped meat, making it look like great sausages as big as pillows. They put a few cranberries in with the meat to give the pemmican a good taste. Then they poured the smoking fat of the buffalo into this great sausage. The fat filled up the small spaces. When it got cold, the pemmican sack was almost as hard as a stone. It could be cut only by chopping it with a tomahawk.

At last spring came, and the tribe came home from the hunt. You may suppose that Lazy-man was proud that day. Instead of being the poor beggar whom everybody laughed at, he was now one of the rich men in the tribe. He had more buffalo robes and more pemmican than any other man in the village. He exchanged his buffalo robes for ponies. After that he always went on the hunt, and lived like the other Indians. He did not wish to sink into laziness and poverty again.

PETER PETERSEN.

A STORY OF THE MINNESOTA INDIAN WAR.

Peter Petersen was a very little boy living in Minnesota. He lived on the very edge of the Indian country when the Indian War of 1862 broke out.

Settlers were killed in their cabins before they knew that a war had begun. As the news spread, the people left their houses, and hurried into the large towns. Some of them saw their houses burning before they got out of sight. The roads were crowded with ox wagons full of women and children.

Peter Petersen's father was a Norwegian settler. When the news of the Indian attack came, Peter's father hitched up his oxen, and put his wife and daughters and little Peter into the wagon. They drove the oxen hard, and got to Mankato in safety.

The town was crowded with frightened people. Many were living in woodsheds and barns. In their hurry, these country people had not brought food enough with them. Before long they began to suffer hunger.

Peter Petersen's father thought of the potato field he had at home. If he could only go back to his house long enough to dig his potatoes, his family would have enough to eat.

When he made up his mind to go, Peter wanted to go along with him. As there were now soldiers within a mile of his farm, Peter's father thought the Indians would not be so bold as to come there. So he and Peter went back to the little house.

The next morning Peter's father went out to dig potatoes. Peter, who was but five years old, was asleep in his bed. He was awakened by the yells of Indians. He ran to the door just in time to see his father shot with an arrow.

Little Peter ran like a frightened rabbit to the nearest bushes. The Indians chased him and caught him. They were amused to see him run, and they thought he would be a funny little plaything to have. So they just set him up on the back of a cow, and drove the cow ahead of them. They laughed to see Peter trying to keep his seat on the cow's back.

The little boy lived among the Indians for weeks. They did not give him anything to eat. When he came into their tents to get food, they would knock him down. But he would pick up something to eat at last, and then run away. When he could not get any food, he would go out among the cows the Indians had taken from the white people. Little as he was, he would manage to milk one of the cows. He had no other cup to catch the milk in but his mouth. Whenever any of the Indians threatened to kill him, he would run away and dodge about between the legs of the cows or among the horses, so as to get out of their way. Sometimes he was so much afraid that he slept out in the grass, in the dew or rain.

After some weeks, Peter and the other captives were retaken by the white soldiers sent to fight the Indians. But the poor little boy could speak no language but Norwegian. He could not tell whose child he was, nor where he came from. His mother and sisters had left the dangerous country near the Indians. They had gone to Winona, a hundred and fifty miles away. One of his sisters heard somebody read in the paper that such a little boy had been taken from the Indians. The kind-hearted doctor in whose house she lived tried to find the boy, but nobody could tell what had become of little Peter. His family at last gave up all hope of seeing him again.

When Peter was taken by the soldiers, he had worn out all his clothes in traveling through the prairie grass. He had nothing on him but part of a shirt. The soldiers took an old suit of uniform and made him some clothes. He was soon dressed from top to toe in army blue.

He was as much of a plaything for the soldiers as he had been for the Indians. They laughed at his pranks, as they might have done if he had been a monkey. He passed from one squad of soldiers to another. They fed him on hard-tack, and shared their blankets with him. He was the pet and plaything of them all. But after a while the Indians were driven away from the settlements, and the soldiers were ordered to the South, for it was in the time of the Civil War.

The regiment that Peter happened to be with got on a steamboat, and Peter went aboard with them. The soldiers knew that if Peter should be taken to the South, he would be farther than ever away from his friends. So the soldiers made up their minds to put him ashore at Winona. It was the last place at which he would find Norwegian people. To put such a little fellow ashore in a large and busy place like this was a hard thing to do. Peter was hardly more than a baby, and he could not speak English. He stood about as much chance of starving to death here as he had in the Indian camp.

When the boat landed at Winona, the soldiers gave some money to one of the hotel porters, and told him to give the child something to eat, and send him out into the country where there were Norwegian people. But as soon as Peter had eaten the dinner they gave him at the hotel, he slipped away, and went back to the river. He expected to find his friends, the soldiers, waiting for him; but the boat had gone. Peter was now in a strange city, without friends. Not without friends, either, for his sisters were in this same city. But he did not think any more of getting to his mother or his sisters. He was only thinking of the soldiers who had been so kind to him.

When the next boat came down the river, Peter Petersen, in his little blue uniform, marched aboard. He thought he might overtake the soldiers, but the boatmen put him ashore again. He stood gazing after the boat, not knowing what to do or where to go.

There stood on the bank that day a Norwegian. He was a guest at the Norwegian hotel in the town. He heard Peter say something in his own language, and he thought the boy must be a son of the man who kept the hotel. So he said to him in Norwegian, "Let's go home."

It had been a long time since Peter had heard his own language spoken. Nobody had said anything to him about home since he was taken away from his father's cabin by the Indians. The words sounded sweet to him. He followed the strange man. He did not know where he was going, except that it was to some place called home. When he got to the hotel, he went in and sat down. He did not know what else to do.

Presently the landlady came in. Seeing a strange little boy in army blue, she said, "Whose child are you?"

Peter did not know whose child he was. Since the soldiers left him, he didn't seem to be anybody's child. As he did not answer, the landlady spoke to him rather sharply.

"What do you want here, little boy?" she said.

"A drink of water," said Peter.

A little boy nearly always wants a drink of water.

"Go through into the kitchen there, and get a drink," said the landlady.

Peter opened the door into the kitchen, and went through. In a moment two arms were about him. Peter knew what home meant then. His sister, Matilda, had recognized her lost brother Peter in the little soldier boy. The next day he was put into a wagon and sent out to Rushford, where his mother was living. The wanderings of the little captive were over.

THE GREATEST OF TELESCOPE MAKERS.

Three great inventors in this country were portrait painters. Fulton, the builder of steamboats, was one of them; Morse, who planned our first electric telegraph, was another; and Alvan Clark, who found out a way of making the largest and finest telescopes in the world, was another.

Alvan Clark was the son of a farmer. When he was eighteen years old, he set to work to learn engraving and drawing. He had no teacher. After a while he began to draw portraits. Once he sent to Boston to get some brushes to paint with. When the brushes came, there was a piece of newspaper wrapped round them. In this bit of newspaper was an advertisement that engravers were wanted. He went to Boston, and found regular work as an engraver.

When he was not busy engraving, he was studying painting. After some years he became a painter of portraits and miniatures. He lived at Cambridgeport, near Boston.

While Mr. Clark was living at Cambridgeport, his son was at a boarding school. The young boy had become interested in telescopes. He learned that there were two kinds of these instruments. One brought the stars near by showing them in a curved mirror. The other magnified by means of glasses that the light shone through. He had read that it was very hard to grind these glasses or lenses, as they are called, so that they would be correct. The telescope that used the mirror was not so good, but it was easier to make. So George Clark made up his mind that he would make a reflecting telescope; that is, one with a mirror in it.

The mirror in such a telescope is made of polished metal. One day somebody broke the dinner bell at the boarding school. George dark picked up the pieces of brass and took them home.

These pieces of brass he put into a retort. A retort is a vessel that will bear great heat, and that is used for melting metals and other substances. Young Clark put some tin into the retort with the brass. When the two metals were melted together, he poured the liquid into a mold. When it became cold, it was a round flat piece. Such a piece is called a disc.

Alvan Clark, the father, was a very ingenious man. He was a fine marksman. One reason that he could shoot so well was that his eye was so true. Another was that he made his own rifles, and made them better than others.

When Mr. Clark found his son trying to make a telescope out of the pieces of a bell, he became interested in telescopes. He studied all about them in order to help the boy with his work. He helped his son grind the metal disc into a concave mirror; that is, a mirror that is a little dish-shaped. With this they made a telescope with which they could see the rings of Saturn, and the little moons that revolve round Jupiter.

After Mr. Clark had made this little telescope, he made larger reflecting telescopes that were very powerful. But he found that no telescope with a mirror in it could be very good.

He now said to his son that they would make a refracting telescope; that is, one in which no mirror is used, but which brings the distant stars to the sight by the light shining through lenses. Lenses are large glasses that are regularly thicker in one part than in another. The glasses you see in spectacles are small lenses.

George Clark, the son, told his father that the books said that the grinding of such glasses was very difficult. Mr. Clark would not give it up because it was hard. He liked to do hard things. He had already spent a great part of his money trying to make good reflecting telescopes; but he made up his mind to give them up, and try to make a better kind. He first looked through the great telescope just put up for Harvard College. The large lens in this telescope was not perfect, and Mr. Clark's eye was so good that he could see what the small fault was. When he heard that twelve thousand dollars had been paid for this glass, he was encouraged to try to make such lenses. But there was nobody in this country who could show him how to do it.

He first got some poor lenses out of old telescopes. These he worked over, and made them better. By this means he learned how to do it. Then he got some discs of glass and made some new lenses. These were the best ever made in this country. But he was not satisfied. He kept on making better and larger lenses. With one of these he discovered two double stars, as they are called. These had never been seen to be double before.

But nobody in America would believe that some of the best telescopes in the world were made in this country, for even the English astronomers had to get their telescopes in Germany.