The Sheep Eaters

When we reached the top of the divide we took a south-eastern course for the famous Paint Rock country, near Shell Creek and its tributaries. Our route lay through the sage brush of the Bad Lands, and some of the party were very anxious to stop at a mountain stream and catch some trout. There were some old sluice-boxes and deserted cabins, which were very interesting to the average sightseer.

But we pulled on for the Paint Rock, and after ten hours hard ride we arrived on this sacred and historic ground. We picketed our tired horses, piled our packs under a cottonwood tree, and were soon trying to unravel the mysteries of an extinct race. Strange to say no horses were visible on the great calendar of rocks, but men, women, children, and hieroglyphics were crowded on all available places that one could get to register some fact or fancy of this tribe.

CHAPTER V

A TALK WITH LITTLE BEAR

The term Paint Rocks will convey various meanings to the average reader. A description seems in order to make more plain what these rocks are like.

Just imagine a stream of clear, pure water running through a canyon, small and narrow, with a smooth-surfaced rock face, cut by the water when the earth and stone were young and tender, on which one could write as on a black-board in a school room. Here the Sheep Eaters came to record their history. Here father and son came to write the traditions of their tribe; and here came that old squaw, whose name in her own tribe, as translated by the Crow chief, Pretty Eagle, was, "Under-The-Ground." Emblems, original with their tribe, were cut with the obsidian arrowhead in irregular semicircles. The outlines of men and women were about three feet in height. In some places the storms, the wind and the water, had erased parts of the engraving. In other places hunters had built their smoking camp-fires against the face of the rock and blurred the markings, or had wantonly fired bullets into the faces and destroyed the work of the Indians.

As I was getting my camera arranged to get a picture of one group, an old Indian came riding up the creek on a pinto pony. Soon came dogs, and squaws dragging their tepee poles, and without so much as a "How," they began tearing off their packs and setting up their lodges. The packs consisted of old kettles, stale meat, old elk skins made into robes, parflesakes filled to the brim with pemmican, made of elk fat, choke cherries, and jerked elk half dried and half horsehair. Several young puppies, too young to walk, were tied with soft thongs just under the fore legs of the ponies.

Within half an hour the whole Little Basin was filled with the smell of spoiled meat and musty old blankets, spread in the sun to dry, and the whole camp looked like the dump ground of a small town.

The old chief turned the entire care of the horses, dogs, provisions and camp over to the squaws, and while they were busy, he came slowly toward the camera, watching every move I made in trying to get a picture of the Paint Rocks. He was about five feet tall, heavy set and rather dark. His good, round head well set on fine shoulders, was covered with long, heavy hair, carefully braided in small braids, which hung below his waist. At intervals these braids were cemented with some wax and painted red and green, which gave them the appearance of being bound with straps. The sternness of his large mouth, square chin, and heavy jaw was relieved by the large, brown eyes. Three scars on his face told of a battle fought many years ago, as also did the knife scar on his breast and the old gun-shot wound. On his wrist were brass wristlets, and three missing finger joints told of mournings for his dead. A medicine bag and a half dozen elk teeth swung at his throat; these and beaded moccasins and leggings showed him to be a chief. An Indian he was all through.

As I turned to look at him he straightened himself to his full height, and I had taken him in from head to heel when he put his right arm out in front of him closed his hand, and gave it three rapid motions up and down, which, in sign talk, is "How do you do." Quick as a flash I straightened my arm out, laying my thumb across my little finger, made a half curve, out from the body inward, then an angling sweep down, which means "Good." A twinkle came in his eye, and he answered by giving me the same sign.

I knew him, but twenty years had passed over his head since I last saw him, and it was twenty-eight years since he and Sitting Bull fought a duel with knives, on the Big Horn.

I gave him a challenge and called him a Sioux, which is done by straightening the fingers of the right hand, laying the thumb close into the palm, making a rounded curve outward, then a quick sweep across the throat. He found and gave me the answer "No." Then he came very close to me, and when he saw the powder in my face, he gave a grunt of satisfaction.

I took off my glove and held out my hand. He grasped it quickly and said in the Crow language, "Long time ago," then paused – "long – time – ago, many moons, you heap good to me and my braves."

"How many moons?" I asked.

He stopped and his mind was busy running over the many years, many camp-fires, the wrongs he had sustained from the British Government which compelled them to leave their homes and come to the United States. With a sigh he held up one hand, and with the other hand pulled down three fingers, saying, "Ten, ten, ten."

I gave him the sign of correct, then his face brightened, and as the boys gathered around us, he said, "Do you know who it is?"

"Yes," I replied, "I know you, you are Little Bear, the chief of the Cree Nation." He held up his hands and began making rapid signs. "It was you," he said, "who were our friend when our braves were arrested for killing buffalo on Razor Creek."

"Yes," I replied.

"We never forget our friends," said he. He then gave me a beautiful peace pipe. The stem was two feet long, with animals engraved on it; and the bowl was made from Minnesota pipe-stone rock, inlaid with silver.

Our camp fire was going, and we all sat around it and smoked the pipe of peace, which is done as follows: The pipe is filled with the bark of a red willow, and when lighted is handed to the highest or head chief. He takes one or two long whiffs; then, as he raises his head and blows the smoke in clouds toward the heavens and the Great Spirit, he passes the pipe to his guest on the right. This is continued until the pipe is empty, and all is done with the greatest reverence toward the Great Spirit.

After the peace smoke, Little Bear, with his squaw and his son, took dinner with us. We had fresh venison, potatoes, onions, hot pancakes and maple syrup, canned pineapple and coffee. Little Bear ate a hearty dinner and said it was good, and to meet friends made him very happy.

After the meal I took some pictures of the rocks, and Little Bear asked me what I wanted them for. I told him those marks were a history of an ancient tribe of people.

"Yes," he said, "many, many, moons. Our tribe knew nothing of them. Long, maybe so, heap years, much old squaw live with Mountain Crows. Crows call her 'Under-The-Ground.' She tell much of little folks way up mountain. Much eat Big Horn sheep. Much pray sun and heap Great Spirit. Old squaw say, little squaw much good face, all time good, bucks no fight, yes."

I told him I had been upon the Medicine and Bald mountains and had seen their shrine wheel, and where they had lived in the Big Horn mountains. I told him I had also been far up Clark's Fork, where their sheep pens were, "Yes," I said, "they are all gone. Great chief, Pretty Eagle, and I were old friends, and he told me all about the little Indians, their bows and arrows, and many things the old squaw had told him about their lives on the mountains; but Sheep Eaters, all gone now."

"Ugh," he replied, "by and by, maybe so, Crees all gone, Crows all. Heap bad for Injins."

I told him it would be a long time before that happened, and that some day perhaps the Government would let the Crees come and live with the Crows, on the beautiful Little Horn.

"Yes," he said, "that would be very nice. If the Great Father at Washington would only say the word, we would come and work very hard. We do not like our reservation in the north-west. It is too cold and the land is poor and the Red Coats are not good to Injins."

When our visit was over and the Indians were preparing to move, I turned the camera on the camp. A squaw who was watching me, gave a grunt, turned her back, and ran; and the others, alarmed scattered like dry leaves before a wind. They did not return until I had taken the camera down and put it away. Little Bear explained that they were afraid, because they thought the camera a bad spirit.

As the little band moved off toward the north, Chief Little Bear came and grasped my hand and said, "You have always been my friend, good-bye."

As they rode away with all their worldly goods packed on a few poor cayuses, I could not help contrasting their present condition with that of thirty years ago. Then the red man owned the country. The plains, the rivers, the trees were his; and his, too, were the wild horse, the buffalo, the elk, the deer, and the fish. Self reliant, free, happy, he was then; today, a beggar. Everything taken from him, his tribal relations broken, left alone. The hardest stroke of all was to have the tribal relations broken, and to be forced under the control of the hated and despised pale face. Happy indeed were the Sheep Eaters never to have been driven from their mountain home and never to have known the power of the pale face!

CHAPTER VI

CURIOSITIES AROUND PAINT ROCKS

For two days we camped among the Paint Rocks, studying them, but could find nothing that indicated battle or fighting. Neither did we find any dead, nor graves, nor even bones. If, like the Crows, they buried in the trees, the last trace was gone. There were no mounds of earth, or indications of earth burials. The rocks were mostly covered with likenesses of nude men, women, and children, and with emblems. In places the artist evidently stood on some elevation of wood or stone, for the carving was higher than the average man could reach. Along a crest of sandstone I saw some very odd formations; they looked like huge inverted cones, that some giant sculptor had carved there. Perhaps they were formed by the erosion of centuries, or it may have been the wear caused by the rubbing of the buffaloes, for we found many of their bones there, and I have often seen telegraph poles rubbed to the breaking point. When the buffalo is annoyed by buffalo gnats and his great coat is filled with mud and sand, he soon wears away a pretty strong pole.

This was a strange place, and in our search we found geodes, petrified snakes, and short sections of fish. We also found several petrified jaw-bones, of what looked to be wolves, still containing the teeth, and fossils of many kinds. Some looked like vegetables, some were hexagonal, and some looked as though made of floor tiling. We found many water and moss agates of various sizes. The ground was covered with some meteoric rock full of iron.

Here we passed the day hunting for some graves, but it was no use. Tree burial seems to have been their method of disposing of the dead. In this method of burial the body is taken to some low bushy tree, rolled in fine robes and blankets, and with green strips of elk hide, wrapped to two or more limbs. This secures it very firmly, and as the sun and wind dry out the skin the thongs tighten, until only years of sun and rain, mice and bugs, eat away the thongs, and the blankets, bones, and skins are carried away by the wind. In this method of burial the body lasts about twenty years or less.

We were tired and hungry when we returned to camp, but we soon had a blazing fire with all the odors of good things on the breeze. Just as we sat down to eat, I heard a horse's footfall, and turned to see who it was. A young brave rode into the trail, and I caught up my gun. His hands went up like a flash giving me the sign of a Crow. As all the hunters and trappers in the west, north and south of the Yellowstone River, know the Crows to be peaceful, I put up my gun and gave him the sign that I understood what he said.

Young braves are always the very hardest members of the tribe to engage in conversation, except a young girl of marriageable age. Both do all their courting by making eyes at each other.

I knew him. He was a chief's son. Years before I had got some papers to Washington for his father. Also I knew he could talk some broken English and Crow, and was a superb sign talker.

We began to eat and I made signs for him to picket his horse and join us at supper. I knew he was trailing the camp outfit, which had gone and was many miles away by this time. He pretended not to understand, but looking much disappointed, started to ride away. I hailed him and told him to go back and get his packs, and come have supper with us, and picket his horses with ours. His face remained blank, and he showed no sign of understanding till I added that I was a friend of the Little Bear chief, and had kept the officers from arresting his braves at Razor Creek many moons ago. Then his face lighted up. "Ugh, me see you before. How you know me got pack horses? You no see 'em."

"Never mind, I know Injin," I replied, "I heap plenty see."

He turned down the trail and soon returned with three good looking packs, well loaded. I showed him a good place to unpack and he made short work of it. And then what a supper that Indian did eat!

After supper I told him the story of the Reil rebellion in Canada, and how when they got whipped the halfbreeds and Indians came across the line into the United States; and the history of his grandfather, the Big Bear, and his father, the Little Bear. All of this amused him and put him on very easy terms for the night. I asked him why he would not talk with me when he first came up.

He said, "Sometimes Injin say too much. Me no talk much. Better so. Some white man want to know heap too much. You my friend. You Little Bear friend, my papa."

"Yes," I said, "I understand, but you can talk like the pale face some, and you have a Cree alphabet."

"Me no can say what you mean," he replied.

I took a paper and showed him some of the letters which ran like this

"Yes, me heap understand."

"I got some letters from Canada, which were written to your father. Your sister read them to me in English, and I sent letters to the Great Father at Washington, to get a place for your tribe with the Crows."

"Yes, me heap savy now," he said.

CHAPTER VII

THE STORY OF AGGRETTA AND RED ARROW

On my return I passed the Little Horn, swung to the west, and traveled up the Big Horn to the canyon, where I found some mixed Indians who were busy catching and drying white fish. There were River Crows, Shoshones, and a few Mountain Crows camped along the river in their summer homes or wickyups.

After I had dismounted, taken off my packs, and turned my horses loose to eat the bountiful bunch grass with which the ground was carpeted, I went up the river to where some rocks projected into the water and soon caught a dozen fine trout, and began getting my supper. Just as all was ready, I saw the old Sheep Eater squaw sitting on the ground not far away. I went over to her and, taking her by the arm, led her to my camp fire and helped her to a portion of my broiled trout, potatoes, and coffee. She kept her eyes on me for a while as she ate, then said in sign talk, "I know you now."

I answered, "Yes?"

When she had finished eating, she drank her coffee and setting the tin cup down, said with a sigh, "Heap good." Then, after giving me a long and earnest look, "Me heap know you, yes, long time ago; heap talk about mountains and Sheep Eaters, yes."

This was my chance, and I was not slow to take it. "Yes," I said, "and I should like to know more of your people," and as she made no reply I went on, "about the young people, about how they get married."

Still without looking at me, she answered: "Me all time know about young Chief Red Arrow, Papoose, and the beautiful young squaw, Aggretta; face all time like sun, all time beautiful eyes like stars, Aggretta bring springtime and flowers, heap. Yes I tell pale face about Red Eagle Papoose and Aggretta."

By this time many braves were standing around the camp-fire listening to the old Sheep Eater, who rarely talked of her people. She settled herself more comfortably, pulled her blanket around her shoulders, and began her tale in a dull, listless way, but as scene after scene came before her mind, she forgot her audience and herself and lived again those days of her girlhood. As I watched the flush come to her cheeks and the light kindle in her eyes, I lost sight of the withered old relic of a tribe now passed away, and saw only the beautiful girl of the past taking part in the scenes she so vividly described.

This is the story she told: "Red Eagle papoose no name yet. He never do anything to get name. Papoose boy must do something good, save some life, do some great act before he can be great man. Aggretta get name because she so beautiful. Papoose go see Aggretta, stay long time, give her beautiful eagle feathers and beads, but Aggretta no make beautiful eyes at him. Come summer time, Aggretta go to mountain top to pray to sun. Come dark night, storm, Aggretta get lost among clouds. The great storm swept all over mountains and snow fell on ground, on mountain top.

"When Red Eagle papoose find out Aggretta lost on mountain, his heart on ground. He get dried sheep and roots and great bow and arrows, flint arrows, and go to Aggretta."

Fascinated, I listened, oblivious to everything but her story, which I shall have to put into my own words: "Swift as the mountain ram he climbs the rugged rocks and takes the trail to the great shrine wheel. Soon he finds her moccasin tracks, and with all the fleetness of an Indian runner he climbs the rocky trail, here and there stooping to find a footmark, the breaking of a piece of moss, or the displacing of a small stone. The bent grass in places showed the direction in which Aggretta had gone. With bow and arrow he glided on and up. Soon he came to the snow line, where the trail became more precipitous and the snow deeper. He stopped and wildly blew his cedar horn, but no answer came. The storm had abated and the sun's warm rays were making the snow soft. All impressions and trails were obliterated. The reflection of the sun on the snow was blinding. After a careful survey, he struggled on up the trail, whose serpentine twists wound in and out through trees and canyons and dazzling snow until he was almost blinded.

"Entering a narrow canyon filled with fir and spruce trees, he stopped in this haven to rest his tired eyes. When his vision had cleared, his heart gave a bound; he thought he could see a moccasin track ahead in the trail. He was off like a deer, and in a moment he was scraping the soft snow away to find – the tracks of a terrible grizzly. Now he knew there was trouble ahead, for he felt sure the bear would follow Aggretta's trail. His suspicions proved correct, and mile after mile he followed the trail, until he came to the camping ground where the Sheep Eaters met twice a year to worship. Just as he reached an elevated spot he heard the scream of his Aggretta, and starting in the direction from which it came, he saw the grizzly coming straight for him. He brought his long bow to his face and placed the great jagged arrow against the sinew. Dropping on his back, with both feet against the bow and both hands on the sinew, he bent the bow until the arrow was just at full length and the flint touched the bow; then, letting the bear have the shaft full in the breast, he jumped like a cat to one side, and the bear passed. One terrible roar told that the grizzly had been hit in a vital place.

"The bear turned and started after the young brave, who was bounding along toward the scrub fir tree where Aggretta was perched. On came the bear, with the blood streaming from his mouth, steadily gaining on the brave, until it seemed certain he would catch him before the tree was reached. Aggretta, watching the race, gave a cry of warning, and the brave turned suddenly and bounded away down the hill. The bear, infuriated with pain, rushed after him. When the distance between them was short, the brave leaped aside with the agility of a coyote, while the weight of the great monster carried it down the mountain side. Before the bear could make the turn, the brave was beside his Aggretta in the tree. But no sooner had he cleared the ground than the monster was underneath the tree, tearing at the lower limbs, while the shaft remained buried in his vitals.

"The brave took another arrow from his quiver and with deliberate aim he drove the arrow with its obsidian shaft into one of the bear's eyes, cutting it entirely out. The great brute rolled over and with his paws tore the arrow from his eye, but the inward bleeding was fast filling his powerful lungs.

"The two lovers sat together trembling like forest leaves, as the grizzly rolled over the snow with his life blood oozing away. The young brave drew another shaft and was about to send it home, when Aggretta said, 'Wait, he will not live long now, and you may need your arrows. We are far from our people and there are many wild beasts between us and our lodge.'

"He replaced the arrow in his quiver, saying, 'Aggretta speaks wisely, like her father, Black Raven.'

"At last the lovers came slowly down from the tree. Cautiously the brave crept forward and made sure the bear was dead. Then he grasped the shaft, and exerting all his strength pulled it from the breast of the dead brute, whose lungs it had penetrated. Holding the bloody arrow in his hand, the young brave told Aggretta this was his first great bear.

"'Yes,' said Aggretta, 'now you have won a name, and Aggretta the daughter of chief Black Raven, will name you the Red Arrow.'

"After taking the claws of the bear to make a necklace for himself, they started down the trail in their homeward journey. Young and fleet of foot, they went, at a swift pace down the mountain, hand in hand. After covering many miles, Red Arrow called a halt at a mountain spring, where he took from his buckskin shirt some dried sheep, and they ate heartily while they talked of the great rejoicing there would be in the Sheep Eaters' lodges when they returned.

"After lunch they started on down the trail, Aggretta keeping pace with Red Arrow. Once the stillness was broken by the faint blast of a red cedar horn; but it was not until they had stopped to rest in a great park, where the snow had melted away, that they heard a blast that echoed and reechoed through the wild hills and canyons and the farthest glen. Red Arrow recognized the blast as coming from his father's horn, and took from his belt a horn made from the mountain ram's horn. Filling his powerful lungs, he placed it carefully to his lips, and blew one long quivering blast which burst through the air like a rocket, penetrating the canyons and the forests, echoing far down through the valleys where the Sheep Eaters had built their lodges among the crags.

"As they rested under a great tree with the sunlight filtering through its branches, making lacy patterns on the moss at their feet, and the magpies and squirrels scolding and chattering in the nearby trees, Aggretta told of her wanderings on the mountains, and her escape from the bear, the despair she felt of ever being rescued, and her joy when she saw him, Red Arrow, coming. Red Arrow's heart was too full for utterance, and when she had finished, he sat looking into her beautiful brown eyes, while his heart throbbed almost aloud. At last he said, 'Red Arrow look heap on Aggretta?'

"Casting her eyes around like a frightened fawn, she moved closer to her lord of the forest.

"'Aggretta much good, and great father say me have Aggretta,' he continued.

"She nestled still closer and he slipped his arm around the trembling maiden and drew her to him. His pleading eyes looked straight into hers, and through into her very soul, as he said, 'You give me much good name, now do you give me Aggretta?'

"Softly her arm stole round his neck, the black head went down on his shoulder while tears of joy slipped down her cheeks. Words could not add to the rapture of these two hearts drawn together by the wonderful love known only to the children of nature, and they sat in silence until the cedar horn was heard again. This was the signal to move on. Down through the beautiful ferns and wild flowers the lovers sped, leaving behind the mountains and the snow. Hand in hand they pressed forward down the winding trail, beaten deep into the earth by the buffalo, the elk, the deer, the sheep. The goldenrod nodded in the breeze. Little squirrels went frisking up the nut pines, gathering the rich nuts, and the ruffed grouse safely hidden among the brown leaves, quietly viewed the scene.