Part 9

as well as anybody, but took that plan of evading the general’s orders, preferring to keep closer watch of his treasures which, it appears, were too heavy to be handily carried, but the general kept on urging until he got the Jew into line. Perhaps the most laughable incident that occurred during the scare was when the general’s messenger returned from a visit to our camp and reported that “them folks with the ox train are Missourians and won’t get up.” It was a mistake, however, as our party did get out and were ready for the fray, and afterwards one of them remarked that it was really too bad that the “Redskins did not give us a fight, that we were entitled to have some fun after so much preparation.”

Early next morning our train was on the road, and the mule train, at the general’s suggestion, fell in and kept company. Plenty of evidences were seen to establish the fact of the near approach of the Indians that night, and I attributed their failure to attack to the action of General Meagher and men in the mule camp. Forty wagons and teams added to our little train, with from eighty to a hundred armed men marching by their sides and about thirty mounted on horseback scouting in advance on either side, made up a pretty formidable procession. I had the honor of accompanying General Meagher on horseback as an advance picket during most of the day, and it was rare enjoyment listening to sketches of his early life adventures, his leave taking of the old country, and incidents of his connection with the war of the rebellion.

The general was en route to meet his wife who came up on the “Josephine.” Our trip of the day was without material interest, and it was cheering to my soul to see the glad faces of our passengers as our caravan hove in sight of the quaint little fort and city, nestled beneath the rounded hills, and three Missouri river steamers, the “St. John,” the “Waverly” and another moored at the wharf discharging their cargoes.

WILL H. SUTHERLIN. White Sulphur Springs, Mont., Nov. 12, 1899.

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By request the above letter was written for publication in this book. Mr. Sutherlin has been a resident of Meagher county ever since June, 1865, and has contributed much to the upbuilding of the county and the state. He was elected and served two terms as sheriff, also filled the office of county clerk and recorder one term, and was ex-officio probate judge during the same time.

He was elected in 1886 to the office of territorial councilman, and served two sessions. A number of the laws remaining on the statute books of Montana were originated and passed through his efforts. He was chairman of the committee on agriculture of the State World’s Fair Board and erected and had charge of Montana’s agricultural exhibit at the World’s Fair at Chicago in 1893. He was the commissioner for this state and had full charge of the state’s exhibit at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition at Omaha in 1898. He was one of the founders of the Rocky Mountain Husbandman, November, 1875. His brother, R. N. Sutherlin, was and still is associated with him in its publication. Mr. Sutherlin is one of the best authorities on agriculture in the Northwest.

ROBERT VAUGHN. Great Falls, Mont., Jan. 7, 1900.

MY FIRST BUFFALO HUNT.

I do not think that there is anything more exciting, combined with fun and enjoyment to a man, than a buffalo hunt, or, as some call it, a chase, especially the first. I well remember my first experience along that line. It was on the lake’s flat, between Sun river and Fort Benton. John Argue and James Armstrong were with me. We could see for several days buffaloes in the coulees on the Muddy. The weather had been cold and snowing for some time. The first clear day we mounted our horses and prepared for a chase.

After we arrived on top of Frozen Hill we could see that the Lake flat and the region beyond was entirely covered with buffaloes. It was a sight to behold. Without exaggeration there were a quarter of a million buffaloes in sight; the main herd covered eight miles by three miles, and they were so numerous that they ate every spear of grass as they went. We rode slowly until we got near the herd, for they were quietly feeding. Soon we could see that the outside ones discovered us, and we made the charge with guns in hand. I had a dragoon revolver, the kind that the cavalry used the time of the war. I was riding a very fine horse. Soon we commenced shooting. It was not long before every buffalo was on the move. And now the fun began. Tens of thousands of these ponderous animals were running at a furious pace; the earth trembled, and the clicking of their hoofs could be heard for miles away. By this time my horse had me in the midst of the herd, for he could run like a racer, and I had two big buffaloes badly crippled and they fell to the rear. Now I had gone all of two miles and fired a dozen shots, with buffaloes in front of me and buffaloes behind me and buffaloes on each side of me; in fact I could see nothing but buffaloes. It takes some practice to load a gun while on horseback and on full speed. However, I was doing this with considerable accuracy. Now I had my old dragoon loaded the third time, and I took after a fat young cow. The chase began to tell on my horse for it was as much as he could do to keep up with this particular buffalo. Soon I had two bullets in her and one more in my gun; I was determined to make a sure shot with it. I now could see that the pace of the buffalo was slower. I spurred my horse and with a spurt he was at her side. As quick as lightening the buffalo whirled around and caught my foot with her crooked horn and came very near throwing me out of the saddle and as near goring the horse. This warned me to be more cautious. The buffalo started in another direction, but very slowly. I followed it; finally it stopped and turned, looking directly at me. I was fifty yards off. I took a deliberate aim at it and down she came. I shot it directly between the eyes. This cow buffalo netted nearly nine hundred pounds and it was as fine meat as I ever tasted. I was now in the center of the buffalo herd and all running like mad and going in one direction; the clouds of fine snow and dust making it very dangerous for a man, being liable to be run over by the buffaloes. At this juncture I had to stand in one place, hat in hand, yelling at the top of my voice to keep them from running over me and my horse. Once a big bull, coming on a terrific speed directly towards me, was in ten feet before he saw me, but made a dodge and at the same time gave a snort and passed me, brushing his shaggy coat against my buckskin suit. It was not long before the big rush had gone by and I had had my first buffalo hunt. A few miles west of me some Indians were chasing another herd. On my way back I found the first two buffaloes that I crippled; one was dead and the other could not get up. Armstrong and Argue had good luck. Next day we went back and brought home a wagon load of as good meat as anyone could wish.

[Illustration: From Painting by C. M. Russell.

INDIANS HUNTING BUFFALO.]

The buffaloes are the most watchful animals that I ever saw. At the least disturbance in the herd they are all at once on the watch as if they had some way of telegraphing to each other; and their scent is remarkably keen. When getting away from the hunter they all run one way and invariably go north. They have remarkable lung power; it takes more than an ordinary horse to keep up with the average buffalo for a mile, and, if not in a mile, good bye horse, for about this time the buffalo begins to warm up and is getting ready for a race. This was in the winter of 1872.

ROBERT VAUGHN. Jan. 23, 1898.

TOM CAMPBELL RUNNING THE GAUNTLET.

All of the old-timers of Northern Montana remember Tom Campbell (now dead). He was always jolly and a good fellow in general. Tom told me of what happened to him one time when out in the hills and alone. At the time referred to he was employed at one of the trading posts down the Missouri river. One day he was sent to get a deer for meat at the post. When he was about six miles from the camp he came in contact with four Indians. They at once captured him and wanted to know what business he had to hunt in their country. One Indian leveled his gun at Tom’s head, while another one took his horse and gun from him. One of the Indians had seen Tom before at the trading store. This Indian told his comrade, who was threatening to shoot, to lay down his gun. And the four then held a kind of council to consider and decide what to do with their captive. Tom understood their language and overheard what they were saying. One wanted to tie him to a tree and all take a shot at him; another one wanted to scalp him first and then kill him; the other two were undecided. Finally, one of them, a strapping big fellow, said that he knew this man and that he did not want to kill him, but that he would take away everything he had and then let him go. Tom said that this Indian had a great deal of influence over the others. After having considerable talk about the matter with the other three, he turned to Tom and said: “I want that coat.” “You can have it,” said Tom. Again the Indian said: “I want that vest and shirt.” “All right,” said Tom. “And I want them pants and shoes you have on,” said the lordly red man. “You can have them, too,” said Tom. Tom was speedily divested of all his clothing. The Indian who made the demand had a rawhide lariat in his hand, and, with it, gave Tom a whack across the shoulders and a kick where his coat-tail used to be, and told him to go home. Tom, naked and barefooted, made a bee line towards the post. After he had gone a certain distance the Indians began shooting at him, and at the same time running after him, but, as Tom was in good condition and stripped for a foot race, he outran them; though the bullets whistled about him, he got home without being hit.

Tom said that it took him but a few minutes to cover the distance, and that when he arrived his feet were bleeding terribly.

About two years afterwards, on Front street, in Fort Benton, Campbell met the Indian who struck and kicked him and divested him of all his clothing. He seized the Indian by the arm and demanded that he should come with him. The Indian appeared greatly frightened and asked Tom what he was going to do with him. “Come with me and ask no questions,” said Tom. The Indian obeyed, and in a few minutes they were in I. G. Baker’s store. “Now,” said Tom, “I want you to pick out the best shirt and the best pair of blankets in this store and I will pay for them.” The Indian was greatly surprised at this and it was evident that it was the first time in his life that he ever was whipped with a golden rule, for all this time he thought that Tom was taking him to some place to receive punishment, or that he was going to be killed for what he and his companions had done to Tom when out hunting two years before. Tom said to the Indian: “You stole my clothing, you struck me, and the kick you gave me was a hard one, but all that, I owe you my life and I am glad to have the opportunity to return you this compliment.” The Indian was much pleased and promised Tom his friendship as long as he lived. This Indian was prominent in his tribe, and this “golden rule” act of Tom Campbell’s was made known to every Indian in that tribe, and not a hair of his head they allowed to be injured. And from that time he was always treated with the greatest kindness, and many trophies he received as a token of friendship from those Indians.

Mr. Campbell was well educated. For a long time he was in the employment of the American Fur company, and always occupied a post of trust. At the time I had the above conversation he was doing a prosperous business for himself.

ROBERT VAUGHN. April 7, 1899.

EDWARD A. LEWIS’ EARLY DAYS IN MONTANA.

Having been acquainted with Mr. Edward A. Lewis, who lives on a thousand-acre farm in the foot hills near St. Peter’s Mission, twenty-five miles southwest from this place, and, knowing that he is one of the earliest settlers in Northern Montana, one day last week I took a drive and had a very interesting interview with him in regard to his early days in the West. In the year 1869 he was married to a daughter of a Piegan war chief named Meek-i-appy (Heavy Shield). Father Imoda officiated. Mrs. Lewis had been baptized in the Christian faith previous to her marriage. She is an intelligent woman and speaks fair English; she is a splendid housekeeper, and, above all, a true wife and loving mother. They have three daughters who are well educated; the oldest is married to Mr. John Taber, a well-to-do farmer and stock raiser. When I arrived at the house Mr. Lewis, with his hired man, was in a field near by stacking grain. I asked him how many crops he had harvested off that field; he said: “This is the twenty-ninth crop.” I should judge that forty bushels to the acre would be a fair estimate of the present one.

This beautiful mountain home is but a natural park, of a horseshoe shape, surrounded by high hills crowned with perpendicular cliffs to the height of several hundred feet, with here and there a low divide beyond which nothing is visible but the blue sky. One of the hills east of the house is called Skull mountain. When Mrs. Lewis’ mother was a young woman, the Flatheads and Piegans had a fight in the little valley below, in which the Flatheads came out victorious. Eight of the Piegans fled to the top of this mountain, and there fortified themselves by building breastworks with stones and pitch pine logs. They held the fort for one day and a night, but the Flatheads greatly outnumbered them, and they were overpowered and killed; not one escaped. Many years afterwards Mr. Lewis and Mr. Morgan, his neighbor, found the skull of one of those Indians and brought it home. From this “Skull Mountain” received its name. The little fort was standing until a few years, when some school children tore it down, and now nothing remains but the ruins.

Mr. Lewis, calling my attention to a clump of pine near the summit of Skull Mountain, said: “There is where there is a bed of oyster shells that are as perfect as those on the seashore.” Pointing his hand at another high hill, he said: “And there is where there is another bed of the same kind of shells.” On entering the house, and after I had asked him a few questions in regard to his early adventures in the West, Mr. Lewis said: “It was always my desire to go West. When but eighteen years of age, at St. Louis, Missouri, I hired to the American Fur company to go and work at Fort Benton on the upper Missouri river. I left St. Louis the eighth day of May, 1857, on the steamboat “Star of the West.” I arrived at Fort Benton the twenty-second day of September of the same year. The boat was loaded with goods to pay the Indians their annuities for the treaty they had made with Governor Stevens in behalf of the government for the right of way for a wagon road through their country. The American Fur company had taken the contract to deliver the Indian goods. The boat came as far as about five miles below the place now called Culberson on the Great Northern railroad. There the goods were taken off the steamer and some of them were issued to the Indians at that place. We had brought with us from St. Louis enough lumber to build two Mackinaw boats, and we whipsawed dry cottonwood logs into enough lumber to build the third one. With these boats we took the balance of the goods up to Fort Benton. We had to tow them all the way. There were seventeen men to the boat; sometimes we had to cross the river on account of the high banks and other obstacles. It was hard work, besides sometimes we were in the water up to our waists. It took us sixty-five days to come to Fort Benton from the place where the steamboat landed. In the fall of the same year I, with others, was sent to Fort Union with Mackinaw boats loaded with furs. For several years all the robes and furs belonging to the company were taken from Fort Benton to Fort Union in this way. The distance overland between the two places is three hundred and seventy-four miles, but much greater by the river route. When on these trips we often had to travel at night for the purpose of passing the many hostile Indian camps that were along the river. Notwithstanding all our precautions, many times we had narrow escapes from being robbed and killed by those Indians. Immediately after arriving from the trip referred to, I returned to Fort Benton overland in company with Bill Atkinson, a Frenchman named Rinober, and Henry Bosdwike, who, for several years afterwards, was an interpreter for the government. In 1877 he was killed in the Gibbon fight with the Nez Perces Indians at Big Hole. We had in our charge two carts that were loaded with Indian goods and were drawn by oxen, two to a cart. Then it was difficult to get enough goods to Fort Benton to supply the Indian trade. In the following spring I was sent down the river to Fort Union on the same kind of a trip. When we got there the agent wanted volunteers to take a dispatch boat to Omaha. Mr. Armel, Bill Fatherland and myself took the job. We went down the Missouri in a small cottonwood boat twelve feet long. For our provisions we had nothing but dried buffalo meat. We were happy and contented until we got to a Mandan Indian village; there we were informed that the Sioux chief, “Bighead,” who was a bitter enemy of the whites, was in camp with five hundred lodges on the bank of the Missouri river near the mouth of Cannonball river. This was gloomy news to us, for we knew that Chief Bighead was one of the worst Indians on the river. However, there was nothing for us to do but take the chance and to pass the village in the dead of the night. We glided along, stopping now and then to look for Indian signs in the sand on the shores. After coming near Grand Prairie we decided to cache our boat in the willows day times, and from there on run at night. One evening after an hour of hard rowing, we came where we could see the reflections in the sky from the fires in the Sioux camp, as from a good-sized town lighted by electricity nowadays. As we were getting near the village we stopped for a short time to lay our plans. It was decided that we would wait until the Indians were asleep, and then let the boat drift close to the high, steep bank next to the Indian’s camp, for it would not do to use the oars for fear of making a noise. As we floated close to the bank, we could hear the Indians talking to each other. After we got past, one of the guards discovered us and gave the alarm, but as the lay of the land and the thick brush along the bank of the river were in our favor, and the way we worked the oars and made the little craft fly, we were soon out of danger. We hid ourselves and the boat in the willows on an island the next day, and the day after in a similar place, but after that we traveled day and night until we got to Omaha. There the company’s agent paid our fare to St. Louis, and soon afterwards we returned back to the mountains.

It was in the year 1858 an agency was established in the Sun River valley where now Mr. H. B. Strong’s ranch is. Here is where the annuity of Governor Stevens’ treaty was issued to the Blackfeet Indians. Major Vaughn was agent to issue the goods.