Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters Part 28

Here he met the Flathead Indians, with whom he had made friends when with Captain Lewis and Lieutenant Clark. Here he met the Blackfeet, too--fifteen hundred of them on a horse-stealing expedition. But he met them in battle. He was with the Crows and Flatheads, and of course had to aid his own party. It was do or die, because the Crows and Flatheads numbered only eight hundred.

He showed them how a white man could fight; he was wounded in the leg, the Blackfeet were driven off, they had seen him as a leader in the ranks of their enemies, they refused to forget, and ever after that they were the sworn foes of the whites.

There was no use now in his trying to talk with the Blackfeet. If they caught him they'd kill him. He'd better avoid them. The Crows were afraid to guide him far, and he struck out alone for Manuel's Fort, and made his own trail. Possibly the Crows had told him of a "big-medicine" country--a region of bad and good spirits, lying between him and the Big Horn, and into which few Indians ventured. It promised to be a safe trail, he was not afraid of "spirits"--preferred "spirits"

to the Blackfeet; he struck out, and plunged into the wonders of the Yellowstone Park.

He arrived at Lisa's Fort (which was another of its names) without trouble, and full of stories about hot geysers and boiling mud and strange colorings. For many years n.o.body believed his stories; they were only "trapper yarns;" but there he had been, in this year 1807, and had had the place all to himself.

Trader Lisa was not satisfied. He wished furs, and more furs; he wished the Blackfeet furs, as well as the Crow and Flathead and Sioux furs. In the spring of the next year he sent Trapper Colter out again, to seek the Blackfeet, make peace with them, and urge them to come in Fort Manuel. By this time they probably would have forgiven the one white man who had been in a tight fix and obliged to fight whether or no.

John Potts agreed to go with John Colter. They were comrades of old.

John Potts was another of the Lewis and Clark men: had served as a soldier enlisted at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, by Captain Lewis himself. He had joined the Trader Lisa company at St. Louis, a year ago, and on the way up-river had been glad to meet John Colter. It was a reunion.

Now from Lisa's Fort they paddled up the Yellowstone again, down which they had come in 1806 with Lieutenant Clark, and crossed westward over the divide between the Yellowstone and the heads of the Missouri. This was the Three Forks country, of present southwestern Montana, where the Missouri split into three branches named by Captain Lewis the Madison, the Gallatin and the Jefferson. They knew it well; had they not worked hard here, when bound for the Columbia in the summer of 1805?

Likely enough they were not at all anxious to find the Blackfeet or to have the Blackfeet find them. The Blackfeet sometimes roamed here; so did the timid Snakes, descending from the mountains to hunt buffalo on the Missouri River plains in the east; so did the Crows. While spying around, they two built a canoe apiece and trapped beaver in the Jefferson River, over toward the mountains.

The beaver were as abundant as ever. To keep out of sight of Indians, they set their traps after dusk, ran them very early in the morning, and lay hidden all day. It certainly was not pleasant, to live like 'c.o.o.ns and owls, but so many furs were worth the trouble.

One early morning they were in their canoes, deep between the high banks, down toward the mouth of the river where it united with the Madison, when they heard a dull tramping in the valley.

"Harkee!" spoke John. "D'ye hear, Jack? That sounds like Injuns.

We'd better drop our traps an' cache (hide) ourselves."

"Injuns nothin'!" John Potts laughed. "Them's buff'ler. Seems like every time the wind blows you're thinkin' 'Injuns.' Can't you tell buff'ler from reds? Or are you gettin' skeered out!"

"Jest as you say, then," the other John replied. "But if anything happens, don't blame me. I've a notion we ought to climb up an' spy 'round."

"If they're Injuns, our heads would give us away. We'll keep where we are, snug under the banks, an' they'll pa.s.s us by. But those are buff'ler, I tell you."

They worked along, lifting their beaver traps. The dull tramping increased, as if the buffalo were about to cross the river. Suddenly, above them, on the edge of the east bank, there appeared dark figures, with blankets and feathered crowns and guns and bows.

"Blackfeet!" John Colter gasped. "Watch out. Stop paddling. Drop your traps." His own he let slide over the side of his canoe farthest from the Indians.

The Blackfeet instantly covered the two canoes with bended bows and leveled muskets. The whole bank was bristling with their fierce array, so that the narrow river seemed shadowed.

A chief called sternly, and gestured, bidding the two canoes to land where the bank had washed in a little cove.

"We're in for it," remarked John Colter. "Come on, and I'll talk with 'em."

"Not I," the other John growled. "Let's talk from here."

"That's pure folly." And knowing Indians better than his comrade did, John Colter paddled in with a few strokes.

One of the Blackfoot warriors seized his canoe at once; hands rudely hauled him out, and upon the bank, wrenched his gun from him and tore off all his clothes. It was an alarming welcome.

John Potts was still in his own canoe, in mid-stream. The Indians again called to him, and the chief beckoned.

"Come ash.o.r.e, or they'll kill you where you are," urged John Colter.

There were eight hundred of them!

But Trapper Potts shook his head.

"I'll not. I might as well be killed here and now, as be robbed and beaten first. You--"

A bow tw.a.n.ged angrily. Down he fell, in the bottom of his canoe. John Colter could scarcely see, by reason of the dancing, shouting Blackfeet. Then he heard.

"Colter! They've got me! I'm wounded!"

"Bad hurt?"

Trapper Potts was standing, rifle in hand and an arrow jutting from his hip.

"Yes. I can't make off. Get away if you can. I meant to kill one at least."

He aimed and fired; shot a Blackfoot dead. That was his last act. The smoke had no more than cleared the muzzle of his gun, ere a hundred arrows and bullets "made a riddle of him." Thus he died, also; a brave no-surrender man.

Yelling furiously, the Blackfeet, in a jostling mob, rushed into the stream, pulled the canoe ash.o.r.e, dragged the body out upon the bank, and hacked it to pieces. They threw the pieces into John Colter's face, the slain warrior's relatives fought to get at him with their tomahawks, while the other Blackfeet formed about him and thrust them aside.

It was a doubtful moment. The air quivered to threat and insult.

Trapper Colter expected to be killed at once. His friend had sealed the doom of both of them; had destroyed the one chance, for if no blood had been shed the Blackfeet might only have robbed them and let them go.

The tumult gradually lessened. The chiefs squatted in a circle, and while all scowled at the prisoner a council was held. The only point to be discussed was, how should he die?

They appeared to have decided. The head chief arose, and stalking to John motioned to him to go farther out into the open.

"Go! Go away!" he ordered, in the Crow tongue. Evidently they recognized John Colter as the white man who had fought against them among the Crows. That made matters worse.

John guessed that they were using him for a practice target. As soon as he was out a little way, they would shoot at him--see how many times they could hit him before killing him. That would be great sport as well as good practice. He slowly walked, to the east, upon the open plain, expecting with every step to feel the first arrow or bullet.

This was a nervous stroll for a naked man. He heartily wished that he never had seen the Crows, or John Potts either.

He was not moving fast enough to suit the Blackfeet. An old fellow commenced to shout at him, and motion for him to go faster. But he didn't wish to go faster; the ground was thickly grown to p.r.i.c.kly-pear cactus, and he had to pick his path amidst the spines.

Then the old Indian scuttled after him, very impatient. Told him to go faster yet--hurry, hurry! Even gave him a shove, or two.

From about one hundred yards out he looked again, and saw that the younger warriors were casting off their blankets and leggins; were stripping as if for a race!

What! A race it was to be, with his scalp the prize? A wave of hope and determination surged into his throat, and his heart beat madly.

After all, the Blackfeet were treating him like a man. He was one among eight hundred; they had given him a chance!

He drew long breath. He was in his prime, aged about thirty-five; was five feet ten inches in height, stout-limbed, broad chested--strongly built after the Daniel Boone type of hunter. And he was a swift runner; few men that he knew were his equal.

With a leap, he launched himself full-speed across the bare plain, aiming for the Madison River, five miles before. A burst of yells and whoops reached his ears. He glanced behind and saw some one hundred young braves, naked, the most of them, to their breech-clouts, careering after with spears.

He had made good time in other races, but he never had run like this.

His strength and stride astonished him. The ground fairly whizzed from under him, the wind whined in his ears, almost drowning the cries of the pursuit. He wasted no moments now in picking his way through the p.r.i.c.kly-pears; had to step on them with his bare soles, whether or no; and he gathered the stinging spines as a pin-cus.h.i.+on gathers pins.

He wasted no moments, either, in looking back. He bent all his energy upon reaching the Madison River. Soon he had run a mile, without slackening; could hear no feet except his own, had felt no lunge of spear. He kept on for another mile, and had not dared to relax. His lungs were sore, his throat dry, his breath wheezed, and his eyes were dizzy. But he was half way to the Madison. Was he going to escape?

He did not know. The yells were fainter.