WHEN Lewis and Clark took their way through the Western wilderness in 1805, they came upon a fair valley, watered by pleasant streams, bounded by snowy mountain crests, and starred, in the Springtime, by a strangely beautiful flower with silvery-rose fringed petals called the Bitter Root, whence the valley took its name. In the mild enclosure of this land lived a gentle folk differing as much from the hostile people around them as the place of their nativity differed from the stern, mountainous country of long winters and lofty altitudes surrounding it. These early adventurers, confusing this tribe with the nations dwelling about the mouth of the Columbia River, spoke of them as the Flatheads. It is one of those curious historical anomalies that the Chinooks who flattened the heads of their children, should never have been designated as Flatheads, while the Selish, among whom the practice was unknown, have borne the undeserved title until their own proper and euphonious name is unused and all but forgotten.

The Selish proper, living in the Bitter Root Valley, were one branch of a group composed of several nations collectively known as the Selish family. These kindred tribes were the Selish, or Flatheads, the Pend d'Oreilles, the Coeur d'Alenes, the Colvilles, the Spokanes and the Pisquouse. The Nez PercÉs of the Clearwater were also counted as tribal kin through inter-marriage.

Lewis and Clark were received with great kindness and much wonder by the Selish. There was current among them a story of a hunting party that came back after a long absence East of the Rocky Mountains, bearing strange tidings of a pale-faced race whom they had met,—probably the adventurous Sieur de La VÉrendrye and his cavaliers who set out from Montreal to find a highway to the Pacific Sea. But it was only a memory with a few, a curious legend to the many, and these men of white skin and blue eyes came to them as a revelation.

The traders who followed in the footsteps of the first trail-blazers found the natives at their pursuits of hunting, roving over the Bitter Root Valley and into the contested region east of the Main Range of the Rocky Mountains, where both they, and their enemies, the Blackfeet, claimed hereditary right to hunt the buffalo. They were at all times friendly to the white men who came among them, and these visitors described them as simple, straight-forward people, the women distinguished for their virtue, and the men for their bravery in the battle and the chase. They were cleanly in their habits and honorable in their dealings with each other. If a man lost his horse, his bow or other valuable, the one who found it delivered it to the Chief, or Great Father, and he caused it to be hung in a place where it might be seen by all. Then when the owner came seeking his goods, the Chief restored it to him. They were also charitable. If a man were hungry no one said him nay and he was welcome even at the board of the head men to share the best of their fare. This spirit of kindliness they extended to all save their foes and the prisoners taken in war whom they tortured after the manner of more hostile tribes. In appearance they were "comparatively very fair and their complexions a shade lighter than the palest new copper after being freshly rubbed." They were well formed, lithe and tall, a characteristic that still prevails with the pure bloods, as does something of the detail of their ancient dress. They preserve the custom of handing down by word of mouth, from generation to generation, their myths, traditions and history. Some of these chronicles celebrate events which are estimated to have happened two hundred years or more ago.

Of the origin of the Selish nothing is known save the legend of their coming out of the mountains; and perhaps we are none the poorer, for no bald historical record of dates and migrations could be as suggestively charming as this story of the people, themselves, colored by their own fancy and reflecting their inner life. Indeed, a nation's history and tradition bear much the same relation to each other as the conventional public existence of a man compared with that intangible part of him which we call imagination, but which is in reality the sum-total of his mental inheritance: the hidden treasure of his spiritual wealth. Let us look then, through the medium of the Indian's poetic imagery, into a past rose-hued with the sunrise of the new day.

Coyote, the hero of this legend, figures in many of the myths of the Selish; but they do not profess to know if he were a great brave bearing that name or if he were the animal itself, living in the legendary age when beasts and birds spoke the tongue of man. Likely he was a dual personality such as the white buffalo of numerous fables, who was at will a beautiful maiden or one among the vast herds of the plains. Possibly there was, indeed, such a mighty warrior in ages gone by about whose glorified memory has gathered the half-chimerical hero-tales which are the first step toward the ancestor-worship of primitive peoples. In all of the myths given here in which his name is mentioned, except that one of Coyote and the Flint, we shall consider him as an Ideal embodying the Indians' highest conception of valor and achievement.

Long, long ago the Jocko was inhabited by a man-eating monster who lured the tribes from the hills into his domain and then sucked their blood. Coyote determined to deliver the people, so he challenged the monster to a mortal combat. The monster accepted the challenge, and Coyote went into the mountains and got the poison spider from the rocks and bade him sting his enemy, but even the venom of the spider could not penetrate the monster's hide.

Coyote took counsel of the Fox, his friend, and prepared himself for the fray. He got a stout leather thong and bound it around his body, then tied it fast to a huge pine tree. The monster appeared with dripping fangs and gaping jaws, approached Coyote, who retreated farther and farther away, until the thong stretched taut and the pine curved like a bow. Suddenly, the tree, strained to its utmost limit, sprang back, felling the monster with a mortal stroke. Coyote was triumphant and the Woodpecker of the forest cut the pine and sharpened its trunk to a point which Coyote drove through the dead monster's breast, impaling it to the earth. Thus, the Jocko was rid of the man-eater, and the Selish, fearing him no more, came down from the hills into the valley where they lived in plenty and content.

The following story of Coyote and the Flint is of exceptional interest because it is from the lips of the dying Charlot—Charlot the unbending, the silent Chieftain. No word of English ever profaned his tongue, so this myth, told in the impressive Selish language, was translated word for word by Michel Rivais, the blind interpreter at the Flathead Agency, who has served faithfully and well for a period of thirty years.

"In the old times the animals had tribes just like the Indians. The Coyote had his tipi. He was hungry and had nothing to eat. He had bark to shoot his arrow with and the arrow did not go through the deer. He was that way a long time when he heard there was Flint coming on the road that gave a piece of flint to the Fox and he could shoot a deer and kill it, but the Coyote did not know that and used the bark. They did not give the Coyote anything. They only gave some to the Fox. Next day the Fox put a piece of meat on the end of a stick and took it to the fire. The Fox had the piece of meat cooking there and the Coyote was looking at the meat and when it was cooked the Coyote jumped and got the piece of meat and took a bite and in it was the flint, and he bit the flint and asked why they did not tell him how to kill a deer with flint.

"'Why didn't you tell me?' the Coyote asked his friend, the Fox. 'When did the Flint go by here?' "The Fox said three days it went by here.

"The Coyote took his blanket and his things and started after the Flint and kept on his track all day and evening and said, 'Here is where the Flint camped,' and he stayed there all night himself, and next day he travelled to where the Flint camped, and he said, 'Here is where the Flint camped last night,' and he stayed there, and the next day he went farther and found where the Flint camped and he said, 'The Flint started from here this morning.' He followed the track next morning and went not very far, and he saw the Flint going on the road, and he went 'way out that way and went ahead of the Flint and stayed there for the Flint to come. When the Flint met him there the Coyote told him:

"'Come here. Now, I want to have a fight with you to-day.'

"And the Flint said:

"'Come on. We will fight.' "The Flint went to him and the Coyote took the thing he had in his hand and struck him three or four times and the Flint broke all to pieces and the Coyote had his blanket there and put the pieces in the blanket and after they were through fighting and he had the pieces of flint in his blanket he packed the flint on his back and went to all the tribes and gave them some flint and said:

"'Here is some flint for you to kill deer and things with.'

"And he went to another tribe and did the same thing and to other tribes and did the same until he came to Flint Creek and then from that time they used the flint to put in their arrows and kill deer and elk.

"That is the story of the Flint."

Coyote was the chosen one to whom the Great Spirit revealed the disaster which reduced the Selish from goodly multitudes of warriors to a handful of wretched, plague-stricken invalids. Old women are still fond of relating the story which they received from their mothers and their mothers' mothers even to the third and fourth generation.

Coyote laid down to rest and dreamed that the Voice of the Great Spirit sounded in his ears, saying that unless the daughter of the Chief became his bride a scourge would fall upon the people. When morning broke he sought out the Chief and told him of the words of the Voice, but the Chief, who was a haughty man, would not heed Coyote and coldly denied him the hand of his daughter in marriage.

Coyote returned to his lodge and soon there resounded through the forests the piercing cry of one in distress. Coyote rushed forth and beheld a man covered with sores across the river. This man related to Coyote how he was the last survivor of a war party that had come upon a village once occupied by the enemy whom they sought, but as they approached they saw no smoke arising from the tipis and no sign of life. They came forward very cautiously, but all was silent and deserted. From lodge to lodge they passed, and finally they came upon an old woman, pitted and scabbed, lying alone and dying. With her last breath she told them of a scourge which had fallen upon the village, consuming brave and child alike, until she, of all the lodges, was left to mourn the rest. Then one by one the war party which had ridden so gallantly to conquest and glory, felt an awful heat as of fire run through their veins. Burning and distraught they leaped into the cold waters of a river and died.

Such was the story of the man whom Coyote met in the woods. He alone remained, disfigured, diseased, doomed. So Coyote brought him into the village and quenched his thirst that he might pass more easily to the Happy Hunting Ground. But as the Great Spirit had revealed to Coyote while he slept, the scourge fell upon the people and laid them low, scarcely enough grief-stricken survivors remaining to weep for their lost dead.

Besides this legendary narrative of the visitation of smallpox there are other authenticated instances of the plague wreaking its vengeance upon the Selish and depleting their villages to desolation. In this wise the tribe was thinned again and again and as early as 1813, Mr. Cox of the Northwest Fur Company, told in his "Adventures" that once the Selish were more powerful by far in number than in the day of his coming amongst them.

There was also another cause for the nation's decline quite as destructive as the plague;—the unequal hostility continuing generation after generation, without capitulation or truce, with the Blackfeet. The country of the Selish abounded in game but it was a part of the tribal code of honour to hunt the buffalo in the fields where their ancestors had hunted. All of the deadly animosity between the two peoples, all of the bloodshed of their cruel wars, was for no other purpose than to maintain the right to seek the beloved herds in the favoured fields which they believed their forefathers had won. The jealousy with which this privilege of the chase was guarded and preserved even to the death explains many national peculiarities, forms, indeed, the keynote to their life of freedom on the plains.

It is possible that the Selish would have been annihilated had not the establishment of new trading-posts enabled them to get fire-arms which the Blackfeet had long possessed. This means of defence gave them fresh strength and thereafter the odds against them were not as great.

The annals of the tribe, so full of tragedy and joy, of fact and fancy, of folk-lore and wood-lore, contain many stories of war glory reminiscent of the days of struggle. Even now there stands, near Ravalli in the Jocko, a rock resembling a man, called by the Indians the Stone Sentinel, which touchingly attests the fidelity and bravery of a nameless hero. The story is that one of the runners who had gone in advance of a war-party after the Indian custom, was surprised while keeping watch and killed by the Blackfeet. The body remained erect and was turned to stone, a monument of devotion to duty so strong that not even death could break his everlasting vigil.

Notwithstanding their love of glory on the war-path and hunting-field, they were a peaceable people. The most beautiful of their traditions are based upon religious themes out of which grew a poetical symbolism, half devotional, half fantastic. And even to-day, in spite of their profession of Christianity, there lives in the heart of the Indian the old paganism, not unlike that of the Greeks, which spiritualizes every object of the woods and waters.

They thought that in the Beginning the good Spirit came up out of the East and the Evil Spirit out of the West, and then began the struggle, typified by light and darkness, which has gone on ever since. From this central idea they have drawn the rainbow Spirit-fancy which arches their dream-sky from horizon to horizon. They consider some trees and rocks sacred; again they hold a lake or stream in superstitious dread and shun it as a habitation of the evil one.

Thus, a cave in the neighbouring hills where rattlesnakes sleep in Winter, they avoided in the past, not on account of the common snakes, but because within the damp, dark recesses of that subterranean den, the King of Snakes, a huge, horned reptile dwelt, appearing occasionally in all his venomous, scaled beauty, striking terror wherever he was seen. A clear spring bubbled near the cave but not even the cold purity of the water could tempt the Indians to that accursed vicinity until by some revelation they learned that the King Snake had migrated to other fastnesses. He is still seen, so they say, gliding stealthily amongst deserted wastes, his crest reared evily, and death in his poison tail.

In contrast to this cave of darkness is the spiritual legend of the Sacred Pine. Upon those same gentle hills of the Jocko it grows, lifting its lessening cone of green toward heaven. It has been there past the memory of the great-grand-fathers of the present generation and from time immemorial it has been held sacred by the Selish tribe. High upon its venerable branches hangs the horn of a Bighorn Sheep, fixed there so firmly by an unknown hand, before even the tradition of the Selish had shaped its ghostly form out of the mists of the past, that the blizzard has not been strong enough to wrench it from its place, nor the frost to gnaw it away. No one knows whence the ram's horn came nor what it signifies, but the tree is considered holy and the Indians believe that it possesses supernatural powers. Hence, offerings are made to it of moccasins, beads, weasel skins, and such little treasures of wearing apparel or handiwork as they most esteem, and at certain seasons, beneath the cool, sweet shadow of its generous boughs the devoted worshippers, going back through the little superficialities of recent civilization to the magnetic pole of their own true blood and beliefs, assemble to dance with religious fervor around its base upon the green. The missionary fathers discourage such idolatrous practices; but the poor children of the woods play truant, nevertheless, and wander back through the cycle of the centuries to do honour to the old, sweet object of their devotion in the primitive, pagan way. And surely the Great Spirit who watches over white and red man impartially, can scarcely be jealous of this tribute of love to a tree,—the instinctive, race-old festival of a woodland tribe.

There is another pine near Ravalli revered because it recalls the days of the chase. It stands upon the face of a mountain somewhat apart from its brethren of the forest, and there the Bighorn Sheep used to take refuge when pursued. If driven to bay, the leader, followed by his band, leaped to death from this eminence. It is known as the Pine of the Bighorn Sheep.

Thus, it will be seen there lives among the Selish a symbolism, making objects which they love chapters in the great unwritten book, wherein is celebrated the heroic past. He who has the key to that volume of tribe-lore, may learn lessons of valour and achievement, of patience and sacrifice. And colouring the whole story, making beautiful its least phase, is the sentiment of the people, even as the haze is the poetry of the hills.

II

As heroic or disastrous events are celebrated in verbal chronicles it follows that the home of the Selish is storied ground. Before the pressure of civilization, encroaching in ever-narrowing circles upon the hunting-ground of the Indians, cramping and crowding them within a smaller space, driving them inch by inch to the confinement which is their death, the Selish wandered at will over a stretch of country beautiful alike in the reality of its landscape and in the richness of myth and legend which hang over every peak and transfigure every lake and stream. To know this country and the people it has sheltered through past centuries one must first glean something of that ephemeral story-charm which records in crag, in mist, in singing stream and spreading tree the dreams made almost real by the thousands of souls who have treasured them, and given them, lip to lip, from old to young, since the forests were first green upon the hills.

The land of the Selish extended eastward to that portion of the Main Range of the Rocky Mountains known to them as Sin-yal-min, or the "Mountains of the Surrounded," from the fact that once a hunting party surrounded and killed a herd of elk by a stream upon those heights; another time a war-party surrounded and slew a company of Blackfeet within the woods upon the mountain side. Though this range marked the eastern boundary of their territory, they hunted buffalo, as we have seen, still east of its mighty peaks,—a region made bloody by battles between the Selish and the Blackfeet tribes. Westward, they wandered over the fertile valley of Sin-yal-min, where they, in common with the Pend d'Oreilles, Kootanais and Nez PercÉs enjoyed its fruits and fields of grain. This valley is bounded to the north by the great Flathead Lake, a body of water vast in its sweep, winding through narrow channels among wooded shores ever unfolding new and unexposed vistas as one traverses it. On a calm summer day, when the sun's rays are softened by gossamer veils of haze, the water, the mountain-peaks and sky are faintly traced in shades of grey and faded rose as in mother-of-pearl. And on such days as this, at rare intervals, a strange phenomenon occurs,—the reflection of a reflection. Looking over the rail of a steamer within the semi-circular curve of the swell at its stern, one may see, first the reflection of the shore line, the mountains and trees appearing upside down, then a second shore line perfectly wrought in the mirroring waters right side up, pine-crest touching pine-crest, peak poised against peak. This lake was the Selish's conception of the greatest of waters, for their wandering never took them to the Atlantic or Pacific Seas, and in such small craft as they used to travel over the forty miles of water among serpentining shores, the distance must have seemed immense. Many islands rise from the lake, the largest of them, Wild Horse Island, is timbered and mountainous, and so big as to appear like an arm of the main land. This Wild Horse Island, where in olden days bands of wild horses were found, possesses a peculiar interest. Upon its steep cliffs are hieroglyphics traced in pigments unknown to-day, telling the forgotten story of a lost race. The same strange figures appear upon the sheer escarpments of the mainland shore. These rock-walls are moss-grown and colored by the lichen, chrome yellow, burnt orange, russet-brown and varying shades of bronze-green like Autumn leaves, and upon them broods a shadow as darkly impenetrable as the mystery which they hold. Still, it is easy to distinguish upon the heroic tablets of stone, crude figures of horses and some incomprehensible marks. These writings have been variously interpreted or guessed at. Some declare them to be ancient war signals of the Selish, others suggest that they were records of hunting parties left behind for the guidance and information of the tribe; but they, themselves, deny all knowledge of them, saying that to them as to us, the pictured rocks are a wonder and a riddle, the silent evidence of foot-falls so remote that not even an echo has come down to us through the centuries.

Such are the valley of Sin-yal-min and the Lake of the Flathead where the Selish hunted. But their real home, the seat of their fathers, was the Bitter Root Valley, where one branch of the tribe, headed by Charlot, the son of Victor, lived until the recent exodus. Therefore, the Bitter Root Valley was particularly dear to the hearts of these Indians. It was there the bond between the kindred tribes, the Nez PercÉs and the Selish, was broken; there the pioneer Fathers came to build the first Mission and plant the first Cross among these docile children of the wood. It was there they clung together like frightened sheep until they were driven forth to seek new homes in the Valley of the Jocko, which was to be merely a station in their enforced retreat.

Eastward and southward from the Bitter Root, the Jocko and the range of Sin-yal-min in the contested country, is a caÑon called the Hell Gate, because within its narrow limits, the Blackfeet wreaked vengeance upon their less warlike foes. Flowing through the caÑon is a river, In-mis-sou-let-ka, corrupted into Missoula, which bears one of the most beautiful of the Selish legends.

Coyote was taking his way through a pass in the mountains during the ancient days, when there came to him, out of the closed lip of silence, the echo of a sound. He stopped to listen, in doubt if it were the singing of waters or human voices that he heard, and as he listened the echo grew into a reality and the strains of wondrous, weirdly sweet music greeted his ear. He followed the illusive melody, attracted as by magic, and at last he saw upon the flower-sown green a circle of young women, dancing around and around, hand clasped in hand, forming a chain and singing as they danced. They beckoned to Coyote and called unto him, saying:

"Thou art beautiful, O Warrior! and strong as is the sun. Come dance with us and we will sing to thee."

Coyote, like one who walks in his sleep, obeyed them and joined the enchanted circle. Then he perceived that as they danced and sang they drew him closer and closer to a great river that lashed itself into a blind, white fury of foam upon the rocks. Coyote became afraid like a woman. He noted with dread the water-weed in the maidens' hair and the evil beauty of their eyes. He strove to break away but he was powerless to resist them and he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer the roaring torrent, until at last the waters closed over him in whirlpools and he knew no more.

The Fox, who was wise and crafty, passed along the shore and there he found, among the water-weeds and grasses the lifeless body of Coyote which had been cast up by the waters, even as they had engulfed him. The Fox was grieved for he loved Coyote, so he bent over the corpse and brought it back to life. Coyote opened his eyes and saw his friend, but the chill of the water was in his blood and he was numb. Then above the roar of the river, echoed the magical measure of a weird-sweet song and through a green glade came the dancers who had lured Coyote to his death. He rose at the sound of the bewitching melody and strained forward to listen.

"It was they who led me to the river," he cried.

"Aye, truly. They are the water Sirens and thou must destroy them," replied the Fox.

At those words Coyote's heart became inflamed with ire; he grew strong with purpose and crept forward, noiseless as a snake, unobserved by the water-maidens.

They were dancing like a flock of white butterflies upon a stretch of grass yellowed and seared by the heat of the sun. Swiftly and silently Coyote set fire to the grass, imprisoning them in a ring of flame. They saw the wall of fire leap up around them and their singing was changed to cries. They turned hither and thither and sought to fly to the water but the way was barred by the hot red-gold embrace of the fire.

When the flames had passed, Coyote went to the spot where the Sirens had danced, and there upon the blackened ground he found a heap of great, white shells. He took these, the remains of the water-maidens, and cast them into the river, saying as he did so:

"I call thee In-mis-sou-let-ka and thou shalt forever bear that name!"

Thus it was that the river flowing through the Hell Gate came by the title of In-mis-sou-let-ka, which men render into English by the inadequate words of "The River of Awe."

Through the length and breadth of the country are story-bearing land-marks. There is a rock in the Jocko, small of size but of weight so mighty that no Indian, however strong, can move it; there is a mountain which roars and growls like an angry monster; there is a cliff where a brave of the legendary age of heroes battled hand to hand with a grizzly bear, and a thousand other spots, each hallowed by a memory. So, through peak and lowland, rivers and forests one can find the faery-spell of romance, lending the commonest stone individuality and interest. And the most prosaic pilgrim wandering along haunted streams, cooling in the shadow of storied woods and upon the shores of enchanted lakes, must feel the spell of poesy upon him; must look with altered vision upon the whispering trees, listen with quickened hearing to the articulate murmur of the rivers, knowing for a time at least, the subtle fellowship with the woodland which is in the heart of the Indian.

Such is the legended land of the Selish, a land fit for gentle, poetic folk to dwell in, a land worthy for brave and devoted men to lay down their lives to save.

III

Within the Bitter Root Valley dwelt Charlot, Slem-Hak-Kah, "Little Claw of a Grizzly Bear," son of the great chief Victor, "The Lodge Pole," and therefore by hereditary right Head Chief of the Selish tribe. That valley is perhaps the most favoured land of the region. The snow melts earlier within its mountain-bound heart, the blizzard drives less fiercely over its slopes and the Spring comes there sooner, sprinkling the grass with the rose stars of the Bitter Root. Under the guidance of the missionary fathers the Indians learned to till the soil and the bounty of their toil was sufficient, for the rich earth yielded fine crops of grain and fruit. The Indians who sowed and plowed their small garden-spots, and the kindly fathers who watched over their prosperity, little dreamed that in the free gift of the earth and the mild beauty of the land lay the cause which should wreak the red man's ruin. This land was dear to the hearts of the people. Victor, their brave guardian, had saved it for them at the treaty of the Hell Gate when they were called upon to give up part of their territory to the increasing demands of the whites. Those of the dominant race kept coming into the Bitter Root and they were welcomed by the Indians. Thus, bit by bit the valley was taken up, its fame spread and it became a region so desirable that the government determined to move the Selish tribe out of the land of their fathers.

Charlot was a courageous and honest man, a leader worthy of his trust. It was he who met the Nez PercÉs as they descended into the Bitter Root, headed by Chief Joseph, hot with the lust for the white man's scalp. There are few more dramatic incidents in western history than Charlot's visit to Chief Joseph on the LoLo trail and the ultimatum which he delivered to the leader of the Nez PercÉ hosts.

He rode forth accompanied by Joe La Mousse and a small war-party, carrying with him a little white boy. About his arm he had tied a snowy handkerchief in token of the peaceful character of his errand. When the two Chiefs, Charlot and Joseph faced each other, Charlot spoke these words, slowly, defiantly as one who has made a great decision:

"Joseph, I have something to say to you. It will be in a few words.

"You know I am not afraid of you.

"You know I can whip you.

"If you are going through the valley you must not hurt any of the whites. If you do you will have me and my people to fight.

"You may camp at my place to-night but to-morrow you must pass on."

And it was as Charlot decreed. Joseph the brave, intractable warrior who did battle with the army of the United States and kept the cleverest of our generals guessing at his strategies, bent to the iron will of Charlot. The Nez PercÉs passed peacefully through the valley and never a soul was harmed. In the long, cruel struggle that followed, when Chief Joseph and his braves struck terror to the settlers, leaving death and ruin in their path, Charlot remained staunch and true. Indeed, the boast of the Selish is that they, as a nation, were never guilty of taking a white man's life.

Meantime, while they lived in peace and plenty, the fates had sealed their doom. There is no use reiterating the long, painful story of the treaty between the Selish and the government, ceding to the latter the land where the tribal ancestors lived and died. Charlot declared he did not sign away the birth-right of his people and he was an honourable man. He and his friends went farther and said that his mark was forged. On the other hand some of those who were witnesses for the United States maintain that the name Charlot was written like that of Arlee and others, with a blank space left for the mark, or signature of each Chief. They further state that Charlot never affixed his mark to the document nor was it forged as he asserted to the end. This is at best mere evasion. One of two things happened: a fraudulent signature was put upon the face of the treaty to deceive the government, or Charlot, as Head Chief, was overridden and ignored. Whatever the means employed the outcome was the same. It was an unhappy day for the Indians. They had no recourse but to submit, so most of them headed by Arlee, the War Chief, struck their tipis, abandoned the toil-won fields where they had laboured so long and so patiently, left the shadow of the Cross where they were baptized, and went forth into the Jocko to begin again the struggle which should never be more than a beginning.

But Charlot the royal-blooded, son of a long line of fighting chiefs, was not to be moved by the master-hand like a pawn in a game of chess. He haughtily refused to leave the Bitter Root Valley, telling his people that those of them who wished to go should follow Arlee, but he with a few of the faithful, would lie down to his repose in the land of his fathers beneath peaks that mingle with the sky. With impassive dignity he and a party of his loyal band went to Washington at the bidding of the Great Father to listen to the justice of the white man's claim. Charlot proudly declined to accept pension and authority bought at the price of his exile. He wished only the "poor privilege" of dwelling in the valley where his fathers had dwelt; of resting at last, where they had lain so long. He wanted neither money nor land,—simply permission to live in the home of his childhood, his manhood and old age. He added that he would never be taken alive to the Jocko Reservation. The Powers saw no merit in the sentiment of the old Chief. He had dared to oppose their will and they determined to break his spirit. He might remain in the Bitter Root the All-Wise decreed, but in remaining he relinquished every right. More crushing to him than poverty and exile was the final blow to his pride. In a sense he was King of his tribe. The title of Great Chief descended from father to son, even as the crowns of empires are handed down. The War Chiefs, on the other hand, were elected to command the warriors for a year and at the end of their service they became simple braves again. The government, ignoring the canons of the Selish, put Charlot aside, and Arlee, the Red Night, last of the War Chiefs, took precedence over him and became Head Chief of his nation. Charlot was stripped of his title, his honours, his privileges of land grant and pension; in other words, he was reduced from Great Chief to pauper.

Thus Charlot, who with his braves had defied his kinsfolk, the Nez PercÉs, to protect the weak colony of settlers in their Bitter Root home was driven forth by these same strangers within his gates, and he, the bravest and best of his kind, shorn of the dignities his forebears and he, himself, had won;—robbed, cast out, was held up to contumely as an unruly savage and spurned by the people his mercy had spared.

From the Bitter Root, the poor wanderers took their way into the Jocko, a region also fair, where some of their tribe already dwelt, and made for themselves new homes. They accepted the change uncomplainingly and set to work to sow and reap in this adopted land.

Charlot and his band of nearly two hundred lingered in the Bitter Root until 1891, when driven by hunger and suffering they followed their tribesmen into the Jocko. He had said he would never be taken alive to the new reservation, nor was he. Clad in his war dress, mounted on his best horse, surrounded by his young men in full war regalia, he rode into exile, proud, unbending as a triumphant Chief entering dominions won by conquest. No expression of pain crossed his bronze-stern face; no hint of humility or subjection softened the majesty of his mien. He and his braves were met by the Selish who had gone before, with great ostentation and ceremony. Charlot never forgot nor forgave. He had been cast out, betrayed, but not conquered.

The Selish have learned to love the soft, yellow-green of the Jocko hills, the free sweep of its prairies, where sun flowers flow in a sea of gold beneath the rushing tide of the summer wind, and the prettily boisterous little Jocko River laughs and plays over its rocky bed between a veritable jungle of trees and vines and flowers. In these woods bordering the stream, the most luscious wild gooseberries, strawberries and bright scarlet brew berries grow—this last, dear to the Indian, is picked by the squaws and made into a sparkling draught. There the trees are hung with dense tapestries of blossoming vines, thick moss deadens the footstep and birds call shrilly from the twilight of the trees. But the Jocko and Sin-yal-min are beautiful and fertile, and wherever there is beauty and fertility there comes the Master saying:

"This is mine by right of might! Go forth again O Indian! There are lean hills and deserts left for thee!"

And the Indian, grown used to such things, folds his tipi and takes his way into the charity of the lessening wilderness.

Not long ago a strange thing came to pass. One evening the sun set in a passion of red and gold. The tide of light pulsed through the skies, the air throbbed and shimmered with it, and every lake and pool reflected its ruddy splendour until they seemed to be filled with blood. The Indians gazed at the spectacle in silent awe. Groups of them on horseback, dark figures silhouetted against the bright sky, stared curiously at the awful glory of the heavens and earth, whispered in low tones together and were afraid. Was the Great Spirit revealing something to his children? Some there were who thought that the crimson banners in the West foretold a disaster and verily it was true. The end was near. The sun was setting forever upon their freedom. Once more the children of the old time would be driven to another camping ground where they might halt for a little space and rest their weary heads before they take up the march upon their endless retreat.

IV

During the Summer at the time when the sun reached his greatest strength, according to the ancient custom, the Selish gathered together to dance. In this celebration is embodied the spirit of the people, their pride, their hates and loves. But this dance had a peculiar significance. It was, perhaps, the last that the tribe will celebrate. Another year the white man will occupy the land, and the free, roving life and its habits will be gone. It was a scene never to be forgotten. Overhead a sky deeply azure at its zenith which mellowed toward the West into a tide of ruddy gold flowing between the blue heavens and the green earth; far, far away, dim, amethyst mountains dreaming in the haze; and through that rose-gold flood of light, sharply outlined against the intense blue above and the tender green below, silent figures on horseback, gay with blankets, beads and buckskins, rode out of the filmy distance into the splendour of the setting sun, and noiselessly took their places around the musicians on the grass.

There were among them the most distinguished men of the tribe. Joe La Mousse, once a warrior of fame, grown to an honored old age, watched the younger generation with the simple dignity which becomes one of his years and rank. He possessed the richest war dress of all, strung with elks' teeth and resplendent with the feathers of the war-eagle. It was he, who with Charlot, met the Nez PercÉs and repudiated their bloody campaign; he, whose valiant ancestor, Ignace La Mousse, the Iroquois, helped to make glorious the name of his adopted people. FranÇois and Kai-Kai-She, the judge, both honoured patriarchs, and Chief Antoine Moise, Callup-Squal-She, "Crane with a ring around his neck," who followed Charlot to Washington on his mission of protest, moved and mingled in the bright patchwork of groups upon the green. There was none more imbued with the spirit of festivity than old FranÇois with white hair falling to his bowed shoulders. These and many more there were whose prime had known happier days. Chief Moise's wife, a handsome squaw, rode in with her lord, and conspicuous among the women was a slim wisp of a girl with an oval face, buckskin-colored complexion, and great, dusky, twilight eyes. A pale gray-green blanket was wrapped about her head and body, hanging to her moccasined feet. She was the wife of Michel Kaiser, the young leader of the braves. But towering above the rest of the assembly, regal to the point of austerity, was a man aged but still erect, as though his strength of pride would never let his shoulders stoop beneath the conquering years. He wore his blanket folded closely around him and fanned himself with an eagle's wing, the emblem of the warrior. One eye was hidden beneath a white film which had shut out its sight forever, but the other, coal-black and piercing, met the stranger gaze for gaze, never flinching, never turning aside. It was Charlot. Though an exile, his head was still unbent, his spirit unbroken.

Sometimes we see in the aged, the placid melancholy which comes with the foreknowledge of death, so in the serenely sad faces of the aged Indians, we recognize that greater melancholy which is born of the foreshadowing of racial death. They cherish, too, a more personal grief in that they shall live to see the passing of the old life. Patiently they submitted to the expulsion from the Bitter Root, but now in the darkness of gathering years once more they must strike their tipis to make room for the invading hosts. The setting sun streamed through the leaves and touched the venerable faces with false youth. Wagon and pony discharged their human loads who sat passively, listening to the admonition of the tom-tom and the chant:

"Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!"

After this preliminary measure had lasted hours, not an Indian professed to know whether the people would be moved to dance or not. A race characteristic is that impulse must quicken them to action. It was strange how the tidings had spread. The tipis and lodges are scattered over many miles, but the Indians kept coming as though called up by magic from their hiding places in the hills.

Beneath a clump of cottonwood trees around the tom-tom, a drum made of deer hide stretched over a hollowed section of green tree, sat the four musicians beating the time of the chant with sticks bound in strips of cloth. Of these players one was blind, another aged, and the remaining two, in holiday attire, with painted lips and cheeks, were braves. One of these, seated a trifle higher than his companions, leaned indolently over the tom-tom plying his sticks with careless grace. He possessed a peculiar magnetism which marked him a leader. Occasionally his whole body thrilled with sudden animation, his voice rose into a strident cry, then he relapsed into the languid posture and the bee-like drone. Of all that gathering he was the one perfect, full-blood specimen of a brave in the height of his prime. The dandy, Victor Vanderberg, was handsomer perhaps, and little Jerome had the beauty of a head of Raphael, but this Michel Kaiser was a type apart. His face and slim, nimble hands were the colour of bronze. His nose curved sharply as a hawk's beak, his mouth was compressed in a hard, cold line over his white teeth, his cheek bones were high and prominent, his brows straight, sable strokes above small, bright-black eyes that gleamed keen as arrow darts. His hair was made into two thick braids wrapped around with brown fur, his arms were decorated with bracelets and from his neck hung string upon string of beads falling to his waist. It was he who with suppressed energy flung back his head as he gave the shrill cry and quickened the beat of the tom-tom until louder and louder, faster and faster swelled the chant:

"Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!"

Then out into the open on the green stepped a girl-child scarcely three years of age, who threw herself into rhythmic motion, swaying her small body to the time of the music and bearing in her quavering treble the burden of the chant. The impressive faces of the spectators melted into smiles. She was the pet of the tribe, the orphan granddaughter of Joe La Mousse and his venerable wife. Loving hands had made for her a war dress which she wore with the grave complaisance of one favoured above her peers. She scorned the sedate dances of the squaws and chose the quicker action of the war dance, and she would not yield her possession of the field without a struggle which showed that the spirit of her fighting fathers still lived in her.

Suddenly a brave painted grotesquely, dressed in splendid colours with a curious contrivance fastened about his waist and standing out behind like a tail, bounded into the ring, his hurrying feet beating to the tintinnabulation of sleigh bells attached to his legs. Michel Kaiser and the young man who sat beside him at the tom-tom gave up their places to others, and after disappearing for a moment came forth freed from encumbering blankets, transformed with paint and ornament. A fourth dancer joined them and the awe-begetting war dance began. The movement was one of restrained force. With bent heads and bodies inclined forward, one arm hanging limp and the other resting easily at the back, they tripped along until a war-whoop like an electric shock, sent them springing into the air with faces turned upward and clenched fists uplifted toward the sky.

It was now that Michel stood revealed in all his physical beauty. In colour and form he was like a perfectly wrought bronze statue. He was tall and slender. His arms and legs, metal-hard, were fleet and strong and his every motion expressed agility and grace. He was clad in the full war-dress of the Selish, somewhat the same as that which his ancestors had worn before the coming of the white man. Upon his head was a bonnet of skunk tails that quivered with the slightest motion of his sinewy body. He wore, besides, a shirt, long, fringed buckskin leggins and beaded moccasins. He was decorated with broad anklets and little bells that tinkled as he moved. Of the four dancers Michel sprang highest, swung in most perfect rhythm, spent in that wild carnival most energy and force. Supple and lean as a panther he curvetted and darted; light as the wind his moccasined feet skimmed over the green, scarcely seeming to crush a spear of grass. As he went through that terrible pantomime practiced by his fathers before they set out to kill or die, the fire flashing in his lynx-eyes, his slim arm poised over his head, his whole willow-lithe body swaying to the impulse of the war-lust, it was easy to fancy how that play might become a reality and he who danced to perpetuate an ancient form might turn relentless demon if the intoxication of the war-path once kindled in his veins.

This war dance explained many things. It was a portrayal of the glorious deeds of the warriors, a recitation of victorious achievement, a picture of battle, of striking the body of the fallen enemy—one of the great tests of valor. The act of striking was considered a far more gallant feat than the taking of a scalp. After a foe was shot and had fallen, a brave seeking distinction, dashed forth from his own band into the open field and under the deadly rain of the enemy's arrows, struck with his hand the body of the dead or wounded warrior. In doing this he not only courted the desperate danger of that present moment, but brought upon his head the relentless vengeance of the family, the followers and the tribe of the fallen foe,—vengeance of a kind that can wait for years without growing cold. By such inspiring examples the young men were stirred to emulation. The dance showed, too, how in the past the storm-clouds of war gathered slowly until, with lightning flash and thunder-blast, the warriors lashed themselves to the white-heat of frenzy at which they mocked death. The whole thing seemed to be a marshalling of the passions, a blood-fire as irresistible and sweeping as those floods of flame which lay the forests low.

The warriors ceased their mad career. The sweat streamed from their brows and down their cheeks as they sat beneath the shade trees in repose. Still the tom-tom beat and the chant continued:

"Come, O! ye people! Come and dance!"

They needed no urging now. What did they care for vespers and sermons when the ghostly voices of warrior-ancestors, of forest dwellers and huntsmen came echoing from the lips of the past? Their spirit was aroused and the festival would last until the passion was quenched and their veins were cooled.

The next dance was started by a squaw. It was called the "choosing dance," from the fact that either a man or a woman chose a partner for the figure. The ceremony of invitation was simple. The one who desired to invite another, grasped the individual's arm and said briefly:

"Dance!"

The couples formed two circles around the tom-tom, one within the other, then slowly the two rings moved 'round and 'round, with a kind of short, springing step, droning the never-varying chant. At the end of the dance the one who had chosen his partner presented him with a gift. In some cases a horse or a cow was bestowed and not infrequently blankets and the most cherished bead-work belts and hat-bands. Custom makes the acceptance of these favours compulsory. Even the alien visitors were asked to take part and the Indians laughed like pleased children to welcome them to the dance. One very old squaw, Mrs. "Nine Pipes," took her blanket from her body and her 'kerchief from her head to give to her white partner, and a brave, having chosen a pale-faced lady for the figure, and being depleted in fortune by his generosity at a former festival, borrowed fifty cents from a richer companion to bestow upon her. It was all done in the best of faith and friendliness, with child-like good will and pleasure in the doing.

When the next number was called, those who had been honoured with invitations and gifts returned the compliment. After this was done, the Master of the Dance, Michel Kaiser, stepped into the center of the circle, saying in the deep gutturals of the Selish tongue, with all the pomp of one who makes a proclamation, something which may be broadly rendered into these English words:

"This brave, Jerome, chose for his partner, Mary, and gave to her a belt of beads, and Mary chose for her partner, Jerome, and gave to him a silken scarf."

Around the circumference of the great ring he moved, crying aloud the names of the braves and maids who had joined together in the dance, and holding up to view the presents they had exchanged.

The next in order was a dance of the chase by the four young men who had performed the war dance. In this the hunter and the beast he pursued were impersonated and the pantomime carried out every detail of the fleeing prey and the crafty huntsmen who relentlessly drove him to earth.

The fourth measure was the scalp dance given by the squaws, a rite anciently practiced by the female members of families whose lords had returned victorious from battle, bearing as trophies the scalps of enemies they had slain. It was considered an indignity and a matter of just reproach to her husband or brother, if a squaw were unable to take part in this dance. The scalps captured in war were first displayed outside the lodges of the warriors whose spoil they were, and after a time, when they began to mortify or "break down," as the Indians say, the triumphant squaws gathered them together, threw them into the dust and stamped on them, heaping upon them every insult and in the weird ceremony of that ghoulish dance, consigning them to eternal darkness, for no brave without his scalp could enter the Happy Hunting Ground. The chant changed in this figure. The voices of the women rose in a piercing falsetto, broken by a rapid utterance of the single syllable "la, la" repeated an incredible length of time. The effect was singularly savage and strange, emphasizing the barbarous joy of the vengeful women. As the war dance was the call to battle, this was the aftermath.

In pleasing contrast to this cruel rite was the marriage dance, celebrated by both belles and braves. The young squaws, in their gayest attire, ornamented with the best samples of their bead work and painted bright vermillion about the lips and cheeks, formed a chain around the tom-tom, singing shrilly. Then a brave with a party of his friends stepped within the circle, bearing in his hand a stick, generally a small branch of pine or other native tree. He approached the object of his love and laid the branch on her shoulder. If she rejected his suit she pushed the branch aside and he, with his followers, retired in humiliation and chagrin. It often happened that more than one youth desired the hand of the same maiden, and the place of the rejected lover was taken immediately by a rival who made his prayer. If the maid looked with favor upon him she inclined her head, laying her cheek upon the branch. This was at once the betrothal and the marriage. At the close of the festivities the lover bore her to his lodge and they were considered man and wife.

The sun set mellow rose behind the hills which swam in seas of deepening blue. Twilight unfolded shadows that climbed from the valleys to the peaks and touched them with deadening gray chill, until the warm glow died in the bosom of the night. Still the tom-tom beat, the chant rose and fell, the dancers wheeled on madly, singing as they danced. The darkness thickened. The stars wrote midnight in the sky. Papooses had fallen asleep and women sat mute and tired with watching. By the flare of a camp fire, running in uneven lights over the hurrying figures, one might see four braves leaping and swaying in the war dance. The night wore on. A heavy silence was upon the hills which echoed back the war cry, the tom-tom's throb and the chant. One, then another, then a third dropped out. Still the quivering, sweat-burnished bronze body of Michel writhed and twisted, bent and sprang. The lines of his face had hardened, the vermillion ran down his cheeks in rivulets, as of blood, and the corners of his mouth were drawn like the curves of a bow. The camp fire glowed low. The gray of the dawn came up out of the East with a little shuddering wind and the faint stars burned out. The tom-tom pulsed slower, the chant was broken. Suddenly a wild cry thrilled through the pallid morn. The figure of Michel darted upward like a rocket in a final brilliant gush of life, then fell senseless upon the ground.

The embers grayed to ashes. The last spark was dead. The dance was done. The mists of morning rolled up from the valleys and unfurled their pale shrouds along the peaks, and the Indians, mere shadow-shapes, like phantoms in a dream, stole silently away and vanished with the night.