"How would you like to travel about with the Pi-kun-i for a time, and learn their language?"

I could only stare at him, hardly believing my ears, and he added: "I am sure that you would be in no more danger than you are here in the fort, or I would not propose this."

"I would rather do it than anything else! It is just what I want to do!" I told him.

"Let me explain the situation to you fully," he went on. "But, first, did you ever hear of Lewis and Clark?

"No? Well, they are two American Army officers who, a few years ago, led an expedition from the Mississippi River up the Missouri River to its head in the Rocky Mountains, and thence down the waters of the Oregon to its confluence with the Pacific Ocean. They were the first white men ever to see the country at the headwaters of the Missouri, and between it and the ocean. Now, in the dispatches that came to me with the goods, yesterday, I received most disturbing news: Following the trail of Lewis and Clark, our rival, the American Fur Company, is pushing westward and establishing posts on the Missouri, the upper part of which is in our own territory. I am ordered to learn if it has entered our territory, and if so, to take steps to block its trade with our Blackfoot tribes. The Pi-kun-i are going south to the Missouri plains for the summer as soon as they finish their trade with us, and I want you to go with them, and, while learning their language, keep an eye out for our rivals. I can't trust Antoine to do this, and anyhow he will never become a good interpreter. I believe that you will soon master the language."

Of course the factor was mistaken. The Missouri River country was not in our territory. We were to learn that later. Nor did we then have any idea of the vast extent of the hunting-ground of the Blackfeet. It was for me to discover that it extended from the Saskatchewan, yes, even from the Slave Lakes, south to their Elk River of the South, which is the Yellowstone River of the whites, and from the Rocky Mountains eastward for an average width of more than three hundred miles. A part of it, from the tributaries of the Missouri south, had been Crow country, but the Blackfeet had driven them from it. The Pi-kun-i, with their allies, the Ut-se-na, or Gros Ventres, lived for the greater part of the time in the southern part of it, along the Missouri and its northern and southern tributaries, and the other two tribes, with their Athabaskans, the Sak-sis, liked best the plains of the Saskatchewan and its tributaries.

Before the advent of the horse the Blackfeet tribes had all lived in the Slave Lake country. The Crees had so named these great bodies of water, for the reason that in that far-away time the Blackfeet made slaves of the enemies they captured. As nearly as I could learn, it was between 1680 and 1700 when the Blackfeet began to obtain horses by raids far to the south, even to Old Mexico, and in 1741 or 1742 obtained a few guns from the post on the Assiniboine River founded by the Sieur de la VÉrendrie, that unfortunate explorer who was the first white man to see the Rocky, or as he named them, the Shining, Mountains. With both guns and horses, the Blackfeet were not long in taking possession of the rich game country to the south of the Slave Lakes, and driving from it not only the Crows, but other tribes as well.

On the day after my talk with the factor, he had an interview with Lone Walker, head chief of the Pi-kun-i, to which I was an interested listener. It was agreed, as well as Antoine could explain the matter, that I was to travel south in his care, living in his lodge, and riding his horses, and that upon bringing me safe back to the fort when he and his tribes returned to trade, he should be given a gun, two blankets, and two lengths of twist tobacco. Rich presents, indeed! More than enough, as the factor said, to insure his taking the greatest care of me. And anyhow my heart went out to the chief. Tall, dignified in bearing, his handsome face and eyes expressive of a kind and honest nature, I felt from the start that he would be a good friend to me, and I was not mistaken. I little realized at that time, however, what a really great man he was with his people.

Owing to their desire to start south at once, the Pi-kun-i were the first to trade in their take of furs. They were a matter of ten or twelve days doing it, and in the meantime I kept pretty close in the trade-room listening to Antoine's interpretations of their needs, and memorizing the words. In that way I learned their names for the different trade articles, and a few helpful sentences as well, such as the equivalent in their language for "What is it?" "Where is it?" "What is it named?" and so on. And then, one day, I saw Antoine's wife sitting with a Sak-si woman, the two apparently conversing with one another by means of signs. I asked Antoine about it and learned that it was the sign language, used by all the tribes of the plains; that almost anything could be told by it, even stories, and that his wife understood it very well.

"Then why don't you learn it? Would it not be of great help in your interpreting?" the factor asked him.

"I am try! I am do my possible! Sare, honneur, my han's, my fingare, he is not queek to do it!" he answered.

"Huh! Antoine, you're a fool! Yes, and so am I, or I would have known about this sign language, and have learned it long since!" the factor exclaimed.

"My woman, she will teach it to you; I will help," Antoine volunteered.

We began lessons with her that very evening, and before I left I had pretty well learned it. The signs are invariably so significant of the thought to be expressed, that, once seen and understood, they are not easily forgotten. I know not where the sign language originated, but I think that it came to the people of the plains from Mexico, spreading from one tribe to another until it finally reached the Blackfeet. The tribes of the forests, and of the two coasts, and the Great Lakes, knew it not.

At last the morning came upon which the Pi-kun-i were to break camp. On the evening before Lone Walker had sent my outfit of things over to his lodge, ready to be put upon one of his pack horses, and now, leading a horse for me, he came to the fort with his under-chiefs for a farewell meal and smoke with the factor.

I hastily ate my morning meat and, while the smoking was going on, saddled and bridled the horse. The factor had given me his own light, English, hunting-saddle, and I thought it a very comfortable one to ride upon. Later, when I got from a warrior a Spanish saddle that he had taken in a raid far to the south, I learned what comfort in riding really was!

The horse saddled, I said good-bye to the men. The voyageurs with whom I had come to the fort were soon to load the boats with furs and return to York Factory, and eventually Montreal, and I handed the head man a letter for my mother, telling her of my safe arrival at the fort, of the thousands of wild Indians that I had seen, and the expedition upon which I was about to embark. If all went well, she would receive it in about a year's time.

The round of smoking ended, the chiefs came out with the factor, and I said a last good-bye to him, and we mounted and set forth.

There were just twenty-four of the chiefs, one for each band, or gens, of the Pi-kun-i—Lone Walker, as I afterward learned, being chief of the I-nuk-siks, or Small Robes Band, as well as head chief of the tribe. With them were five other men, each wearing his hair done into a huge, furbound knot on the foretop of his head, the insignia of the sun priest, or so-called medicine man. None of the party wore war bonnets, or war costumes, and that rather surprised me. I soon learned that they were never worn except when the men were going into battle—if there was time to put them on, and when dancing, or observing some great religious ceremony. No! The decked-out Indian, hunting, or traveling, or sitting about in camp, and the Indian wearing nothing but a breech clout and a pair of moccasins, is just the Indian of the artists' dreams! My Indians wore plain leather shirts, and wide-flapped leggings, and quill-embroidered moccasins, and their wraps were also of leather, some of them painted with pictographs of the wearer's adventures in war and hunting.

But for all that they were picturesque enough. Each one carried a shield slung from the left arm, and bow and arrows in a case and quiver at the back, and a gun across the saddle front. Beautifully dyed quill embroidery on the fringed leather pipe and tobacco sacks dangling from their belts, and the bright, painted symbols on the covering of their shields gave the needed color to their otherwise somewhat soberly plain, everyday wear.

And what splendidly built men they were! What fine features they had, and the small, perfectly formed hands and feet of real gentlemen. And I learned that they had the manners of gentlemen. That in their daily intercourse they were ever courteous to one another. That their jesting and joking was never rude or coarse, and how they did love a good joke and laugh! And proud they were, of their lineage, and their war records, and their women and children, of their great herds of horses, and their vast domain. But it was a just and natural pride, in no way different from the pride of our own best people. And with it was great kindliness of heart and ready proffers of help for all the unfortunate, for widows and orphans, the old and the sick. Such were the old-time Blackfoot chiefs.

Camp had been broken while the chiefs were saying their farewells in the fort, and now, as we rode out upon the plain from the river bottom, we saw the great caravan strung out away ahead of us and to our right. It was like a huge snake making its way southward over the ridges and the hollows of the plain, a snake about three miles in length!

It was advancing at a slow trot, and at a livelier pace we rode along its length to take the lead. Each family had its place in it, the women and children riding pack and travois horses, the men and youths driving the loose ones. The trappings of the horses, broad leather breast bands and cruppers, blazed with color, beautifully worked designs of porcupine-quill embroidery. The quaintly shaped parflÈches, fringed pouches and sacks of rawhide and leather, upon the pack horses were brightly painted. Some horses, generally white ones daubed with red ochre, the sacred color, carried nothing but the pipe and pouches of a medicine man, and were always led. The lodge-pole horses dragged, generally, four lodge poles, two fastened to each side of the saddle by the small ends, and these and the ends of the travois poles scraped harshly into the plain and wore deeper than ever the many furrows of the broad trail.

As I rode with the chiefs along the edge of the long column I believe that every man, woman, and child of it gave me a smile, and some sort of greeting—one of which, "Ok-yi, nap-i-an-i-kap-i!" (Welcome, white youth), I already knew. And to all I replied: "Ok-yi, ni-tuk-a!" (Welcome, friend), which was a sad error when addressed to a woman or girl, embarrassing them, and causing all who heard to laugh. But the greetings and the smiles gave me heart; I felt that I was already liked by these people of the plains, and that was pleasant. I certainly liked them.

We passed the long column and rode on ahead of it, but not in the real lead. Ahead of us several hundred men, the scouts for the day, rode spread out like a great fan far to the right and left of the trail, as well as some of them upon it. They were not hunting; time and again we saw herds of buffaloes and antelopes rushing off out of their way, and none pursued them.

It was about noon when, topping a low ridge, Lone Walker led us a little to one side of the trail and dismounted. So did we all, tethering our horses to bunches of sage or greasewood, and then sitting in a little circle on the top of the rise. A medicine man unfastened the fringed and embroidered sack dangling at his belt and, getting out pipe and tobacco and some dried leaves of l'herb to mix with the tobacco, made leisurely but careful preparations for a smoke. First he thoroughly cleaned the huge, black, stone bowl, blowing through it, and then the separate, long, carved wooden stem, to make sure that they were clear. Then he fitted them together, and little by little filled the bowl with the mixture of tobacco and l'herb, tamping down each pinch with a small, blunt-ended stick. This done to his entire satisfaction, he unslung from his shoulder a section from a birch tree, about four inches in diameter and six inches in length, removed its wooden stopper, and I saw that it was hollowed out, and clay lined. Turning the mouth of the strange receptacle to the ground, he gave it a rap or two and out came a piece of partly charred punk wood which he quickly picked up and blew upon, and I realized that this was the Blackfoot way of keeping fire. But, blow as he would, there came no glow in the punk, no rise of smoke. The fire was out.

With an exclamation of disappointment the man dropped the punk back into place, put in the stopper, meantime looking around the circle to see if any one carried one of these fire boxes, as I may call them. None did. Here and there a man spoke, evidently remarking upon his disappointment. And then, suddenly, I thought of my grandfather's present to me, the sun-glass in the pouch at my side, and I called out to the medicine man: "I will light it for you!" In my excitement I forgot that he knew no word of my language.

But I had called his attention to me, and that of all the others too. They watched me closely as I fumbled in the pouch for the glass, drew it out and removed its silk wrapping. Having done that, I made signs to the medicine man to put the stem of the pipe to his mouth. He did so, and I focused the glass upon the charge of the tobacco mixture in the bowl. Almost at once it began to turn black and a thin streak of smoke to rise from it, and, drawing steadily upon the stem, the medicine man filled his mouth with smoke, his eyes growing bigger and bigger, until at last he let out a great blow of it, and then, with a shout of surprise, sprang to his feet and held the pipe aloft toward the sun. At that all the other chiefs sprang up, and shouting I knew not what, made a rush for me, and I believed my time had come!

Antoine had told me that the Blackfeet—as he called them, the heathen Blackfeet—worshiped the sun. The thought flashed through my mind that I was to be killed for using the sacred fire of their god! And as wild-eyed, excited, shouting chiefs came crowding around me I threw up my hands, in one of them the fateful glass, and cried: "I did not mean harm! It is a glass, nothing but a glass!"

As though they could understand! Or my pitiful cry save me!

But suddenly, instead of blows I saw that Lone Walker and others nearest me were stroking my shoulders, my breast, and back with their open hands, and then their own bodies, and the others, crowding, reached in between them and touched me wherever they could, and then stroked themselves, meantime shouting something to the head of the passing caravan.

Out from it rushed all who heard, men and women, and sprang from their horses and surged in to me, women frantically edging in under the arms of the men and rubbing their suckling infants against any part of my body that they could reach. And still badly frightened, I thrust the glass into Lone Walker's hand and made signs the best I could that I gave it to him. With a shout he held it aloft, tears streaming from his eyes, and began what I sensed must be a prayer to the sun. At that a great hush came upon the ever-increasing crowd. All listened closely, occasionally crying out something that I afterward learned was as we would say: "Yes! Yes! Have pity upon us all, O sun!" Then, presently, he finished the prayer, and looking around at the people addressed a few words to them. Whereupon they mounted and resumed their places in the column, and moved on.

The chiefs, however, again sat down in a circle, Lone Walker signing to me to sit beside him, and the pipe was passed from hand to hand, each one in turn taking a few whiffs of smoke from it and blowing it first toward the sun, and then to the ground. At last the pipe came to me. I passed it on to the chief on my right, but he instantly handed it back and gave me to understand that I was to smoke. I did so, blowing the smoke to sky and earth as I had seen the others do, and then passed it on. I had never smoked. The taste of it was bitter and nauseating in my mouth; my head soon began to swim and I felt terribly sick for a long time. I did not smoke again until I was past my twenty-fifth birthday.

Well, when the pipe was smoked out and put away we mounted our horses and rode on, I still sick but quite over my scare. Word of what I had done, of my bringing down sun fire, had evidently passed back the entire length of the column, for as I rode on to the head of it with the chiefs the people all called out to me again, and this time with a new name for me, and in their manner respect, even awe, was evident enough. They called me now, "Nat-o-wap-an-i-kap-i," which I thought had to do with the sun (nat-os). I was right; I soon learned that the word meant sun youth, or sacred youth. I was very proud of the name, and very glad of my grandfather's happy thought in selecting the glass for me. True, I had brought it this long way across the plains only to part with it, but my one chance use of it had given me important standing with the tribe.

We traveled on steadily ahead of the column until about four o'clock in the afternoon, and then once more dismounted and gathered in a circle, this time on the edge of a long slope running down to the timbered valley of a small stream. Again the medicine man got out his pipe and filled it, and I taught Lone Walker how to light the charge with the sun-glass, every one intently watching, and making exclamations of wonder and satisfaction when the feat was accomplished. This time I firmly passed the pipe when it came to me, and while the chiefs smoked and chatted I watched the long procession of the tribe pass down the slope into the valley, and scatter out over a big, grassy flat on the far side of the creek. There the horses were relieved of their burdens, and a few minutes later every lodge of the camp was up in place, and the women were carrying into them their various family belongings, and going for wood and water. All that was the women's work; the men sat about until all was completed.

As soon as the pipe was smoked out we got upon our horses and rode slowly down the slope to the creek, and then scattered out into camp. Lone Walker led me to the southwest part of the big circle of lodges, which was the allotted place for his band, the Small Robes, and to one of two immense lodges, which were both his property.

We got down from our horses, and I was about to unsaddle mine, when a woman took him from me, and signed that I was to follow the chief into the lodge. I did so, and, making a step in through the doorway, heard a growling and snorting that made my heart jump. And well it might, for there on each side of me, reared back and hair all bristled up, was a half-grown grizzly bear!

I dared not move, neither to retreat, nor go forward, and thus I stood for what seemed to me hours of time, and then Lone Walker scolded the bears and they dropped down at rest and I passed them and went to the place pointed out to me, the comfortable couch on the left of the chief's.

I think that the chief allowed me to stand so long facing the bears, just to try me; to learn if I had any nerve. I was glad that I had not cried out or fled. I soon became friendly with those bears, and often played with them. It has been said that grizzlies cannot be tamed. Those two were tame. They had been captured when small cubs, so small that they made no resistance to being taken up, and for months had been held up to the teats of mares, there to get the milk without which they could not have lived. I may say here that they disappeared one night in the spring of their third year, and were never seen again. They had at last answered the call of their kind.

It was with intense interest that I looked about the lodge, the first that I had ever entered, and which was to be my home for I knew not how many months.

It was a lodge of twenty-eight buffalo cow skins, tanned into soft leather, trimmed to proper shape to fit together, and sewed with strong sinew thread. It was all of twenty-four feet in diameter, and the lodge poles were at least thirty-six feet long, and so heavy that a horse dragged but two of them. There were thirty poles, and the lodge skin was in two sections. All around the inside was a leather lining running from the ground up to a height of about six feet, and attached to a rawhide line running from pole to pole. This made an air space between the lodge skin and the lining of the thickness of the poles. The pegged lodge skin did not reach the ground by four inches or more, so the air rushed in under it, and up between it and the lining, and out of the top of the lodge. This created a good draught for the fire and carried off the smoke. No air came in through or under the lining, it reflected the heat of the fire, and because of this simple construction the lodge was warm and comfortable even in the coldest winter weather. The lining was brightly painted, the design being a series of three different long, narrow, geometric figures distinctively Blackfoot.

All around the lodge, excepting on each side of the doorway, were the couches of the occupants, ten in number, a slanting back-rest of willow slats at the head and foot of each one. In the triangular spaces thus left between the couches, and on each side of the doorway, were stored no end of parflÈches, bags, pouches, and leather-wrapped bundles containing the property of the different occupants of the lodge. Besides Lone Walker and myself, there were eight women and nine children, ranging from babies up to boys and girls twelve and fourteen and eighteen years old, the latter being a boy named I-sas-to, or Red Crow, whose couch and sitting-place I was to share.

Be not shocked or surprised when I tell you that Lone Walker had nineteen wives. Eight were in this lodge. The others and their children, and the chief's old father and mother were in the adjoining, big, twenty-eight-skin lodge. At first this polygamy was very repugnant to me; but I soon saw how necessary it was. The Blackfeet men were continually falling in battle with their many enemies, and only by becoming plural wives could the large preponderance of women be cared for.

Lone Walker's first, or head wife, named Sis-tsi-ah-ki, or Little Bird Woman, was a fine-looking woman of about thirty-five years. She was one of the happiest persons I have known. There was always a smile on her face, she sang constantly at her work, and her heart was as good as her smile; she was always doing something nice for others. In a way she was the head, or supervisor of the other wives, apportioning to each the work that was for the family. But each woman had her own private property, including horses, and her share of the meat and hides brought in.

There was a big gathering in our lodge that night, men constantly coming in to see the wonderful instrument that could bring down sun fire. It was late when we got to rest. The fire died down. Like the others, I disrobed under the coverings of my couch, and then I went to sleep with never a thought of fear, I, a lone white boy, in a camp of about nine thousand wild Indians!

Lone Walker aroused us soon after daylight the next morning and had me go with him and all his male children to bathe in the stream. Winter and summer the Blackfeet never neglected that daily bath, although sometimes they had to go out and rub themselves with snow, because there was nowhere open water. In winter the women and girls took their baths in sweat lodges.

After the bath we had an early meal of dried meat, roasted before the fire, and small portions of rich, dried buffalo back fat, which was used as the whites use butter.

While we were eating, Lone Walker gave me to understand that his two lodges were needing fresh meat, and that with his son I could go on ahead of the moving camp and kill some. That pleased me; it was just what I was longing to do. You can imagine how much more pleased I was when the great herd of the chief's horses were brought in, and, saying, "You gave me your fire instrument, I now give you something," he selected ten good horses in the herd and said that they were all mine. How rich I felt!

Long before the lodges came down Red Crow and I were riding out along the great south trail. As we topped the slope of the valley and I looked out upon the immense plain ahead, and at the snow-covered peaks of the great mountains bordering it on the west, I said to myself, that this was the happiest day of my life, for I, Hugh Monroe, just a boy, was entering a great section of the country that white men had never traversed!

And, oh, how keen I was to see it all—its plains and stream valleys, its tremendous mountains, its pine-crowned, flat-topped sentinel buttes! Mine was to be the honor of learning their Blackfeet names, and translating them for the map our company was to make for the use of its men.

Also, I looked forward with great desire for the adventures which I felt sure I was to have in that unknown land. Had I known what some of them were to be, I would perhaps have turned right then and made my way back to the safety of the fort.