Assinaboines, and they'll tell you—just as most of the other Sioux'll tell you—about a time long ago, in the lives of their fore-fathers, when their people lived at the edge of the salt water. I expect maybe that means that they migrated a long way, either from the East or from the West, very far back."

"My!" said Jack, "if we could only know about all these things that happened, and what the history of each tribe was, wouldn't it be interesting?"

"It sure would," said Hugh.

"Well, Hugh," continued Jack, "what does Assinaboine mean? Has it any real meaning, like some of these other names of Indian tribes that you tell me about?"

"Yes," said Hugh, "it has a meaning, and I reckon it's a Cree word. Assĭne means stone in Cree, poit means cooked, or cooking, and the Assinaboines are called stone-cookers, or stone-roasters, I suppose because they used to do their cooking with hot stones. But of course that don't mean much, because pretty nearly all the Indians that I know of used to boil their meat with hot rocks, except those that made pots and kettles for themselves out of clay. Nobody knows, I reckon, when the Pawnees and Mandans first learned how to make pots. I expect that was a long time ago, too. But most of these Indians used to boil meat in a kettle made of hide, or the paunch of a buffalo, filled with water. Then they'd heat stones in the fire, and put them in the water, taking them out as they got cool and putting in others, until the water boiled and the food was cooked."

"But," said Jack, "I should think when they cooked the hide or paunch it would break, and let the water spill out."

"No," said Hugh. "It would of course, if you kept cooking long enough; but one of these kettles would only last to cook a single meal; you couldn't use it a second time, but it was all right for one cooking. I have seen a hide kettle used, and eaten from it."

Jack sat thinking, for awhile, and then he turned to Hugh and said:

"I tell you, Hugh, if all you know about Indians, and about this Western country were put in a book, it would make an awful big one, wouldn't it?"

"Well, I don't know, son," said Hugh, "maybe it might; but a man has got to learn the life he's lived; if he doesn't, he won't amount to nothing. I expect if all that you know about the East was put in a book it would make quite a sizable one."

"Oh," said Jack, "that's nothing. The things I know don't amount to anything, and everybody else knows them a good deal better than I do."

"Well, I tell you," said Hugh, "the things that are new and strange to you seem kind o' wonderful, but they don't seem wonderful to me; but I remember one time you were telling me something about catching fish down at the place called Great South Bay, and talking about seeing the vessels sailing on the ocean, and to me that seemed mighty wonderful."

By this time the boat had left the landing-place, and the light was growing dim. They turned and looked back, and there across the wide bottom was moving toward the Post, a long string of people, men and women and children and dog travois, so that it looked almost like a moving camp. Hugh and Jack sat for a while longer on the deck talking, and then, as the mosquitoes got bad, they turned in.

The next afternoon the boat reached Fort Peck, then one of the most important Indian agencies on the Missouri River. It stood on a narrow bench, a few log buildings surrounded by a stockade, and back of it the bluffs rose sharply, and were dotted with the scaffolds of the dead. It seemed to Jack that there must be hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of these graves in sight. From the poles of some of them long streamers were blown out in the wind, which Hugh told him were offerings tied to the poles of the scaffolds by mourning relatives. But few living Indians were seen here, and there were only three or four white men seen about the trading post. They did not leave the boat, which soon pushed on again.

"The Indians about here have been awful mean," said Hugh; "Lots of things were brought in here that the Sioux took from the Custer battlefield. Somebody told me that Custer's gold watch was brought in here by an Indian, who wanted to know how much it was worth: but so many questions were asked him about it that he just put the watch in his sack and lit out, and has not been seen here since."

As the boat passed the mouth of the Musselshell early next morning Hugh pointed shoreward, and said:

"Do you see that place over there where that creek comes in, son?"

"Why, of course I see it, Hugh," said Jack, "and the timber that runs along it. What creek is it?"

"You ought to know," said Hugh, with a laugh; "you got scared in it a whole lot last summer."

"Why, Hugh, is that the Musselshell?" said Jack.

"That's what it is," said Hugh; "and seeing the mouth of the river, and them sticks there on the flat, reminds me of the big fight that took place there some years back. I wonder if you ever heard about it. I meant to tell you last summer, but somehow it slipped my mind. It was there that Liver-Eating Johnson got his name. They used to say that he cut out the liver of an Indian that got killed in that fight and ate it. Of course he never did, but they tell the story about him, and I rather think he was kind o' proud about it after a little while, and liked the name.

"I think it was in 1869 that the fight took place, along in the spring.

"You know the steamboats always have trouble in coming up to Benton in the low water; and along about 1866, after the mines got paying, and when the fur trade was good, some men at Helena formed a company to make a road and start a freight line down to some point on the river that the boats could always get to. These men didn't know much about the river, and they chose the mouth of the Musselshell for the point where their road, which began at Helena, should end.

"Now, I suppose if they'd raked the whole river with a fine-tooth comb they couldn't have found a poorer place for a town, nor a poorer country to travel through, than this one they pitched on. The place chosen for the town was that little neck of land between the Musselshell and the Missouri. The soil is a bad-land clay, which in summer is an alkali desert, and in spring is a regular bog, in which a saddle-blanket would mire down. Then, all along the Musselshell was a favorite camping and hunting ground for the Indians, and in those days Indians were bad. Well, they made up their company, and started their town. There weren't many settlers, but a few people, mostly hunters and wood-choppers, stopped there; and of course, wherever there were a few people gathered together, there was sure to be a store and a few saloons.

"I think it was along in 1868 that a man came down there with a fine train of mules. Likely he expected to get some freighting to do when the boats came up the river. The stock was turned out, and some men were on guard, when a party of Sioux charged in among them, killed two of the men, and ran off every hoof of stock. The thing was done in a minute; and before the men could get out of their houses and tents the stock was gone, and the Indians along with it: all except one young fellow, who, just to show what he could do, charged back and rode through the crowd, making fun of them as he went along. So far as anybody knew, not one Indian got hit.

"It was not very long after that that the Sioux came down and charged into the Crow camp, and ran off eight hundred head of horses. Of course that made a big excitement. The Crows jumped on their horses an pursued and they had quite a fight, and some of the Indians got killed.

"During the Spring of 1869, the Indians used to attack the town every few