spirit.

As the little band moved off toward the north, Chief Little Bear came and grasped my hand and said, "You have always been my friend, good-bye."

As they rode away with all their worldly goods packed on a few poor cayuses, I could not help contrasting their present condition with that of thirty years ago. Then the red man owned the country. The plains, the rivers, the trees were his; and his, too, were the wild horse, the buffalo, the elk, the deer, and the fish. Self reliant, free, happy, he was then; today, a beggar. Everything taken from him, his tribal relations broken, left alone. The hardest stroke of all was to have the tribal relations broken, and to be forced under the control of the hated and despised pale face. Happy indeed were the Sheep Eaters never to have been driven from their mountain home and never to have known the power of the pale face!

CHAPTER VI

CURIOSITIES AROUND PAINT ROCKS

For two days we camped among the Paint Rocks, studying them, but could find nothing that indicated battle or fighting. Neither did we find any dead, nor graves, nor even bones. If, like the Crows, they buried in the trees, the last trace was gone. There were no mounds of earth, or indications of earth burials. The rocks were mostly covered with likenesses of nude men, women, and children, and with emblems. In places the artist evidently stood on some elevation of wood or stone, for the carving was higher than the average man could reach. Along a crest of sandstone I saw some very odd formations; they looked like huge inverted cones, that some giant sculptor had carved there. Perhaps they were formed by the erosion of centuries, or it may have been the wear caused by the rubbing of the buffaloes, for we found many of their bones there, and I have often seen telegraph poles rubbed to the breaking point. When the buffalo is annoyed by buffalo gnats and his great coat is filled with mud and sand, he soon wears away a pretty strong pole.

This was a strange place, and in our search we found geodes, petrified snakes, and short sections of fish. We also found several petrified jaw-bones, of what looked to be wolves, still containing the teeth, and fossils of many kinds. Some looked like vegetables, some were hexagonal, and some looked as though made of floor tiling. We found many water and moss agates of various sizes. The ground was covered with some meteoric rock full of iron.

Here we passed the day hunting for some graves, but it was no use. Tree burial seems to have been their method of disposing of the dead. In this method of burial the body is taken to some low bushy tree, rolled in fine robes and blankets, and with green strips of elk hide, wrapped to two or more limbs. This secures it very firmly, and as the sun and wind dry out the skin the thongs tighten, until only years of sun and rain, mice and bugs, eat away the thongs, and the blankets, bones, and skins are carried away by the wind. In this method of burial the body lasts about twenty years or less.

We were tired and hungry when we returned to camp, but we soon had a blazing fire with all the odors of good things on the breeze. Just as we sat down to eat, I heard a horse's footfall, and turned to see who it was. A young brave rode into the trail, and I caught up my gun. His hands went up like a flash giving me the sign of a Crow. As all the hunters and trappers in the west, north and south of the Yellowstone River, know the Crows to be peaceful, I put up my gun and gave him the sign that I understood what he said.

Young braves are always the very hardest members of the tribe to engage in conversation, except a young girl of marriageable age. Both do all their courting by making eyes at each other.

I knew him. He was a chief's son. Years before I had got some papers to Washington for his father. Also I knew he could talk some broken English and Crow, and was a superb sign talker.

We began to eat and I made signs for him to picket his horse and join us at supper. I knew he was trailing the camp outfit, which had gone and was many miles away by this time. He pretended not to understand, but looking much disappointed, started to ride away. I hailed him and told him to go back and get his packs, and come have supper with us, and picket his horses with ours. His face remained blank, and he showed no sign of understanding till I added that I was a friend of the Little Bear chief, and had kept the officers from arresting his braves at Razor Creek many moons ago. Then his face lighted up. "Ugh, me see you before. How you know me got pack horses? You no see 'em."

"Never mind, I know Injin," I replied, "I heap plenty see."

He turned down the trail and soon returned with three good looking packs, well loaded. I showed him a good place to unpack and he made short work of it. And then what a supper that Indian did eat!

After supper I told him the story of the Reil rebellion in Canada, and how when they got whipped the halfbreeds and Indians came across the line into the United States; and the history of his grandfather, the Big Bear, and his father, the Little Bear. All of this amused him and put him on very easy terms for the night. I asked him why he would not talk with me when he first came up.

He said, "Sometimes Injin say too much. Me no talk much. Better so. Some white man want to know heap too much. You my friend. You Little Bear friend, my papa."

"Yes," I said, "I understand, but you can talk like the pale face some, and you have a Cree alphabet."

"Me no can say what you mean," he replied.

I took a paper and showed him some of the letters which ran like this

"Yes, me heap understand."

"I got some letters from Canada, which were written to your father. Your sister read them to me in English, and I sent letters to the Great Father at Washington, to get a place for your tribe with the Crows."

"Yes, me heap savy now," he said.