With the Indians in the Rockies Read online

  CHAPTER V

  "My grandfather told me that this is one way that it was done," saidPitamakan, as taking a flake of obsidian in the palm of his left hand,he tapped it with an angular stone held in his right hand. "The otherway was to heat the ice-rock in the fire, and then with a grass stemplace a very small drop of water on the part to be chipped off."

  We had been out after flints, and finding none, had brought back thepieces of obsidian that we had placed at the foot of the tree. Earlierin the morning, on visiting the snares, we had found a rabbit in each.They hung now in a tree near by, and it was good to see them there; therabbit remaining from our first catch had been broiled for ourbreakfast.

  Following my partner's example, I, too, tried to work a piece of theobsidian into an arrow-point. The result was that we spoiled much ofthe none too plentiful material. It would not chip where we wanted itto, and if we hit it too hard a blow it splintered.

  Deciding now to try the fire-and-water method, we made for the purpose apair of pincers of a green willow fork, and melted a handful of snow ina saucer-shaped fragment of rock. I was to do the heating of theobsidian and Pitamakan was to do the flaking. He chose a piece about aninch and a half long, a quarter of an inch thick, and nearly triangularin shape. One edge was as sharp as a razor; the other two were almostsquare-faced.

  According to his directions, I took the fragment in the pincers by thesharp edge, so as to leave the rest free to be worked upon. Graduallyexposing it to the heat, I held it for a moment over some coals freshlyraked from the fire, and then held it before him, while with the end ofa pine needle he laid a tiny drop of water near the lower corner, abouta quarter of an inch back from the squared edge. There was a faint hissof steam, but no apparent change in the surface of the rock. We tried itagain, dropping the water in the same place. _Pip!_ A small scale halfthe size of the little finger nail snapped off and left a little troughin the square edge. We both gave cries of delight; it seemed that we hadhit on the right way to do the work.

  A little more experimenting showed that the piece should be heldslanting downward in the direction in which the flaking was to be done,for the cold water caused the rock to scale in the direction in whichthe drop ran. In the course of two hours the rough piece of obsidian waschipped down to a small arrow-point--one that Pitamakan's grandfatherwould have scorned, no doubt, but a real treasure to us.

  We worked all that day making the points; when evening came we had fivethat were really serviceable. At sundown, the weather having cleared,we went to look at the rabbit-snares. As neither had been sprung, wemoved them to a fresh place. This last storm had added a good deal tothe depth of the snow; it was so much now above our knees that walkingin it was hard work.

  We had now before us a task almost as difficult as making the points;that is, to find suitable material for our bows and arrows. We foundnone that evening, but the next morning, after visiting the snares andtaking one rabbit, we stumbled on a clump of service-berry treelets,next to ash the favorite bow-wood of the Blackfeet.

  Back to the camp we went, got our "anvil" and hacking-stones, and cuttwo straight, limbless stems, between two and three inches in diameter.Next we had a long hunt through the willows for straight arrow-shafts,found them, and got some coarse pieces of sandstone from the river touse as files.

  Two days more were needed for making the bows and the arrow-shafts. Thebows were worked down to the right size and shape only by the hardestkind of sandstone-rubbing, and by scraping and cutting with obsidianknives. But we did not dare to dry them quickly in the fire for fear ofmaking the wood brittle, and they had not the strength of a really goodweapon.

  We made a good job of the arrows, slitting the tips, inserting thepoints, and fastening them in place with rabbit-sinew wrappings. For theshafts, the grouse wings provided feathering, which was also fastened inplace with the sinew. Fortunately for us, the rabbit-snares kept us wellsupplied with meat, although we were growing tired of the diet.

  Only one thing caused us anxiety now--the cords for our bows. We had touse for the purpose our moccasin strings, which were not only large anduneven, but weak. Pitamakan spoke of cutting off a braid of his hair fora cord, but on the morning after the weapons were finished, he saidthat in the night his dream had warned him not to do this. That settledit.

  On this morning we went early to the snares and found a rabbit hangingin each. Taking the nooses along with the game to camp, we slowly driedthem before the fire, for they must now serve as bowstrings. After theywere dry we tested one of them, and it broke. We knotted it together andtwisted it with the other to make a cord for Pitamakan's bow. That leftme without one, and unable to string my bow until some large animal waskilled that would furnish sinew for the purpose. I was by no means surethat the twisted and doubled cord was strong enough.

  "You'd better try it before we start out," I suggested.

  "No, we mustn't strain it any more than we can help," Pitamakan replied;and with that he led off down the valley.

  Although the sun shone brightly, this was the coldest day that we hadyet had. Had we not worn rabbit-skins, with fur side in, for socks, wecould not have gone far from the fire. The trees were popping withfrost, a sign that the temperature was close to zero.

  Soon after leaving camp we struck a perfect network of game tracks, someof which afforded good walking--when they went our way. For there was nomain trail parallel to the river, such as the buffalo and other gamealways made along the streams on the east side of the Rockies. On thewest side of course there were no buffalo, and probably never had beenany; and to judge from the signs, the other animals wandered aimlesslyin every direction.

  We went ahead slowly and noiselessly, for we hoped to see some of thegame lying down, and to get a close shot before we were discovered.Presently a covey of ruffed grouse, flying up out of the snow into thepines, afforded easy shots; but we dared not risk our arrows for fear ofshattering the points against the solid wood. We determined thereafteralways to carry a couple of blunt ones for bird shooting.

  Soon after passing the grouse, I caught a glimpse of some black thingthat bobbed through the snow into a balsam thicket. We went over thereand came to the trail of a fisher, the largest member of the weaselfamily. As I had often seen the large, glossy black pelts of theseanimals brought into the fort by Indians and company trappers, I wasanxious to get a close view of one alive. I looked for it farther alongin the snow; but Pitamakan, who was gazing up into the trees, all atonce grasped my arm and pointed at a small red-furred creature that,running to the end of a long bough, leaped into the next tree.

  "Huh! Only a squirrel!" I said. But I had barely spoken when, hot afterit, jumped the fisher, the most beautiful, agile animal that I had everseen. It was considerably larger than a house cat.

  We ran, or rather waddled, as fast as we could to the foot of the fir,barely in time to see the fisher spring into the next tree, still inpursuit of the squirrel. The latter, making a circle in the branches,leaped back into the tree over our heads. The fisher was gaining on it,and was only a few feet behind its prey when, seeing us, it instantlywhipped round and went out of that tree into the one beyond, and fromthat to another, and another, until it was finally lost to sight.

  "Oh, if we could only have got it!" I cried.

  "Never mind, there are plenty of them here, and we'll get some beforethe winter is over," said my companion.

  Although I had my doubts about that, I made no remark. Pitamakan waspromising lot of things that seemed impossible,--needles and thread, forinstance. "Let's go on," I said. "It is too cold for us to stand still."

  We came now to the red willow thicket where the bull moose hadfrightened us. There a barely perceptible trough in the new-fallen snowmarked where he and his family had wandered round and retreated,quartering down the valley.

  "They are not far away, but I think we had better not hunt them until wehave two bows," Pitamakan remarked.

  Just below the red willows we saw our f
irst deer, a large, white-taildoe, walking toward the river, and stopping here and there to snip offtender tips of willow and birch. We stood motionless while she passedthrough the open timber and into a fir thicket.

  "She is going to lie down in there. Come on," said Pitamakan.

  He started toward the river and I followed, although I wondered why hedidn't go straight to the deer trail. Finally I asked him the reason,and right there I got a very important lesson in still-hunting.

  "All the animals of the forest lie down facing their back trail," heexplained. "Sometimes they do more than that; they make a circle, andcoming round, lie down where they can watch their trail. If an enemycomes along on it, they lie close to the ground, ears flattened back,until he passes on; then they get up slowly and sneak quietly out ofhearing, and then run far and fast. Remember this: never follow a trailmore than just enough to keep the direction the animal is traveling.Keep looking ahead, and when you see a likely place for the animal to belying, a rise of ground, a side hill, or a thicket, make a circle, andapproach it from the further side. If the animal hasn't stopped, youwill come to its trail; but if you find no trail, go ahead slowly, astep at a time."

  There was sound sense in what he told me, and I said so; but feelingthat we were losing time, I added, "Let's hurry on now."

  "It is because there is no hurry that I have explained this to youhere," he replied. "This is a time for waiting instead of hurrying. Youshould always give the animal plenty of chance to lie down and getsleepy."

  The day was too cold, however, for longer waiting. We went on to theriver, and were surprised to find that it was frozen over, except forlong, narrow open places over the rapids. As there was no snow on thenew-formed ice, walking on it was a great relief to our tired legs. Acouple of hundred yards down stream we came to the fir thicket, andwalked past it. Since no fresh deer track was to be found coming fromthe place, we knew that the doe was somewhere in it.

  Back we turned, and leaving the river, began to work our way in amongthe snow-laden trees, which stood so close together that we could see nomore than twenty or thirty feet ahead. I kept well back from Pitamakan,in order to give him every possible chance. It was an anxious moment.Killing that deer meant supplying so many of our needs!

  We had sneaked into the thicket for perhaps fifty yards when, for allhis care, Pitamakan grazed with his shoulder a snow-laden branch ofbalsam, and down came the whole fluff of it. I saw the snow farther onburst up as if from the explosion of a bomb, and caught just a glimpseof the deer, whose tremendous leaps were raising the feathery cloud. Ithad only a few yards to go in the open; but Pitamakan had seen it risefrom its bed, and was quick enough to get a fair shot before itdisappeared.

  "I hit it!" he cried. "I saw its tail drop! Come on."

  That was a certain sign. When a deer of this variety is alarmed andruns, it invariably raises its short, white-haired tail, and keepsswaying it like the inverted pendulum of a clock; but if even slightlywounded by the hunter, it instantly claps its tail tight against itsbody and keeps it there.

  "Here is blood!" Pitamakan called out, pointing to some red spots on thesnow. They were just a few scattering drops, but I consoled myself withthinking that an arrow does not let out blood like a rifle-ball becausethe shaft fills the wound. We soon came to the edge of the fir thicket.Beyond, the woods were so open that we could see a long way in thedirection of the deer's trail. We dropped to a walk, and went on alittle less hopefully; the blood-droppings became more scattering, andsoon not another red spot was to be seen--a bad sign.

  At last we found where the deer had ceased running, had stopped andturned round to look back. It had stood for some time, as was shown bythe well-trodden snow. Even here there was not one drop of blood, andworst of all, from this place the deer had gone on at its natural longstride.

  "It is useless for us to trail her farther," said Pitamakan dolefully."Her wound is only a slight one; it smarts just enough to keep hertraveling and watching that we don't get a chance for another shot."

  I felt bad enough, but Pitamakan felt worse, because he thought that heshould have made a better shot.

  "Oh, never mind," I said, trying to cheer him. "There are plenty of deerclose round here, and it is a long time until night. Go ahead. We'll dobetter next time."

  "I am pretty tired," he complained. "Perhaps we had better go to campand start out rested to-morrow."

  I had not thought to take the lead and break trail a part of the time;of course he was tired. I proposed to do it now, and added that it wouldbe a good plan to walk on the ice of the river and look carefully intothe timber along the shores for meat of some kind.

  "You speak truth!" he exclaimed, his face brightening in a way that wasgood to see. "Go ahead; let's get over there as quick as possible."

  In a few minutes we were back on the ice, where he took the lead again.And now for the first time since leaving camp--except for a few minutesafter the shot at the deer--I felt sure that with so much game in thevalley we should kill something. On the smooth, new ice, our moccasinswere absolutely noiseless; we were bound to get a near shot. Inside ofhalf an hour we flushed several coveys of grouse, and saw an otter andtwo mink; but there were so many tracks of big game winding round on theshore and in and out of the timber that we paid no attention to thesmall fry.

  It was at the apex of a sharp point, where the river ran right at theroots of some big pines, that we saw something that sent a thrill ofexpectation through us; the snow on a willow suddenly tumbled, while thewillow itself trembled as if something had hit it. We stopped andlistened, but heard nothing. Then nearer to us the snow fell fromanother bush; from another closer yet, and Pitamakan made ready to shootjust as a big cow elk walked into plain view and stopped, broadsidetoward us, not fifty feet away.

  "Oh, now it is meat, sure," I thought, and with one eye on the cow andthe other on my companion, I waited breathlessly.

  For an instant Pitamakan held the bow motionless, then suddenly drewback the cord with a mighty pull, whirled half round on the slippery iceand sat down, with the bow still held out in his left hand. From eachend of it dangled a part of the cord!

  That was a terrible disappointment. Such a fair chance to get a big fatanimal lost, all because of that weak bowstring! The elk had lunged outof sight the instant Pitamakan moved. He sat for a moment motionless onthe ice, with bowed head, a picture of utter dejection. Finally he gavea deep sigh, got up slowly and listlessly, and muttered that we hadbetter go home.

  "Wait! Let's knot the cord together," I proposed. "That may have beenthe one weak place in it."

  He shook his head in a hopeless way and started upstream, but after afew steps halted, and said, "I have no hope, but we'll try it."

  The cord had been several inches longer than was necessary, and afterthe knot was made it was still long enough to string the bow. When itwas in place again, Pitamakan gave it a half pull, a harder one, thenfitted an arrow and drew it slowly back; but before the head of theshaft was anywhere near the bow, _frip!_ went the cord, broken in a newplace. We were done for unless we could get a new and serviceable cord!Without a word Pitamakan started on and I followed, my mind all a jumbleof impossible plans.

  We followed the winding river homeward in preference to the shorterroute through the deep snow. The afternoon was no more than half gonewhen we arrived at the little shelter, rebuilt the fire, and sat down toroast some rabbit meat.

  "We can't even get any more rabbits," I said. "There are so many knotsin our strings that a slip-noose can't be made with them."

  "That is true, brother," said Pitamakan, "so we have but one chanceleft. If there is a bear in that cave across the river we have got tokill him."

  "With clubs?"

  "Yes, of course. I told you that my dream forbids the cutting of myhair, and so there is no way to make a bowstring."

  "Come on! Come on!" I said desperately. "Let's go now and have it over."

  We ate our rabbit meat as quickly as possible, drank from the spring,
and by the help of the indispensable "anvil" and our cutting-stones, wegot us each a heavy, green birch club. Then we hurried off to the river.Although much snow had fallen since we had seen the black bear's tracksthere, its trail was still traceable up through the timber toward thecave.