United States or Jersey ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
It is evident, therefore, that the Piegan tribe of the Blackfeet can never become an agricultural people. Their reservation, however, is well adapted to stock-raising, and in past years the cattlemen from far and from near have driven their herds on to the reservation to eat the Blackfoot grass; and the remonstrances of the Indians have been entirely disregarded.
I reckon most everybody in camp's turned in." Piegan had a bulky roll of bedding under the wagon. Spread to its full width, it was ample for three ordinary men. We had just got out of our outside garments and were snuggling down between the blankets when Mac came slopping through the puddles that were now gathering in every depression.
Piegan shortly proved that he made no vain boast when he asserted his ability to follow their track. A lifetime on the plains, and a natural fitness for the life, had made him own brother to the Indian in the matter of nosing out dim trails.
After which the guard marshaled Piegan, MacRae, and me, along with Hicks and Bevans, into the room where MacRae and Lessard had clashed that memorable day. Then they carried in the two bodies and laid them on the floor, and last of all the pack that held Hank Rowan's gold and the government currency.
I was lying on my back, staring up at the sky, all sorts of possible misfortune looming large on my mental horizon, when MacRae, sweeping the hills with the glasses, grunted satisfaction, and I turned my head in time to see Piegan appear momentarily on high ground a mile to the south of us. "What's he doing off there?" I wondered.
Mac commented. "Damn it, we're just as far behind as ever." "Hold your hosses a minute," Piegan grinned knowingly. "I said that was all I found out from the red jackets but I did a little prognosticatin' on my own hook.
There was no occasion for me to gobble my food and rush off to talk with Lyn Rowan. MacRae, I suspected, would be inclined to monopolize her for the rest of the evening. So I ate leisurely, and when done crawled under the wagon beside Piegan Smith and gave myself up to cigarettes and meditation, while over his pipe Piegan expressed a most unflattering opinion of the weather.
"You mean they are waiting for a runner from the North?" inquired Cameron. "If the Crees win the fight then the Piegans will rise? Is that it?" The Indian nodded. "Come Cree Indian then Piegan fight." "They will not rise until the runner comes, eh?" "No." Cameron breathed more easily. "Is that all?" he inquired carelessly. "This day Eagle Feather run much cattle beeg beeg run."
"In January we went to dry-dock, an' in the next dock lay the Grotkau, their big freighter that was the Dolabella o' Piegan, Piegan & Walsh's line in '84 a Clyde-built iron boat, a flat-bottomed, pigeon-breasted, under-engined, bull-nosed bitch of a five thousand ton freighter, that would neither steer, nor steam, nor stop when ye asked her.
As we rode, the crimson-yellow reflection of burning prairies began to tint the eastern sky; once, from the crest of a hill, we saw the wavering line of flame, rising and falling in beautiful undulations. And presently we galloped across a mile or two of level grassland and pulled up on the very brink of Sage Creek canyon. "Easy, easy, from here on," Piegan whispered caution.
Word Of The Day