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 APAUK. CALLE- Z- =---i_0 Ens- 
 
 tralsd. 
 ON THE WARPATH. Dlosaated. 
 THE QUEST OF THE RSH-OOG SKIM. 
 
 SINOPAH, THE INDIAN BOY. IBostra-sd. 
 WiTH THE INDIANS IN THE ROCKIES 
 
 MY UFE AS AN INDIAN. Dbsti^aed. 
 
 HOUGHTON* MIFFLIN COMP.^SY 
 Bost:x i-s- N-TrY;£X 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
I CUT HIS ROPE AT THE STAKE 
 
APAUK 
 
 Caller of BufFalo 
 
 By 
 
 James Willard Schultz 
 
 With Illustrations 
 
 Boston and New York 
 
 Houghton Mifflin Company 
 
 ®l)e mitjcrisjde ^u^i <Jtambriti0e 
 
 1916 
 

 COFYRIGHT, 1915 AND I916, BY TH* SFRAGUX PUBLISHING COMPANY 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1916, BY JAMKS WILLARD SCHULTZ 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Publish*d Septtmher jQib 
 
 % 
 
 i^ 
 
 il^ 
 
 SEP 27 1916 
 
 A4385aG 
 
Illustrations 
 
 I CUT HIS ROPE AT THE STAKE (page 31) Frontispiece 
 
 I FIRED AN ARROW DOWN AT THE SMALL OF THE 
 
 BACK OF A BIG COW 23 
 
 All ADMIRED THE GUN THAT I HAD TAKEN . . 39 
 
 He even growled at me and made ready to 
 
 FIGHT 167 
 
APAUK 
 
 Caller of Buffalo 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ALTHOUGH I had known Apauk 
 — Flint Knife — for some time, 
 it was not until the winter of 
 1879-80 that I became intimately ac- 
 quainted with him. He was at that time 
 the oldest member of the Piegan tribe of 
 the Blackfeet Confederacy, and certainly 
 looked it, for his once tall and powerful fig- 
 ure was shrunken and bent, and his skin 
 had the appearance of wrinkled brown 
 parchment. 
 
 In the fall of 1879, the late Joseph Kipp 
 built a trading-post at the junction of the 
 Judith River and Warm Spring Creek, near 
 where the town of Lewistown, Montana, 
 now stands, and as usual I passed the winter 
 there with him. We had with us all the 
 bands of the Piegans, and some of the bands 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 of the Blood tribe, from Canada. The coun- 
 try was swarming with game, buffalo, elk, 
 antelope, and deer, and the people hunted 
 and were care-free and happy, as they had 
 ever been up to that time. 
 
 Camped beside our trading-post was old 
 Hugh Monroe, or Rising Wolf, who had 
 joined the Piegans in 1816, and it was 
 through him that I came to know Apauk 
 well enough to get the story of his remark- 
 ably adventurous and romantic youth. The 
 two old men were great chums. Old as they 
 were — Monroe was born in 1798, and 
 Apauk was several years his senior — on 
 pleasant days they mounted their horses and 
 went hunting, and seldom failed to bring 
 in game of some kind. And what a pic- 
 turesque pair they were ! Both wore capotes 
 — hooded coats made from three-point Hud- 
 son Bay Company blankets — and leggins 
 to match, and each carried an ancient Hud- 
 son Bay fuke, or • flint-lock gun. They 
 would have nothing to do with cap rifles, or 
 the rim-lire cartridge, repeating weapons of 
 modern make. Hundreds — yes, thousands 
 of head of various game, many a savage 
 grizzly, and a score or two of the enemy — 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Sioux, Cree, Crow, Cheyenne, and Assini- 
 boine, had they killed with the sputtering 
 pieces, and they were their most cherished 
 possessions. 
 
 Oh, that I could live over again those buf- 
 falo days ! Those winter evenings in Mon- 
 roe's or Apauk's lodge, listening to their 
 tales of the long ago ! Nor was I the only 
 interested listener : always there was a com- 
 plete circle of guests around the cheerful 
 fire ; old men, to whom the tales brought 
 memories of their own eventful days, and 
 young men, who heard with intense inter- 
 est of the adventures of their grandfathers, 
 and of the " calling of the buffalo," which 
 strange and wonderful method of obtaining 
 at one swoop a whole tribe's store of winter 
 food, they were never to witness. For the 
 luring of whole herds of buffalo to their 
 death had been Apauk's sacred, honored, 
 and danger-fraught avocation. He had been 
 the most successful caller the confederacy 
 of tribes had ever known, and so close 
 to the gods was he believed to be that the 
 people accorded him a position more hon- 
 ored than that of the greatest chief. As 
 will be seen, the man himself had most 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 implicit faith in his medicine ; his dreams, 
 the wanderings of his shadow while his body 
 slept, were as real to him as was any act of 
 his in broad daylight. 
 
 I did not, of course, get Apauk's story of 
 his life in the sequence in which it is here 
 laid down. On consecutive evenings he would 
 relate incidents far apart in time, and only 
 by later questionings would I be able to fill 
 in the gaps. But at last I got together the 
 whole of it, to my own satisfaction, and I 
 hope the reader may get as much pleasure 
 from the story as I did in the hearing of it. 
 
 Apauk, bringer of plenty, died with five 
 hundred of his people during the Starvation 
 Winter, 1881-83, on the Blackfeet Reser- 
 vation. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 TWO of the sayings of my people are 
 burned into my memory. One is, 
 " Poverty is unhappiness"; the other, 
 "Those without relatives are very poor." 
 Both were more than true of Pitaki, my 
 twin sister, and me, in our tenth winter, 
 for it was then that we lost our good father 
 and mother and all their property, and we 
 had not one relative, man or woman. 
 
 It happened this way: We, the Pikuni, 
 were encamped on the Two Medicine River, 
 and our brother tribe, the Kaina, were hunt- 
 ing on Milk River, two days' ride away. 
 Came from there a messenger to my father 
 
 5 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 saying he could now have the medicine pipe 
 that he had so long been trying to buy from 
 Low Wolf. The price was one horse, three 
 tails of eagle feathers, a pair of shell ear- 
 rings, and a steel spear that my father had 
 captured in a raid against the people of the 
 always-summer land, far to the south. 
 
 It was a big price that Low Wolf asked 
 for the medicine, and my father considered 
 it for three days before he made up his mind 
 what to do. On top of the other things, to 
 ask a horse seemed unreasonable. Horses 
 were rare and valuable animals in those days ; 
 many of our people were still using dogs 
 for carrying burdens ; our young men were 
 just beginning to bring in big herds of horses 
 from the far south country of the Spaniards, 
 so very far away that the war trail thence 
 and back was two summers and a winter in 
 length. We had only six horses, three for 
 packing our lodge and property, and three 
 for riding, my sister and I riding double 
 when camp was moved. 
 
 After all, it was my mother who settled 
 
 my father's mind. She knew how much he 
 
 wanted that pipe, because it was truly great 
 
 medicine and would cure the pain he suf- 
 
 6 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 fered from an old wound in his side. So she 
 said: — 
 
 " Give the horse, my man, give it. Let us 
 have the pipe. Nearly all my life I have 
 walked beside the dogs when camp was 
 moving, and I can do so again." 
 
 " You are truly generous," my father told 
 her. " As you say, so I shall do, but you 
 shall not walk. Hereafter, when we move 
 camp, we will mount the children behind 
 us. And then, in the spring, I shall again go 
 to war and do my best to capture a big herd 
 of horses from the enemy." 
 
 Because the weather was very cold, and 
 the trip to the Kai'na camp and back would 
 be a short one, it was arranged that Pitaki 
 and I should stop in the lodge of No Runner 
 during our parents' absence. Pitaki was glad 
 to do that, for No Runner had five little 
 girls, all her friends, and she loved to be 
 with them. But I pleaded to go with my 
 father ; I wanted to see the beautiful cere- 
 mony of his taking over the medicine pipe. 
 The ways of the gods are strange. Maybe 
 they put it into my father's mind to tell me 
 no, that I must remain there and take care 
 of my sister. He and my mother hurried 
 
 7 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the next morning to make an early start. At 
 daylight I brought in the horses. When I 
 came in they had the lodge down, and 
 everything ready to pack, and just at sun- 
 rise they struck out south. 
 
 " Be good children while we are gone," 
 said my mother, as she got into the saddle. 
 
 " Yes, be good. We shall be gone only 
 five nights," said my father. We answered 
 that we should be good, and watched them 
 out of sight, and then ran to No Runner's 
 lodge for our morning meal. 
 
 The five nights passed. Came the sixth 
 day, and at noon, as the day was sunny and 
 warm, Pitaki and I went up from the valley 
 to the edge of the plain to watch for our 
 parents' coming, that we might run and 
 greet them as soon as they were near. They 
 did not come. 
 
 "Well, they will come to-morrow," said 
 Pitaki, as we hurried down to camp as night 
 shadows began to darken the valley. 
 
 "Yes, to-morrow, sure," I answered. 
 
 But they came not on that day. Nor the 
 next day. Nor the day after that, although 
 from sunrise to sunset we two watched from 
 the rim of the plain for sight of them. And 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the longer we watched the more we worried ; 
 it was not like my father to say five nights 
 and not mean that number exactly. We began 
 to fear that one or the other of them was 
 sick, or maybe hurt from the fall of a horse. 
 
 Late in the afternoon of the sixth day of 
 our watch, we saw with tired eyes a band 
 of eight riders coming on the trail, one of 
 them a woman. We were sure that she 
 was our mother, and one of the others our 
 father, that they were coming with some 
 of the Kai'na people on a visit to our camp. 
 But when they had come closer, we saw 
 that they were all Kai'na and our hearts 
 were like heavy stones inside us. 
 
 But we should have news of the long ab- 
 sent ones. We ran and met the riders, cry- 
 ing, "Where are our father and mother? 
 What news of them can you tell us ? " 
 
 They just sat on their horses and stared at 
 us, and at last the woman asked : — 
 
 "Your father — your mother. Who are 
 they ? " 
 
 " Two Bears ! Sings Alone ! " I shouted. 
 " You know them. They went ten days ago 
 to your camp to buy Low Wolf's medicine 
 pipe. You must have seen them there." 
 
 9 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 They all stared at us, and at one another 
 a long time in silence, and one by one each 
 shook his head ; and at last one of them 
 said : — 
 
 " There is a mistake somewhere, children. 
 Your father is not in our camp, nor has he 
 been there this winter. And I know that 
 Low Wolf still has his medicine pipe : I 
 saw the sacred bundle of it only two nights 
 ago." 
 
 At that Pitaki sat down and began to cry, 
 " They are dead. My mother, my father, 
 they are dead." 
 
 The Kai'na woman got down and tried 
 to comfort her. " Take courage, little girl," 
 she said. " Most likely they somewhere on 
 the trail lost their horses, and are looking 
 for them." 
 
 And then she took Pitaki up behind her, 
 and we all went down the hill to camp. 
 Pitaki did take courage ; but right then I 
 knew that our father and mother were lost 
 forever. 
 
 When good-hearted No Runner heard 
 from me that the Kai'na had seen nothing 
 of the absent ones, he went straight to the 
 chief's lodge with the news, and the chief 
 
 ID 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 at once sent for some of the Kai'na visitors. 
 When he learned from their own mouths 
 that my father and mother were not in their 
 camp, nor had been there, he ordered out 
 the Siezer band of the All Friends Society 
 to search for them. They left camp that 
 very evening, forty or fifty young men. 
 Every one of the band that had a horse, or 
 could borrow one, joined in the search. 
 
 They were gone five nights. Five nights 
 of hope for my sister, of despair for me. I 
 knew what they would say when they re- 
 turned. No, perhaps I did have a little hope, 
 a little, faint, secret hope that I would see 
 our loved ones again, but that quickly died 
 when I looked upon the faces of the search- 
 ers as they came riding through camp to 
 the chief's lodge. Hand in hand Pitaki and I 
 followed them, and heard the chief ask : — 
 
 " Well, what learned ye ? " 
 
 And the leader's answer : — 
 
 " Nothing. There is no trace of them 
 along the trail, nor on Badger, Birch, Back 
 Fat, and Scattering Timber Creeks. We 
 went even to the Kai'na camp. They had 
 not been there." 
 
 "Now, this is strange, that a man, a woman. 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 six horses, lodge and lodge poles and prop- 
 erty, should cross the country and leave no 
 trace of their passing," the chief cried. "Are 
 you sure that you used your eyes?" 
 
 The leader was patient with the old man 
 and softly answered : " You forget that there 
 have been snows, and warm black-winds 
 since Two Bears and his woman left us. 
 These alone, to say nothing of the passing 
 of riders, and countless herds of buffalo and 
 antelope, were enough to wipe out the foot- 
 prints of their horses." 
 
 "Then, what can have happened to them ? " 
 the chief asked. 
 
 He received I know not how many dif- 
 ferent answers. There are a thousand ways 
 for people to disappear. Death in many, 
 many forms is ever lurking by the trails. 
 My own belief is that a war party killed 
 them, then cached their lodge and lodge 
 poles, and rode away with their horses and 
 property. At the time I had no thought but 
 that we were certainly never to see father 
 and mother again. I felt Pitaki's hand slip 
 from mine. She fell, and for a little while 
 was dead. No Runner picked her up and 
 we went to his lodge. There, when life 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 came back to her, she began to cry, to 
 mourn for our lost ones, and for days could 
 not be comforted. And, if I did not cry, I 
 felt as badly as she did. For long days, and 
 moons, for many a winter and summer, we 
 were to know what it is to be without fa- 
 ther's and mother's loving care — and the 
 trail that we were to follow was to be a 
 hard one. 
 
 Said No Runner and his woman: "Take 
 courage, children. We are poor, but this 
 lodge shall be your lodge. We will do all 
 we can for you. Anyhow, there is plenty 
 of meat ; you shall not starve." 
 
 Yes, of food there was plenty. No Run- 
 ner was a good hunter. But there were so 
 many in that lodge, he and his woman, five 
 daughters, a grandfather and grandmother, 
 that there was little room for us. And must 
 I tell it? Yes. As the days passed, the five 
 daughters of the lodge began to let us see 
 in many ways that they did not want us 
 there. The two oldest, when their father 
 and mother were not around, would say 
 mean things to us about our poverty, our 
 poor clothes, and order us to do things as 
 though we were slaves. Myself, I did not 
 
 13 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 much mind that, but many a time I found 
 Pitaki crying because of their arrow-sharp 
 words, and that did hurt me. I knew that we 
 must soon leave that lodge, and began to 
 look about for one where we might be wel- 
 come. 
 
 Came an evening when No Runner loudly 
 scolded his daughters because of their bad 
 words to us. All the near lodges, all passers 
 heard him, and when he had done and the 
 two oldest daughters had gone out behind 
 the lodge to cry, there came in a little, 
 slender, old woman named Suyaki, she of 
 pleasant voice. A beautiful, singing voice 
 she had. 
 
 As women do, she took her seat near the 
 doorway, and No Runner cried out: "Wel- 
 come, Suyaki. Welcome you are in this 
 lodge. Now, what can I do for you.?'* 
 
 "Oh, chief! Good heart! You can do 
 much for me. You can give me these two 
 fatherless and motherless ones to be my 
 children," she answered. " As you know, 
 my good old man is dead. His shadow has 
 gone to the Sand Hills. My daughters, my 
 sons, want me to live with them, but I can- 
 not give up my own little lodge, my little 
 14 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 properties, my habit of long years to go and 
 come, and do always as I please. Give me 
 the children, chief, to be company to me — 
 to make laughter in my lodge once more. 
 Oh, I promise you, I will be good to 
 them." 
 
 Now, when she said that, so earnestly that 
 her voice trembled; when, as she talked, I 
 saw tears gather in her eyes and roll down 
 her fine wrinkled face, why, my heart was 
 hers at once. I looked at Pitaki. Her eyes 
 were shining ; she was anxiously watching 
 No Runner to hear what he would say. 
 And he said : — 
 
 "The gods are good. My woman and I, 
 we love these fatherless and motherless ones, 
 and we know that they are not happy here. 
 Our lodge is crowded — there are other 
 things — no matter. I was just praying to 
 be shown what to do with them — for 
 them, and you come straight in with the 
 answer. Take them, if they will go with 
 you, take them." 
 
 Almost before he had said the last word, 
 Pitaki cried out, " We will go with you, 
 Suyaki, oh, yes, we will go with you." 
 While saying so she was turning and begin- 
 
 15 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ning to gather up the buffalo robes that made 
 her bed. Every one laughed at her haste. 
 
 The old woman looked at me. I just made 
 the sign for yes. I could not speak. I could 
 not tell how glad I was that she wanted us. 
 
 Said No Runner, as we were going out, 
 " Suyaki, be not sparing with the meat. A 
 plenty you shall have of my own killing." 
 
 As it was, we were carrying a parfleche 
 full of fine dried meat and back fat that his 
 good woman had given us. So it was that 
 we left our father's band, the Small Robes, 
 and went to live in the upper end of camp 
 with the Lone Eaters, itself a very large 
 band. Why the ancient ones gave the band 
 that name I do not know. Certainly its 
 members did not eat alone ; they gave as 
 many feasts as any others of our tribe. 
 
 " There, my children, my children ! " said 
 Suyaki when we were come into her lodge 
 and she had uncovered the coals in the fire- 
 place and laid wood upon them. "My lodge 
 is your lodge. I will move my couch to 
 the right of the doorway. You, my son, are 
 the man here, so your couch shall be at the 
 rear. And you, my daughter, make your bed 
 there at the left of the doorway." 
 i6 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 So it was that Suyaki gave us a home in 
 her little, worn, old lodge. Except for a 
 few parfleches containing her few clothes, 
 her woman trinket-savings of many winters, 
 and her tanning implements, it was quite 
 bare, and more than large enough for the 
 three of us. All her man's things had been 
 buried with him, or had been taken by the 
 three married sons. Horses she had not, but 
 she did have eight fine, big dogs of the an- 
 cient, wolf-like breed, for packing her lodge 
 and things when camp was moved. 
 
 True to his promise. No Runner gave us 
 much meat of his killing, and Suyaki's sons 
 and daughters gave us some, and all the buf- 
 falo hides and skins of the deer kind we 
 needed for clothing and bedding. My sister 
 had never done any tanning, but now, with- 
 out being asked, she began work on the 
 lighter skins and was soon able to make 
 soft leather. When, with a little help, she 
 made a pair of moccasins for me, and saw 
 how well they fitted when I put them on, 
 she was so pleased that she cried. After 
 that she made all my footwear, of buffalo 
 robe for winter, and of leather with par- 
 fleche soles for summer. 
 
 17 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Nor was I idle. Whenever they would let 
 me, I went hunting with No Runner and 
 Suyaki's sons, and helped them butcher and 
 bring in the meat. When there was noth- 
 ing else to do, I practiced shooting with the 
 bows and arrows that No Runner made for 
 me, and oh, how good I felt when I killed 
 my first rabbit and brought it to our lodge. 
 Also, I joined the Mosquitoes, the boys' band 
 of the All Friends Society, and never failed 
 to attend the meetings which the old men 
 called for the purpose of teaching us to be- 
 come good warriors and hunters. 
 
 What did they teach us ? Well, I shall 
 never forget an early morning when an old 
 man named Red Crow went from lodge to 
 lodge, calling us out to bathe in the river 
 with him, and then led us to the rim of the 
 valley from which we could see far up and 
 down it, and away out on the plains in all 
 directions. As we came near the top the old 
 man said, " Get down on hands and knees 
 now, all of you, and crawl the rest of the 
 way. Only the foolish ones walk boldly to 
 the rim of a valley, or the summit of a 
 butte, to become a mark for the eyes of 
 every living thing in the country. The good 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 hunter sees the game without being seen, 
 and looks out a way to get within short bow 
 range of it. The successful warrior is he 
 who discovers the enemy without being 
 discovered, and finds a way to surprise and 
 attack them — or safely retreat if the party 
 be too large to attack." 
 
 We crawled after him to the top, and 
 looked over the country from the shelter 
 of the sagebrush, and he soon allowed us to 
 sit up, because, he said, the country seemed 
 to be peaceful. A war party, however, might 
 be somewhere around. And after a time he 
 asked, "What do you all see?" 
 
 " Buffalo." 
 
 " Antelope." 
 
 "A band of elk." 
 
 "Yes, so you do," he said; "but there is 
 something else. Look again." 
 
 We looked and looked, all over the plains 
 and in the valley until our eyes became tired, 
 but could see nothing else, and when we 
 gave up he pointed to the north where two 
 buzzards were sailing round and round not 
 far above the plain. "Watch the birds as 
 well as the animals," he told us. " Were 
 you a war party now, you would go over 
 
 19 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 there and see what those two are hovering 
 over. You would learn if the animal had 
 been killed by a traveling war party, or by 
 a hunter from some camp, and when and 
 in what direction the hunter or party had 
 gone." 
 
 So it was that the old men taught us. We 
 learned caution; we learned that there was 
 a meaning for everything we saw. A dust 
 cloud, for instance, if slow moving, was 
 caused by a moving camp. If fast, it was 
 raised by a band of frightened game, or by 
 riders pursuing it, or traveling rapidly over 
 the country. Oh, I liked well those teach- 
 ings in the early mornings. And just as in- 
 teresting were the evenings by the lodge fire, 
 where these same old men told us all about 
 the gods, and dreams and strong medicines, 
 and the war trails of great medicines. 
 
 As the old men taught me the ways of the 
 hunter and warrior, so Suyaki and her old 
 women friends taught my sister the ways of 
 a woman, and she eagerly learned to cook, 
 and sew, and make her dresses and mocca- 
 sins, and to do beautiful embroidery work of 
 colored porcupine quills. Later, she was to 
 learn all about different roots and leaves and 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 flowers, and become a great doctor of the 
 sick ; but that time was still far off. 
 
 Suyaki was good to us, and always cheer- 
 ful. When we mourned for our lost ones 
 she did her best to comfort us. She made 
 fun of her poverty, and ours, and kept talk- 
 ing of the things we should have when I 
 became old enough to go to war and take 
 horses, and to hunt and trap fur with which 
 to buy goods from the white traders recently 
 come into the northern part of our country. 
 There were not yet traders on the Missouri 
 and its streams. 
 
 Poor we were. True, we always had 
 enough meat to eat, mostly the poorest 
 parts of the animals. But we had no fine 
 clothes. Beside the boys and girls of our 
 age we were like two brown buffalo birds 
 in a flock of hummingbirds. Worst of all, 
 we had no horses, and were always trudging 
 along behind with our dogs when camp was 
 moved. Nothing hurt me so much as that, 
 especially when some of the boys I played 
 with would prance by on their horses and 
 make jokes about my being on foot. At 
 such times I would pray the gods to make 
 me grow fast, and comfort myself by vow- 
 
 21 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ing that some day I would have more horses 
 than any of them. 
 
 Passed several winters and summers and 
 came the time when I killed my first buf- 
 falo with a real bow and real flint-pointed 
 arrows given me by No Runner, who con- 
 tinued ever to be our good friend. On the 
 morning after he made me the present, I 
 went up the valley with Pitaki and the dogs, 
 some saddled and some drawing travois, my 
 mind made up not to return without meat. 
 Game was not plentiful near camp, and it 
 was not until midday that we sighted a 
 small band of buffalo, standing in the creek. 
 Above them on our side was a cutbank, and 
 crawling to the edge of that I fired an arrow 
 down at the small of the back of a big cow. 
 Away she went, the others with her, splash- 
 ing up the stream and then out through the 
 brush, my arrow in her almost to the feath- 
 ering. Pitaki and I followed with the dogs 
 as fast as we could, and out on the grassy 
 bottom found her, dead. Oh, how proud I 
 was ! And how Pitaki danced around the 
 big animal, and hugged me, and even the 
 dogs, in her happiness. And then, " Brother," 
 she cried, '*here ends our poverty. From 
 
 22 
 
I FIRED AN ARROW DOWN AT THE SMALL OF THE 
 BACK OF A BIG COW 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 now on we shall have tongues, and boss 
 ribs, and back fat, and all the other choice 
 parts of meat as well as the rest of the peo- 
 ple. Oh, let us hurry. Come. Get out your 
 knife." 
 
 Luckily, I had a knife, a real iron knife 
 which I had bought from the traders with 
 three beaver skins, which were also given 
 me by No Runner. I soon had the hide 
 off that cow, and the dogs loaded with all 
 the fat meat they could carry. And good 
 old Suyaki was so surprised and so pleased, 
 when we brought the meat to the lodge, 
 that she cried. Ever after that day I was 
 the provider of meat and hides, and in my 
 fifteenth summer I was able to buy three 
 traps from the white traders on credit, and 
 begin trapping beavers. In the following 
 winter Suyaki and Pitaki and I were wear- 
 ing our first blankets, bought with the skins 
 of many beavers I had caught. 
 
 The killing of that first buffalo and, later, 
 the trapping of the beaver gave me cour- 
 age. During my eighteenth winter I thought 
 much about the future. I made up my mind 
 to become a great warrior, so that in my 
 old age I might be as big a chief as was 
 
 25 . 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Lone Walker, chief of the Small Robes 
 band, and head of the Pikuni. Because of 
 his bravery, every one respected him ; and 
 for his kind heart, his goodness to the poor, 
 and his fairness to all, every one loved him. 
 
 For a beginning, I went as a servant to 
 No Runner, leader of a war party, on a raid 
 against the Crows. We started out just as 
 the new grass was beginning to show green 
 on the plains, and were back home late in 
 the following moon with a fine band of 
 horses, my share being five head. To us 
 three, five horses were riches ; we could now 
 ride, and no longer trail along at the tail 
 of the column when camp was moved. But 
 I was not satisfied with myself: I had taken 
 no part in getting the horses out from among 
 the lodges of the sleeping Crows ; I had 
 only kept them together at the meeting- 
 place as No Runner and his men gathered 
 them, a few head at a time. I wanted to 
 know if I had the courage to enter the camp 
 of the enemy, and face them in battle. 
 
 So it was that, in the Berry moon, I went 
 again on a raid, this time under the leader- 
 ship of Ancient Badger, a young warrior of 
 great promise. There were fifteen of us. 
 26 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 We crossed the Backbone-of-the-World, en- 
 tered the country of the Nez Perces and 
 found their camp. I was Ancient Badger's 
 servant. He ordered me to stand at the meet- 
 ing-place and tie up the horses as he and the 
 others brought them in. 
 
 " Not until I have myself once entered 
 the camp," I told him, and after much 
 argument had my way. They thought that 
 I was too young to undertake such danger- 
 ous work. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE camp, of about a hundred lodges, 
 was pitched on the east side of a 
 river running through a large plain. 
 Bordering the stream was a narrow growth 
 of cottonwoods and brush. When night fell 
 we left the pine timber in which we were 
 concealed and, crossing the plain, lay down 
 near the first of the lodges to wait until the 
 time came to begin our work. There we 
 were, within short bowshot of the enemy, 
 and they all unaware of our presence. They 
 feasted, and danced, and visited, and we 
 thought that they would never go to sleep. 
 28 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 An all-night moon soon came up, and its 
 light made our undertaking much more 
 dangerous than if the night had been dark, 
 although it would enable us to go quickly 
 among the horses tied in among the lodges 
 and take our choice of them. 
 
 It was late when the last one of the lodge 
 fires died out, and later still when Ancient 
 Badger gave the word for us to move. I had 
 no gun. I needed both hands to untie 
 horses and lead them, so I kept my bow 
 and arrows in the quiver at my back, and 
 for defense depended upon the war club 
 swinging from my right wrist. As I passed 
 the first of the lodges, I learned that it was 
 one thing to talk about going into the camp 
 of the enemy, and another thing to do it. I 
 was afraid. Afraid of everything — the shape- 
 less things on the dark, shadowy side of the 
 lodges might be night watchers of the sleep- 
 ing camp. At any time some one might 
 come out and discover me. My heart beat 
 fast as I stole on to three tethered horses, 
 cut the ends of their tie ropes, and led 
 them out the way I had come, and only 
 three or four steps at a time, until safely 
 out on the plain. People will sleep soundly 
 29 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 while tied horses all around them uneasily 
 stamp the ground ; but the sound of just 
 one animal walking steadily away will arouse 
 them. 
 
 I took my three horses across the plain to 
 the edge of the pines, and was soon joined 
 by my companions, each bringing two or 
 three or four animals. Said Ancient Badger : — 
 
 " You took three ? That is good. Well, stay 
 here now and hold what we have, while 
 the rest of us make one more entry into the 
 camp. The night is far gone. We have 
 time for only one more taking." 
 
 I pleaded to be allowed to go, too, argu- 
 ing that every one of the horses we had was 
 safely fastened there in the pines with its 
 own rope, and it was not necessary to guard 
 them. And again I got my way. I had 
 learned that, although I feared the danger 
 in it all, there was something — some- 
 thing more than the taking of the horses, 
 that impelled me to go back. It was the 
 danger itself — the excitement of it all, that 
 drew me. 
 
 Big, black clouds began to drift from the 
 west as we again came to the camp, and 
 with the clouds came a warm wind that 
 
 30 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 told of rain. We separated, and I took my 
 first trail, and went past the place where 
 I had found the three, and on to another 
 bunch of staked horses. One of them was a 
 large black horse tied all by himself. I 
 could see several bunches of the animals 
 a little farther on, but I said to myself 
 that if I could only get away with that 
 lone, big, handsome black I should be satis- 
 fied — more than satisfied with my night's 
 work. I was sure that he was a swift run- 
 ner, a real racer. 
 
 I cautiously approached the black. He did 
 not snort, or try to edge away from me. I 
 put out my hand and stroked his smooth neck, 
 and he liked it; he was gentle. So then I cut 
 his rope at the stake to which it was fastened, 
 made two half hitches around his nose with 
 it, and started to lead him out of the camp. 
 
 Another swift- moving cloud hid the 
 moon. When it passed, and I had reached 
 about the center of the camp on my way out, 
 I came upon Ancient Badger approaching 
 some tied horses. He motioned me to go on 
 and I slowly passed him, keeping a good watch 
 ahead and on all sides of me. I had not gone 
 far when I heard a shout behind me, and upon 
 
 31 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 looking around I saw a man running toward 
 Ancient Badger, who had just cut the tie rope 
 of a horse. The two met and Ancient Badger 
 gave him a push that sent him flat on his 
 back, and then he sprang onto the horse, and 
 found that its front feet were short-hobbled. 
 It was too late then to get down and cut the 
 fastening, the fallen man was rising and shout- 
 ing for help. So his heel thumped the ani- 
 mal and made it start off on the jump that 
 a hobbled horse must make, or else shuffle 
 along at half-length step. All this happened 
 much more quickly than I can tell it. The 
 whole camp was aroused; as I sprang on the 
 black I could see men rushing from their 
 lodges, weapons in hand, and my horse 
 knocked one of them down as he sprang 
 from his doorway. Several guns were fired, 
 and I heard the swish of arrows as I cleared 
 the camp and then looked back to see how 
 it was with Ancient Badger. He was com- 
 ing quite swiftly on his hobbled-feet horse, 
 and leaving farther and farther behind some 
 men who were running after him and firing 
 arrows. But I knew that there would soon 
 be riders after us, and I slowed up to do what 
 I could to help him. 
 
 32 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " I am hurt. Help me. Jump down and 
 cut those hobbles," he cried as he came close 
 to me, and by the time I had done so, and 
 was back on my horse, a number of the en- 
 emy had mounted and were after us. I 
 thought that we could not escape from them. 
 " Take courage," said Ancient Badger. ** Ride 
 as fast as you can. There is a chance for us, 
 the storm is near." 
 
 Sure enough, a storm was about to break 
 upon us. In my excitement I had not noticed 
 it. Almost as he spoke the wind increased, 
 lightning flashed and thunder bellowed, 
 and the moon suddenly was hidden behind 
 the solid black of clouds. By the last of its 
 light I saw that four of the enemy were gain- 
 ing upon us, one quite a little distance ahead 
 of the others. Of the two horses that we 
 rode, mine was much the faster ; I held him 
 back all the time, that Ancient Badger might 
 keep up with me. He noticed it and asked, 
 ** You will not leave me ? There is an arrow 
 in my arm, I cannot draw my bow." 
 
 What could I answer to that but, " I am 
 with you ! " 
 
 "Then you must try to stop that nearest 
 rider, fast gaining upon us," he said. 
 
 33 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 I looked back, kept looking back, and 
 after a short time could make out the dim 
 form of him in the darkness, and then a flash 
 of lightning showed him very close to us, gun 
 in hand. Oh, how fear came upon me then, 
 fear of the man, fear of the gun, far more 
 terrible weapon than the bow. I had never 
 faced an enemy. I had heard our warriors 
 tell about it, and how great and exciting a 
 thing it was to do; how eager one became 
 for the fight, but I did not feel that way. I 
 wished that I was back in the far-away little 
 lodge with my sister and good Suyaki. 
 
 AndthenAncientBadger cried out, "Turn 
 on him. Ride low and turn on him. Don't 
 let him poke his gun in our backs." 
 
 His words made me shiver. Then, sud- 
 denly, I cried silently to the gods for help, 
 for courage, and it came to me. I grasped 
 the handle of my war club and made the big 
 black begin a half circle. Around I went 
 and straight at the Nez Perce. Another flash 
 of lightning came and he fired at me, where 
 he had seen me by its strong blaze. But I had 
 by that time bent low on my horse's neck, 
 and pulled him to one side, and the ball did 
 not touch me. I turned the horse back at him 
 
 34 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 then, and coming close, was about to swing 
 my war club, when another lightning flash 
 showed the butt of his gun almost touching 
 my right thigh as he was holding its muz- 
 zle and putting powder into it. I reached 
 out and grasped the weapon just above the 
 lock, and jerked, and it was mine. He 
 reached over and, his hands just grazing my 
 arm, grasped hold of my leggin. I struck 
 with the gun barrel and must have hit his 
 wrists. He yelled and let go of me, and 
 his horse swerved off. He began shouting for 
 his comrades. I did not pursue him. On I 
 went, shouting for Ancient Badger until I got 
 his answer, and then saw him by the light- 
 ning flashes. 
 
 *'Oh, chief, I have his gun," I cried as I 
 rode up beside him. " I have his gun and 
 he is harmless." 
 
 " Good. But he still follows. He keeps 
 calling the others," he said, and just then 
 the storm came upon us, fierce wind and 
 blinding rain, and almost constant lightning, 
 which showed the gunless man still after us, 
 still shouting for the others, whom we could 
 not see. 
 
 " We must lose that man," he soon shouted 
 
 35 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 to me. "Come, let us ride north for a 
 time." 
 
 We turned north, riding as fast as we 
 could through the heavy rain, and by the 
 lightning flashes saw the man turn with us. 
 But the lightning soon ceased, and then we 
 turned east again, with the wind and beat- 
 ing rain at our backs, and in a little while 
 came to the edge of the pines. There we 
 stopped and listened, heard no longer the 
 shouts of the enemy, nor the thud of his 
 horse's feet, and were sure that we had lost 
 him. But we could not tell whether our 
 party and our horses were to the right or 
 the left of us. We turned to the right, rid- 
 ing slowly along the edge of the timber 
 and softly calling them, and lo ! Almost at 
 once we came upon them where they waited 
 for us. Then it was that Ancient Badger for 
 the first time complained of his wound, and 
 had us break and pull out the arrow fast in 
 his arm and the flesh of his back. 
 
 In the darkness and rain it was impos- 
 sible for us to go on through the timber 
 with all the horses we had taken, and to 
 remain where we were until day came 
 would be to have the whole Nez Perce 
 
 36 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 camp after us as soon as they could circle 
 and find our trail. Said our leader, after 
 some talk, " We will wait a little while, it 
 is not more than the middle of the night, 
 and then if the sky does n't clear we will 
 each ride one horse, and lead one, and strike 
 out." 
 
 Again the gods were with us. Windmaker 
 kept fanning his big ears and soon drove the 
 rain clouds eastward. The moon came out 
 and we started on our back trail, one or two 
 of us in the lead, the rest driving the loose 
 stock after them. A good-sized band it was, 
 in all a few more than a hundred head, and 
 four of them mine. It was slow traveling 
 through the forest, but that was not very 
 wide, and once we struck the plains on its 
 far side we kept going at a lope all the rest 
 of the night, and all of the following day, 
 stopping only to change horses. No doubt 
 the Nez Perces found our trail and followed 
 it, but they never came within sight of us. 
 Nor did we intend that they should. For 
 four days and nights we were going nearly 
 all the time. It was not until we passed the 
 summit of the Backbone-of-the-World and 
 looked down upon our own buffalo plains 
 
 37 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 that we had a real rest and sleep, and plenty 
 of fat meat to roast before the tire. 
 
 Several days later we sighted the lodges of 
 the Pikuni, and I was a proud boy as I rode 
 my big black in among the shouting people, 
 and heard on all sides my name in praise. It 
 was impossible to ride through the great 
 crowd. I dismounted and my sister seized 
 me and so did the good Suyaki, and both 
 kissed me again and again and cried over 
 me. All around were great warriors, chiefs, 
 medicine men, giving me greeting and 
 praise, men who had never noticed me be- 
 fore, and that was sweet to me. It was fine 
 pay, big pay for all the dangers of the trail. 
 
 In our little lodge I was soon resting, 
 and telling the story of our raid, and in 
 other lodges my companions were telling 
 their stories of it. So it was that before 
 dark the whole camp knew that I had 
 counted the greatest coup of all — that I 
 had taken a weapon, and a gun at that, 
 from a living enemy. Evening was no sooner 
 come than No Runner invited me to a 
 feast in his lodge, and sent word for me to 
 bring the gun. While I was there came 
 word for us to visit Lone Walker, and show 
 
 38 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 him the gun, so we went over. His lodge 
 was crowded with the big men of the camp, 
 and I was asked to tell them all about the 
 raid. I did so, and they all said that I had 
 done well for a beginner. 
 
 "Just keep on the way you have started, 
 and you will become as great a warrior as 
 was your father," one old medicine man 
 told me. 
 
 All admired the gun that I had taken. It 
 was very different from the round, short- 
 barrel guns of the traders of the North. The 
 barrel was long, and eight-sided, and the 
 slender, polished stock had a little metal- 
 covered place in one side for ball patches. I 
 was offered two horses for it right there, 
 but of course I would not sell. 
 
 We had returned home just in time for 
 the medicine lodge ceremonies, the building 
 of the great lodge and the giving of pres- 
 ents to the sun. It is during the four days 
 of prayer and sacrifices that the warriors 
 stand out one after another, and count their 
 coups and with help enact their fights with 
 the enemy. It was a great day for me when 
 I counted my two coups, the taking of the 
 horses and the gun, a friend playing the part 
 41 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 of the Nez Perce, All the rest of the sum- 
 mer I could hear the shouts of the people 
 as they applauded that deed. I dreamed 
 much of becoming a great warrior. Then, 
 in the Falling Leaves moon I happened to 
 hear something that turned my thoughts 
 forever from war. No doubt the gods in- 
 tended that I should be there in Lone Walk- 
 er's lodge and hear that talk. 
 
 Said one of the guests to the chief, *' I 
 am doing all that I can to make my son 
 quit his boyish ways, but he seems not to 
 want to do anything but play. I keep tell- 
 ing him about vou, and how you began, 
 when younger than he is, to mark out the 
 trail that has made you head chief of our 
 tribe." 
 
 There followed a long silence, and then 
 Lone Walker gave a big sigh, and said, 
 " There is something far greater than the 
 chieftainship of a people. Gladly would I 
 this day change places with Little Otter, 
 caller of buffalo, bringer of plenty. I may 
 be able to direct a tribe, to settle quarrels, 
 to lead its warriors, but I cannot feed it. 
 Here is winter almost upon us and we need 
 a great store of meat for the long moons 
 42 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 of snow, and we have not a single caller 
 among us. I shall send messengers to the 
 Kai'na camp to-morrow to ask Little Otter 
 to help us. May I tell him that he shall 
 have rich reward for what he does for us?" 
 
 "Ai!" "So tell him!" "Ai! We will 
 pay; pay plenty!" the guests cried out, and 
 soon afterward the camp crier was told to 
 notify the camp that we should move over 
 to the buffalo trap on the Two Medicine. 
 At the time we were north of it, on Cutbank 
 Creek. 
 
 I went home and thought much about 
 what I had heard. Of course, I knew about 
 the decoying of buffalo, had myself seen 
 a number of bands lured within the lines 
 of the waiting, hidden people, and then 
 stampeded over the cliffs to their death. 
 And, boy-like, I had taken it all as a mat- 
 ter of course, had given no thought to the 
 wonder of it all — to the greatness of the 
 deed. And Lone Walker had called Little 
 Otter a bringer of plenty. What a beautiful 
 name that was. And then I remembered 
 how honored and loved had been old Raven 
 Chief, our caller, but recently gone to call 
 shadow buffalo in Shadow Land. How dif- 
 
 43 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ferent had been his life from that of other 
 men ; how peaceful ; how full of mystery, 
 and dreams, and nightly doings with the 
 gods. And I said to myself, " Why can't I 
 become a caller of buffalo — a bringer of 
 plenty — provider of food and shelter and 
 clothing for the people ? " For the buffalo, 
 their meat and hides, were all that, and 
 more; the different parts of their great 
 bodies supplied almost our every need. 
 
 We moved to the Two Medicine next day, 
 and made camp on the edge of the big Cot- 
 tonwood grove in the bottom just under the 
 cliffs of the buffalo trap. Two days later the 
 messengers to the Kai'na camp returned with 
 Little Otter, old but still active, a fine, slen- 
 der, gray-haired man of quiet manner. He 
 had little to say ; his large, beautiful eyes 
 seemed always to be seeing things not given 
 others to see. Came with him his old wife, a 
 medicine woman, and off on the bottom from 
 our big, noisy camp they set up their lodge, 
 the buffalo medicine lodge, on the skin of 
 which was painted, life-size, a buffalo bull and 
 cow. That evening, when Lone Walker in- 
 vited Little Otter to his lodge, I went over 
 and squeezed myself just within the doorway 
 44 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 with the women, that I might hear what was 
 said. 
 
 The old man soon came, and as he passed 
 in through the doorway, Lone Walker cried 
 out, ** Welcome, Sun Man, Bringer of Plenty, 
 sit you here by my side." And all the other 
 guests cried, "Welcome! Welcome to our 
 camp, oh, wise one ! " 
 
 He passed to the left of the iire and took 
 the seat. He was plainly dressed in cow- 
 leather shirt and leggins, plain moccasins, all 
 faintly colored with the sacred, dull-red paint 
 of the earth. He wore a cow-leather wrap, on 
 which was painted his medicine, a buffalo bull 
 and cow in black, the hearts and life lines in 
 bright red. His hair braids were wrapped at 
 the ends with strips of otter fur; a very plain 
 man was he beside the chief and his warriors, 
 all in bright-colored, quill-embroidered gar- 
 ments. 
 
 As soon as he was seated, the women of the 
 lodge passed around the little feast of buffalo 
 tongue and pemmican, and I noticed that 
 before eating, the buffalo caller cut a small 
 portion of the tongue, and wdth a few words 
 of muttered prayer buried it in the ground in 
 front of him. Then, while all ate their por- 
 
 45 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 tions, he gave the news of the Kai'na camp, 
 and the chief told him what had happened 
 of interest in our camp. 
 
 The feast lasted a long time ; several more 
 than the customary three pipes went the 
 round of the circle. The talk was mostly 
 about great herds of buffalo that Little Otter 
 had decoyed to the traps on the rivers of the 
 North, and I eagerly listened to it all. I no- 
 ticed how very respectful the guests — chiefs, 
 medicine men, great warriors, all — were to 
 this caller of the buffalo. Yes, they were more 
 than respectful. There was in the tone of 
 their voices when they addressed him — in 
 their eyes when they looked at him — real 
 love for the man. Rarely did they call him 
 Little Otter. Bringer of Plenty was the name 
 they generally gave him. Again and again 
 I thought what a beautiful name that was, 
 almost a god name. 
 
 Later in the evening I went to sit with No 
 Runner. 
 
 "Chief," I said, "Little Otter is a great 
 man." 
 
 "That is not half the truth," he answered. 
 " That bringer of plenty, he is the greatest 
 man in all the three tribes of us." 
 ±6 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 "Well, I have been thinking, and have 
 decided. I am going to be a caller of the 
 buffalo, a bringer of plenty," I told him, and 
 waited anxiously to hear what he would say. 
 
 '* It is best that you keep to the war trail," 
 he told me, after long thought. " You have 
 made a good beginning ; you will become 
 a great warrior. The callers of the buffalo, 
 now, how few are they. Only one, only Little 
 Otter this day in the three tribes of us. One 
 has to be great medicine, most favored by the 
 gods, to become a caller, and you have no 
 medicine. Although you tried until your hair 
 becomes gray, you probably would never suc- 
 ceed in getting one herd to the cliffs." 
 
 "Still, I must try," I said. "Something 
 seems to be urging me that way." 
 
 "Go talk with Little Otter about it," he 
 told me. And I got up and started for the old 
 man's lodge. But as I neared it my steps be- 
 came slower and slower. Who was I to dare 
 enter that sacred buffalo medicine lodge — 
 to question so great a man ? I stopped, turned 
 back, went a little way, and turned again. 
 " Surely, his kind face tells of a kind heart," 
 I said to myself. " I shall anyhow go to the 
 doorway and ask if I may enter." 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 I APPROACHED the lodge. A good 
 fire within lit up its yellow leather cover 
 and made plain the black bull and cow 
 painted upon it. At the doorway I called 
 out: "Little Otter, Bringer of Plenty, are 
 you there ?" 
 
 "Ail Ai! Enter! Enter!" he called back, 
 and I went inside. 
 
 "Ah! It is you, my son," said he, when 
 the firelight lit up my face. " Welcome you 
 are. Sit you there. Now, what brings youth 
 to an old man's lodge so late at night?" 
 
 "Oh, great man, pity me; help me," I 
 cried. "I want to become a caller of the 
 buffalo." 
 
 "Ah! So that is it," he exclaimed. "I 
 fear that I cannot help you much. You have 
 to get help from the ancient ones. Long did 
 48 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 I fast and pray, oh, many times, and often 
 did I try to draw the herds before I at last 
 found a medicine that told me how to do it. 
 Have you a medicine?" 
 
 " No, I have not yet had my sacred dream," 
 I answered. 
 
 "Then go have it. And after that try to 
 call a herd. And keep on fasting and pray- 
 ing and sacrificing and calling herds, and 
 perhaps you will at last succeed. And then 
 you may never be able to do it. And remem- 
 ber, it is dangerous work." 
 
 "I am not afraid," I told him. "I have 
 twice been to war. I have taken a gun from 
 a living enemy." 
 
 "Well, my son, all that I can do for you 
 I shall do," he said; "but of course there 
 are some things about this calling that my 
 medicine forbids me to mention. Best you 
 go to the outer end of one of the wings when 
 I call a herd, and watch me." 
 
 I went home. Our little lodge was dark, 
 and my sister and old Suyaki were asleep. I 
 built up a fire from the buried coals and 
 awakened them, because I was so excited 
 about what I had decided to do that I could 
 not wait until morning to tell them about it 
 49 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " What is it, brother, are you going to war 
 again?" Pitaki asked. 
 
 "No: never again." 
 
 "Then what? Why have you awakened 
 us? Are you sick?" old Suyaki cried. 
 
 "No, I am well: I am happy. I just woke 
 you up to tell you that I am going to be a 
 caller of the buffalo, a bringer of plenty," I 
 told them. 
 
 "Oh, brother! You talk uselessly. You 
 can never do that," said Pitaki. 
 
 "He can do it! He shall do it! We will 
 help him! Oh, sun! Let me live to see this 
 son of mine bring a herd tumbling down 
 over the cliffs!" old Suyaki cried. 
 
 And then we talked a long time, and it 
 was decided that I was to try to get my 
 dream as soon as Little Otter should toll a 
 herd over the cliffs, and provide plenty of 
 meat for us — for the whole camp. 
 
 Some days passed before the watchers gave 
 word that several herds of buffalo were in 
 sight, and might at any time come grazing 
 near the wings of the trap. On the evening 
 of the day that they brought the news. Lit- 
 tle Otter began his four days of fast and 
 prayer, and all the medicine men of the 
 
 SO 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 camp unrolled their sacred pipes and smoked 
 to the gods, and begged them to give him 
 what he asked. 
 
 No one now dared go near the caller's 
 lodge for fear of breaking his medicine. Of 
 his four wives, three came over and remained 
 with friends in our camp. The fourth, the 
 head wife, remained with him and sang with 
 him his sacred songs. Twice a day, in the 
 morning and the evening, we saw her go to 
 the river and drink, for water was not allowed 
 in the lodge. She went to and fro with slow 
 step and bent head, spoke to no one, and 
 none spoke to her. Her face and hands were 
 painted black. 
 
 In the evening, sometimes alone and some- 
 times with my sister, I would go a little way 
 from camp toward the caller's lodge, and sit 
 and listen to his songs. They were different 
 songs; some that his dream had given him. 
 Most of them were very low, very sad; and 
 one, his "Song of the Ancient Bull," oh, 
 that was a wonderful song. Now low and 
 slow, then loud and deep and quick, truly, as 
 we listened it almost took our breath. And 
 "Oh, it hurts! It makes me feel queer here 
 in my bosom," Pitaki would whisper to me. 
 
 51 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 "Because it is such great medicine," I 
 would tell her. " True, it hurts, but it is a 
 kind of hurt that makes me see things : the 
 buffalo, our ancestors, in that far back time 
 when men and animals talked to one another. 
 Listen, and listen to it carefully, for some day 
 you will be singing it with me." 
 
 Came the evening when Little Otter's fast 
 ended. Lone Walker gave a feast and smoke 
 for him, and word went out to the people 
 to be ready at call to hurry to the stone piles 
 of the wings. When the feast was over I 
 went to Little Otter and asked him to let 
 me go with him whenever he went up to the 
 edge of the plain, and he said that I could 
 do so. 
 
 At daylight the next morning we were up 
 there with the four watchers, who had re- 
 mained on top all night. We were on the 
 edge of the cliffs where the two wings, start- 
 ing from them about a hundred steps apart, 
 ran one to the northwest and one to the 
 northeast, far out across the plain to a wide 
 coulee in which were always pools of water. 
 These outer ends of the wings were all of 
 ten hundred steps apart, and the wings were 
 piles of stones about thirty or forty steps 
 
 52 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 apart, except that near the cliffs they were 
 only a few steps apart, in order that a great 
 many people might there be hidden. The 
 cliffs were two. The first, the height of three 
 or four men, dropped down to a narrow shelf. 
 Below that the second, very much higher, 
 dropped straight down to the slope of the 
 valley, and there, in a big half-circle out from 
 the wall of the cliff, was built the trap, a 
 corral of tree-trunks, brush, and rocks, over 
 which a buffalo could not climb or jump, 
 nor the biggest bull push down. 
 
 We looked out upon the plain and saw 
 three herds of buffalo; one some distance 
 north of the coulee, and one west and one 
 east of the big mouth of the wings. Little 
 Otter wet one of his fingers in his mouth, 
 and then held it up to learn which side of 
 it would first feel cold. " What wind there 
 is goes east," he said. " I could not call the 
 herd down that way — they would smell me. 
 The herd to the west is too small for us to 
 bother with. That out to the north is too far 
 away, but I think that it will soon be moving 
 in to the coulee for water, and from there 
 I can call them if the gods be with me. 
 You watchers, one of you go tell Lone 
 
 53 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Walker to have the people hurry to the 
 rock piles." 
 
 Looking down into the valley, we soon saw 
 them coming outTrom the lodges, men, wo- 
 men, and children old enough to understand 
 things, and do as they were told. As they 
 climbed the far end of the cliff, where there 
 was a steep path, and came toward us, they 
 prayed the gods for success ; prayed that a 
 great herd of buffalo might be tolled into the 
 trap. As they began to go past us, now one and 
 then another of the watchers would call out : 
 "Listen. These are the commands of Little 
 Otter : You are to go slowly out to the rock 
 piles. There you are to lie motionless. No 
 matter how much you want to get up and see 
 what he is doing — if the herd is coming, you 
 are to lie perfectly still until the animals have 
 passed you, and then you are to rise up and 
 wave your robes and chase them as fast as you 
 can run." 
 
 Little Otter himself sat off at the edge of 
 the cliff, watching the herds, paying no at- 
 tention to the passing people. Lone Walker 
 and the chiefs of the different bands of the All 
 Friends Society went over and sat down near 
 him. 
 
 54 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 After a time he turned to them and asked : 
 "You have all your men gathered?" 
 
 "They are out there, more than four hun- 
 dred of them, sitting along the trail," Lone 
 Walker answered. 
 
 " That number should be plenty," he said. 
 " Let them hide by the first twenty rock piles 
 of each wing. Beyond those, I think, there 
 will be little danger." 
 
 At that the chiefs gave the order, and 
 the men of the Siezers, the Braves, Raven 
 Carriers, Bulls, All Crazy Dogs, and other 
 bands, began to go out to their places, the 
 Crazy Dogs, greatest warriors of the tribe, 
 taking the place of greatest danger, the piles 
 nearest the cliffs. There the buffalo would be 
 most likely to rush off suddenly to the east or 
 west, and trample everything before them. 
 
 Little Otter, carrying the light, soft tanned 
 robe of a yearling cow buffalo, now started out 
 to do his work and I followed him. From 
 the cliffs out to the coulee of the water holes 
 the plain was one little ridge after another. 
 From the tops of them we could see the 
 three herds of buffalo ; when we were down 
 in the hollows between, they were hidden 
 from us. We kept close to the west wing of 
 
 S5 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the trap. The stampeders had already taken 
 their places, and none of them were to be 
 seen unless we walked right upon them. The 
 rock piles afforded hiding for only a few ; 
 their main purpose was to mark where the 
 people should lie in two straight but ever- 
 diverging lines. All along between the piles 
 the stampeders lay prone on their stomachs, 
 under their grass-colored, cow-leather wraps, 
 with only their heads in sight ; and every 
 wrap and every head was covered with sprigs 
 of sage, or handfuls of the dry plains grasses. 
 Upon reaching the last rock pile of the 
 wing, I lay down and Little Otter sat near me 
 for a time. The herd of buffalo down the 
 coulee had evidently been to water, as it was 
 now feeding and moving slowly off to the 
 northeast from the pools. The herd to the 
 west was slowly grazing toward us, and still a 
 long way off. The herd to the north, the big 
 herd, was well scattered out, some of the ani- 
 mals grazing, some lying down, a few old 
 bulls standing motionless and half asleep in the 
 warm sun. All three herds had been too far 
 away to notice the people stringing out across 
 the plain to their places along the wings. And 
 now that they had come in answer to the 
 
 56 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 caller's order, they were obliged to remain 
 where they were until the buffalo should be 
 decoyed, or the caller give out word that the 
 hunt was over for that day. 
 
 The day grew warmer and warmer, but it 
 was not until the sun was halfway between 
 the edge of the world and the middle of the 
 sky that the herd began to show signs of 
 thirst. One after another, without grazing, 
 a few animals started toward the coulee, 
 coming a few steps, then stopping, then 
 moving on again for a short distance. Then 
 the ones that were lying down got up and 
 stretched themselves, and little by little the 
 whole herd began to close in and follow the 
 leaders, now walking slowly and without 
 pause. 
 
 **Now! Now is my time," Little Otter 
 told me and, taking his robe, he went down 
 into the coulee, ran across it, and started up 
 the long slope on the other side. There, also, 
 was little ridge after little ridge. He went 
 on over a number of them, and then almost 
 to the top of one higher than the others and 
 stopped, and slowly raised up and looked over 
 it. Oh, how closely I watched him then! 
 And so did every one along the line of the 
 57 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 wings who was in a position to see. Hun- 
 dreds and hundreds of eyes were upon him, 
 hundreds of voices were praying for his suc- 
 cess. 
 
 When Little Otter looked over the ridge, 
 the buffalo were not very far from him. He 
 wrapped his robe closely about his body, 
 hair side out and the head part covering his 
 head, and then, stooping over, he ran a lit- 
 tle way along the crest of the ridge, showing 
 to the animals the upper part of his body. 
 At once the leaders, some old cows, stopped, 
 and the others came crowding up to them 
 and also stopped and stared ahead, trying to 
 see what had caused the halt. 
 
 Little Otter had gone back out of sight ; 
 but very soon he again showed himself to 
 them, this time running along the top of the 
 ridge on his hands and feet, and kicking up 
 behind, and half-rising on his feet, and whirl- 
 ing around on hands and feet; oh, a funny 
 sight he was! The buffalo stared and stared 
 at him. A couple of the leaders backed up; 
 others half-turned, but still stared ; all were 
 about to run away, when the caller came 
 back over the top of the ridge out of their 
 sight, and then raised up and looked at them 
 
 58 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 through the sagebrush and grass growing 
 along the crest. It was then, I thought, 
 that he was calling them. But what kind of 
 a noise was he making? He was too far off 
 for it to reach my ears. 
 
 Whatever it was, it was medicine. A lone 
 cow pushed out past the leaders, trotted 
 toward him a few steps, stopped and listened 
 and looked ahead, and then trotted on, oth- 
 ers beginning to follow her. And at that the 
 caller turned and ran down toward the coulee 
 as fast as he could go, robe flapping behind 
 him, until he came to a ridge near it. There 
 he looked back; the buffalo were not yet 
 come to the ridge he had left; he came over 
 the one he was on and waited for them. 
 
 Soon the old cow came in sight, then 
 others of the lead. They stopped on the high 
 ridge, and the caller again pranced around 
 in their sight, and then came down off the 
 crest and repeated his call, whatever it was. 
 And at that the old cow and the others 
 started toward him, first at a trot and then 
 on the run, and he ran for the coulee, keep- 
 ing well bent over, and often jumping side- 
 ways from his course. And now the whole 
 herd, all of four hundred head, was coming 
 
 59 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 on his trail, and fast gaining upon him. He 
 came into the coulee, crossed it, and ran on 
 up our slope not far inside the end of the 
 wing where I lay, and the herd soon came 
 in past me, cows and young bulls in the lead, 
 calves and yearlings close with them, and big, 
 old bulls in the rear. Only the leaders of the 
 herd knew why they were running: they 
 wanted to know what that buffalo-like thing 
 was that kept fleeing from them. Perhaps 
 some old cow thought that it was her missing 
 calf — forgetting that the wolves had pulled 
 it down. 
 
 As soon as the tail of the herd passed me 
 I jumped up and ran after it, shouting and 
 waving my robe, and one by one those along- 
 side me did the same as came each one his 
 turn. And alongside the outer end of the 
 other wing the stampeders there were doing 
 the same. At first only the rear animals of 
 the herd saw us and, frightened, they pushed 
 on faster, crowding those ahead. Little Otter, 
 meantime, bore more to the west and came 
 into the line of the rock piles. As soon as 
 he did that the people there, and from there 
 out, all sprang up, shouting and waving robes, 
 and the leader of the herd, the big old cow, 
 60 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 turned and swung it off toward the east, only 
 to find that the people along the outer end 
 of the other wing blocked her way. To the 
 south was the only open course, and that 
 she took. 
 
 In chasing Little Otter, the buffalo had 
 been running easily. But now, as more and 
 more people kept rising on either side, and 
 closing in behind them, they became mad 
 with fright ; they ran now jor their lives. The 
 rattle and thudding of their hoofs was like 
 thunder. They spurned the dry plains' soil 
 into fine gray dust that rose like a cloud be- 
 hind them. Through the haze of it we in 
 the rear could see them rushing on and on, 
 the stampeders rising and rising, and waving 
 robes and shouting on either side, and we 
 followed as fast as we could, praying that all 
 would end well. On the way in I overtook 
 Little Otter, walking, and still breathing fast 
 from his long run, and I dropped into a walk 
 beside him. I spoke and he did not answer: 
 his eyes were on the herd and its stampeders, 
 and he was praying. And then a rising wind 
 carried away the dust cloud and we saw the 
 edge of the cliff, and a crowd of people there, 
 and a few old bulls running off to the east 
 6i 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 and west. The herd had gone down over it, 
 bull and cow, and yearling and calf, they 
 had gone tumbling and whirling and bump- 
 ing and sliding down over one wall, and then 
 the other, to their death. 
 
 "The gods are good. My medicine re- 
 mains with me," Little Otter cried. " I have 
 filled the trap with meat." 
 
 We broke into a run, and soon came to 
 the edge of the cliff and looked down. The 
 big trap was filled with dead and dying buf- 
 falo, and some, unhurt for all their fall from 
 the high cliffs, were rushing here and there 
 against the walls of the trap, and men were 
 shooting them down with their bows and 
 arrows. Old, old men and women were sit- 
 ting on the fence, singing and talking and 
 laughing and pointing to this one and that 
 one of the big animals. Children were cry- 
 ing for their mothers ; dogs were howling, 
 and down the trail at the east end of the 
 cliffs the last of the stampeders were hurry- 
 ing to have a hand in the butchering. 
 
 " Best you go with them and get your 
 
 share," Little Otter told me. " Myself, I shall 
 
 sit here. I love to watch the people at work 
 
 in the trap because they are then so happy." 
 
 62 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 "And it is you who make the happiness," 
 I told him, " and that is best of all. My mind 
 is made up : I, too, am going to be a bringer 
 of plenty." 
 
 When I got down to the trap I found my 
 sister and old Suyaki, with No Runner's 
 woman, butchering a big, fat cow which he 
 had given them for their share, and I helped 
 them carry the meat to our lodge. Then we 
 feasted upon some of it, and they cut the 
 rest into thin sheets for drying. The camp 
 was red with meat that night ; it was every- 
 where hung on scaifolds and on lines, and 
 by the firelight in the lodges women were 
 preparing the hides of the kill for drying. 
 One could hear everywhere the thud thud of 
 the fleshers. And this was but the beginning 
 of the take of winter meat ; Little Otter had 
 promised to call more herds, to provide every 
 lodge with plenty of food and hides. 
 
 Late in the evening I went again to his 
 lodge and was made welcome, but I was a 
 long time finding courage to ask what I was 
 so anxious to know. At last I stammered: 
 " Little Otter, what did you besides what I 
 saw you do this morning? Did you make 
 some kind of a cry to the buffalo ?" 
 
 63 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 He laughed a little, and then answered 
 very kindly, " My son, I did make a cry, 
 but I cannot tell you what it was: that is a 
 part of the medicine my dream gave me, and 
 I dare not even hint what it is. If you would 
 be a caller, go take your first fast, and if that 
 fails you, keep on fasting and praying until 
 some of the ancient ones give you help." 
 
 " It must be that he gave the cry of a 
 buffalo calf in distress," I thought as I went 
 home, and I made up my mind to try it on 
 the first herd I should try to call. 
 
 I began my fast the very next evening, 
 choosing for my hiding-place some cliffs 
 away up the river from camp. There I found 
 a dry place under an overhanging shelf. Be- 
 low me a lone, dead pine, its top on a level 
 with my bed, leaned out from the rock wall, 
 and right under it the deep water swirled. It 
 was a good place. At night, after the wind 
 ceased blowing, I could hear strange noises 
 and splashings down in the river, the Under- 
 Water People at play, I hoped, and to them 
 I prayed for help as well as to the other gods. 
 And at sunset of the second day a big, white- 
 headed eagle perched on the top of the dead 
 pine for his night's rest, and I prayed long 
 64 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 to him, but silently lest he should become 
 frightened and fly away. With him so near, 
 I hoped that the shadows of his ancestors 
 might also be there, and I begged them for 
 help. And then I slept, and my shadow wan- 
 dered far — and got no help of any kind. 
 
 But on the fifth night there I had a good 
 dream. Yes, I can tell it now and no harm 
 done, because I afterward got other medi- 
 cine. In this dream my shadow met Ancient 
 Fisher, and he promised to help me in every 
 way. When I awoke in the morning I was 
 glad. I got up and left the cliff, and went 
 down to the river and drank for the first time 
 in five nights and four days. And then I went 
 home, very slowly, for I was weak from my 
 long fast. I neared camp just in time to see 
 a herd of buffalo — a living river of buf- 
 falo, come pouring over the cliffs into the 
 trap. Down they crashed, and rolled, and slid, 
 clouds of dust rising from their thick-haired 
 bodies. And they keptcoming until I thought 
 that there would be no end to the stream. 
 It was a wonderful sight, a sight never to be 
 forgotten. And the man who had caused it, 
 what medicine, what power was his! In the 
 cold days of winter when no hunting could 
 
 65 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 be done, the women would bring out the meat 
 they were drying and storing now, and they 
 would say: **This meat is because of Little 
 Otter, bringer of plenty. It is meat from the 
 buffalo trap." Not a man, woman, or child 
 in all the camp but would think kindly of 
 the caller, and speak kind words of him. 
 
 I did not go over to the trap. I went to 
 our lodge and lay down, and some one who 
 saw me passing told my sister that I had re- 
 turned. She came running from the trap, 
 and the first thing she asked was if I was 
 hungry. And then, without waiting for my 
 answer, she got out a dish of berry pem- 
 mican, and sat down by my side and insisted 
 upon feeding me little lumps of it. Then 
 old Suyaki came in. 
 
 "They have given us two cows," she 
 cried, " but before going to work on them 
 I just had to come and see you. Are you 
 well ? Did you have a good dream ? " 
 
 "Yes, a good dream. I think that I have 
 strong medicine. And, of course, I am well," 
 I answered. 
 
 "Well, I had a dream while you were 
 gone," she said, " I wandered far out across 
 the plains, and up a river valley, and then 
 66 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 climbed to the top of a point and sat down. 
 And far off I saw dust rising. I looked 
 closer and saw that it was caused by a herd 
 of buffalo running toward cliffs. Two ravens 
 were in a tree near me, and said one to the 
 other: * Come, let 's go. That young Apauk 
 is calling a herd of buffalo to the cliffs. 
 There will be meat aplenty for us.' And as 
 they flew away I saw the stampeders rising 
 up behind the herd; saw it go tumbling 
 over the cliffs. And then my shadow came 
 back into my body and I woke up. My son, 
 that was surely a good sign. I know that 
 you are going to be a great caller of buf- 
 falo." 
 
 "I feel that way, too," I told her. "As 
 soon as you and sister have dried what meat 
 you have, we will go away off by ourselves, 
 and I will try to call a herd." 
 
 They went back to the trap, and I lay on 
 my couch and made plans. 
 
 One thing troubled me: I had no balls 
 for my Nez Perce gun, nor could I get 
 any. The balls the Red Coat traders of the 
 North sold were too large for it. I did not 
 like to go away without a good gun and 
 plenty of powder and ball. Suddenly the 
 67 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 thought came to me to ask Rising Wolf, the 
 white boy who lived with Lone Walker, to 
 make some balls for me. He had been with 
 us a year, and could speak our language 
 quite well. I went to him that evening and 
 told him my trouble. He took his ball pouch 
 and came to my lodge with me, and tried 
 one of his balls in my gun. It was just the 
 right size. There were twenty balls in his 
 pouch, and he gave me ten of them! That 
 was the beginning of the great friendship 
 between us. More than sixty winters of true 
 friendship have been ours. In all that time 
 not one cross word from one to the other. 
 I am proud of that. 
 
 Well, during the time that the meat was 
 drying I had many talks with No Runner. 
 He was interested in what I wanted to do, 
 and gave me good advice. It was decided 
 that he should help me move camp, and 
 then bring back my horses and herd them 
 with his own band until I should want them. 
 The evening before we were to start I made 
 a last short visit in Little Otter's lodge, and 
 told him that I was starting out in the morn- 
 ing to camp by myself and try to call buf- 
 falo. Said he: " My son, you are too young 
 68 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 to begin that work. I fear that you will 
 only be disappointed. Wait a while before 
 you attempt it ; there is plenty of time. 
 Just grow, and pray, and think medicine 
 thoughts. Fast much, and dream dreams. 
 Then try the calling, and you will be more 
 likely to succeed." 
 
 I told him that I could not wait ; that I 
 had to go, and I went back to my lodge with 
 slow steps. I had been thinking that I would 
 have no trouble in learning to call — and the 
 old man had put doubt into my heart. 
 
 The place I chose for our lone camp was 
 the mouth of Birch Creek, a short day's 
 ride from the Two Medicine buffalo trap, 
 but so far from the big camp that the game 
 down there would not be disturbed by riders 
 and hunters from it. Thither we went, all 
 the way following the windings of the river, 
 instead of taking the shorter trail across the 
 plains, in order that we might not alarm the 
 herds. It was almost dark when we set up 
 the lodge in the grove of cottonwoods just 
 below where the two rivers meet. Very 
 early the next morning No Runner started 
 back with our horses. As soon as he had 
 gone, I called my sister and Suyaki and we 
 
 69 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 started up the north slope of the valley, 
 there very steep and at the last, rocky. When 
 we came to the top I slowly raised up and 
 looked out over it. Pitaki was at my shoul- 
 der. 
 
 " Oh, brother ! Just look at them ! " she 
 cried. " Surely your medicine guided them 
 there for your purpose." 
 
 I thought that she might be right. Out 
 on top of a rise of the plain, close in front 
 of us, was a herd of about a hundred buffalo, 
 and they were grazing out over it, just as I 
 would have them do. I quickly decided that 
 as soon as they moved out of sight over the 
 crest of the ridge I should run toward them 
 and try to call them back. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE herd was a long time moving 
 over the top of the ridge. On the 
 very crest of it a big old bull stopped, 
 and turned facing us, and looked this way 
 and that way, all the time switching his 
 short tail, as though suspicious of something. 
 We knew that he had not seen us, could not 
 see us, as only the tops of our heads were 
 above the rocks, themselves as black as our 
 tiair. I believe that there are shadows, shapes 
 that we cannot see, that often give the 
 hunted warning of the presence of the hunter. 
 Have we not, all of us, now and then, when 
 approaching game that we knew did not see 
 
 71 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 or smell us, been surprised to see it sud- 
 denly start running and go clean out of the 
 country ! Of course, it had warning of some 
 kind. 
 
 But this old bull, if he had been warned, 
 only half-understood ; after a time he made 
 up his mind that all was as it should be, and 
 went on over the rise to rejoin his herd. 
 
 "Well, he is gone," said old Suyaki ; 
 "now is your time. Oh, my son ! I am so 
 anxious for you to do this that I am sick. I 
 tremble all over me. Go ! Hurry ! Let us 
 see what you can do." 
 
 " Yes ; go now. Brother, I pray for you," 
 Pitaki told me. 
 
 I set my rifle up against a rock, wrapped 
 my robe about me, hair side out, and started. 
 I was so excited, so anxious about what I 
 was to do, that I could hardly breathe. I told 
 myself that I must be calm, but as I neared 
 the top of the ridge over which the buffalo 
 had passed, my legs began to tremble ; I 
 was more excited than I had ever been in 
 all my life. I could not understand it. When 
 raiding the camp of the enemy, when tak- 
 ing the gun from the Nez Perce, I had not 
 felt that way. I sat down and scolded my- 
 72 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 self. And then I prayed to my medicine, 
 and felt better. I got up and went on. 
 
 When well up the ridge I got on hands 
 and knees and crawled the rest of the way, 
 and through the low sagebrush and grease- 
 wood looked down the far slope. The buf- 
 falo had left it, and were grazing up the 
 slope of the next rise. I thought that they 
 were just about the right distance off for my 
 purpose. Raising my robe so that it would 
 cover my head, I got up and, well stooped 
 over, began to run along the crest of the 
 ridge, every few steps going out of their sight 
 on the slope away from them. They noticed 
 me as soon as I began to run, and threw up 
 their heads and stared. After running in and 
 out of their sight a few times, I got on my 
 hands and knees, and kicked up and made 
 the noise of a calf. And as I did so I knew 
 that it was not the noise that Little Otter 
 had made. A buffalo calf cannot bawl loudly, 
 like a calf of the white horns that you white 
 men have brought into our country. It can 
 only grunt: ^^ ?n—m—m—??i ! ?n—??i—f?i—m!'' like 
 that. And so low that it cannot be heard a 
 hundred steps away. So I stopped grunting 
 like one, and made two or three more kicks 
 
 73 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 as I again went out of sight of the herd. 
 Then I whirled back and looked over the 
 top of the ridge, and my heart went dead : 
 the buffalo were running away from me, 
 running up wind to the west as fast as they 
 could go. And with them went my hope 
 of becoming a caller ; a bringer of plenty for 
 the people. I felt so badly about my failure 
 that I suddenly became sick. I made a pil- 
 low of my robe and lay down, turning my 
 back to the sky. 
 
 After a long time I heard the swish of 
 steps in the grass, but I knew who was com- 
 ing and did not move. Pitaki it was, of 
 course, and our almost-mother. They sat 
 down on either side of me, and my sister said : 
 " Brother, they ran away. Oh, I am so sorry ! " 
 
 " So am I. Well, it is ended. I can never 
 be a caller," I told her. " Why, they never 
 even came a step toward me. They just 
 stared a little, and then raised their tails and 
 ran." 
 
 " Well, and what if they did ? " cheerful- 
 hearted old Suyaki cried. ** Come, now. 
 Did you really expect to decoy a herd the 
 very first time ? What did Little Otter tell 
 you ? That one had to try many, many times, 
 
 74 
 
Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 
 
 and pray much, and fast, and dream, before 
 he could become a caller." 
 
 "That is true," I cried, and sprang up. 
 " I was so disappointed that I did not think 
 of his words. I will try again. I will try a 
 hundred times. I will try ten hundred times. 
 I will be a caller of buffalo." 
 
 " There ! That is the way I like to hear 
 you talk. That is the way chiefs talk. Of 
 course you will try again. And again and 
 again until you do it. And we will help you 
 all we can. Look across there to the south. 
 Just see the herds for you to practice upon," 
 said Suyaki. 
 
 Yes. There were seven or eight herds of 
 buffalo in sight. Several on the point of a 
 plain between the river and the creek, and 
 the rest out south from the river. But I did 
 not feel like trying another herd that morn- 
 ing. I wanted to think, to make medicine. 
 And so we went back to the lodge, my sis- 
 ter and I. Suyaki remained up on the edge 
 of the plain to watch the country. Camped 
 off by ourselves as we were, we were risking 
 our lives. A war party might come our way 
 at any time ; we had to see them first, and 
 then keep out of their way. 
 
 75 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 But somehow, after we were in the lodge, 
 I couldn't think what to do. I was very 
 restless. "Come on, let's wander around," 
 I told Pitaki, and I took my gun and we 
 crossed the river and went up the valley of 
 Birch Creek. Not far above the mouth of 
 the stream we found in the gray cliffs on the 
 west side of the valley some thick streaks 
 of the black rock with which, to-day, you 
 white people heat iron so hot that you can 
 bend it and hammer it into any shape you 
 want. We did not then know that it was of 
 any value. Pitaki thought that when Old 
 Man made the world he had put the black 
 streaks there as a mark of mourning for some 
 dead friend. 
 
 Well, where these streaks show so plainly 
 in the cliff, we climbed to the top of it. But 
 there the top of the cliff is not the edge of 
 the level plain : from it a steep hill slopes 
 up to the west. As there were no buffalo on 
 the slope, we moved back a little way and 
 came upon a circle of stones all of fifteen 
 steps across, and in the center was a small 
 circle of fireplace stones. There, in the long 
 ago, some of our ancestors had camped. Just 
 as we do to-day, they had weighted the edge 
 
 76 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 of their lodge with stones when setting it 
 up in a place exposed to wind. But what 
 a large lodge theirs must have been ! Three 
 times as large as our very biggest, twenty- 
 one skin lodges. How could they have 
 packed it without horses? Their dogs could 
 not have dragged the skin on their little 
 travois, nor pulled one of the big lodge poles. 
 Maybe those first Blackfeet were giants, and 
 their dogs, too. Why not ? Here and there 
 we find bones of the ancient animals that 
 prove they must have been as large as a 
 white man's house. Indeed, there has come 
 down to us the story of one of them, a buf- 
 falo bull so large that there was nowhere in 
 the Missouri River water deep enough to 
 cover his back. 
 
 "Sister," I said, "I am going to pray to 
 the shadows of the ancient ones who camped 
 here. They were wise. Maybe some of them 
 are right here and listening to us; maybe I 
 can get help from them." 
 
 "Oh, brother! Maybe some of them are 
 here," she whispered. "I am afraid of them. 
 But go ahead. Pray. Whatever happens, I 
 will be with you." 
 
 She was a brave girl, my sister Pitaki. 
 
 77 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Well, I prayed a long time to those an- 
 cient ones for help, asking them to give me 
 a revealing dream; to tell me how to call 
 the buffalo. I had no sooner finished than 
 one of the herds we had seen up on the plain 
 between the two streams came in sight on 
 the edge of the slope above us. Close to us 
 a deep coulee ran up almost to them, afford- 
 ing good shelter. Here was too good a chance 
 to be lost; I felt that I must try to call them. 
 Leaving my rifle with Pitaki, I crawled from 
 the circle of stones into the coulee, and then 
 started up it. 
 
 Stopping now and then, and climbing the 
 bank of the coulee and looking out, I soon 
 saw that I could go right to the buffalo. 
 There were about fifty of them, and all but 
 the young calves were hungrily cropping the 
 short, thickly growing grass of the slope. As 
 I went on, the thought came to me to try 
 the calf call upon them; I could go close 
 enough for them to hear it. 
 
 Up and up I went until, cautiously look- 
 ing out from the coulee, I could see the 
 eyes of the nearest animals. That was close 
 enough. I carefully hoisted my robe about 
 me, and on hands and knees jumped out on 
 78 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the slope before them, kicking backward 
 and upward at every jump. But I made only 
 four jumps; at my fourth they all bunched 
 up and wheeled and ran up over the edge of 
 the plain and out of sight. I had not time to 
 try the calf call before they were turned and 
 gone. I thought that I should, perhaps, have 
 begun calling before showing myself. Any- 
 how, I had failed again. I felt pretty badly 
 as I rejoined my sister and we went home. 
 
 We found Suyaki in the lodge when we 
 entered. She had watched all day and seen 
 nothing moving except the feeding game. 
 I told her about my second failure and she 
 told me to take courage. " Be happy-hearted," 
 she said. " Be glad that you have me and your 
 sister, and your many friends in the big camp. 
 Be glad that you have been to war and made 
 a name for yourself. And now night comes 
 on. We will eat some of the dry meat that 
 Little Otter decoyed to the cliffs for us, and 
 maybe that will be good luck. And then, 
 after a little, we will all go to sleep and maybe 
 you will have a good dream." 
 
 I had no dream of any kind. I awoke at 
 daylight and went upon the edge of the plain. 
 Buffalo were everywhere, even another herd 
 
 79 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 in the very place of my first attempt at call- 
 ing. I sat there and watched them, and tried 
 to think of some way to call them, and could 
 find no way. Over and over I pictured every- 
 thing that I had seen Little Otter do. I had 
 done the same, and the buffalo had fled from 
 me. "I made the wrong kind of a call," I 
 said to myself. And then: "But the second 
 time you made no call, and they ran away 
 just the same." 
 
 I went back down to the lodge. Suyaki 
 gave me food, but I was not hungry. I was 
 sick from thinking so hard, and so uselessly. 
 
 "Suyaki," I said, "here is another day, 
 and the buffalo are all around us. But what 
 can I do? I had no dream, and I can think 
 of no new way to try to call." 
 
 "Then try again the way you did yester- 
 day," she quickly answered. 
 
 " Well, I will ; what you say shall be done," 
 I told her, "but I know that the buffalo will 
 run from me." 
 
 We all went up to the edge of the plain 
 and looked out over the rocks. The buffalo 
 were midway between us and the top of the 
 ridge, and most of them were lying down. 
 It was useless to try to approach them where 
 80 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 they were, so we sat down to wait for them 
 to go back over the ridge. It was a long wait. 
 They never moved until past the middle of 
 the day, and then they got up and began 
 feeding toward us, evidently intending to go 
 down to the river to drink. As soon as I was 
 sure that that was their intention, I said that 
 I would wait until they came so close that I 
 could see their eyes, and then try to call them. 
 And just then Pitaki gave a little cry and 
 grasped my arm, and pointed across the 
 river. 
 
 I turned and saw some riders, fifteen of 
 them, driving a band of loose horses along 
 the trail that comes down the steep point be- 
 tween the two streams. They were a war 
 party, of course, and there could be no doubt 
 but they had raided the camp of our people. 
 
 " Oh, my son ! " old Suyaki wailed, " maybe 
 they have our horses." 
 
 " If they have n't, they will take everything 
 in our lodge that they want, for it is right 
 in their path," I answered. 
 
 Down the steep, rough trail they came at 
 
 utmost speed, doing their best to outride the 
 
 pursuers who were surely trying to overtake 
 
 them. The herd of buffalo just back of us 
 
 8i 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 saw them, thought that they were some of 
 their own kind fleeing from danger, and 
 made a rush to join them. There was but one 
 thing for us to do, and that was to get out 
 of their way. 
 
 "Come! Run with me down to the tim- 
 ber," I cried. 
 
 "But the war party. They will see us," 
 Suyaki objected. 
 
 For answer I seized her arm and started 
 down the slope, following my sister, who was 
 making such long leaps that she seemed to 
 be more a big, strange bird than a girl. Suyaki 
 could not keep up with me. I grasped her 
 by the waist with my right arm, she was 
 small and light, and carried her. As I neared 
 the bottom of the slope and the timber, I 
 heard the thunder of the buffalo coming 
 down over the edge of the plain, and then 
 the stones and boulders that they disloged be- 
 gan rollingand bounding downahead of them, 
 and past us. There was no time to turn and 
 watch, and dodge them; I kept going; a few 
 more jumps and we should be safe behind 
 one of the big cottonwoods growing at the 
 foot of the slope. Pitaki was already behind 
 one and looking out from one side of the 
 82 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 trunk at me and crying, "Hurry! Hurry!" 
 And then, just as I reached the level ground 
 a big, flying stone hit my left shoulder and 
 I pitched forward, head first against a tree, 
 and knew no more. 
 
 They told me afterward that I was dead 
 for a long time, but I do not believe it was 
 so very long. When I opened my eyes, Pi- 
 taki was sitting at my side with my rifle, full 
 cocked, in her hands, and all wasquiet. There 
 was great pain in my shoulder; I felt as if 
 fire was eating it. I saw Suyaki coming 
 through the brush. She gave a little cry 
 when she saw that my eyes were open, and 
 ran and gave me a hug that made me yell 
 with more pain: "My shoulder!" I cried. 
 "It must be broken." 
 
 And so it was. Suyaki said that we would 
 go to the lodge and she would bandage it and 
 my arm. But first I had to know about the 
 war party. 
 
 " They never came here," she said. " When 
 they got down into the bottom they turned 
 and went up Birch Creek as fast as they could 
 go with their stealings. Of course, they saw 
 us, and no doubt thought that w^e were the 
 watchers for a big camp hidden here in the 
 
 83 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 grove. The buffalo? They came down just 
 above us and dashed across the river, and got 
 the wind of the war party and ran off down 
 the valley." 
 
 We went to the lodge, and after I was 
 bandaged I lay down ; the pain was making me 
 dizzy. Suyaki went out to the edge of the 
 timber to watch for our people; some of 
 them were sure to be coming on the trail of 
 the raiders. It was late in the afternoon when 
 they came down the point and saw her wav- 
 ing her robe, and came to us. There were 
 about forty of them. They had ridden fast 
 after finding the trail of the war party, As- 
 siniboines, they thought, and their horses 
 were already tired. When we told them how 
 far behind the party they were, they decided 
 that they could not overtake it: they would 
 turn back home, they said, and outfit for a 
 raid against the Assiniboines. I asked if they 
 would help us move back, and they all offered 
 to walk, and lend us their horses for packing 
 and riding. A couple of them went out and 
 killed a buffalo and brought in the meat, and 
 they camped beside us for the night. I lay 
 out before their evening fire for a long time, 
 listening to the planning of the raid, and 
 84 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 watching them go through the Parted Hair 
 dance. Of course, I had to tell about my at- 
 tempts to call the buffalo, and how I had got 
 hurt. A few of them laughed and said that 
 I might as well give up all thought of doing 
 that. My broken shoulder, they said, was a 
 sign, a warning to me that I would never be- 
 come a caller of buffalo. 
 
 "Laugh if you will," I answered, "the day 
 is surely coming when you shall all eat meat 
 that I have decoyed to the cliffs." 
 
 We packed up and got an early start the 
 next morning, those who had lent us horses 
 riding double with one and another of the 
 party. I rode most of the way in one of Su- 
 yaki's travois, and by the time we got into the 
 big camp I was in more pain than ever. Some 
 of Suyaki's friends helped her set up the 
 lodge. Pitaki and some of her playmates 
 brought wood and water. And as soon as we 
 had a fire going and the couches laid, my 
 friends began to come in and visit with me, 
 and say kind words. I had not known before 
 that so many, young and old, were my friends. 
 It was worth being hurt and sick to find it 
 out. 
 
 Late in the evening came in my best friend 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 of all, No Runner. He said he was just from 
 a smoke and council in Lone Walker's lodge, 
 where Little Otter had promised to decoy 
 one more herd of buffalo to the cliffs. I told 
 him all that I had done, after he had left us 
 at the mouth of Birch Creek ; how, both 
 times, I had failed to call the buffalo, and 
 we tried to find the reason for it. We finally 
 agreed that my actions had been right, but 
 that the certain kind of cry that would start 
 them toward me was what I lacked. What 
 that call or cry was, we could not imagine. 
 
 " Here is what we will do," said my friend 
 as he made ready to go home. " As soon as 
 you feel able to walk around we will go to 
 Little Otter and try to get him to tell us just 
 what he does to make the buffalo rush so 
 madly after him." 
 
 " I will go with you if I have to crawl to 
 his lodge," I answered. And after he had 
 gone I lay awake a long time, wondering if 
 Little Otter would tell us his secret. 
 
 On the following morning the war party 
 started for the Assiniboine camp to recover, 
 if possible, the horses that they had taken 
 from our people, and make them pay in scalps 
 and plunder for what they had done to us. 
 86 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Neither No Runner nor I had lost horses by 
 their raid. I may as well say here that our 
 party had a big fight with the Assiniboines 
 at the edge of their camp, and lost three men. 
 But they got away with more than a hundred 
 horses, twice as many as had been taken from 
 us, and brought home with them seven scalps. 
 I have good reason to remember all this : one 
 of the three who never returned to us was my 
 good friend, Ancient Badger, the leader of 
 the party. He died trying to save one of his 
 wounded men from the enemy. 
 
 It was in the evening of this day that No 
 Runner sent his woman to ask Little Otter 
 if we could visit him. He answered that he 
 would be glad to have us do so, and we went 
 at once to his lodge. He told his woman to 
 make a little feast for us, and while we were 
 eating had me tell him about my attempts to 
 call the buffalo, and how I had been hurt. 
 He listened closely, often shook his head, as 
 much as to say: *'That was wrong. That was 
 not the thing to do." But he made no spoken 
 comment on my actions. I finished, and then 
 No Runner said to him : — 
 
 "Little Otter, Bringer of Plenty, Chief, 
 we have come to you to-night for a favor. It 
 
 87 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 is that you will explain to my young friend 
 here, my almost-son, how you without fail 
 decoy the buffalo to the cliffs. 
 
 " Let me say this to you, Bringer of Plenty : 
 Our own caller is dead. He departed for the 
 Sand Hills without giving to any of us the 
 secret of his success. In your own tribe you 
 are the only caller. Our brothers, the North 
 Blackfieet, have at this time no caller. In all 
 the three tribes of us, you are the only one 
 who can bring meat to the traps; on you, 
 more than upon us hunters, the widows and 
 orphans depend for their winter store of food. 
 What if something should happen to you.? 
 We should then be without any caller ; a great 
 misfortune. Myself, I think that we should 
 always have two or three callers ; yes, two or 
 three in each tribe. But, anyhow, I wish that 
 you would tell my almost-son here how to 
 call. Chief, we will give you rich presents 
 if you will only do this for us." 
 
 We got no answer from the old man for a 
 long time. He sat looking into the fire and 
 twirling a long pipestem with thumbs and 
 forefingers until I almost cried out to him to 
 speak and give us an answer one way or an- 
 other. At last he looked up and said : — 
 88 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 "There is truth in what you say. There 
 should be a caller other than myself, yes, even 
 one or two for each tribe of us. In my young 
 days there were always callers a-plenty. Why ? 
 Because then the men thought more of sacred 
 things than they did of warring against our 
 enemies. They prayed much, fasted much, 
 and were close to the gods. And the gods re- 
 warded them : they were given the power to 
 call the buffalo, and to do many things far 
 more wonderful than that. 
 
 " Now, as to your almost-son here, I would 
 like to tell him just what I do to make the 
 buffalo come to me, but if I should do so I 
 would probably lose my own power. I may 
 not speak of what has passed between my 
 shadow and the medicine ancient ones it has 
 met. I will do this, however : your almost- 
 son has eyes; he has ears; the next time I 
 go out to call a herd he shall go with me so 
 close to it that he can see and hear all that I 
 do. This on condition that he keeps to him- 
 self all that he learns." 
 
 " Oh, I promise that ! " I cried. 
 
 "And you shall lose nothing by what you 
 do for him," said No Runner. 
 
 The old man knocked the pipe bowl on 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 his couch rail. " It is burned out ! " he told 
 us, and we went out of the lodge and home- 
 ward across the flat, I so pleased and excited 
 that my pains were forgotten. 
 
 Most anxiously, now, I listened to the daily 
 reports of the watchers up on the edge of the 
 plain. Day after day they told of herds of 
 buffalo away north, and east, and west of the 
 trap wings, and not even a lone old bull came 
 near. Many days passed. Something was 
 wrong. The medicine men got out their 
 pipes and prayed that a herd might come 
 grazing toward the wings. All the people 
 prayed and made sacrifices to the gods, beg- 
 ging them to turn a herd our way. I think 
 that my sister and old Suyaki and I prayed 
 more, and made more sacrifices than any of 
 the others ; we stripped ourselves of all our 
 finery. 
 
 At last, one morning, the watchers brought 
 word that a herd was grazing toward the wings 
 from the north. At midday they reported it 
 still coming. At sundown the news they 
 brought excited the whole camp : there was 
 a big, white buffalo in the herd. None of the 
 medicine men, few of the people slept that 
 night. All kept praying and praying that we 
 
 90 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 might have that white robe for a sacrifice to 
 the sun. 
 
 In no other lodge, I am sure, was such 
 excitement as in ours. We prayed, we sang 
 medicine songs, and every Httle while my 
 sister would cry out: "Oh, brother! To- 
 morrow ! To-morrow you are to learn to call 
 the buffalo ! " 
 
 When the night was far gone, they made 
 me lie down, saying that I must sleep in or- 
 der to have strength for what I was to do. I 
 did sleep for a short time, but long before day- 
 light I had Suyaki cook the morning meal, 
 and then impatiently waited to hear the camp 
 crier's call for the people to go to the wings. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THERE was the chance, of course, 
 that the herd would not be in a po- 
 sition whence they could be decoyed 
 within the wings. All night I had worried 
 about that, and now, as the first gray light 
 of morning came, I worried all the more. 
 I had Pitaki tie my robe around my neck, 
 and belt it around my waist, hair side out, 
 for I could not yet use my left arm and hand. 
 When she had done this, I went outside and 
 sat waiting for the light to grow, and for 
 news from the plain. Early as it was, every 
 lodge fire in the camp was going, and the 
 92 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 hum of voices, like the buzzing of a swarm 
 of big bees, told that the people were all 
 up and waiting, and hoping that the camp 
 crier's news of the herd would call for them 
 to hurry to the rock piles. 
 
 After a time I saw one of the watchers 
 come down the cliff trail and run to Little 
 Otter's lodge, and enter it. He soon came 
 out, followed by the old man, and they hur- 
 ried off across the bottom toward the cliffs. 
 I wondered if I had been forgotten, and was 
 about to follow them when I saw the caller's 
 old wife leave the lodge and come running 
 across the flat right toward me. All out of 
 breath she came and gasped : "A message for 
 you, youth. My man says that he dare not 
 take you with him to-day because of the sa- 
 cred white animal in the herd. That we must 
 have. To take any chance of losing it would 
 be foolish ; and if you were to go with him 
 you might do something to turn off the herd 
 from the wings." 
 
 She did not wait for my answer, and hur- 
 ried off toward Lone Walker's lodge, where 
 he and the other chiefs awaited word from 
 the caller. And I had no answer to make. 
 I was so taken aback by her words, so ter- 
 
 93 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ribly disappointed, that I could not have said 
 anything had there been anything to say. My 
 sister and Suyaki came hurrying out to me: 
 "Oh, brother," cried the one, ** we heard. 
 We are so sorry for you." 
 
 "Never mind. Take courage!" Suyaki 
 told me. " You can go with Little Otter an- 
 other time. And, anyhow, you will go with 
 us to-day and get behind a rock pile and 
 watch the caller and perhaps learn some- 
 thing." 
 
 Just as she said that the camp crier began 
 shouting to the people to hurry to their places 
 along the wings, and I arose and with my 
 two joined them. Suyaki had, indeed, spoken 
 wisely ; by going out to the far end of a wing 
 and watching the caller, I might learn the 
 secret of his success. 
 
 At the foot of the cliff trail my friend 
 Rising Wolf, the white youth, joined us. He 
 was surprised to see me there. " I heard that 
 Little Otter was to take you out with him 
 this morning," he said. 
 
 "Because of the sacred white one I am 
 not to be with him," I answered. " He thinks 
 that I might do something to prevent him 
 decoying it to the trap." 
 
 94 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 And then I noticed that he carried his far- 
 seeing instrument. " Go with me to the far 
 end of a wing and let me use that medicine 
 eye you have," I said; and he answered that 
 he would do so. 
 
 Upon topping the cliff, we could see the 
 herd, a very large one, well out on the plain 
 beyond the wings and the coulee of water 
 holes. It was widely scattered and was feed- 
 ing northward, as though it had been to water 
 some time before daylight. Some distance to 
 the west of the wings, and walking steadily 
 toward the coulee from the north, was another 
 and even larger herd. 
 
 " Little Otter says that you are to take 
 your usual places along the wings," the watch- 
 ers kept telling the people as they arrived at 
 the top of the cliff, and they passed slowly 
 and steadily on. The caller was sitting off 
 by himself at the edge of the cliff, staring 
 at the buffalo and paying no attention to us. 
 I knew that he was praying his medicine 
 to give him success this day; to help him 
 bring the herd with the sacred white one 
 straight to the cliffs and the big trap under it. 
 
 Buffalo have a very different nature from 
 that of the antelope, or the bighorn, and 
 
 9S 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 other carriers of horns. They are not always 
 on the watch for enemies, and fear none but 
 man. I think that when a band of wolves 
 surrounds a lone old bull and cuts his ham- 
 strings and pulls him down, he falls, sur- 
 prised that such small animals have got the 
 best of his huge body. A thousand times 
 they had passed close to him, and sat and 
 watched him graze, and he had thought 
 them incapable of harming him. 
 
 Nor have the buffalo very good eyes. 
 They seem never to see the hunter, if he 
 moves slowly, until he is close to them. 
 But they do have good noses; they can scent 
 man much farther than they can see him. 
 
 On this morning we were in plain sight 
 of the two herds as we all went slowly out 
 to our places along the wings. We four went 
 along the line of the east wing, and lay down 
 by its last rock pile. Then Rising Wolf took 
 his far-seeing instrument from its case, pulled 
 its joints out to the right length and looked 
 through it at the herd. " I see the white 
 one; it is grazing in about the middle of the 
 herd ; it is a big cow," he said, and handed 
 the instrument to me. 
 
 I had but the one hand with which to 
 96 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 use it, and so I rested the big end upon the 
 rock pile and held the little end to my eye. 
 I had never before looked through one; and 
 looking now could see nothing, and said so. 
 
 "But, of course, you can't; it is pointed 
 toward the sky," said Rising Wolf, and 
 laughed. *' Sight along the top of it. Sight 
 it at the buffalo as you would your rifle, and 
 then look through it," he told me. 
 
 I did so, and lo ! there was the white cow, 
 and others, apparently so close to me that I 
 had but to put out my hand to touch them. 
 "Oh! Oh! What medicine, what sun power 
 the white men have!" I cried. "I can see 
 the eyes of the white cow, and it so far 
 away." 
 
 Then Pitaki had to be shown how, and 
 look through the instrument, and as I had 
 done she cried out in wonder at its power. 
 But old Suyaki would not even touch it. "I 
 may be foolish, but I fear this medicine eye 
 of the white men ; it might make me blind," 
 she told us. 
 
 As I again took the instrument. Little 
 Otter passed us and went down into the 
 coulee and up the farther slope. As I have 
 before explained, this slope was broken by 
 
 97 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 little ridges of different height. When the 
 caller neared the top of one of them, he 
 slowed up and looked cautiously over it be- 
 fore going on to the next one. I kept the 
 far-seeing instrument on him and watched 
 his every movement. He went out farther 
 from us than he did the time I had first 
 watched him, because now the buffalo were 
 farther out. At last he looked over a ridge 
 from which, to me, the herd seemed still to 
 be too far off to be called, and there he 
 grasped his robe by the edge of one side and 
 swung it up, fully extended, three or four 
 times above the top of the ridge and in full 
 sight of at least half of the buffalo of the herd. 
 
 Having waved the robe, I saw him step 
 back quickly from the top of the ridge and 
 make some kind of a noise three or four 
 times. I could not hear him, but knew that 
 he was doing so by his actions ; by the 
 straightening and sudden bending forward 
 of his head and chest ; and oh, how I tried 
 to catch the sound of it. 
 
 Again he went higher and . waved the 
 robe; and backed down and called; and 
 stepped up and waved again ; and watching 
 him, I had forgotten those he called. I now 
 
 98 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 turned the instrument upon them: they had 
 all ceased grazing and turned round, most of 
 them standing still and staring straight ahead, 
 a few on the near edge of the herd begin- 
 ning to advance, a few steps at a time. I 
 looked at the caller : he was again waving 
 the robe. I turned the instrument back at 
 the herd. There was no need to use it : they 
 were on the run and bunching up as they 
 headed straight for the caller, and he was 
 coming for the mouth of the wings at won- 
 derful speed for so old a man, bounding 
 along all bent over, and holding his robe 
 tightly wrapped around him. 
 
 Up over the ridges he came, and down 
 through the hollows between, sometimes in 
 and sometimes out of sight of the buffalo. 
 They steadily gained upon him ; when he 
 came into the mouth of the wings they were 
 almost to the far side of the coulee. ** He 
 must soon turn to one of the wings and hide," 
 I said to myself. 
 
 Just then Rising Wolf nudged me — we 
 were lying flat side by side — and pointed to 
 the west : the other herd of bufl^alo was on 
 the run. Our herd, following the caller, had 
 frightened it, and it was heading toward the 
 
 99 
 
Apaiik, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 wino^s, coming to mix in with this one, and 
 with it flee from whatever danger it was tliat 
 threatened. I do not think that Little Otter, 
 closely pursued and running his best, saw this 
 herd, nor did the stampeders lying along the 
 line of the other wing ; they had eyes only 
 for the herd now entering the mouth of the 
 wings. On it came with a rush, on up the 
 slope from the coulee. As its leaders passed 
 in front of us, I saw among them the white 
 butfalo, a cow; just now and then a glimpse 
 of the head and hump of her. At the same 
 time, I saw Little Otter swerve to the west 
 and then drop on the line of that wing. The 
 leaders of the herd lost him when he threw 
 himself flat in the grass, but they ran on, 
 forced ahead by those behind them. And 
 then for the first time thev noticed the big 
 herd rushing; down from the west, and as but- 
 falo always will do, swerved in their course 
 the sooner to meet it. 
 
 What followed happened more quickly 
 than I can tell it. When the leaders of our 
 herd turned, the people along the outer end 
 of that west wing rose up and yelled and 
 waved their robes, trving to turn them back. 
 They did turn slightly, but the whole, closely 
 
 lOO 
 
Apauk, Caller of BufTalo 
 
 packed herd of seven or eight hundred had 
 already swerved westward and could not 
 quickly change its course. The foremost an- 
 imals had to go on because of the pressure 
 upon them of those behind, and now that 
 they had to face their enemy, man, they did 
 so with courage: they snorted and tossed 
 their sharp - horned heads and charged 
 straight at the line of shouting people. 
 They, the stampeders, were now the stam- 
 peded. They turned and scattered out, run- 
 ning for their lives. Some did escape, but 
 those who had been in front of the center 
 of the herd went down. 
 
 We out there at the end of the other 
 wing, can you imagine how terribly we felt? 
 The close-packed herd and blinding dust hid 
 them from our view, but we knew that some 
 of our people were being trampled to death 
 right in front of us. Worst of all, we could 
 not help them ; we dared not move for fear 
 of more widely scattering the herd. Farther 
 in toward the river the stampeders hidden 
 along both wings sprang up and were hurry- 
 ing out, but, of course, they could do no 
 good; their shouting and robe-weaving could 
 save not one life. 
 
 lOI 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 As quickly as the buffalo had come in 
 between the wings, they went out through 
 the upper one and were joined by the other 
 herd and went galloping away toward the 
 river above the cliffs. Even before Rising 
 Wolf and I could run halfway across the 
 space between the wings, others were arriv- 
 ing where the buffalo had broken out, and the 
 cry went up : " Little Otter ! he is dead." 
 
 Others were named, but I only half-heard 
 their names ; I could think of but one thing, 
 that Little Otter, last caller in all three 
 tribes of us, had made his final call and 
 gone to the Sand Hills. I went and stood 
 by his body, stretched out there in the 
 grass as though he but slept. His face was 
 peaceful. The imprint of a huge, dusty 
 hoof on the bosom of his yellow leather 
 shirt told what had killed him. Long I 
 stood there and mourned for his going. Not 
 so much that I had hoped through him to 
 learn to call the buffalo, but because I loved 
 and respected him, man of kind and gentle 
 ways, bringer of plenty for the people. As 
 his woman came, wailing and calling his 
 name, to take his body to camp and then 
 give it burial, I turned away and went home 
 
 I02 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 with my sister and Suyaki. There was 
 mourning in many a lodge that night, and 
 for a long time thereafter. Seven of our peo- 
 ple had been killed and five crippled by the 
 breaking-out rush of the buffalo. 
 
 That evening I went with No Runner to 
 Lone Walker's lodge^ and sat for a time 
 with the chiefs and others gathered there. 
 There were long silences as the pipe went 
 around ; every one was thinking about the 
 passing of Little Otter and the seven stam- 
 peders. 
 
 Said Lone Walker: " He should not have 
 tried to call when another herd was so near; 
 he knew the danger of it." 
 
 "What is done, is done," said another. 
 "And now we have not in the three tribes 
 of us a single caller." 
 
 " And why have n't we ? " old Tail Feath- 
 ers exclaimed. " In my young days we had 
 a number of them in this tribe alone." 
 
 " I will tell you why it is : because nowa- 
 days every one is crazy about horses," an- 
 swered an old medicine man. ** Our war- 
 riors, young and old, think only about going 
 to war and taking horses ; they will not 
 take the time to do anything else. Horses 
 103 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 we must have, of course, but why any man 
 should want ten times as many as he can 
 use, that is what I do not understand." 
 
 Spoke up a young warrior named Four 
 Horns : " It is different now from what it 
 was in the old days," he said. " Even if we 
 have no caller, we shall not starve; I can 
 chase and kill buffalo on horseback, and 
 bring in the meat on horseback." 
 
 "Yes, so you can, but. we cannot all do 
 that. And I cannot believe that you are 
 willing to hunt day after day to bring in 
 meat for the widows and orphans," Lone 
 Walker told him. 
 
 And then he added: "Let it be known 
 that I will give ten horses to the first one 
 of our tribe who will call a herd of buffalo 
 for us." 
 
 Others said that they would also give 
 horses to any one who would learn to call 
 buffalo, who would first decoy a herd to the 
 cliffs. And at that I cried out : ** Be pre- 
 pared to give them to me. I am going to 
 be a caller — " 
 
 But there I stopped, all confused at what 
 I had done : youths are not expected to say 
 anything in a gathering of chiefs ; it is their 
 104 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 place to keep quiet and listen. I need not 
 have been afraid, however, for to my sur- 
 prise they all cried out to me to hurry and 
 learn to call. And No Runner said to them : 
 " He will be the one to get your horses. I 
 know that he will become a caller." 
 
 The talk turned again to the terrible ac- 
 cident of the morning, and Four Horns re- 
 marked : " If one could call buffalo on 
 horseback, he, at least, would never be in 
 danger." 
 
 That remark remained with me. I went 
 home and repeated it to old Suyaki, and she 
 said that she did n't believe buffalo could be 
 decoyed that way. I kept thinking that pos- 
 sibly it could be done. 
 
 After such an ending of the buffalo call- 
 ing, no one, of course, wanted to camp any 
 longer there under the cliffs. We were later 
 to go north to exchange beaver and other 
 furs with the Red Coat traders for their 
 powder and balls, and various goods, but 
 now we started as soon as the cripples were 
 well enough to ride comfortably in travois. 
 I had no beaver skins or anything else of 
 value, for what with going on raids, and try- 
 ing to call buffalo, and getting my shoulder 
 105 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 broken, I had been unable to do any trap- 
 ping; and now we needed many things, 
 powder and ball, blankets, knives and files, 
 which only furs could buy, and my stifl?^ 
 shoulder and arm would not permit my set- 
 ting traps. 
 
 ** Never mind," said my sister, when I 
 complained about it, **I will go with you. 
 Just show me how to do it and I will set the 
 traps." 
 
 And that she did. On our way north, 
 camping for days on every stream, she set 
 the traps as I directed, often wading waist- 
 deep in the water to do so, and she and 
 old Suyaki took care of the catch, fleshing 
 the skins and lacing them on willow hoops 
 to dry. Upon arriving at the Red Coats' fort 
 we had forty beaver, two otter, and a few 
 mink skins. Myself, I bought powder and 
 ball, a blanket, and a knife, with ten skins. 
 All the rest I made my sister and Suyaki 
 trade for those different things that women 
 like, and they were happy with their store 
 of blue and red cloth for dresses, needles, 
 awls, thread, beads, and a big, shining brass 
 kettle. I took the balls to Rising Wolf and 
 he melted them, and with his mould cast 
 1 06 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the lead into balls to fit my rifle. There 
 were ninety-five of them, and he gave me 
 five to make an even hundred. I fislt rich. 
 
 We did not remain long at the fort of the 
 Red Coats. Back south we went, and at 
 Marias River winter struck us. We camped 
 a long time there, and then, after a big chi- 
 nook, went on south across the Missouri to 
 the Judith River, where we remained until 
 green grass began to sprout. 
 
 Winter was not the time for what I had 
 to do, so I trapped and hunted, and in the 
 evenings sat much with the chiefs and med- 
 icine men, listening to their talk. When not 
 with them, I generally remained at home 
 with my sister and our almost-mother ; some- 
 how, I did not care to visit around with my 
 friends, and join in their dancing and games. 
 What I was longing to do was heavy on 
 my mind ; I thought and thought about it ; I 
 prayed and made sacrifices; I tried to get a 
 revealing dream, and got no help of any 
 kind. 
 
 With the coming of green grass, the chiefs 
 
 began to talk about breaking camp and 
 
 going north to trade at the fort of the Red 
 
 Coats. The North Blackfeet and the Kai'na, 
 
 107 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the Gros Ventres, too, were to meet our 
 tribe there some time in the next moon, 
 and counsel with us about plans for the sum- 
 mer. 
 
 On the evening that the camp crier in- 
 formed the people that the start for the north 
 would be made the following morning, I 
 made up my mind what to do. " Pitaki, 
 Suyaki, listen!" I said to them as we sat 
 around the iire. " To-morrow we part for a 
 time. You will go north with the camp, and 
 trade what skins we have, and I shall wan- 
 der by myself for a time and try to learn to 
 call the buffalo." 
 
 " No, brother, you shall not go alone," 
 my sister cried; " we will go with you." 
 
 "Yes. Your trail is our trail," old Suyaki 
 exclaimed. 
 
 **It is not," I answered. "Spring is here, 
 and with it war parties of all our enemies 
 are on the move. Alone, I can avoid them ; 
 with you and the lodge and the horses we 
 should just be signaling them to come and 
 kill us." 
 
 " My son, listen ! This is the way it must 
 be," Suyaki insisted. " The lodge, and all 
 our things and the horses can go on ; No 
 io8 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Runner and his woman will take care of 
 them, and we shall go with you. Three can 
 hide from the enemy as well as one can. 
 Why, we can help you in every way. We 
 will watch out for the enemy for you ; we 
 will cook your food; build the little shel- 
 ters that you must have when the rains 
 come, and keep you well supplied with 
 moccasins." 
 
 " Oh, what fun it will be to wander over 
 the country just by ourselves. Say yes, 
 brother! Say yes!" Pitaki cried. 
 
 " Give me time to think," I answered. 
 " Let me go talk with No Runner about 
 it." 
 
 I went, and they followed close after me. 
 
 No Runner favored Suyaki's plan. "Yes. 
 Let -them go with you," he said. " Our 
 women often go with us to war, then why 
 not on this medicine quest? But my advice 
 is that you do not leave us until after we 
 cross the Missouri ; then go you up the Te- 
 ton, or Sun River, to the foot of the moun- 
 tains : there war parties are not so many as 
 they are in this country." 
 
 Came the question where and when we 
 should find our people later on. No Runner 
 109 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 said that he would try to get the chiefs to 
 decide when, and by what route, they would 
 come back south from the fort of the Red 
 Coats. He went to them about it that even- 
 ing, and they said that they would think it 
 over, and hold council to decide, when we 
 reached the Missouri. 
 
 A few days later we struck the Missouri 
 at The-Ledge-across-the-River, crossed on 
 the good ford above it and made camp. 
 Some summers before this time our people 
 had found a strange, new trail running from 
 the foot of the falls and rapids up to the still 
 water at the mouth of the Sun River. Along 
 it were here and there pieces of round logs 
 that had been cut by axes, so we knew that 
 white men had made it, but for what pur- 
 pose we could not understand until Rising 
 Wolf now told us what he had learned from 
 his Red Coat company. They had been told 
 by other Red Coats living on the shore of 
 the Great Salt Water to the West, that a 
 band of Long Knives out on discovery had 
 come up the Missouri in boats, and across 
 the mountains on horses, clear to their fort, 
 and had gone back to the Long Knife coun- 
 try by the trail that they had made. They 
 no 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 had made a trail and dragged their boats 
 along it around the Missouri falls,' 
 
 Rising Wolf also said that his Red Coat 
 people were angry because the Long Knives 
 had discovered this rich country: they feared 
 that, now that they knew how rich it was 
 in beaver and other fur, they would come 
 back into it and build forts and trade with 
 us prairie people. 
 
 Our chiefs said that they hoped the Long 
 Knives would come, and come soon ; that it 
 would be a good thing for us to be able to 
 buy guns and other trade goods in this south 
 part of our country. 
 
 What fools we were. Why couldn't we 
 have seen, why did not our medicine warn 
 us, that the coming of these first white men. 
 Red Coats and Long Knives both, meant the 
 beginning of the end for our game and fur, 
 and for us ! 
 
 Well, just as we were going into camp 
 there at the mouth of Sun River, six men on 
 foot were seen approaching us. We thought 
 that they were a war party of North Black- 
 feet, or Kai'na, but they proved to be mes- 
 sengers to us from the Flat Head chiefs, ask- 
 
 * The Lewis and Clark Expedition. 
 Ill 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ing that their people be allowed to come 
 out on the plains and camp, and trade dried 
 camas and bitter root for our buffalo leather, 
 and kill a few of our buffalo. 
 
 The chiefs held council that night, and 
 then gave them the answer that they wanted. 
 It was that the Flat Heads were to bring 
 plenty of the roots, and meet the Pikuni 
 right there at the mouth of Sun River fifty 
 nights from that time. 
 
 So also was set the time and the place for 
 us to rejoin our people. It was not now 
 necessary for No Runner and his woman to 
 take our lodge and property away north and 
 back. We turned over to them our furs to 
 trade for us, and our horses, and cached 
 everything that we did not need, lodge and 
 all, right there in the thick brush by the 
 river. The things that we did take were: 
 each of us a good warm robe; some buffalo 
 leather for moccasins ; awls, needles, and 
 sinew thread ; flint and steel ; my powder and 
 balls, my rifle and bows and arrows, and the 
 yellow metal kettle. Suyaki said that she 
 would take no chances on our cache being 
 raised and losing that. As our people moved 
 out across the flat on the trail to the north, 
 111 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 we struck off up the valley. Some said to us 
 as we parted : ** You are making a big mis- 
 take ; you are going to your death up there." 
 
 But No Runner's last words were : *' Take 
 courage ! I know that you will do that which 
 you are setting out to do." 
 
 The day was warm. We traveled slowly, 
 often resting in the shade of the big cotton- 
 wood groves bordering the river. Toward 
 evening we built a small fire in thick brush, 
 and cooked and ate some meat, then went 
 on a little way farther and lay down for the 
 night. Nothing happened, and the next 
 morning w^e wxre on our way at sunrise. 
 
 From where it leaves the mountains, clear 
 to its end in the Missouri, Sun River has the 
 finest valley of all in our country. Its bot- 
 toms are wide and long, and covered wdth 
 the grasses that the buffalo and antelope like 
 best; and nowhere else except on the Mis- 
 souri are there such fine, big groves of cot- 
 tonw^ood. On our w^ay up the valley our 
 course was just within the edge of these 
 groves; w^e could always look out upon the 
 bottoms, and the slopes of the plains on our 
 side, north of the river. Game was very 
 plentiful ; herd after herd of antelope and 
 
 113 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 buffalo in the open bottoms, and in the tim- 
 ber so many deer and elk that some of them 
 were always springing up ahead of us. We did 
 not like that, because a band of them would 
 often run out of the timber and circle back 
 into it in our rear, a sure sign to any roving 
 war party that what they sought was travel- 
 ing there. 
 
 So it was that we often went out to the 
 very edge of the timber and looked up and 
 down the bottom, and out at the hills, to see 
 if any of the frightened game had drawn the 
 attention of some enemy to our course; but 
 always the game farther out was grazing and 
 resting quietly, and we would go on with 
 the feeling that all was well. 
 
 We were out of meat, and I had to kill 
 some during the day. I waited until the sun 
 was getting low, and then killed a deer with 
 bow and arrow. We took of the carcass only 
 what we could easily carry: the tongue, the 
 tripe, and the ribs, and going on to the 
 upper end of the grove, built a fire and had 
 our evening meal. When it was over, I went 
 out to the edge of the timber for a last day- 
 light look at the country, while the others 
 sat by the fire, mending their moccasins. I 
 114 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 stood a long time on watch, and was think- 
 ing of going back when I saw a band of elk 
 break out of the timber near where I had 
 killed the deer. They ran down the bottom 
 and back into the timber, and then, where 
 they had come out of it, I saw something 
 moving in the high grass. It was quite dusk 
 now and I could not see it well, but I thought 
 that the object had the shape of a person. 
 
.^> 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 BACK to the fire I went as fast as I 
 could run: "Sister! Suyaki ! Come 
 away from here at once," I said. 
 "Something moving at the edge of the grove 
 looked to me very much like a man !" 
 
 They asked no questions, said not a word 
 as they sprang up and began stuffing their 
 sewing things into the little sacks in which 
 they carried them. They grabbed up their 
 packs, I took my weapons, and my packs of 
 ammunition and meat, and we went up to 
 the very point of the grove. Beyond was a 
 long strip of open grassland running to the 
 next grove ; I did not like to cross it. On 
 the opposite side of the river was another 
 grove. " Be the water deep, or shallow, we 
 ii6 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 must go over there," I said, and led the way 
 into the stream. It was not deep, only a little 
 above our knees, and we were soon over in 
 the shelter of the wood. There I had to wait 
 until the others put on the moccasins which 
 they had been repairing. 
 
 " Tell us about it ; what you saw over 
 there?" Suyaki asked. 
 
 " Some elk ran out from the grove about 
 where I killed the deer, and then where they 
 came out something moved in the shadow 
 of the trees ; it looked like a person ; it went 
 back into the timber," I told them. 
 
 " But it may have been a bear," said Su- 
 yaki. 
 
 " Yes, perhaps it was." 
 
 " Well, be it bear or person, we are not 
 going far from here," she said. " I have to 
 go back to that fireplace : I left my kettle 
 there." 
 
 Sure enough, in our haste to get away 
 we had overlooked the brass kettle. It was 
 something that we could not wxU do with- 
 out. I thought for a little time, and said: 
 " If that was an enemy, I saw over there, he 
 was on his way up the valley, and no doubt 
 there were others with him. Perhaps they 
 117 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 were on our trail. Anyhow, we will take no 
 chances ; we will go a ways down the valley 
 on this side of the river, and remain there 
 until to-morrow night. By that time the 
 danger will have passed and we will recover 
 the kettle and go on." 
 
 That we did, hiding in thick brush close 
 at the river's edge. When the evening of 
 the next day came, we recrossed the river 
 and sneaked up through the big grove to 
 our fireplace, and as we came to it, Suyaki 
 whispered : " My beautiful kettle is gone." 
 
 But I was not looking for the kettle ; I 
 knew that it was gone before even Suyaki 
 spoke, for a little puff of wind had blown 
 across the fireplace and carried off the top 
 ashes and exposed a few red coals ; fire had 
 been burning there but a short time back. 
 And there, beside the fireplace, lay broken 
 deer-leg bones that had been roasted for the 
 marrow ; they were all in a little pile, and 
 with them was the little brush-ended stick 
 with which the marrow had been extracted. 
 
 " Only one man has been here," I said. 
 
 " How do you know that?" Pitaki asked. 
 
 I pointed to the bones and explained : 
 " One person roasted those and ate the mar- 
 ii8 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 row ; had there been two or more persons, 
 each of them would have had his share of 
 the bones, and we should have found them 
 scattered all around the fireplace." 
 
 ** I don't care how many there are of 
 them, they have my shining kettle," said 
 old Suyaki, almost crying. 
 
 " Brother, I am so hungry. Can't we roast 
 some meat and eat it?" Pitaki asked. 
 
 I thought about it. We were very hun- 
 gry; we had eaten nothing since leaving this 
 place the night before. Perhaps this person 
 who had used our fireplace was still near by ; 
 anyhow, we must eat. " Build a fire and 
 cook plenty of meat," I said, "and while 
 you are cooking it I will stand back from 
 the light and keep watch." 
 
 I went away back in the timber and stood 
 with rifle cocked and ready. Night had come 
 and the blaze of the fire lighted up the trees 
 and the ground around for some little dis- 
 tance, and in between the trees were black 
 shadows, black spaces into which I could 
 not see; I felt uneasy; I watched for some- 
 thing to come out from those black places ; 
 for the soft steps of moccasined feet ; for the 
 snapping of a dry twig : as soon as I sighted 
 119 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 anything I should shoot at it, and rush in 
 and use my rifle as a club. 
 
 I stood there a long time, watching and 
 listening. Came to me the odor of roasting 
 meat and I became more and more hungry. 
 I saw my sister turn some ribs fresh side to 
 the fire and knew that they were half-cooked ; 
 I would soon have some of them. And then 
 I gave a start : from out of the blackness 
 beyond the fire I saw a rabbit come leaping 
 across the lighted space and then dodge off 
 into the shadows. What had frightened it — 
 was the enemy sneaking upon us ? 
 
 I watched that far side more closely ; lis- 
 tened, open-mouthed, more intently. What 
 had frightened the rabbit ? Maybe a coyote; 
 a fox ? No, I should have heard the patter 
 of their feet as they trotted by. " A man, an 
 enemy, is across there in the blackness," I 
 said to myself. 
 
 And just then Suyaki called out to me : 
 "My son, come and eat." 
 
 I did not answer. I was angry that she 
 had called so loudly. 
 
 Again she cried, and much louder than 
 before : " Come and eat, my son ! " 
 
 And as she said it I heard, across in the 
 1 20 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 darkness, a strange voice wail : " Oh, my 
 own people ! Do not shoot. I come ! I 
 come ! 
 
 And with that, into the light came a lit- 
 tle old woman wearing a quill-embroidered 
 leather wrap, and carrying a kettle, our brass 
 kettle. I reached the fire as soon as she did, 
 knew that I had never seen her before, and 
 wondered if she were a real person ; if this 
 were not some sort of a trap for us. But 
 no. None but members of our tribe could 
 speak our language as she spoke it. She had 
 dropped the kettle and was kneeling beside 
 Suyaki and embracing her, and crying: "Oh, 
 it is good to be with you, with my own peo- 
 ple after all these winters. Oh, speak. Say 
 something. Let me hear my own kind of 
 talk again." 
 
 Suyaki had tried to draw away from her ; 
 was still trying to get free from her, when 
 suddenly she returned the embrace and cried: 
 " I know you even if you have grown old. 
 I know you by that scar at the corner of 
 your mouth : you are Ahsanaki (Painted 
 Woman). In the long ago, when we were 
 one summer at peace with the Crows, you 
 married one of them." 
 
 121 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " Yes ! Yes ! I did ! And you, you are — 
 oh, so many winters have passed, and we are 
 old. I cannot tell who you are," she said. 
 
 **Suyaki." 
 
 " You are Suyaki ! Why, we were friends. 
 We used to play together. Oh, Suyaki. Pity 
 me. I am very poor," the strange old woman 
 cried. 
 
 "All is well," our almost-mother told her. 
 " Do not worry ; we will eat, and then you 
 shall tell us how it is that after all these win- 
 ters we meet here." 
 
 Sister gave me my share of the roast ribs 
 and we began to eat, but the two old women 
 were so excited over their strange meeting 
 that they sat with meat in hand and forgot 
 that they had it. 
 
 "Tell us; tell us now how it is that you 
 are here, and alone," Suyaki demanded. 
 
 " Because I felt that I must rejoin my peo- 
 ple and die among them," the other answered. 
 " My man was good to me ; I loved him ; he 
 died a moon ago. I had one son, oh, a good, 
 brave young man. He went first, last sum- 
 mer it was ; he was swimming in the Elk 
 River with some friends, and right in the 
 midst of them he gave a cry and went down, 
 
 122 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 and they never saw him again. The Under- 
 Water People had taken him for their own. 
 Then, when my man died, I could stand it 
 no longer. What were the other Crows to 
 me ? I hated them ; they were always speak- 
 ing ill of the Pikuni, calling them cow- 
 ards; nothing people. Once I was passing 
 a lodge where the chiefs were feasting and 
 smoking, and I heard one say : ' Ha ! The 
 Pikuni .? They are nothing ! Just coward 
 dogs ! ' 
 
 "Well, that made me so mad that I thrust 
 aside the door curtain and looked in and 
 said: * If the Pikuni are that, why don't you 
 take back the Missouri River country from 
 which they have driven you ? It is yours, is 
 it not ? Your fathers owned it ; well, why 
 not take it away from the cowardly Pikuni.?' 
 
 "And with that I dropped the curtain 
 and went on, and so long as I was within 
 hearing of that lodge I heard not one word 
 spoken. I had shamed them. 
 
 "My man had many relatives. When he 
 died they took all his horses, all his prop- 
 erty, everything except one old horse that 
 they said I could use. One night I took that 
 horse and started north to find my own peo- 
 
 123 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 pie. Soon after crossing the Elk River I lost 
 him ; he was hobbled for the night, and when 
 I awoke in the morning he was gone; he 
 must have broken his hobbles and started 
 straight back to his band. Well, I kept on, 
 using up my dried meat, and then catching 
 ground squirrels and roasting them." 
 
 " Oh, were you not afraid, traveling all 
 alone?" my sister asked. 
 
 " Not afraid, but oh, so anxious : I wanted 
 to live to see my people. And had it not 
 been for you here, I should never have seen 
 them. In crossing the Missouri, back at the 
 mouth of this river, my raft came apart in 
 the middle of the stream and my little pack 
 in which I carried fire drill and bow, and 
 my knife, and the cord with which I snared 
 ground squirrels, was swept away. I hung 
 onto one log and reached shore just as I 
 thought that I must surely be carried down 
 over the falls." 
 
 " How long ago was that ?" I asked. 
 
 " Five days." 
 
 " And we crossed there four days ago. 
 Had you been a day later you would have 
 found us all at the mouth of this river," 
 Suyaki told her. 
 
 124 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " And the others, where are they ? And 
 you, why off here by yourselves?" 
 
 " The tribe has gone north to trade, and 
 will be back at the mouth of this river in 
 forty-six days," I said, and then asked her 
 to go on with her story. 
 
 "Well, without fire instruments, with no 
 snaring cord, I began to starve. I just wan- 
 dered from bottom to bottom, digging for 
 roots and finding few. Then, one day when 
 I was resting, I heard voices near by. I 
 crawled through the brush and saw you all 
 skinning a deer. I could not know who you 
 were; I could not hear your voices; I 
 thought you were enemies, other-side-of- 
 the-mountains people. After you had gone 
 on I took sharp stones and cut off a leg of 
 the deer, and ate a little of the meat raw, 
 and then I followed your trail: I had to 
 know who you were. I carried the leg of 
 deer with me. The eyes of the old are 
 poor. I soon lost your trail. Back and forth 
 in the timber I went, and out on the bottom, 
 and could not find it — " 
 
 " When you came into the open I saw 
 you, and thought that you were some en- 
 emy. We fled from you," I interrupted. 
 125 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 "Ah ! That was it; that was why I found 
 your camp-fire deserted," she exclaimed. 
 " When I came to it, after first looking care- 
 fully around and waiting until it was nearly 
 out, the first thing I saw was your yellow 
 metal kettle. Oh, what a find was that. A 
 fire; hot boiled meat and soup! I snatched 
 up that kettle and ran and got water in it, 
 and built up the fire and started the meat 
 boiling, and while waiting for that I roasted 
 the leg bones and ate the marrow in them : 
 *Let the enemy come if they must,' I kept 
 saying to myself; * I shall, anyhow, have one 
 good, hot meal before I die.' 
 
 " But after eating of the boiled meat and 
 the soup, I did not feel so brave; I said to 
 myself: ' Here is food enough to last a long 
 time ; why take chances by sitting here ? 
 With food to keep up your strength, you can 
 find your people.' 
 
 " So I covered the fire with ashes and 
 earth, to keep the coal alive, and went away 
 from it and lay down; and early this morn- 
 ing I went to the deer carcass and hacked all 
 the meat off it with sharp stones, and brought 
 it close out there and hung it on tree limbs 
 to dry. Not long ago I came out here and 
 126 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 uncovered the coals and built up a fire and 
 had more hot meat and soup, and then went 
 back to turn over the drying meat. After that 
 I fell asleep, and upon awakening was coming 
 here to cover the coals for the night when 
 I saw the blaze of the fire, and you around 
 it. I crept closer ; I heard you, Suyaki, cry 
 out to some one to come and eat, and oh, 
 how glad I was. Oh, my old friend; oh, 
 children, how glad I am to be with you this 
 night." 
 
 Now, that was a brave old woman. Clear 
 from the Elk River she had come alone, on 
 foot, along the edge of the mountains, and 
 had been unafraid of war parties, bears, deep, 
 swift waters and all the other dangers of the 
 long trail. I doubt not that she would have 
 found our people, even if she had not found 
 us that night, for the meat of the deer I had 
 killed would have carried her on north to 
 them. Surely, her medicine was strong; the 
 gods were with her; I thought that she 
 could, perhaps, help me: 
 
 " Ahsanaki," I said, "you asked why we 
 are here by ourselves. I will tell you : it is 
 that I want to learn to call the buffalo. Can 
 you help me? " 
 
 127 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 She thought some time before she an- 
 swered : " I don't know that I can. My 
 man was a caller, a good one; many and 
 many a herd he brought to the traps on the 
 Bighorn and Tongue Rivers. I used to get 
 out at the wings and see him wave his robe, 
 and turn and run, the buffalo following 
 him." 
 
 "But what else did he do?" I asked. 
 " Did he not call out to them — make some 
 kind of a cry that started them after him ?" 
 
 " I never heard him. He never said that 
 he did," she replied. And I knew that, like 
 all the callers, he had kept the secret of his 
 power to himself. 
 
 " What most hurt the Crows in being 
 driven from this country," said Ahsanaki, 
 "was the loss of the buffalo trap just above 
 here. I have often heard the old men mourn 
 about it. They said that it was the best trap 
 in the whole country because of the many 
 little ridges back from the cliff." 
 
 "Why, I have never even heard of it. 
 Suyaki, tell me why we have never called 
 the buffalo there?" I asked. 
 
 " It is not strange that you never heard of 
 it ; we quit going there long before you were 
 128 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 born," she answered. "It is a place of bad 
 medicine; something happened there, I re- 
 member it well. The second summer after 
 I got my man we came here to trap buffalo. 
 White Bear was the best caller we had. 
 There was another one, a younger man, 
 named Sees Black. 
 
 " Well, after we had been in camp a few 
 days, the watchers reported five big herds 
 of buffalo away out beyond the wings, and 
 White Bear began his four nights' and four 
 days' fast. When it was over, he sent his 
 woman to call the chief to his lodge : * I 
 have had a dream warning ; I shall not call 
 buffalo for you here,' he told him. 
 
 "*How is that?' the chief asked. 
 
 " * I have had two dreams, both bad,* 
 White Bear answered. *In the first one my 
 secret helper told me that something was 
 wrong up there back of the cliff. In the sec- 
 ond one I saw people gathered back of the 
 cliff, the women crying for some one dead. 
 Beyond them a big herd of buffalo was run- 
 ning, and near the crowd stood a strange 
 man, laughing. I looked at him more closely 
 and discovered that he was a Crow ; and while 
 I was staring at him he laughed harder than 
 129 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ever, and as quick as I spat my hands together 
 he disappeared. So, chief, there is the warn- 
 ing; the Crows' ghosts are here at this trap; 
 they made to do us harm ; I shall not try to 
 call the buffalo to it.' 
 
 "The chief said nothing to White Bear, 
 but went to his lodge and told that the caller 
 had had a bad dream and would not run. 
 The news spread, and when Sees Black heard 
 it he went to the chief and told him to send 
 the stampeders to the wings: * if White Bear 
 is afraid, I am not. I shall call the buffalo 
 for you,' he said, and went straight up on the 
 cliff. The watchers had reported a herd near 
 the mouth of the wings. 
 
 " The people went to the wings, and when 
 all were cached Sees Black walked out and 
 called the herd. He went very far out, and 
 before he could return even to the mouth of 
 the wings, a big cow running far in the lead 
 knocked him down, and those behind fin- 
 ished him with their sharp hoofs as they ran. 
 Then we knew that White Bear's dream had 
 been a true warning ; that the place was bad 
 medicine. We moved away from there and 
 never since have the Pikuni used the trap." 
 
 "To-morrow I shall see that place," I 
 130 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 said, and both of the old women stared at 
 me as though they thought me crazy, and 
 begged me to keep away from it. I made 
 no promise, and told them that it was time 
 for us to move back from the fire and sleep. 
 My sister was the only one who slept much 
 that night; the two women talked on and 
 on about old times, and I kept thinking 
 about the buffalo trap above us. If I could 
 only learn the caller's secret, what a fine 
 thing it would be to trap a herd there for 
 the Pikuni and the Flatheads when they 
 should meet and camp together later on. Be- 
 fore I slept, it came to me that I had for- 
 gotten to mark out the day just passed; I sat 
 up and cut another crease in the ramrod of 
 my rifle. 
 
 We ate our morning meal before sun-up, 
 and when it was finished I said : " Now, two 
 almost-mothers mine, let us counsel together. 
 What had we best do ? What shall I do ? 
 What can I do in order to get the knowl- 
 edge that I seek?" 
 
 " Fast, and pray, and dream," Suyaki 
 quickly answered. 
 
 "Go watch the buffalo; keep close to 
 them; be a buffalo yourself in mind. Thus 
 
 131 
 
:? 
 
 Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 you may find the way to decoy them," 
 Ahsanaki told me. 
 
 Said my sister: " Brother, do both things, 
 and we will keep watch on the country. But 
 first kill plenty of meat fi^r us." 
 
 "We should not camp in this valley; it 
 is a regular trail fiar war parties of the plains' 
 tribes on their way to raid the across-the- 
 mountains tribes," said Suyaki. 
 
 That was true. I decided that we should 
 move out of it. But first I had to see that 
 trap of the ghosts; the one that the Crows 
 said was the best trap in all the land. "We 
 will go on up to the cliffs and stop one 
 night, and then move somewhere out of the 
 valley," I said, and we started, the old women 
 none too willingly. 
 
 We reached the place long before the 
 middle of the day. It is where the valley 
 suddenly narrows, and on either side the 
 slopes give way to cliffs, not so high as those 
 of the Two Medicine cliffs, but more abrupt. 
 Above this narrow place, the valley widens 
 out again.' 
 
 The trap itself was at the foot of the cliffs 
 
 ' The location is a kw miles above Fort Shaw, from which 
 
 it may be plainly seen. 
 
 132 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 on the north side of the river, and was the 
 largest Ihad ever seen. Many winters had 
 passed since it had been used, but some of 
 the big logs that formed the fence were 
 still unrotted, especially those that were above 
 the ground. I thought that the place would 
 hold as many as ten hundred live buffalo, to 
 say nothing of the hundreds that would pile 
 up dead from their fall from the cliff. I 
 climbed over the fence and walked along the 
 foot of the rock wall, stepping not upon 
 earth and rock, but upon a solid layer of 
 bones and horns and hoofs I know not how 
 thick. The bones were mostly well rotted 
 and broke under my feet, but the horn tips 
 and hoof tips were hard, though turned to a 
 light brown color. These last after all other 
 parts of an animal have disappeared. 
 
 The women stood at the fence watching 
 me. I went back to them and told them 
 that I was going up on top, and that they 
 should go into the grove up river a little 
 ways from the cliff, and wait there for me. 
 The trail of the long-ago hunters still was 
 plain enough from the bottom to the rim of 
 the plain where the down-river end of the 
 cliff gave out. I followed it, thinking what 
 
 ^33 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 a multitude of people had passed up and 
 down it, and soon came out on top, and 
 walked over to where the first wing started 
 out from the cliff. The distance to the be- 
 ginning of the other wing was much greater 
 than that separating the wings of the Two 
 Medicine trap. Looking out plainsward, I 
 could see only here and there the rock piles 
 of the wings, for the plain was very rough ; 
 just ridge after ridge, not high, but small 
 and close together. I started out to see just 
 where was the mouth of the wings and 
 walked and walked, twice the length of the 
 Two Medicine trap wings, to where the 
 rock piles ended, far, far apart, at the slope 
 of a wide, shallow coulee of water holes and 
 strips of willow brush. Truly, this was an 
 immense trap ; a whole tribe of people would 
 be none too many to scatter along its wings ; 
 there would be none left to idle in the lodges 
 when a herd was to be decoyed here. 
 
 Out beyond the coulee, and up and down 
 it, were several herds of buffalo ; by the 
 signs in the grass a herd had that morning 
 passed where I stood. What a chance there 
 had been to decoy them to the cliff. Oh, 
 how I wanted to be able to do it. Right 
 
 134 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 there I sat down and prayed for the power ; 
 prayed I know not how long to my medi- 
 cine ; to the sun ; to Old Man, and all the 
 ancient ones to give me help ; to in some 
 way give me the caller's secret, that I might 
 decoy a herd for my people into this very 
 trap. 
 
 It was long past midday when I arose and 
 started back toward the cliff. I crossed the 
 mouth of the wings, and then followed in 
 the upper one, noticing that its rock piles 
 were small and quite far apart. One of my 
 moccasin strings became loose and I sat 
 down on one of the piles and fastened it, and 
 then noticed upon the ground, just in front 
 of my feet, one of those rare, medicine buf- 
 falo rocks (eniskim) that our people prize 
 so highly. Who had owned it ? I wondered. 
 And why had it been left there ? Such things 
 were never thrown away. I picked it up 
 and put it in my ball pouch along with the 
 flint arrow points, and started on, much 
 pleased with my find. It was great medi- 
 cine ; in the long ago, when our fathers had 
 been about to die from starvation, a girl had 
 found one of its kind, and through its power 
 the buffalo had been made to return from 
 
 135 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 wherever was the far country into which 
 they had drifted, and the people had been 
 saved. How happened it that my moccasin 
 string loosened just there ? I felt that the 
 gods had caused it ; that they had taken that 
 way to guide me to the medicine rock ; to 
 give me a sign that they were with me. I 
 was very happy as I went on toward the cliff. 
 I passed through the line of the rock piles 
 of the wing, heading for the upper end of 
 the cliff, and was almost to it when I heard 
 the thud and rush of many feet upon the 
 slope in which the rock wall terminated. I 
 threw myself flat down in the grass and had 
 no more than done so when a big band of 
 antelope came up over the rim of the slope 
 and straight toward me. I had to sit up and 
 wave my hands at them, else they would 
 surely have run right over me and trampled 
 me severely with their sharp hoofs; as it was 
 they passed so close on either side of me that 
 I could have poked out my rifle against their 
 sides. They came and were gone. I did not 
 believe that my women had frightened 
 them. On hands and knees I crept to the 
 edge of the cliff and looked down into the 
 valley, and what I saw there made me catch 
 
 136 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 my breath : a war party of eight riders was 
 driving a band of ten horses into the very 
 grove where I had told the women to go and 
 wait for me. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THERE is a chance that the women 
 saw them — heard them coming and 
 got out of their way," I said to myself. 
 I relied upon Suyaki's ever-open ears and her 
 sharp eyes and her caution ; she was ever on 
 the lookout for danger. But, oh, how anx- 
 ious I was ; how I wished that my eyes had 
 the medicine to look down through the 
 branches and green leaves of that grove and 
 see what was happening there. I was too far 
 away to hear if the women screamed to me 
 for help. What if the war party had seized 
 them ? At the thought of my sister being car- 
 ried away into the enemy's camp, I turned 
 sick. I had to go down there and see what 
 138 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 had happened, and in some way try to rescue 
 my loved ones if they were captives. I could 
 not think of any way successfully to fight 
 eight men ; I prayed to the gods to show me 
 what to do in this time of trouble; and as 
 I prayed I drew back from the edge of the 
 cliff and got up and ran east to the trail I had 
 ascended. I ran down it, for its whole length 
 was around the point below the grove; and 
 when I arrived at the bottom I crept across 
 the flat through the sagebrush and tall clumps 
 of giant grass. Just as I reached the river's 
 edge, I saw one of the war party ascending the 
 trail I had followed down, and knew that he 
 was going to watch the country from the top 
 of the cliff. That meant the party intended 
 to take a long rest in the grove. But what if 
 the watcher should see my footsteps in the 
 trail? I remembered places where the rains 
 had washed sand and soft earth upon it. Per- 
 haps I had unintentionally stepped over them ; 
 I could not tell. How I did keep my eyes 
 on that watcher, expecting him suddenly to 
 turn and run for the grove with news of fresh 
 moccasin tracks in that trail. But no ! he 
 went up to the end of it without stopping, 
 and on along the cliff, and sat down upon 
 
 139 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 its edge. And then I slowly drew down In 
 the shelter of the cuthank, and stole along 
 through the shallow water to the edge of the 
 grove and entered the thick willows. 
 
 As silently as a snake, I wriggled along 
 through those clumps of brush, keeping a 
 good watch ahead, and presently I saw in the 
 space between the two growths of the wil- 
 lows the slight movement of something 
 brown. I stared and stared at it, but it was now 
 motionless ; I moved forward half the length 
 of my body and raised up and looked again, 
 and saw a big embroidered sun of red and 
 yellow, white and black porcupine quills, and 
 knew that the brown thing was Ahsanaki's 
 leather wrap. She sat with her back to me, 
 the wrap close around her and concealing her 
 head. What if she should turn, and cry out at 
 sudden sight of me ? I went a little farther 
 into an open space and stood up and snapped 
 a twig; she hastily looked back over her 
 shoulder and saw me plainly and was not 
 alarmed ; she made me the sign for caution 
 and then half-turned her head and said some- 
 thing, so low that I could not hear her, but 
 there was movement on her left and my sister 
 and Suyaki sat up and looked at me through 
 140 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the brush. Was I glad to see them ? A weight 
 as heavy as a buffalo seemed to suddenly roll 
 off from me. 
 
 I crept up to them, close to Suyaki's side, 
 and whispered : " Where are they .? " 
 
 "Not far above here and close to the river,'* 
 she answered. " We were up there and heard 
 them coming, and ran down as far as we 
 dared, and then hid in the willows. We saw 
 them get off their horses and hobble some of 
 them, and then when they began to gather 
 wood for a fire we crawled back and back to 
 this place. Some of them had meat ; I saw it; 
 they are going to cook and eat." 
 
 "Who are they.?" I next asked. 
 
 " I cannot tell you. I was so frightened 
 that I did not look closely at them." 
 
 " Brother, maybe they are our own people. 
 Don't you remember that a war party headed 
 by Yellow Fish left us two nights before we 
 reached the Missouri?" my sister asked. 
 
 " We have to know if they are enemies or 
 friends," I told them. " If enemies, we are 
 in great danger, for at any time they may 
 wander around and discover us. Now, you all 
 remain quiet here while I sneak on and have 
 a look at them." 
 
 141 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 They made no objection to that ; they 
 were very brave, my sister and those two 
 old women. I crawled on more slowly than 
 ever, disturbing not a single weed or leafed 
 branch. The strip of willows was very nar- 
 row, just a slender belt between the sandy 
 shore of the river and the big cottonwood 
 trees of the grove. I had not gone far when 
 I saw that I was nearing the end of the 
 strip ; a little more crawling and I could go 
 no farther. I raised up a little and looked 
 ahead, and saw the party sitting around a 
 fire and eating. One with his back to me 
 wore a single eagle tail feather straight up 
 at the back of his head : they were enemies ; 
 Crow or Assiniboines, it mattered not which, 
 they were enemies. 
 
 I began to consider what I had best do, 
 and concluded to stay right where I was, 
 so that if any of them wandered that way 
 I could jump up and shoot, and make a run 
 for the river and the grove on the other side 
 and above, and so draw them away from 
 where the women lay cached. 
 
 The men had built their fire in a grassy 
 opening in the grove, and I could see them 
 all ; I counted them, seven. The one up on 
 142 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the clifF made eight, the number I had seen 
 ride into the grove. Off to my right, grazing 
 hungrily and moving slowly down through 
 the timber, were the horses that they had 
 taken from some other-side-of-the-moun- 
 tains tribe. I counted them, eighteen. The 
 four in the rear were hobbled. They were 
 all, excepting one small brown horse, of 
 good size and all very fat. Three or four 
 of them, I noticed, trailed ropes. I did not 
 like the way they were grazing, down along 
 the thicket in which we lay, for when the 
 enemy came to round them up they would 
 more than likely discover us. I made up my 
 mind to shoot the first man to start toward 
 me, and then run. 
 
 The party soon finished eating, and then 
 gathered closer together for a smoke. One 
 pipe only went the rounds, and then all 
 lay down ; and by that I knew they were 
 very tired, and would not move, or even 
 change the watcher on the cliff, until near 
 sunset. I watched them a long time ; close 
 wrapped in their robes they lay like so 
 many dead men, fast asleep. It came to me 
 that the women would be getting anxious 
 about my long absence from them ; that 
 
 143 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 they might come to learn what had become 
 of me, and make trouble. I went back, as 
 quietly as I could, and worrying terribly for 
 their safety. The horses were grazing very 
 near us, and should I start the women off to 
 hide elsewhere, the watcher on the cliff 
 would discover them as soon as they stepped 
 out from the shelter of the grove. 
 
 Then another thought came to me, and 
 at the same time my sister crept over and 
 whispered : " Why not drive off their horses ? 
 That will keep them from finding us here." 
 
 That was a part of my thought : " Listen 
 carefully, all of you," I said. "There is but 
 one way for me to keep you from being dis- 
 covered by the enemy when they come to 
 round up those horses : I am going to round 
 them up myself and drive them far away. 
 When I start I shall arouse the enemy ; they 
 will follow me, and you will be safe enough. 
 As soon as they are gone, you must cross the 
 river and go almost to the top of the Square 
 Butte, just as far up on this side as you can 
 climb, and wait there for me. Be sure to 
 wait : I may be gone two or three days. 
 You have enough deer meat to last you much 
 longer than that." 
 
 144 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " But if you don't come — no, I shall not 
 ask that ; I know that you will come to 
 us," said Suyaki. 
 
 " Of course I shall ; do not doubt it," I 
 answered. " And now I go. See how easy it 
 will be for me : some of the horses drag 
 ropes." 
 
 I arose, stuck my rifle in my belt, drew 
 my knife and sneaked out to one of the 
 hobbled horses and severed the rawhide 
 thongs. As I straightened up, I was sur- 
 prised, and angry, too, to see my sister cut- 
 ting the hobbles of another horse on my 
 right. I motioned her to go back, saw her 
 turn to do so, and went on and freed the two 
 other hobbled animals. Then I grasped the 
 end of the nearest of the ropes and coiled it 
 as I approached the horse that trailed it. He 
 made no effort to shy away from me, and 
 I had no trouble in bridling him with two 
 half-hitches of the rope around his jaw, and 
 mounting him. 
 
 All the time I had been watching in the 
 direction where the enemy lay sleeping. I 
 kept looking that way as I began to round 
 up the horses and drive them out of the 
 grove ; and then, turning to head the horses 
 
 H5 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 on my right into the bunch, you can imagine 
 my surprise when I saw that my sister had 
 caught one of the rope-draggers,and mounted 
 him, and was turning in the farthest of the 
 animals! 
 
 I rode down beside her: "Get off that 
 horse! Hurry! Go backtoSuyaki!" I called 
 to her, and she just gave me the sign, " No." 
 
 "You must! Get down and run back," I 
 commanded, and again she made the sign, 
 "No." 
 
 "Then I must put you off the horse," I 
 said, and was reaching out to do so when she 
 answered: " If you do I shall scream. Let 
 me alone. You need my help." 
 
 I do not know what I should have done 
 with her if one of the sleepers had not just 
 then roused up and shouted something at his 
 companions. We were discovered ; I could 
 see the shouter running toward us, and tug- 
 ging at his bow case. 
 
 "There! You see ! Round up your part 
 of the band; I '11 take care of these," Pitaki 
 cried; and I wheeled my horse away from 
 her. There was nothing else to do. She was 
 right: I did need her help. 
 
 The horses were hard to start because of 
 146 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 their hungry greed for the young pea-vines 
 growing so thickly there in the shade of the 
 grove. We dashed at this one and that one, 
 daihng them with the ends of the bridle 
 ropes and shouting at them, and nearer and 
 nearer to us came the war party. One of the 
 horses, a big, fat gray, just would not move 
 on more than a few steps at a time. I could 
 not chance even one falling into the hands of 
 those men, now coming so close, so I drew 
 my rifle from my belt and shot it. Down 
 it went. The loud boom of the weapon 
 startled the others; we shouted and lashed 
 and poked at them with rope and rifle and 
 they broke into a run just as arrows began 
 to whiz about us. An arrow struck and stuck 
 in a ham of one of the horses; he gave a 
 squeal of pain and charged on past the others 
 with powerful leaps, and they took fright 
 from him and ran even faster. Straight out 
 through the grove we drove them, out on 
 the open bottom and turned them down it: 
 *' Sister, we are safe, our two old women back 
 there, and you and I. But for you I could 
 never have rounded up these horses and got 
 away with them," I cried. 
 
 " Ha ! I told you that you needed me, but 
 
 147 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 you would not listen, not until you had to/* 
 she laughed ; and, ah, how proud of her I felt. 
 Bravery ? Girl though she was, she had it as 
 much as any warrior of our tribe. 
 
 We looked back. The war party had come 
 out of the timber and was still running after 
 us, as men will run even though they know 
 that the chase is hopeless. Their watcher 
 was coming, leaping down the trail to join 
 them. " There is no more need for haste, 
 but we must not go too slow, we must not 
 let them learn that we are trying to draw 
 them on," I told Pitaki. 
 
 I hoped that the party would not go back 
 into the grove. They did not. When the 
 watcher joined them, they all stood and 
 talked for a short time, and then took up 
 our trail at a steady walk. Without doubt, 
 it was their intention to follow us, even to 
 the perhaps far-off camp for which they be- 
 lieved we were heading. ** Sister, they are 
 starting on a trail of which they will never 
 see the end," I said. I had already made up 
 my mind as to just what we were to do, and 
 that was to leave them a trail so dry that 
 they could not follow it. I explained just 
 where we should go ; that we, and the horses 
 148 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 too, would suffer from thirst, and the an- 
 swer I got was that if I could stand it, she 
 could. 
 
 We went on down the open bottom of 
 the valley, in plain sight of the following 
 enemy, for some distance, and then drove 
 the horses into the river: "Now, drink and 
 drink plenty," I told Pitaki, "for this is 
 the last water you will see until to-morrow 
 night." 
 
 We drank and drank until we could not 
 hold another swallow. Then I made Pitaki 
 take my leather wrap for a saddle blanket, 
 and we started the herd straight out east, 
 across the bottom and up the slope of the 
 valley. As I had hoped they would do, the 
 war party turned out toward the plain when 
 they saw us heading for it, in order to 
 shorten trail. They had not drank; so much 
 more quickly, then, would they begin to 
 suffer from want of water. 
 
 The sun was setting as we rode out on 
 the plain; then came the night and we saw 
 no more of the enemy. But there was a big, 
 bright moon, giving light enough for them 
 to follow our trail, and we were glad of 
 that; they would be encouraged to keep on. 
 149 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 All that night we traveled down the high, 
 dry plain between the Missouri and the 
 Teton, keeping the band of horses 'loping 
 and trotting, never allowing them to slow 
 up and walk. The wounded horse became 
 so lame early in the night that I had to shoot 
 him. When daylight came, we stopped and 
 rested and allowed the horses to graze, a long 
 way from either stream. Pitaki slept, I kept 
 watch. There were no buffalo, no antelope 
 in sight ; they were all closer in to water, 
 and there they would stay until the winter 
 snows would permit them to come out to 
 this, a winter range; when they could get 
 snow they did not care much for water. 
 
 The sun was not high when I wakened 
 Pitaki and told her that we must go on. I 
 knew that she was tired and sleepy, and al- 
 ready in need of water, but she made no 
 complaint, and ran and caught her horse 
 and bridled him, and was mounted as soon 
 as I. 
 
 "Pitaki," I said, "right here, in the late 
 afternoon, will come that war party, almost 
 choking from want of water and plenty 
 tired, and they will come here only to find 
 the trail turning off into still more dry coun- 
 150 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 try. They will have to leave it and strike 
 out for the nearest water, and that is the 
 Teton, more than a half-day's walk. Will 
 they come back and pick up the trail ? I 
 think not. But if they do, they must suffer 
 again. Come! Let 's go." 
 
 For a long time we rode straight toward 
 the Missouri, and then turned and headed 
 for the lower part of Sun River, avoiding 
 always the high places on the plain and 
 keeping a good watch all around. As the 
 sun rose higher and higher, the thirsty 
 horses became more and more thirsty and 
 more difficult to drive. And we, in the after- 
 noon our tongues began to swell; we could 
 barely speak; we suffered terribly; Pitaki 
 surely more than I, but still she made no 
 complaint and I wondered at her strength 
 and courage. I was very proud of her. 
 
 It was evening when we neared the river, 
 and the horses, smelling the water, made a 
 rush and splashed into it and drank and 
 drank until they could hold no more; and 
 flat down on the edge of the sandy shore we 
 drank plenty, and got up and washed our 
 faces and wet our hair, and laughed. Said 
 Pitaki: "The tired feeling has gone; noth- 
 
 151 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ing troubles me now except that I am very 
 hungry." 
 
 " You must remain hungry until to-mor- 
 row ; it is now too dark for me to take sure 
 aim at anything," I told her. Also, I did 
 not care to fire a gun, there might be some 
 enemy near us. 
 
 The horses came back out of the water 
 and we let them graze until the moon came 
 up; then we mounted and drove the band 
 across the river, and away out on the bot- 
 tom. There we picketed four of them, and 
 then lay down for a good night's rest. All 
 day long I had been trying to decide what 
 to do with the horses. To keep them, to 
 herd and water, and picket and hobble some 
 of them every day would interfere with my 
 search for that for which I wandered, the 
 callers' secret; and to have the herd ever 
 near us would be dangerous: one might as 
 well build a signal smoke to attract the war 
 parties wandering through the country, and 
 be prepared to die. 
 
 Myself, I did not care much for the 
 
 horses, although the sixteen head, with those 
 
 that I had in No Runner's band, would 
 
 make me as rich as most of the warriors of 
 
 152 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 our tribe. But I did want my sister to have 
 them; she had earned them; without her 
 brave help I could never have rounded them 
 all up and escaped from the war party. I 
 concluded to take them all to the Square 
 Butte, and there let Suyaki decide what 
 should be done with the band. And then I 
 fell asleep. 
 
 I am one who can set a certain time to 
 awake, and do it. When I opened my eyes 
 the position of Seven Persons (the Big Dip- 
 per) was halfway between midnight and 
 sunrise, the very time I had told myself to 
 wake up. I aroused Pitaki, sleeping under a 
 near-by clump of giant sage, and we were 
 soon mounted and riding out through broken 
 country toward the Square Butte. I wanted 
 to get far away from the river valley and up 
 into the hills before daylight came; I was 
 afraid of that valley; the trail runningthrough 
 it and over across the Backbone-of-the- 
 World was no doubt a favorite one for war 
 parties of all tribes. 
 
 Full up with water and good green grass, 
 the horses were now easy to herd along; the 
 moonlight was so bright that we could see 
 far ahead and choose our way. We were 
 
 ^S3 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 happy and hungry; the sight now and then 
 of a band of buffalo or antelope, or a few 
 elk or deer running from our approach, made 
 us more and more hungry. Pitaki once asked 
 me to shoot into a big band of buffalo and 
 put an end to our hunger, but when I an- 
 swered that I did not care to build a beacon 
 fire in that open country, she said no more. 
 
 When the first light of the rising sun 
 turned the high peaks ahead of us all fiery 
 red, we saw that we were more than half- 
 way from the river to the butte, and in very 
 rough country : steep hills, deep coulees, and 
 long, rocky ridges. I now took the lead and 
 Pitaki drove the horses after me, and I soon 
 found the very meat I wanted, a buffalo bull 
 of two winters, that was feeding with some 
 cows and calves in the bottom of a coulee. 
 I got down from my horse and approached 
 and killed it, and while I was butchering it 
 Pitaki staked out several of the horses, and 
 then with her flint and steel and piece of 
 punk, built a fire in a small grove of quak- 
 ing aspens. Then what a fea§t we had, each 
 of us. a half of the tongue, well broiled. 
 
 " I wish that our almost-mother and Ah- 
 sanaki had some of it," said Pitaki. 
 154 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " They shall soon feast upon boss ribs, and 
 liver and tripe. We will take to them all of 
 that carcass that a horse can carry," I told 
 her. 
 
 So low that I could barely hear her, she 
 said : " Perhaps they are not there at the 
 butte. It may be that we shall never, never 
 find them." 
 
 That was my own thought, but I would 
 not say so. " Take courage, you shall soon 
 see them," I told her, and we caught up a 
 horse and began packing him. First, we 
 spread the buffalo hide, hair down, over his 
 back from neck to tail. Then, with strings 
 of green hide, we tied sides of ribs, and boss 
 ribs, and chunks of meat, two pieces at a 
 time, and slung them on the hide, the pieces 
 well down against the horse's side, the tie 
 strings across his back. When all the meat 
 was on, we turned the robe over it from 
 front and back, and then lashed it in place with 
 the two extra drag ropes ; and there it was, a 
 big load of fat meat, wrapped in clean, fresh 
 hide. We got on our horses and again I took 
 the lead and Pitaki herded the loose stock 
 close after me. 
 
 The traveling became more and more 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 rough, the hills more and more steep as we 
 approached the foot of the butte in the late 
 afternoon. Perhaps, though, it was not so 
 bad as we, in our anxiety about our almost- 
 mother, then thought it was ; we could 
 hardly endure the slow ascent of the hills, and 
 the winding into and out of the deep coulees. 
 At last we approached the steep, boulder- 
 strewn slope that ended at the foot of the 
 cliff-like wall of the great butte, and stopped 
 to let our horses get their wind, and I took 
 off my leather wrap and waved it, making 
 the sign, " Come to us." 
 
 I waved it but once ; before I could wave 
 a second time we saw the two women come 
 out from behind a pile of boulders and run 
 down the slope toward us. We urged our 
 horses up the slope and met them ; they 
 were crying ; Pitaki was crying ; myself, I 
 almost cried because I was so glad to see 
 them, to know that they were safe. They 
 just pulled us from our horses and kissed us, 
 and gave thanks to the sun for bringing us 
 back to them. 
 
 Said Suyaki : " Come, sit you right down 
 here, my children, and tell us all about it." 
 
 " No, not now," I answered. " Down 
 
 .56 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 there is a pack-load of fat buffalo meat. We 
 will cook and eat some of it, and then hold 
 a big council." 
 
 *' Real food ! He has brought us some real 
 food," Ahsanaki cried. " Come ! let us go 
 and eat some of it." ' 
 
 We went down the hill to the loose horses, 
 drove them around to a little creek north 
 of the butte, and made camp, and while the 
 women cooked meat I told how we had 
 made the trail of thirst for the enemy. Su- 
 yaki then began what she had to tell by scold- 
 ing my sister for running out among the 
 horses of the enemy, but I stopped that. "Be 
 glad that she did. Had she not helped me, 
 we should most likely all have been killed," 
 I told her. 
 
 "Well, you should have seen us run, after 
 you and the war party chasing you left the 
 bottom," Suyaki began. "We waded the 
 river, and fear gave strength to our old legs. 
 We kept going until night fell, and then lay 
 down in a coulee, but we were still so fright- 
 ened, and so worried about you two that we 
 
 ' A common term for buffalo meat was nitapiwaksin : real, or 
 actual food. It was considered far better than the flesh of any 
 other game. 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 could n't sleep. It was not until we got away 
 up here the next evening that we felt at all 
 safe, and then we got another scare that 
 lasted all night : just at sunset an old grizzly 
 with her two young came along just below 
 where we sat, and began turning over rocks 
 in search of ants. We could not go higher, 
 the rock wall was at our backs; we dared 
 not run to right or left for fear she would 
 chase us. When night came she was still 
 there, close under us. How we suffered, 
 thinking that she might come higher and 
 discover us. We never slept; all night we 
 sat there praying, and trembling with fright. 
 Day came, and we saw that she was gone. 
 We went down to a spring and drank, and 
 hurried back to the foot of the wall, and 
 slept all day by turns. And then, oh, how 
 glad we were when we saw you coming. 
 Children, I really believe that we have 
 strong medicine; that the gods favor us: 
 great dangers beset our trail and always we 
 escape them." 
 
 That reminded me of the buffalo rock. I 
 took it from my pouch and told how I had 
 found it ; how the retying of my moccasin 
 strings had led me to it, and kept me from 
 
 158 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 going out on the cliff in sight of the war 
 party ; how the band of antelope rushing 
 out from the valley had warned me of dan- 
 ger. Both of the old women declared that 
 the rock was strong medicine. Suyaki then 
 and there attached it firmly to my bear-claw 
 necklace. " Wear it there in plain sight on 
 your breast ; it is surely a good-luck bringer," 
 she said. 
 
 Evening had now come. I picketed four 
 of the horses for the night, and then we all 
 worked hard building a lodge of poles and 
 brush to screen our fire. When it was fin- 
 ished, we sat down in comfort and held a 
 long council, first as to the horses. I gave 
 them all to my sister, and she gave the old 
 women each two. Suyaki refused to accept 
 any for her very own, saying that whenever 
 she wanted to ride we would see that she 
 didn't go afoot. We agreed that it was dan- 
 gerous for us to keep them, and that they 
 were too valuable to let loose, now that we 
 had them. It was decided that they should 
 be kept hobbled and picketed right there in 
 the narrow little valley. The women were 
 to take care of them. During the daytime 
 they were to sit up at the foot of the rock 
 
 159 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 wall of the butte and watch the country, and 
 at night sleep in the brush lodge. Really, 
 away up there in rough country, far from 
 any trail, there was little danger of their be- 
 ing discovered by a war party. 
 
 Then, as to myself; we talked and talked 
 far into the night and could not decide what 
 I had best do in order to find a way to call 
 the buffalo. Long after the others slept, I 
 kept thinking about it. Somehow, I had al- 
 ways in mind the ancient Crow trap down 
 by the river. At last I slept, and my shadow 
 went forth from my body upon discovery. 
 When it came back, when I awoke in the 
 morning, I could not remember much of 
 my dream. The plainest part of it was that 
 wherever I wandered the Square Butte, the 
 big, rock-walled butte towering above us, 
 seemed to be calling me, seemed to be moan- 
 ing in a voice like deep and heavy far-off 
 wind : " Puk-si-put ! Puk-si-put ! Man-i- 
 kap-i, puk-si-put ! " (Come! Come! Youth, 
 come ! ) 
 
 I told my dream when the others awoke. 
 Said Suyaki then : " Heed that call. Go up 
 there on top and fast and dream, and we will 
 pray for you." 
 
 1 60 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " Yes, do so," my sister cried, "And leave 
 your rifle with me. I never have shot it, but 
 I know that I can. If I cock it, and sight 
 it, and press that finger iron, let me tell you 
 that whatever is in front of it is going to 
 drop." 
 
 We all laughed : " Keep the weapon, 
 then," I told her; and right after our morn- 
 ing meal I made ready for my climb. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 IN order to reach the top of the Square 
 Butte, one has to go around behind it, 
 and ascend a steep, rocky ridge rising 
 from the slope of the mountains up to its 
 summit. It is a long, hard climb; I did not 
 arrive at the rough but somewhat level top 
 until the middle of the day. I walked out 
 to the very edge of the east wall and looked 
 down ; so far below me that the horses 
 seemed no larger than dogs. I tried to find 
 the women and my sister, down at the foot 
 162 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 of the cliff, but could not see them ; cached 
 as they were in among the fallen rocks, I 
 would not be able to see them unless they 
 got up and moved. 
 
 Then I looked out at the country, and 
 what a sight it was : I could see to the north- 
 east the three buttes of the Sweetgrass Hills; 
 to the east the Bearpaw Mountains; and off 
 to the southeast the long, black timbered 
 front of the Highwood Hills. And all in 
 between, like long, dark, giant snakes, were 
 the valleys and breaks of the Missouri, the 
 Teton, and the Marias Rivers; and down 
 under me, as it seemed, was the valley of 
 Sun River, broad and green and timbered, 
 running off to its junction with the Missouri. 
 All along it and its near plains were dark 
 patches that I knew were buffalo herds; and 
 away off along the other rivers were, I also 
 knew, herds just as large and plentiful that 
 I could not see. How proud I was ; how 
 happy I was, looking out upon those broad, 
 buffalo - covered plains and the encircling 
 mountains, and the great river valleys with 
 their deer and elk, to know that they were 
 ours, all of them and a hundred times more 
 that I could not see, our very own. 
 163 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 I sat there a long time, looking off at the 
 country, and then I built a little wall of 
 rocks at the edge of the cliffs, and back of that 
 another wall. There were patches of grass 
 on the summit ; I gathered some and made 
 a good bed of it between the walls and lay- 
 down. The outer wall would keep me from 
 rolling off the cliff; the inner would break 
 a hard west wind, should one come up. I 
 began my fast. I prayed and prayed to my 
 medicine, to all the gods, to the great butte 
 upon which I lay to give me a dream ; to in 
 some way tell me how to call the buffalo. 
 
 So I lay there praying and worrying. The 
 sun went on and on toward his island home 
 in the far-off salt-water lake. Back of me 
 there was the sound of steps; I turned over 
 and looked out through a crevice in my lit- 
 tle wall, my heart beating fast. Could it be 
 that some enemy had followed me away up 
 to the top of this butte ? No. It was a lone 
 bighorn; an old, old male with immense 
 horns. He wandered from one grass patch 
 to another, snipping off the seed heads of the 
 plants, and ever turning and turning to watch 
 all parts of the rocky summit. Off to the 
 west rocks rattled, and then four ewes and 
 164 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 their young came up along the way that I 
 had followed. 
 
 I kept watching the young ones play un- 
 til, happening to look off to the south side 
 of the summit, I got just a glimpse of some- 
 thing dark-colored going behind a rock. I 
 watched that place, and soon saw a dark, 
 broad, ugly head and whitish-yellow striped 
 neck rise up over the top of the rock : it was 
 a wolverine, in quest of his evening meal. I 
 had no more than made out what it was 
 than the young bighorns, in their play, ran 
 right under the rock and the wolverine just 
 dropped down upon one of them. As it 
 blatted, I could hear its neck-bones crack. 
 The others ran away and met their mothers 
 running toward the rock. They ran nearer 
 the little one that was kicking in the grasp 
 of the wolverine, and he growled at them ; 
 a terrible growl for so small an animal ; it 
 almost frightened me; it surely did the 
 mothers, for they turned and ran with their 
 young westward off the summit, all but the 
 mother of the captured little one: she stood 
 near by, stamping with her forefeet and 
 helplessly watching the wolverine bite and 
 maul his prey. 
 
 165 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 The way the wolverine growled, and bit 
 and clawed the little one, even after it was 
 dead, made me mad. I took my bow and 
 arrow and went toward him, and he even 
 growled at me and made ready to fight ; and 
 oh, how his mean eyes blazed ! 
 
 " There ! Take that ! " I said, and shot an 
 arrow deep into his breast. He clawed at it, 
 bit at it, and died growling. I looked around. 
 The mother bighorn was gone. I picked up 
 the little one, torn and limp, and tossed it far 
 out from the cliff. Long afterward came up 
 the deep whoom ! of it as it struck the slope 
 of the butte, far below. 
 
 The Wolverine is a medicine animal. 
 Therefore I sharpened my knife and took the 
 hide of this one, and threw the carcass from 
 the cliff. Then I went back to my bed of 
 grass and lay down. I said to myself that this 
 was no way to get near the gods ; what with 
 worrying about the women below, and be- 
 ing disturbed by bighorns and wolverine, I 
 could not keep my mind on sacred things. 
 I got up and sat on the edge of the cliff as 
 the sun went down behind the mountains, 
 and saw the women lead and drive the horses 
 to water, and take them back to good grass. 
 i66 
 
HE EVEN GROWLED AT ME AND MADE READY 
 TO FIGHT 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Then night came and I went back to my bed. 
 I was very thirsty, and very much disturbed 
 in mind. It was late before I slept, and then 
 for only a short time; when I awoke the 
 Seven Persons had moved but little from the 
 position in which I had last seen them. 
 
 But I had had a dream : I had spoken 
 with Square Butte, his spirit, his shadow. 
 What he looked like, where was his voice, 
 I cannot say. 
 
 As I remembered it, I could hear plainly, 
 but could see nothing; it was as though I 
 was surrounded with thick fog. I said: "You 
 called me and I am here. Have pity on me 
 now and tell me that which I so much want 
 to know." 
 
 " * You have made a mistake, I did not 
 call you, I never called you,' he answered ; 
 *but now that you are here I shall help you 
 if I can. What is it that you seek?' 
 
 "The way to call buffalo; to decoy them 
 to the cliffs," I told him. 
 
 " * Ha ! I know nothing about that,' he said. 
 * In the long ago, people chased buffalo over 
 the cliff down there in the valley, but I paid 
 no attention to them. Why should I ? I am 
 not interested in walking, crawling, flying 
 169 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 things, creatures of but a few winters. I am 
 younger brother of the big mountains over 
 there. We live forever. We have enough to 
 think about and talk, about without keeping 
 watch on the doings of men.' 
 
 "Oh, and I thought that you called me; 
 that you would help me," I cried. 
 
 " * I can advise you. I will say this,' he 
 told me : * If you want to learn to call buf- 
 falo, go down there where it has been done. 
 Go there, I say, and watch the buffalo ; 
 and fast and pray and maybe you will suc- 
 ceed.' " 
 
 It was just after he said that, that I awoke. 
 Strangely enough, as he advised me, so had I 
 been thinking before I fell asleep. I got out 
 of my bed and picked up my bow and arrow 
 case and the wolverine skin, and left the 
 summit, having no trouble in finding my 
 way in the moonlit night. I was not long in 
 descending to the little creek, where I drank 
 plenty. I passed the horses, most of them 
 asleep, and then entered the little grove and 
 noiselessly approached the little lodge. Stand- 
 ing beside it, I could hear the soft breathing 
 of the women as they slept. I lay down 
 right where I was and also slept. 
 170 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 A loud scream that ended in a laugh 
 awakened me. Pitaki had come out of the 
 lodge and, seeing me lying beside it, had 
 been frightened until she saw, and very 
 quickly, who I was. She called the old wo- 
 men and they came hurrying out, alarmed 
 and asking me to tell them why I was back 
 so soon .? If I had discovered a war party ? 
 They felt badly when they learned that I 
 had not found that which I sought. 
 
 " But I did get good advice, I am going 
 down among the buffalo, down there to that 
 old Crow trap, and stay there until I learn 
 the secret," I told them. 
 
 " Not until you eat plenty, and have a day 
 and a night of rest," said Suyaki. 
 
 So I rested there. In the evening we had 
 a talk as to what we would do. Suyaki said 
 that I could not go alone down into the river 
 country; that she and my sister, and old Ah- 
 sanaki just could not be left again to worry 
 about me, and also that they were afraid 
 to have me go far from them. There was 
 everywhere danger ; the chance of their be- 
 ing found by a war party ; of being attacked 
 by a grizzly. 
 
 " If you go with me, the horses must be 
 171 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 left here and we may never see them again," 
 I said. 
 
 " Oh, brother ! Never mind the horses," 
 Pitaki answered. ** Of course, I would like 
 to have them, but to be with you, near you, 
 is more than all the horses that live. We will 
 turn them loose here, and if they are gone 
 when we come back, why, then they will 
 be gone and I shall not cry about it." 
 
 " We will try to keep the horses, and you 
 shall all go with me," I decided, and told 
 them to make three broad, smooth-edged 
 hobbles. 
 
 Early the next morning I drove the band 
 to the very head of the little valley and put 
 the hobbles on the three that had proved to 
 be the leaders, so adjusting them that they 
 would not chafe the skin and cut into the 
 flesh. There was fine feed and plenty of 
 water in the valley, and I thought that they 
 might be content to remain there. Should 
 they attempt to leave, they would go west 
 toward their home across the mountains, and 
 the rock ledges at the head of the valley 
 could not be climbed ; unless discovered by 
 a war party, I was sure that we should find 
 them when we returned. 
 172 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 The women had cut the bufFalo meat into 
 sheets and partly dried it ; there was enough 
 to last us many nights. They divided it mto 
 three packs, and I took all my powder and 
 ball and my weapons, and the four ropes that 
 the horses had been dragging, and we set out 
 for the river. In the afternoon we went very 
 slowly and kept a good watch all around as 
 we approached the rim of the valley, and at 
 last looked down into the timbered bottoms. 
 
 Tust above us, and on the far side ot the 
 valley, was the old Crow trap. Right under 
 
 us we saw a big grove of cottonwoods in 
 
 which Suyaki proposed we should build a 
 
 little pole-and-brush lodge. 
 
 «* We will remain hidden there while you 
 
 fast, and then wander around on discovery," 
 
 she said. ^ . •, 
 
 " Almost-mother, where is your good 
 sense?" I asked. "Why do you want to cache 
 right in the path of war parties going up 
 and down this valley trail ? True, the trail is 
 not right there through the grove, it is out 
 on the bottom, and you know as well as I do 
 that war parties go into the timber to rest, 
 and cook their meat." 
 
 - Well, then, where shall we go ? she asked. 
 
 173 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 "Out in that brush-and-water coulee at 
 the mouth of the trap wings," I told her. 
 " True, it is not far from the trail, but those 
 traveling through here never go out there, 
 never see it ; they watch only the valley ahead 
 of and behind them, and send their scouts 
 from point to point to look out upon the 
 plain: but that coulee, near as it is, cannot 
 be seen from any point; not even from the 
 cliff there above the trap." 
 
 "What you say is all true," Suyaki agreed, 
 " but you have forgotten one thing : think 
 of the Crow ghosts that wander about over 
 there. They are just as much to be feared 
 as living enemies; more so, for they come 
 in the night, and cannot be seen or heard. 
 When they touch a person and put into him 
 the disease that is to kill, that touch cannot 
 even be felt." 
 
 " Yes. But think how rarely that happens ; 
 more people are killed by lightning than by 
 enemy ghosts. And, anyhow, I think we are 
 safe there from them. Remember that I 
 found the buffalo rock over there: what 
 better sign of good luck do you want than 
 that?" I said. 
 
 "Suyaki, he is right; the coulee is the 
 
 174 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 place for us," Ahsanaki said; "and if there 
 be Crow ghosts there, — well, what of it? 
 I can speak Crow as well as any Crow. I will 
 pray to the Crow gods, and the ghosts will 
 think that we are Crows, and so not try to 
 harm us." 
 
 "You are both against me. I will do as 
 you say, but, oh, I am afraid," said Suyaki. 
 
 And then after a time, she asked: "And 
 you, my son, where shall you fast while we 
 remain cached in that place of ghosts?" 
 
 I pointed to the cliff on our side of the 
 valley, and opposite the cliff of the buffalo 
 trap : " See that cottonwood tree growing at 
 the upper edge of the rock wall?" I asked 
 her. "Well, help me build a scaffold in it, 
 and make a good bed, and there I shall fast." 
 
 " But any passing war party will see you 
 there," my sister cried. 
 
 " Yes. And believe that what they see is 
 a burial scaffold, and keep as far away from 
 it as they can," I answered. 
 
 " But why not somewhere else?" Suyaki 
 wanted to know. 
 
 " For good reason. That is a medicine 
 place; there I shall be right in sight of the 
 trap; and ever since I was there the other 
 
 175 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 day something has seemed to keep urging 
 me back to it," I explained. 
 
 The day was coming to a close. I soon 
 sent the women down into the grove to pre- 
 pare our evening meal, and myself kept 
 watch upon the country until night fell. 
 Then I joined them, and ate a small piece 
 of roasted meat. As soon as the moon came 
 up, we all took what dead poles we could 
 carry and went up on the plain, and then 
 along the rim of the valley to the cliff. The 
 upper part of it was a very steep, rough slant 
 down to the wall face, and at the foot of 
 that was the river, just there very deep. The 
 lone tree was short-bodied and thick-limbed, 
 and stood on the slant just above the wall 
 and leaning well out over it, its roots fast in 
 cracks in the rock from which water was 
 oozing. The slant down to it was so very 
 steep that I let my sister down first at the 
 end of a rope, and followed her, and when 
 we were safe at the foot of the tree the others 
 let down to us, with ropes, two or three poles 
 at a time. I then got into the tree and Pitaki 
 passed me the poles as fast as I could lay and 
 lash them to two strong limbs. It was dan- 
 gerous work for her, for if she should slip 
 
 176 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 off she would go into the water far below. As 
 soon as the scaffold was laid, the old women 
 let down bundles of grass, and I spread that 
 on the poles for my bed. When all was fin- 
 ished, I had the women keep a tight rope 
 on my sister while she scrambled up to them, 
 and then I went up and we returned to the 
 grove. 
 
 "Now, then," said I, "cook meat, you 
 women. Cook enough to last you four or 
 five days, and then I shall take you to your 
 hiding place." 
 
 They built up a fire and roasted a lot of 
 the nearly-dried meat, while I stood watch. 
 I knew we were taking a risk by keeping 
 a fire going there, but we had to do it. We 
 were in luck ; nothing disturbed us, and 
 near daybreak we went up on the plain by 
 the trail at the east end of the buffalo-trap 
 cliff. 
 
 As we passed along between the wings 
 in the gray light of the breaking day, the 
 w^omen kept bunched up close to my heels. 
 Said Ahsanaki: "Oh, lam afraid. Herein 
 the long ago came rushing the Crow stam- 
 peders. Right through here they drove the 
 herds to the cliff and over it; of course th" 
 
 .. .., e 
 
 177 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 ghosts of some of them are ever here about 
 to do what harm they can to us, their ene- 
 mies." 
 
 " Ai ! They can never get over the loss 
 of this country, this trap. Of course, their 
 shadows gather here to seek revenge upon 
 us," Suyaki muttered. 
 
 "But see! The day has come, and with 
 its light their power fails," my sister told 
 them. 
 
 But I knew that she feared the place as 
 much as they did. She just would not own 
 it, and did her best to cheer them. 
 
 Out in the coulee beyond the wings was a 
 large herd of buffalo. We were close upon 
 them before they took fright and ran. The 
 place smelled rankly of them. The willow 
 thickets along the water holes were trampled 
 and broken, and some of the holes in which 
 the bulls had wallowed were more mud than 
 water. We went up some distance before we 
 found a pool of good water and a clump of 
 willows big enough to hide in. 
 
 " Now, listen ! " I told the women. " Keep 
 close in this brush during the daytime. Buf- 
 falo will come, of course, but do not frighten 
 them away unless you are obliged to do so, 
 
 178 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 unless you fear that they may stampede 
 through the brush and trample you. i teel 
 that you are safe here, so I shall not worry 
 about you, and do you not worry about me 
 even if I do not return in five days : I shall 
 lie on that scaffold until I get a medicine 
 dream, or until I can fast no longer. So, 
 now I leave you." „ 
 
 " Not until you have given me your ritle, 
 said my sister. " A bear may come wander- 
 ing along here, and he shall not kill usif I 
 can shoot straight enough to stop him. 
 
 I handed her the rifle and my pack ot 
 ammunition, and started back to the river 
 I crossed it, and in the grove where we had 
 cooked the supply of meat I came upon a 
 human skull that had dropped from an old 
 and rotted tree-burial scaffold. " Maybe you 
 are the head of Sees Black," I said to it. 
 " Maybe your now empty brain cup once 
 held the caller's secret." 
 
 As I stood looking at it, a strange thought 
 came to me; I felt as though something 
 was telling me to take the sku 1 to the scaf- 
 fold and dream beside it. I looked all 
 around; listened for a voice; but all was 
 quiet; not even a tree leaf trembled; not a 
 
Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 
 
 living creature was in sight, not even a bird. 
 I picked up the skull and went on. 
 
 The sun was up when I climbed to the 
 rim of the plain and went on to the edge of 
 the cliff. I sat there a long time watching 
 for any signs of the enemy, and saw none. 
 I had left there our longest rope, and now 
 fastening one end of it to a big rock half- 
 buried in the ground, I let myself down to 
 the tree, and climbed up on to the scaffold; 
 there I laid my bow and arrow case on one 
 side of the narrow grass bed, and the skull 
 on the other side, and lay down and drew 
 my leather wrap over me. I reached out 
 then and placed my hand on the skull : 
 " Ancient one, help me," I prayed. " Tell 
 me! Oh, tell me if you know it, the caller's 
 secret." 
 
 And all the time I prayed I knew that I 
 was taking an awful chance : were this the 
 skull of a Crow, then death in some form 
 was coming swift upon me. 
 
 I prayed steadily all that day and far into 
 the night, calling upon all the gods, and 
 my medicine, and the shadow head beside 
 me, to grant that which I asked; to give 
 me a revealing dream ; and then I slept. 
 1 80 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 When I awoke in the morning, my first 
 thought was that I had not dreamed. But 
 I felt well ; thirsty and hungry but well 
 and strong. In a measure, my fear of the 
 skull went from me : *' Ancient one, you 
 are my friend; oh, tell me that which I want 
 to know," I prayed. 
 
 I raised up and from the edge of the 
 scaffold looked off into the valley, still in 
 the shadow of early morning. A small herd 
 of buffalo was grazing under the cliff from 
 which so many of their kind had jumped 
 to death in days gone by. Two big wolves 
 were prowling close to them, sometimes 
 walking slowly round and round the band, 
 and sometimes sitting on their haunches and 
 watching and waiting for any calf that 
 might stray out from the protection of the 
 old ones. I was glad to see them all there, 
 a good sign that no war party was near. 
 
 Night came. I was now suffering from 
 thirst, but the desire for food had left me. 
 I slept and my shadow went forth on dis- 
 covery. When it came back, when I awoke, 
 I remembered everything : in my shadow, 
 my dream wandering, I had met the duck 
 hawk and asked him to help me, and he 
 i8i 
 
Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 
 
 had answered: " Go across there to that 
 ancient trap, and thereabout, and watch 
 the buffalo, and what you want shall come 
 to you. Yes ! You shall learn to decoy the 
 buffalo to the trap as surely as I dart down 
 through the air and seize my prey." 
 
 Oh, how happy I was ! I looked up at 
 the Seven Persons and saw that they had 
 swung around to midnight time. " I cannot 
 wait until morning ; I shall go now and tell 
 my sister and my almost-mothers that I 
 have had my dream," I said. But before I 
 could make a move, I again went fast to 
 sleep. I must have become very tired dur- 
 ing my shadow wanderings. 
 
 When I awoke again day had come, I felt 
 very cold, and found that in my sleep I had 
 kicked off my leather wrap ; it was hanging 
 down from the scaffold and except that my 
 left leg still held fast a corner, it would have 
 dropped down into the river. I reached out 
 and pulled it up, and heard some one shout 
 below. What do you think I saw when I 
 cautiously looked down from the edge of 
 my resting-place ? 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A MAN was pointing straight up at my 
 dreaming-place and saying some- 
 thing to five others who stood close 
 behind him. He had seen my wrap, seen it 
 drawn up on the scaffold, and was no doubt 
 telling his companions that dead persons do 
 not draw up their coverings. 
 
 "They have me trapped," I said to my- 
 self. " If they come up to see what is in this 
 tree, I cannot escape from them." 
 
 As I said it they separated, three running 
 down the shore and three up. I saw them 
 cross the river above and below the cliff, 
 where the water was not deep, and then they 
 
 183 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 went out of sight. That they would soon ap- 
 pear on the cliff above me and begin shoot- 
 ing, and throwing rocks, was certain. My one 
 chance to escape from them was to drop from 
 my tree into the river, and that was a very 
 risky chance, I thought ; the fall from such 
 a height would probably kill me. 
 
 Then hope suddenly came to me: there 
 were the lashings of my scaffold, a rope at 
 each end of it. I slung my bow and arrow case 
 on my back and cast the skull away. " Go," 
 I said. ** I am sorry to have to throw you, 
 ghost head, for you have been good medi- 
 cine to me." And I heard it splash into the 
 water far below. 
 
 Never did any one work faster than I as I 
 freed those ropes from poles and tree limbs. I 
 then tied an end of one to the tree and, mak- 
 ing one rope of both, grasped it with my wrap 
 to keep my hands from burning and slid 
 slowly down the cliff wall. Upon reaching 
 the very end of the rope, I was still a long 
 way above the water, all of the height of a 
 big pine tree, but there was just one thing to 
 do and I did it: I swung out from the cliff 
 and let go the rope and dropped, and struck 
 the water with a big splash. Down, down 
 184 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 I went into it, pawing with both hands, but 
 still going down until I thought that I must 
 drown. Then I began to rise, up from black 
 darkness toward the light of day, and what 
 relief I felt as my head cleared the water and 
 I drew in a long breath! I made no attempt 
 to swim ; I just drifted with the current and 
 used my arms only enough to keep my face, 
 my eyes and nose and mouth, above the sur- 
 face. And as I drifted, I kept watching the 
 cliff above me, and the lone tree that I had 
 left. I could plainly see the scaffold, but I 
 knew that it could not be seen from above 
 because of its thick screen of leaved boughs. 
 
 I wondered what the enemy would do 
 when they arrived at the slant above it and 
 found the rope dangling from the half-buried 
 boulder. I had not long to wait to know, for a 
 shower of big rocks suddenly crashed into the 
 tree and came splashing into the river, and I 
 heard the throwers raise their war cry. I had 
 heard it before: it was the war cry of the 
 Assiniboines. 
 
 I could not see the enemy nor could they 
 
 see me ; they were on the upper edge of the 
 
 slant from the cliff up to the plain, and I was 
 
 drifting so close to the wall that I could reach 
 
 i8j 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 out and touch it. They continued shouting 
 and throwing and rolling down the big rocks, 
 and I drifted faster and faster as I neared the 
 rapids at the lower end of the cliff. I had 
 made up my mind just what to do. I kept 
 close in to shore, and after clearing the cliff 
 watched for the place where the lower three 
 of the enemy had come out from the river. 
 I soon saw it ahead of me, the sand and white 
 stones of the shore still wet where the water 
 had dripped upon them. I went out in the 
 enemy's tracks, and into the near brush, and 
 from that down into the big grove where, 
 three nights back, the women had roasted 
 their supply of meat. I could still hear the 
 stones crashing down, and the cries of the 
 enemy ; they had not seen me ; they would 
 never see me. More than ever before, I felt 
 that my medicine was strong, that the gods 
 were with me, that I was to learn that which 
 I so much wanted to know, the caller's secret. 
 I do not know how long the war party kept 
 hurling rocks into my dream tree before they 
 discovered that their work was all for noth- 
 ing. I went away down through the grove 
 and crawled under a thick growth of rose 
 brush in the open bottom. I had lost my 
 i86 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 leather wrap. My bowstring was soaked with 
 water and useless. I laid both bow and ar- 
 rows on top of the brush to dry. 
 
 That was a long day to me. When I 
 plunged into the river and drifted down it, 
 I drank, of course, all the water I could hold 
 at the time ; but that was not enough to 
 quench my several-days-old thirst. I was 
 faint and weak from want of food, too, and I 
 worried not a little about my women back in 
 the coulee. If they remained cached in the 
 brush, as I had told them to do, all would be 
 well with them ; but if they should go out 
 from it and wander about, there was a chance 
 of their being discovered by the enemy. 
 
 As soon as my bow was dry I strung it, 
 and was ready to fight, if fight I must. My 
 plan, however, was to get up and run the 
 instant that I was sure the enemy discovered 
 me in my hiding-place. Luck was with me; 
 in the middle of the day I saw them sneak- 
 ing down along the edge of the grove and 
 they came clear down to the point of it, never 
 once showing themselves in the open bot- 
 tom. They had not found my trail, nor had 
 I intended that they should ; on my way out 
 from the river I had not once stepped in 
 
 187 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the well-worn and dusty game trails that ran 
 everywhere through the timber. 
 
 How glad I was when night came and I 
 could leave my hiding-place. I had no idea 
 where the war party was, whether still in the 
 grove or gone on their way up or down the 
 river in quest of the camp of some enemy. 
 I suspected, however, that they were lurking 
 somewhere near in hope of finding the lone 
 enemy that they had driven from his dream 
 tree. So it was that, in the black darkness 
 before the moon came up, I stole through 
 the open bottom to the river and, holding 
 my bow case high above my head, swam 
 and waded it. I went on through the bottom 
 beyond and up on the plain, and around to 
 the place where I had left the women. All 
 the way good luck was with me: I did not 
 see or frighten a single band of game, and 
 soon after the moon rose I approached the 
 clump of willows by the little pool of good 
 water, where I hoped the women were 
 safely sleeping. 
 
 "Pitaki! Almost-mothers! Are you there?" 
 I called, and at once came Suyaki's answer- 
 ing voice: "We are here, my son." 
 
 I joined them ; they sprang up and kissed 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 me, and all three asked : *' Your leather wrap ! 
 — where is it?" 
 
 I sat right down with them and told all 
 that had happened to me since I had left 
 them, talked as fast as I could between bites 
 of the roasted meat that my sister handed 
 me from time to time; and as I talked I 
 began to shiver, for the night was cold, and 
 my clothing wet. Suyaki made me take her 
 wrap. " Keep it, Ahsanaki and I can get 
 along with one wrap," she said. 
 
 When I had finished all that I had to 
 tell, Suyaki made a little talk. "It is plain 
 enough that the gods are with us," she be- 
 gan. " Look back at our trail since we 
 parted from our people, and see the dangers 
 that have beset us ; we have always escaped 
 them. My son, there is no doubt that your 
 medicine is strong; you have a shadow talk 
 with Square Butte, yonder, and it sends you 
 down here, where duck hawk tells you what 
 to do. My son, we do not love this place ; 
 we fear it ; but though a hundred Crow 
 ghosts guard this ancient trap of theirs, we 
 shall stay with you here until you learn the 
 great secret." 
 
 " We must think hard and plan just what 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 is best for us to do," I told her; and then we 
 all lay down and slept well until morning. 
 
 When I awoke my first thought was of 
 the enemy : had they gone, or were they still 
 hiding somewhere down by the river with 
 the hope of getting the scalp of the lone 
 faster that they had driven from the cliff? I 
 hoped that they had gone their way, for we 
 had only enough meat for the morning meal 
 and I dared not kill any while they were 
 anywhere near us. The others soon awoke. 
 Suyaki divided the meat, giving me much 
 the largest portion, and we ate slowly and 
 had our talk. 
 
 I learned that during the time I was away 
 from them two different herds of buffalo 
 had come in to near-by pools to drink, and 
 had got the wind of them and gone rushing 
 back on the plains. That was bad. Some 
 enemy might have come out to learn what 
 had frightened them. Also, it was some- 
 where here that duck hawk had told me I 
 was to learn the secret ; I could not expect 
 to learn it if the herds were to be continu- 
 ally frightened when they came to drink : we 
 just had to find some other place to camp. 
 
 We decided to take no chances on being 
 190 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 discovered by the war party, and remain 
 right where we were until night. Not long 
 after sunrise a big herd of buffalo came into 
 the coulee to the west of us, and in the shel- 
 ter of cutbanks and brush I crept so near the 
 lower edge of it that I could see the eyes of 
 some of the animals. The herd was made 
 up of cows and calves, and bulls up to two 
 winters of age ; the old bulls were still off 
 by themselves, alone, and in bands of various 
 sizes. The little red calves were some of 
 them just born, and some perhaps a moon 
 old. Those able to run about could not keep 
 still ; they chased one another all through the 
 herd, and butted heads together, and kept 
 their mothers running after them for fear 
 that they would stray outside the edge of 
 the herd and become lost, or be seized by 
 the wolves that were ever watching for a 
 chance to seize them. 
 
 I lay there all the morning watching that 
 herd, and trying to reason what I could do 
 to make them all start chasing me instead 
 of running away, should I attempt to call 
 them. Over and over I asked myself what 
 Little Otter had done to decoy the herd. I 
 had seen all his actions, but I had not heard 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 his call, and that was, no doubt, the secret 
 of his success. 
 
 In the afternoon we saw a very large herd 
 of buffalo slowly grazing to the very spot in 
 which we lay. The women were asleep. I 
 aroused them. " Come," I said, ** we have 
 to get out of here ; we must not alarm that 
 herd. I want them to keep coming here so 
 that I can try to call them." 
 
 It did not take us long to gather up our 
 things and crawl through the brush to a safe 
 position between the wings of the ancient 
 trap. The two old women did not like to 
 remain there ; they talked about all the ghosts 
 they had ever heard of, and Ahsanaki prayed 
 in the Crow language that the Crow ghosts 
 wandering there might not harm us. My 
 sister told me that she was not afraid of them. 
 " You have strong medicine. I feel safe 
 enough when I am with you," she said. 
 
 When the sun came close down to the 
 peaks of the big mountains, I told the wo- 
 men to remain where they were until I re- 
 turned, and leaving my bow and arrows, and 
 taking my rifle and powder and balls, I 
 left them, to have a look at the valley. As I 
 crept between the wings toward the cliif, 
 192 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 whom should I see but duck hawk flying laz- 
 ily above me and toward the river. '* Ha ! 
 There you are, sure seizer of food," I said, 
 " and here am I. Do not forget that you 
 are to help me." 
 
 And when I said that he dived straight 
 down toward me, and as suddenly darted up- 
 ward and sailed on, all the time loudly chat- 
 tering his duck-hawk talk. I could not un- 
 derstand, but somehow I sensed it that he 
 was telling me to take courage ; that all was 
 well. I went on all filled up with happiness. 
 
 Upon nearing the edge of the clifl^, I got 
 down on hands and knees and crawled, and 
 showed only the top of my head as I looked 
 down from it into the valley. All was quiet 
 there ; no game in sight, no smoke, no sign 
 of enemies. I looked across at the cliff where 
 I had had my dream, and could scarcely rec- 
 ognize my dream tree standing there at the 
 edge of the rock wall : it was almost as bare 
 of leaves as any dead one, and some of its 
 branches were gone, and some were broken 
 and the ends drooped straight down. The 
 enemy had hurled showers of rocks into it 
 until they could see my scaffold, its poles all 
 loosened, and the faster gone. I laughed to 
 
 193 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 think of their surprise when they found that 
 they had been outwitted. 
 
 It was well for me that I had come to the 
 edge of the cliff so cautiously, like a snake 
 crawling upon its prey. Also, when Old 
 Man made the world it was well that he 
 should have made the cliff higher than the 
 one across from me, for there where I had fas- 
 tened the rope to the half-buried boulder, a 
 watcher was concealed. After the sun went 
 down and the valley began to darken with 
 night shadows, I was surprised to see a man 
 rise up from behind that rock and wave his 
 robe. Four times he waved it, and then 
 spread it on the rock and sat upon it. I 
 looked up the valley and down it, and then 
 saw his comrades leave the grove where we 
 had roasted meat, and strike out across the 
 bottom toward the slope up to the plain. 
 They were five ; the watcher made six ; they 
 were the very party that I had escaped from. 
 
 Upon climbing to the rim of the plain 
 they walked swiftly along it to the cliff and 
 stopped and talked with the watcher. Then 
 they all went on westward and into and up 
 the valley, and I soon lost sight of them in 
 the gathering night. But I knew that they 
 
 194 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 were now leaving that part of the country ; 
 that they had given up all hope of finding 
 me, and were again on their way to raid the 
 herds of the across-the-mountains people. 
 
 I went back to the women. " Come, all 
 is well. The war party of six has just left 
 here," I told them. 
 
 "What? You saw them again?" Suyaki 
 asked; and when I explained that their 
 watcher had called them from the grove, 
 and that they had all gone up the valley, she 
 said that it was just another sign that the 
 gods were with us. And that was the way I 
 felt about it. 
 
 On our way up the valley so many days 
 back, I had noticed a small island in the 
 river not very far below this trap cliff, and I 
 proposed that we go there and make it our 
 stopping-place while I tried to call the buf- 
 falo. The old women thought that a good 
 plan, and we went down to it, taking care 
 to wash out our footsteps where we crossed 
 the shore sands to the water. The island was 
 thickly wooded, in its center a grove of big 
 cottonwoods, and along its edge smaller trees 
 and a dense growth of willows. It was about 
 the safest place we could be in ; war parties 
 
 ^95 
 
Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 
 
 seldom went to islands to hide and rest dur- 
 ing the day, unless they were close to a clifF 
 or butte from which the watchers could see 
 all over the country, and on each side of 
 this island the bottoms were wide, and the 
 rims of the plain very low. 
 
 We were so very hungry that we did not 
 sleep much that night. At the first sign of 
 daylight, I took both my bow and arrows 
 and my rifle and went to the upper end of 
 the island to look for game, and as soon as 
 day really came I discovered three bull elk 
 in the bottom opposite me on the south 
 side of the river. They had ceased feeding 
 and were coming to water, and, I hoped, to 
 the island to rest. I was right. They all 
 drank, and then began wading across that 
 part of the river, heading toward a point a 
 little below me. There would be no need 
 for me to use my rifle and I was glad of that. 
 I did not want its telltale boom sounding 
 all up and down the valley. I laid it aside, 
 and with my bow and a handful of arrows 
 ran down through the brush close to the 
 place where the bulls would come in. I had 
 not long to wait ; one after another they en- 
 tered on a narrow game trail, moving their 
 196 
 
Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 
 
 heads this way and that way to protect their 
 tender, new-growing horns from trees and 
 branches. I was very close to the trail, and 
 as the lead bull was passing me, where I 
 stood close beside a tree, I let go an arrow 
 into his ribs, and put another on the string 
 and fired it at the second bull. I fitted a 
 third arrow and turned to shoot it at the 
 third bull, but he had turned and was al- 
 ready half out of sight in the brush below 
 the trail. But I knew that I had the other 
 two; I could hear them making their last 
 kicks in the near-by brush, and by the time 
 I got to them they were dead. I called the 
 women, and we soon had the big, fat animals 
 butchered and cut up, meat enough when 
 dried to last us a long time. My sister started 
 at once to tan one of the hides, hair on, for 
 a wrap for me. 
 
 We built a fire of Cottonwood bark, which 
 is almost smokeless, and had a good feast of 
 broiled ribs. The old women were all the 
 morning cutting the meat into thin sheets to 
 dry, and in the afternoon I helped them 
 build a good, big lodge of dry poles, and 
 bark and grass and small branches, a thick 
 covering that would thoroughly conceal our 
 197 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 evening fires. We all worked very hard all 
 day, getting everything in shape for a long 
 stay on the island. 
 
 On the next day I was to begin watching 
 the buffalo up in the vicinity of the trap, as 
 duck hawk had told me to do. But that 
 evening Pitaki asked me to do something 
 that changed my plan. 
 
 " Brother, we have many days ahead of 
 us for learning the great secret," she said. 
 "Now, I have been thinking about those 
 horses you gave me. No doubt they are 
 there, but I fear that those you hobbled are 
 getting sore legs. Before you begin watch- 
 ing the buffalo, why not go up and put the 
 hobbles on other horses ? " 
 
 " That is a wise thing to do," I answered. 
 " Give me some fresh hobble thongs and I 
 will start up there some time before day- 
 
 light." 
 
 It was a long time before sunrise when I 
 took my rifle, and some meat, and left the 
 island and headed for the Square Butte, which 
 looked dim and far-away in the moonlight. 
 I walked swiftly and without pause, and at 
 midday approached the head of the little 
 valley behind it. The horses were well up on 
 
Apauk, Caller of BuflFalo 
 
 a slope south of the creek, and when they 
 saw me they snorted and ran, the hobbled 
 ones going nearly as fast as those that were 
 free. I counted the bunch ; there were but 
 fifteen ; one animal was missing, one of the 
 four that I had hobbled. Only a few days 
 back the herd had been very gentle, and was 
 now very wild. I chased them around a long 
 time before I could get near enough to catch 
 one, and then the others as I wanted them. 
 None of the hobbled was injured, but I freed 
 them and put the hobbles on other animals, 
 and then went hunting for the missing one. 
 I soon found him near the creek, half eaten 
 and partly covered over with dead grass and 
 brush, and some enormous bear tracks in the 
 mud near by showed plainly enough w^hat 
 had killed him. 
 
 I either had to kill that bear or take the 
 horses out of the valley ; if I should leave 
 them there all that were hobbled would one 
 by one become bear food. I decided to kill 
 the bear. Now, with the kind of guns you 
 have to-day, guns that shoot many cartridges 
 faster than one can count, it is nothing, not 
 at all a brave act to hunt big grizzlies. But 
 to take aim at one wdth a flintlock gun, 
 199 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 knowing that if the shot does not kill there 
 will not be time to reload before the bear 
 charges — why, in that case, to attack and 
 kill one is just the same as attacking and 
 killing an Assiniboine or any other enemy. 
 I considered a long time what I should do 
 before deciding to attack. And then I freshly 
 primed my rifle and hid in some willows 
 about forty steps from the dead horse, and 
 waited for the bear to come. 
 
 He did not appear until sunset, and then, 
 big as he was, he made no noise as he came 
 out of the brush above the horse. He was of 
 body as large as a buffalo cow, but shorter- 
 legged, of course. He walked with brave 
 steps, never stopping to look for danger as 
 would one of his black-furred relatives. Why 
 should he ? Never in his life had he seen 
 anything to fear. And so he came to the dead 
 horse and began to paw away the brush and 
 grass with which he had covered it. Pres- 
 ently he tore a great chunk of meat from 
 one of the hams. As he stood motionless, 
 chewing it, I took careful sight at the base 
 of his right ear, and fired. He fell right 
 where he stood, but it was a long time be- 
 fore his life went out. The ball had pierced 
 200 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 his brain ; he could not move. But, oh, how 
 his big muscles, his whole body quivered 
 with his strong will to arise and rend what- 
 ever it was that had so painfully stung him ! 
 When he was quite dead I gave his body 
 to the sun, all but his claws and a narrow 
 strip of fur I took from his back, with which 
 to wrap the medicine pipe I intended to own 
 some day. And then I cooked the meat I 
 had brought from the island and ate it and 
 went down out of the valley and slept all 
 night. I did not get home until the next 
 evening. The women were glad when I told 
 them that I had killed the horse-killer, and 
 my sister said that she wished that she were 
 a man, so she could wear its claws. 
 
 " You have the right to wear them," I 
 told her. " You took those horses from the 
 enemy just as much as I did. You can count 
 coup upon them, so take the claws and 
 make a necklace of them." 
 
 She did so, and proudly wore them. 
 Now began for us what proved to be a 
 time of peace, but one of great desire for 
 me. War parties no longer prowled up and 
 down the valley ; if they did we never saw 
 them. Just before daylight of each day, 
 
 20 1 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 sometimes alone and sometimes my sister 
 with me, I would go up on the buffalo trap 
 cliff, or out to the wide mouth of the trap 
 wings, and watch the buffalo, and remain 
 there until night, and go home in the dark- 
 ness to our little shelter, and food and rest. 
 
 The buffalo were very plentiful and very 
 quiet ; the season of their unrest, when the 
 bulls charge from herd to herd, and fight, 
 and moan, had not yet come. Day after day 
 I watched the six or eight or ten herds in 
 sight, hoping to see one animal do some- 
 thing that would cause all the others in the 
 band to run after it, but nothing of the kind 
 happened. The nearest approach to it was 
 when a calf would stray far enough from the 
 mothers for the wolves to chase, and some- 
 times seize it. More than once I had seen 
 a herd suddenly start off running when I 
 knew that they had not been frightened by 
 hunters. " What caused them to run ? What 
 can I do to make a herd chase me ?" I kept 
 asking myself, and could find no answer. 
 
 So the days passed, uselessly and all too 
 
 swiftly. We had kept sure count of them, 
 
 either my sister or I each night cutting a 
 
 new crease in my ramrod. And every few 
 
 202 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 nights, to make sure that we had not for- 
 gotten, we counted the creases; so many- 
 days had gone, so many were to come, be- 
 fore we should meet our people and the Flat 
 Heads at the mouth of the river. As the 
 remaining days became fewer and fewer, I 
 prayed harder and harder to the gods, to my 
 medicines, duck hawk especially, in some 
 way to show me how to decoy a herd. We 
 all prayed for that. We had long since sac- 
 rificed everything that we had worth giving; 
 we could now only pray the gods to favor us, 
 to grant my request. 
 
 On the evening that I cut the forty-fifth 
 notch in the ramrod, we all had heavy hearts. 
 There remained but four or five days before 
 the coming of our people, and the way to 
 call the buffalo was still a secret unrevealed. 
 I felt that I could not meet them until I 
 knew it. We all prayed harder than ever for 
 help that night, and after I lay down I once 
 more begged duck hawk to remember his 
 promise. 
 
 The next morning, as usual, we had some 
 
 fresh roasted meat long before daylight, and 
 
 then Pitaki and I went up on the buffalo 
 
 trap cliff for another day of herd watching. 
 
 203 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 When daylight came, we saw that two more 
 herds had come close in during the night, 
 making ten herds that we could see from 
 where we lay on the rise of ground between 
 the cliff and the coulee at the mouth of the 
 wings. We got up and went to the edge of 
 the cliff for a look at the valley ; if any war 
 party was there we wanted to know it. But 
 no. All was quiet, and another herd of buf- 
 falo, a very large one, was in the bottom 
 just above the cliff, and moving slowly 
 across to the river for water. The day was 
 beginning just as the other days of watching 
 had begun. The herds would graze, and 
 rest, and graze again, and go to water once 
 or twice, and nothing would happen. I was 
 so sure that I was not to learn the secret 
 that I felt sick. " You watch for a time," 
 I told my sister, and I lay down and cov- 
 ered myself with the elkskin wrap that the 
 women had tanned for me. 
 
 I slept. In my dream duck hawk ap- 
 peared, sailing around and around above me, 
 and as I called to him Pitaki roughly shook 
 me. " Awake ! See the buffalo ! Something 
 is happening!" she cried. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 I SPRANG to my feet and looked down 
 where she pointed : the herd of buffalo 
 was scattered all along the river edge, 
 and some were standing in the water, and 
 one, a cow, had left them and was running 
 back across the bottom. Four or five of the 
 herd, standing at the top of the river-bank, 
 were staring after her, and first one and then 
 another suddenly broke into a lope and 
 started to follow. The sound of their going 
 startled the whole herd, and out it came 
 from the river with a rush on the trail of 
 the lone cow and the four or five behind 
 her. Faster and faster they all went across 
 205 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 the bottom, and more slowly up the slope 
 beyond the clifF, and faster again out across 
 the plain and over the rise of ground, where 
 we lost sight of them. 
 
 "There! What think you of that?" Pi- 
 taki asked. 
 
 " The cow suddenly remembered that she 
 had left her calf somewhere out there," I 
 told her. " Perhaps she cached it, and for- 
 got to arouse it when they all started for the 
 river. And then she thought of its enemies, 
 the wolves and coyotes, and went as fast as 
 she could go to rescue it from them." 
 
 " Yes, that must be why she went so sud- 
 denly, so swiftly," Pitaki agreed. 
 
 I lay down again beside her and fell to 
 thinking about what we had seen. "Sister," I 
 said, " if I could only have the power that our 
 first fathers had, I could call the buffalo any- 
 where at any time ; I would change myself 
 into a cow, and pretend that I had lost my 
 calf, and suddenly leave the herd in search 
 of it, and they would all follow me." 
 
 And then, as quick as a lightning flash, 
 
 it came to me that my prayers, my sacrifices, 
 
 were answered. This was the way duck hawk 
 
 had taken to show me the secret. All I had 
 
 206 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 to do was to approach the buffalo on horse- 
 back, and then lie close on its back and cover 
 myself with a buffalo robe and start running 
 away from them, and they would follow me. 
 
 *' Sister ! " I cried, *' I see it all : I can be 
 almost-a-buffalo, enough like a buffalo to 
 decoy a herd. Come! Let us go home." 
 
 As we went I told her what I proposed to 
 do. And when we came to the old women, 
 sitting in the shade of a big cotton-wood 
 near the little lodge, I told them what we 
 had seen and all that I would do. And 
 when I finished they both sprang up and 
 hugged and kissed me, and cried, and Suyaki 
 said that we were at last to be paid for our 
 wandering, and praying, and sacrificing. 
 And then she lifted her hands and cried out 
 to the sun : " I am old ; I am near the time 
 when I must go to the Sand Hills, but, oh, 
 protect me! Keep life in me that I may at 
 least see my son decoy one herd of buffalo 
 for the people." 
 
 " Of course you will live to see him do it. 
 Not only one, but many herds," Ahsanaki 
 told her, and she began to sing softly as the 
 two of them made a fresh fire and set some 
 meat to roast. 
 
 207 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 As the time was so short to the day of the 
 coming of the two tribes, I decided to start 
 right out after the horses, and upon my re- 
 turn try to decoy a herd of buffalo with one 
 of them. I left the island after we finished 
 eating, taking with me some of the roast 
 meat, and my rifle and the one rope that we 
 had. I told the women to make some bridle 
 ropes of the remaining elk hide, so that we 
 could all ride down to the place of meeting 
 of the tribes. 
 
 I did not reach the little valley behind 
 Square Butte until late that night, too late to 
 find the horses. I slept until daylight and 
 then going out in the open saw them high 
 up on a grassy slope of the butte, and 
 climbed to them. Three of the four I had 
 hobbled were free, having worn out their 
 rawhide leg thongs. I easily caught the 
 fourth one, and bridled him with my rope, 
 and cut loose his hobbles. Then I ate some 
 meat and, mounting, headed the herd down 
 for the river. All of the animals were very 
 fat and full of life, and I had no trouble 
 with them ; they were more than willing to 
 keep ahead of me. 
 
 In the afternoon, when not far from the 
 208 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 river, I topped a high ridge from which I 
 got a good view of the valley for a long dis- 
 tance above our island. I held my horse 
 there for some time, looking down into it, 
 and at the plains on either side, and was 
 about to go on when a long, dark line of 
 moving objects began to cross the upper- 
 most of the bottoms that I could see. Like 
 a huge snake it came steadily on, and the 
 head disappeared in a grove before the tail 
 end came out from the grove at the farther 
 end of the bottom. There was no mistaking 
 what it was : a traveling tribe of people. 
 The Flat Heads were coming to the appointed 
 meeting-place days before the set time for 
 them to be there. 
 
 My first thought was that I was glad they 
 had come, for we should no longer be in 
 danger of attack by war parties. But on sec- 
 ond thought I saw that their coming would 
 likely spoil my plan to try to decoy a herd 
 of buffalo down at the ancient Crow trap. 
 When I sensed that, I rode the rest of the 
 way to the island as fast as I could drive the 
 loose stock ahead of me. " Head off the band," 
 I called out to the women. " Bring me your 
 ropes, one of you, and hold the band in 
 209 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 right here." They did as I told them, and 
 with my long rope I soon caught a horse for 
 each one, and a fresh horse, a small, lively 
 dark-brown animal, for myself. Then I told 
 them of the coming of the Flat Heads, and 
 that they must be stopped, or told to make 
 a big circle out on the plain south of the 
 buffalo trap cliff, for I wanted the buffalo 
 herds about it left undisturbed. 
 
 "And now," I said, *' pack up and hurry 
 to meet them and give them my message. 
 I will go with you a part of the way." 
 
 Suyaki laughed : '* He tells us to pack up," 
 she said, "when the only thing we have to 
 take with us is my brass kettle. We ate the 
 last of the dried elk meat this morning, my 
 son." 
 
 "Never mind," I told her, "the Flat 
 Heads will feed you. I shall kill meat for 
 you soon. Come ! we must go ! " 
 
 I rode with them through four or five of 
 the long bottoms above the trap cliff, and 
 then they went on with the horses to turn 
 off the Flat Heads, and I rode back down 
 the valley. But I had forgotten something; 
 I turned and called to my sister, and asked 
 her to give me her buffalo robe wrap in 
 
 2IO 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 place of my elk leather one. She handed it 
 over, and said that she was going back with 
 me ; that she just had to see me call the buf- 
 falo. 
 
 ** Come on, then, and see me fail," I an- 
 swered. 
 
 " But you are not to fail ! " she cried, " and 
 oh, how proud I am going to be: Sister of 
 Apauk, Caller of Buffalo, Bringer of Plenty." 
 
 " Let us begin praying right now that it 
 may all be as you say," I told her, and we 
 prayed all the way back to the foot of the cliff. 
 
 The sun was near setting when I tied Pi- 
 taki's horse to a log of the old trap, and then 
 leading mine, we went up on the plain by 
 the lower trail, and out between the wings 
 toward the coulee of water holes. " Sister," 
 I said, "a thought that has been long with 
 me is again in my mind. I once heard Four 
 Horns say that if one could only call buf- 
 falo on horseback, instead of afoot, he would 
 be in no danger from them. No, I have 
 never forgotten that. I see now that I have 
 right along been hoping to do it. And now, 
 right now, if a herd is in the right place out 
 there, we are going to know if it can be 
 done." 
 
 211 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 My sister said nothing to that. I looked 
 at her and saw that she was praying again. 
 
 We soon came to the rise of ground be- 
 tween the cHfF and the coulee and, looking 
 out from it, saw a small herd of buffalo on 
 the far side of the coulee, and right opposite 
 the mouth of the wings. They were far 
 enough away to suit my purpose; I could 
 ride down into the coulee without their no- 
 ticing it. I told my sister to hold my rifle 
 and remain right where she was, and got onto 
 my horse and went on. 
 
 As I have said before, there is one little 
 ridge after another from the coulee out on 
 the plain, each one a little higher than the 
 other until the level of the country is at- 
 tained. These one by one gave me shelter 
 until I at last sighted the buffalo ahead, at 
 just the right distance from me, I thought. 
 I then covered myself with my sister's robe, 
 hair side out and, lying as flat on my horse's 
 back as I could, I went slowly nearer and 
 nearer until some of the buffalo raised their 
 heads and stared at me. The instant they did 
 that, I turned my horse and hung to his 
 mane with my bridle hand and, reaching 
 down, tickled him between the hind legs 
 
 212 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 with a switch I carried in the other hand. 
 He began at once to run and kick up his 
 heels, and soon, looking back, I saw that the 
 herd of buffalo was coming after me. 
 
 Was I glad ? That was the happiest feel- 
 ing, just then, that I had ever had. I wanted 
 to shout thanks to the gods; to sing; but I 
 dared not do it. I rode straight down across 
 the little ridges and into the coulee, and 
 across it into the mouth of the wings, the buf- 
 falo ever gaining upon me, because in my flat 
 position on the horse's back I could not make 
 him go very fast. But as soon as the buffalo 
 came far enough into the mouth of the wings 
 to have stampeded them on to the cliff, had 
 people been hidden along the rock piles, I 
 straightened up and rode, yelling and wav- 
 ing my robe, out through the lower wing. 
 The herd swerved on and passed through 
 the other wing and on westward across the 
 plain. I then turned again and rode to my 
 sister, who was running and dancing toward 
 me, and shouting : "You did it ! You did it ! 
 Oh, brother! They followed you." And she 
 made me dismount so she could kiss me. 
 We were both so excited and happy that we 
 hardly knew what we were doing or saying. 
 213 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 We went on down the trail to the old trap, 
 and Pitaki got on her horse, and we rode up 
 the valley in search of the Flat Heads. They 
 had not passed on south around us, so we 
 knew that they were somewhere up there. 
 
 It was long after dark when we sighted 
 the dull-red glow of their lodges, pitched 
 along the edge of a big grove. We rode into 
 the camp and asked several persons where 
 our two old women were before finding one 
 that understood us. A number of our Pi- 
 kuni-Blackfeet women were married to Flat 
 Heads, and their children, and most of the 
 husbands, spoke our language well. 
 
 It was a woman of our tribe that led us 
 to those we sought ; the Flat Head chief 
 had taken them into his lodge. They heard 
 us before it and came running out, Suyaki 
 crying : " How is it ? Did you call them ? " 
 
 *'Oh, he did! He did! A whole herd 
 followed him into the wings ! " my sister an- 
 swered, and then all three grabbed me and 
 hugged me, and cried and shouted praise to 
 the gods for their goodness to me. 
 
 A great crowd surrounded us. The old 
 chief came out and greeted me in my own 
 language, and asked : " Do I hear right ? Is 
 214 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 it so that you have on horseback decoyed a 
 herd of bufFalo?" 
 
 " It is true. I did it this day," I answered. 
 
 He took me by the arm and led me to 
 the doorway of his lodge. " Enter ! Enter ! 
 Medicine youth, my lodge is your lodge," 
 he told me. 
 
 And I went in and he made me take the 
 seat of honor at his side, on his own couch 
 at the back of the lodge. Other chiefs and 
 warriors crowded in until the lodge would 
 hold no more. Women placed meat and 
 dried camas before me, but I was too excited 
 to eat ; the Flat Heads were too impatient to 
 hear all about it to let me eat. I pushed the 
 dish aside and told them how I had actually 
 on horseback decoyed a herd of buffalo into 
 the mouth of the wings of the old Crow 
 trap below. They clapped hands to mouths 
 and cried out in surprise that I had done 
 such a thing, and said that my medicine must 
 be strong. And then they talked of other 
 things ; gave me the news of their country ; 
 asked if I thought my people would be on 
 time at the mouth of the river; but always 
 the talk came back to my calling of the 
 buffalo. 
 
 215 
 
Apadk, CUfcr of BoUo 
 
 Snd Ac chief: «Mxiise toq viD call ai 
 kcvd of liililii Ibr v^ Few of nj people 
 woadccral s^^i^ m. over of 
 vcr tfae cfiCiaio the trqiu I 
 
 i^ and ok, I ^ wsst tc sec it 
 
 we cr^cfidE 
 be sU ID ]»«: tke 
 cadf Bcal the lodr=? 
 
 tTTTL ^^ 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 feet tribes. Your hunting-ground is so large 
 that one must travel davs to cross it. You 
 have game of all kinds, and so plentiful that 
 from summer to summer you can never use 
 one out of ten of those that are born.'* 
 
 I 'was glad that I belonged on the plains, 
 and not in the forests of the Flat Heads. But 
 they were not poor, although they had not 
 buffalo and antelope; they had all other 
 kinds of game, and they were rich in horses. 
 
 Well, we went on down the valley and 
 soon ioined the long column of riders, they 
 having come into it some distance below the 
 trap. As I rode with the chief to take the 
 lead, I noticed that his people had heeded 
 the request of our chiefs : their horses were 
 well loaded with sacks of dried cam as and 
 bitterroot, and many a roll of finely tanned 
 deer and elkskin. 
 
 We arrived at the mouth of Sun River 
 some time before sunset, and I rode into the 
 place of our cache, and was glad to find that 
 it had not been disturbed. My sister and the 
 old women soon joined me, and got out the 
 things, and as night came we once more were 
 comfortable in our own lodge, with its soft 
 robe couches and pleasant Uttle fire. But we 
 217 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 were not allowed to eat in it that night ; the 
 chief called me to a feast, and the women's 
 friends entertained them, and again it was 
 very late before we all got home and went to 
 sleep. 
 
 At noon the next day some of the Flat 
 Head watchers came in from the rim of the 
 plain and reported that the Pikuni were in 
 sight. The news spread through camp and 
 men and women and children hurried to get 
 into their best clothes. Then the men got on 
 their horses, I with them, and we went out 
 to meet the Pikuni chiefs and warriors. 
 
 It was not until evening that I had a 
 chance to talk with No Runner. We had 
 met earlier and he had pointed to my horses, 
 all of them with his loose stock, and said that 
 none were lost. Now, when I came into his 
 lodge he cried out: "Welcome, Apauk, 
 Bringer of Plenty. Your sister and Suyaki 
 have told me all about it. I am proud of 
 you." 
 
 I answered what I had been thinking all 
 day : " I did it once, but maybe I can never 
 call the buffalo again. I am scared when I 
 think of trying it." 
 
 ** Now, don't be an afraid heart," he said. 
 218 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 " Of course you can do it again. Tell me all 
 about it, everything that has happened to you 
 since we parted here two moons ago." 
 
 I had no sooner finished my story than 
 there came a call for us to go to Lone Walk- 
 er's lodge, where we found the Flat Head 
 chief and a few of the lesser chiefs of both 
 tribes. There I had to repeat how I had on 
 horseback called the buffalo, and while I 
 talked every one listened intently, and the 
 pipe that was going the rounds when I started 
 was smoked out, and Lone Walker forgot to 
 refill it. 
 
 When I stopped talking, having told how 
 the buffalo had followed me into the wings 
 of the old Crow trap, I could see that some 
 of the listeners could hardly believe that what 
 they had heard could be true. That made me 
 somewhat angry, and I cried out : ** Give 
 me the chance to do it, and I will prove to 
 you all that 1 can call the buffalo." 
 
 "My son, you shall have that chance," 
 Lone Walker answered. "We will all rest 
 here for two nights, and then move up near 
 the old trap and repair it, and you shall fill it 
 with buffalo for us." 
 
 Soon after that I went home, but I could 
 219 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 not sleep; I was afraid; I wished that I had 
 not made that offer. What if I should fail to 
 decoy the buffalo into the wings? If I did 
 fail, I felt I could never again look any of 
 my people in the face. 
 
 All of the next day there was great trading 
 of roots and buckskins, buffalo robes, and 
 buffalo cow leather in the two camps, and 
 many of the Flat Head hunters went across 
 the river and ran buffalo, and brought in all 
 the meat and hides their horses could stagger 
 under. In the evening there was more feast- 
 ing and visiting about, and I was called with 
 No Runner to go here and there, and tell 
 over and over about what I had done. But 
 in each lodge I told it as shortly as I could; 
 I was very unhappy, very anxious. I wanted 
 to be by myself and think and pray. 
 
 The next morning down came the lodges 
 of both camps and we all moved up to the 
 bottom on the south side of the river, just 
 below the buffalo trap. The chiefs of both 
 tribes gave orders that no one except the 
 watchers could go up on the plain on the 
 north side of the valley, and that all horses 
 must be kept on the south side. As Little 
 Otter and all the other callers had done, so 
 220 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 did I : my lodge was set up by itself out in 
 the bottom from the double camp of people. 
 I crossed the river and went up on the cliff 
 with some of the watchers, and saw the usual 
 herds of buffalo up and down the coulee of 
 water holes, and out from it. *' Keep a good 
 watch," I told them, " for now I go to make 
 medicine." I felt very strange giving that 
 order. It did not seem right that one so 
 young as I should tell people what to do. 
 
 Ahsanaki was still with us. She had found 
 one or two distant relatives, but she preferred 
 to remain with us, and we were glad to have 
 her in our lodge. But now I had to send 
 both her and my sister to No Runner's lodge 
 for a time. That evening I began my fast, 
 and Suyaki painted herself black and re- 
 mained with me, and sang with me the song 
 of the ancient bull, and all the other medi- 
 cine songs. Over and over we sang them, and 
 I prayed and she prayed, and I fasted and 
 dreamed, and my dreams were good. 
 
 On the third evening of my fasting and 
 praying, Suyaki returned from her lone walk 
 to the river and told me that the people had 
 repaired the old trap at the bottom of the 
 cliff; that in passing, my sister had made 
 
 221 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 signs to her that it was completed, and high- 
 built and strong. I told Suyaki that they had 
 probably had their work for nothing, as I 
 would most likely fail to decoy the buffalo 
 to the cliffs. 
 
 " Be ashamed of yourself for saying that," 
 she cried. " Look back over the past two 
 moons and see how good the gods have been 
 to us ; how everything that has happened has 
 been leading up to what we are doing here 
 in this lone lodge. Can't you see that you are 
 to succeed ? Of course you are. Now, let us 
 sing again the song of the ancient bull." 
 
 Her words cheered me. We sang the song ; 
 and the wolf song; and all the other songs, 
 and when the night was late we made a last 
 prayer, and slept. 
 
 Came the fourth and last morning of my 
 fast, and with the daylight a watcher ran to 
 my lodge and told me that a big herd of 
 buffalo was out opposite the mouth of the 
 trap wings. I asked him to give word to 
 No Runner to catch for me the little brown 
 horse that I had recently taken from the 
 enemy, and when the chief brought it in I 
 took a robe, and a switch, and mounted it, 
 and crossed the river and went up on the 
 111 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 clifF. Sure enough, a big herd, a very big 
 herd, was grazing away out on the ridges 
 on the far side of the coulee, right where I 
 would have placed it for my purpose could 
 I have done so. I said to the four watchers : — 
 
 " One of you go down and tell the people 
 to come to the wings. Three of you stand 
 here and warn them as they pass to go slowly, 
 and when in their places be careful not to 
 move and show themselves." 
 
 I then led my horse to one side of the trail 
 and sat down, and kept my eyes on the herd 
 and prayed. 
 
 I soon heard the soft steps of the people 
 as they passed out to hide along the line of 
 the wings, but I would not look at them. 
 No Runner came and sat beside me. When 
 he spoke his voice trembled, and I could see 
 his hands trembling as though with cold. I 
 myself was shivering. *' Oh, my son ! " he 
 said, "I am so anxious for you to succeed 
 in this, that I am sick. Do your best ! You 
 must not fail to decoy the herd within the 
 wings! " 
 
 " Pray for me," I answered. " Pray hard ! 
 Oh, I am afraid to go out there ; but go I 
 must, and I go now." And with that I got 
 223 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 on my horse and rode between the wings 
 and past them into the coulee. 
 
 On the first of the little ridges on the 
 far side of the coulee I paused and looked 
 back : a few people were still coming out 
 along the wings, and I waited until the very 
 last one of them took his place before going 
 on. And as I went I was feeling very sick. 
 I was making a last prayer to the gods, and 
 to duck hawk in particular, when I again 
 sighted the buffalo. I went on until they dis- 
 covered me, and as they did so my courage 
 came back ; I felt strong again. I guess the 
 gods put courage into me right then, for my 
 great trial before the people. 
 
 As the first cow raised her head and stared 
 at me, I lay low on my horse, and made my 
 body take the shape of a hump of a buffalo. 
 I had on a very large buffalo robe that 
 covered me and the sides and length of 
 my horse as well: to the eyes of those star- 
 ing at me my horse and I were a buf- 
 falo; perhaps a somewhat strangely shaped 
 one, but still a buffalo. I did not give them 
 time to look close and become suspicious : 
 I wheeled around, and made the horse kick 
 up and run for the wings, and almost at once 
 224 
 
Apauk, Caller of BufiFalo 
 
 the herd began to follow me. Down over the 
 ridges I went, the thunder of their coming 
 in my ears. Faster and faster I crossed the 
 coulee and rode up into the mouth of the 
 wings, and far in between them, and sud- 
 denly turned east and passed through the 
 line of the lower wing. Oh, what a happy 
 feeling went all through me as I again turned 
 and saw the big herd rushing straight to- 
 ward the cliff, the people along each wing 
 continually rising behind them and urging 
 them on. The hoofs of the buffalo thundered 
 and rattled, and raised a cloud of dust. The 
 people shouted as they followed them. On 
 and on they all went, and when the buffalo 
 began to pour over the cliff the roar of their 
 falling was like that of a mountain landslide. 
 Over they all went, even to the last old cow, 
 and the people rushed to the right and left 
 and ran down the trail at each end of the 
 cHff, and I was left alone there by the wings 
 of the ancient trap. I rode to the edge of 
 the cHff and dismounted and sat down, and 
 looked down into the trap. The fence 
 swarmed with men shooting and lancing the 
 crippled and uninjured animals, and the dead 
 heap of them was five or six bodies thick. 
 225 
 
Apauk, Caller of Buffalo 
 
 Soon the last cripple was killed, and the 
 fence was pulled down in places, and in bands 
 often or fifteen, men and women began to 
 pull out the top animals and the butchering 
 of the big herd was commenced and carried 
 on all that day. I watched them a long time 
 and then went down to the trap. How the 
 people shouted out my name when they saw 
 me coming: "Apauk! Apauk! Here is 
 Apauk, Bringer of Plenty," they kept cry- 
 ing. You can imagine how happy they made 
 me. 
 
 And so began my life as a caller of buffalo 
 for the people; for my people, and the Black- 
 feet and Kai'na and Gros Ventres as well. 
 The four tribes of them kept me busy, and 
 they made me rich with gifts. In time other 
 young men learned to call herds, but I always 
 did the calling for my own tribe. Then came 
 the building of Fort Benton and the demand 
 of the traders for robes, robes, and still more 
 robes. Thatkept our hunters busy. They be- 
 gan killing buffalo in great numbers ; hunt- 
 ing them daily in the season of prime hides. 
 The camp was always red with meat, and out 
 on the plains thousands and thousands of car- 
 casses rotted or were eaten by the wolves. 
 126 
 
Apauk, Caller of BufFalo 
 
 When that happened, there was no longer 
 need for my services. Three years after the 
 Fort was buih, I called a herd for the last 
 time. ; After that I was obliged to go out and I 
 hunt, or to send some one to hunt for me, 
 when I wanted meat. I 
 
 I wish that the white people had neverj 
 come into my country. 
 
 THE END 
 
CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
 U . S . A 
 
 
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