Part 22

An Indian chief of the tribe called Blackfoot, or Blackfeet, went over the Rocky Mountains with a war party. He killed some of the enemies of his tribe, and then started back. For fear their enemies would follow their tracks, the party did not take the usual path. They went up over the wildest part of the mountain. But when it came to going down on the other side, the Indians had a hard time.

They had to clamber over great rocks and down the sides of cliffs. Drifts of snow blocked their way in places. At last they had to stop. They stood on the edge of a cliff. Below this cliff was a ridge or shelf of rock. By tying themselves together, and so helping one another down, they got to this shelf. Below this they found still another cliff. It was harder to get down to this.

But when they had got down as far as this ledge, they were in a worse plight than ever. They stood on the brink of a great cliff. The rocks were too steep for them to get down. It was hundreds of feet to the bottom.

They tried to get back up the mountain, but that they could not do. Then they sat down and looked over the brink of the cliff. There was no chance for them to get down alive. They must stay there and starve.

The Indians filled their pipes with kinnikinnick, or willow bark, and smoked. Then they knocked the ashes out of their pipes, and lay down to sleep.

But the chief did not sleep. He could not think of any way of getting out of the trouble. When morning came, they all went and looked over the cliff once more. Then they smoked again. After sitting silent for some time, the chief laid down his pipe quietly, got to his feet, and went to painting his face as if he were getting ready for a feast. He arranged his dress with the greatest care. Then he made a little speech.

"It is of no use to stay here and die," he said. "The Great Spirit is not willing that we should get away. Let us die bravely."

He added other remarks of the same kind. Then he sang his death song. When this was finished, he gave a shout, and leaped over the cliff.

When the chief had gone, the others sat down and smoked again in silence. After a long time, a weather-beaten old Indian got up and walked to the edge of the cliff.

"See," he said, "there is the soul of our chief, waiting for us to go with him to the land of spirits."

The others looked over, and saw the form of a man far below, waving the bough of a tree.

The old warrior now threw off his blanket and sang his death song. Then he leaped off. The others again looked over, and this time they saw two forms beckoning to them from below.

One after another the Indians jumped, until there were left but two young men who were little more than boys. These two boys were nephews of the chief. They had never been in a war party.

The elder of the two showed his young brother the ghosts of the whole party standing below. He told his brother he must jump off, but the frightened boy begged to be allowed to stay and die on the bare rock.

The elder seized him, and, after a struggle, pushed him over. Then he quietly gathered up all the blankets and guns, and threw them off. He thought the souls of his friends would need these things in their journey to the land of spirits.

When this was done, the young man sang his own death song and jumped off. Falling swiftly as an arrow, feet downward, he struck a great snow drift at the bottom. It received him like an immense feather bed. He sank in so far that he had hard work to get out. When he had succeeded, he found all of his party, not spirits, as he had expected, but living men, safe and sound. The snow had saved them from injury.

HOW FREMONT CROSSED THE MOUNTAINS.

It is many years now since Captain Fremont made his great journey over plains and mountains to California. At that time California belonged to Mexico. The wild country east of it belonged to the United States. There were hardly any roads and no railroads in the country west of the Missouri River. Fremont was sent out to explore that country; that is, he was sent to find out what kind of a country it was. The white people knew very little about it.

Fremont had a large party of men with many horses. After months of travel he found himself near the great Californian mountains. These mountains are called the Sierra Nevada, or "Snowy Range."

Here some Indians came to see him. He had a talk with them by signs, for he could not speak their language. They told him he could cross the mountains in summer. They said it was "six sleeps" to the place where the white men lived over the mountains. They meant that a man would have to pass six nights on the road in going there. But it was now winter, and they told him that no man could cross in the winter. They held their hands above their heads to show him that the snow was deeper than a man is tall.

But Fremont told the Indians that the horses of the white men were strong, and that he would go over the mountains. He showed them some bright-colored cloths, which he said he would give to any Indian who would go along as a guide. The Indians called in a young man who said he had been over the mountains and had seen the white people on the other side. He agreed to go with Fremont. Fremont now talked to his men, and told them there was a beautiful valley on the other side of the mountains,--the valley of the Sacramento. He told them that Captain Sutter had moved to this valley from Missouri, and had become a rich man. It was but seventy miles to Sutter's Fort. The men agreed to try to cross the mountains.

They had but little left to eat. They killed a dog and ate it that very evening. They would not have much chance to get food in crossing the mountains, but they started in bravely the next morning. They did not talk much. They knew that it was very dangerous to cross the mountains in February.

For days and days they fought their way through the snow, which got deeper and deeper as they went higher up into the mountains. Traveling grew harder and harder. The horses had nothing to eat but what could be found in little patches of grass where the wind had blown the snow off the ground. Whenever a horse or mule grew too weak to travel, the men killed it and ate it.

One day an old Indian came to see them. He told them they must not go on. He said, "Rock upon rock, rock upon rock, snow upon snow, snow upon snow, and even if you get over the snow, you will not be able to get down the mountain on the other side."

He made signs to show them that the walls of rock were straight up and down, and that the horses would slip oft. This frightened the Indians in Fremont's company, and one Indian covered up his head and moaned while the old man was talking.

The young Indian guide was afraid to go on. He ran away the next day, taking all the pretty things that Fremont had given him, and a blanket that Fremont had lent him to keep warm.

The men now made snowshoes, so that they could walk over the snow without sinking in. Sleds were made to draw the baggage on, for the horses were getting too weak to carry anything. They found the snow twenty feet deep in some places. The men had to make great mauls or pounders to beat down the snow, to make a hard road on which the animals could travel. Fremont's men now grew very hungry, for they had little to eat except when they killed a starving mule or a dog.

At last the whole party reached the top of the mountains at a place where they were nine thousand feet high. They had been three weeks in getting to the top. They had yet the hard task of getting down on the other side. But they could see the beautiful country of California below them. They began to work their way down over the snow and rocks.