was in the Moon of Falling Leaves—October—that we in Fort Benton noticed a lone horseman fording the river and wondered who he could be. Then we saw that it was One Horn. He approached the gate, mournfully calling over and over the names of his six companions; and we knew that they were dead, and the women set up a great wailing for them. When he rode slowly into the court we thought that we had never seen so thin and careworn a man; he was just bones covered with wrinkled skin, and across his breast was a tightly drawn bandage of what had evidently been his buffalo-leather leggings.
We were so painfully struck with his forlorn appearance that we did not at first notice the horse he rode; but when he slipped from it and staggered into the outstretched arms of the crying women, Antoine, the stableman, stepped up to it to lead it away, and he cried out, "See, my frien's, dis horse so beautiful!" We almost cried out with him. The animal was shining black and in good flesh, clean-limbed, of powerful build, gentle and proud.
"A thoroughbred, if ever there was one!" said my uncle, who was standing beside me. "Unquestionably of Andalusian stock!"
Tsistsaki had One Horn carried into our quarters and a robe couch made up for him. A woman brought in some soup hot from her hearth, but he would take only a few sups of it. My uncle cut away the bandage round his breast and disclosed a jagged wound several inches long, partly healed, but badly discolored and suppurating at the lower end.
"It was all healed over, then it got bad again," One Horn whispered.
My uncle shook his head. "Mortification has set in; I fear there is no hope for him," he said in English to Tsistsaki and me.
Then he carefully washed the wound, medicated it, and put a clean, soft bandage upon it.
When the wounded man awoke that evening, my uncle asked him to tell us his adventures on the long south trail.
We thought that he was never going to answer, so long did he stare straight up at the roof; but finally he said, so low that it was with straining ears that we heard him: "Far Thunder, Tsistsaki! My words shall be few. We went far into the country of the Spanish white men and came upon a camp of plains people and in their herds of good horses saw the horse that I rode here to-day. We raided that camp and took many horses, among them the black, Is-spai-u, as I have named him. We got safe away from that camp. But then—oh, my friends! through my fault my companions died. I was in great hurry to get back here. I would not heed the warnings of my dreams. I took chances. Through a rough country I led my men in the daytime when I should have traveled at night. We were seen by the enemy, but saw them not. They made ready for our coming and suddenly rode out at us. My companions fought bravely, killed many and were themselves killed. I was wounded, but because I was upon this black horse I escaped. So swift was he that none of the enemy could overtake me. At first my wound was very bad; then it got better, and I took courage. I said to myself that I would return to this south country with all the warriors of the Pikuni and avenge the death of my companions. Then my wound got steadily worse. Far Thunder, my wound is killing me. No, don't deny it; you know it as well as I do. From the time you and I first met we have been friends. You have been good to me. Now we part. This night I am going upon the long trail to the Sand Hills. I give you the black horse. You must promise me always to keep him. You promise? That is good! North and south, east and west, he is the swiftest, the most tireless horse on all the plains. I know that you will be good to him. I can talk no more."
Nor did he ever speak again. He soon became unconscious and died before midnight.
Now, my Uncle Wesley was a great sportsman and loved more than anything else the excitement of a buffalo run with a good horse under him, a bow in his hand, and a quiver full of arrows at his back. "You can have your rifle and your six-shooters for the chase," he would often say, "but the bow for me. While you are fooling away time reloading your weapons, I shall be slipping arrows into good, fat cows!"
Several months after the death of One Horn, a herd of buffaloes drifted into the upper end of the bottom and gave him a chance to try Is-spai-u. Word spread that my uncle was going to run the buffaloes, and when he rode out from the fort all the men followed him who had horses or could borrow them. I shall not go into the details of that run, but will simply say that when it ended twenty-seven buffaloes lay strung along the plain with my uncle's arrows in them! It was the best run ever made in the whole Northwest, so far as was known, and the success of it was owing more to the swiftness and endurance of Is-spai-u than to the skill of my uncle with the bow. The reputation of the black horse was established. Through visiting Kootenay Indians it spread to all the west-side tribes, the Kalispels, Nez Percés, and Snakes. When bands from the Blackfoot tribes came into the fort at different times in order to trade, the first request of the chiefs and warriors was for a sight of the wonderful animal.
In time our engagés took word of him to our different forts along the river, and thus all the other tribes, Sioux, Assiniboins, Crows, Crees, and Yanktonnais, came to know about him. Deputations from all the tribes that were at peace with the Blackfeet came to the fort and made fabulous offers for the animal. At the risk of their lives, some Snakes brought in one hundred and ten good ordinary horses that they wanted to trade for the black runner. A chief of the Yanktonnais, then trading mostly with the Hudson's Bay Company at their Assiniboin River post, sent word that he would give two hundred horses for him. My uncle's one answer to all of the would-be purchasers was that the black was not for sale. We soon heard that many a warrior of the tribes hostile to the Blackfeet had vowed to get the horse in one way or another. Within a year three desperate attempts were made to steal him right out from the fort, and the last raiders, three Assiniboins, paid for the attempt with their lives.
On the evening before we left Fort Benton George Steell had begged my uncle to leave Is-spai-u in his care. "You know how flies swarm about a molasses keg. Well, so will the hostiles swarm about you down there when they learn that the runner is with you. Be sensible for once, Wesley, and let me have him until your fort is completed."
"George, I know you mean well," my uncle replied, "but, consarn it, you're too reckless! You would cripple him in no time. Is-spai-u goes with me!"
Half angry at that, Steell shrugged his shoulders and turned away from us without another word. My uncle had been right in refusing him the use of the animal; he was the most reckless, hard-riding buffalo hunter in all the country.
After this explanation, you can imagine my pride and happiness in mounting Is-spai-u for the first time. He was eager to go; I let him have the bit.
"Well, almost-brother," I said to Pitamakan, "we are off upon discovery. Which way shall we go?"
"First, straight to the head of the breaks yonder, from which we can see far up and down Big River and the plains to the north of it," he answered.
We passed through the grove in which the men were working, crossed the Musselshell and began the steep climb, following a game trail that was sure to keep us out of trouble in the maze of bad-land breaks ahead. Two thirds of the way up the breaks we entered the lowermost of the scrub-pine and juniper growths that concealed the heads of most of the coulees, from which great numbers of mule deer and occasionally some fine-looking elk fled at our approach. Within an hour we arrived at the summit, and there in a dense grove found a war lodge that had been put up not more than three nights before. By its size, and the signs within, we judged that it had been the one night's resting-place of a party of between fifteen and twenty men, and the pattern of the beadwork of a pair of worn-out moccasins that we found partly charred in the fireplace proved to us that they were Assiniboins. Circling the place, we found their trail in the spongy, volcanic ash of which the bad lands are mainly composed. They were going south, and I said to Pitamakan that they would doubtless come back the same way from their raid against the Crows, or whatever tribe they were heading for, and would, of course, discover our camp.
"Well, what else can you expect? I should
