Part 16 (1/2)
”Now, I knew Joe Kipp very well and often met him on the Blackfeet Reservation. He lived in a big frame house there, had a bathtub and a Chinaman cook, and showed his Indians how to 'follow the path of the white man.'
”But what I want you to remember is this: Joe Kipp had his Mandan mother with him until she died. I have seen her, too, a very tall, old woman, and wild as a hawk. Joe built her a little cabin all her own, where no one else ever went. In her little cabin she spent her last years as she had lived in her earlier days among the Mandans, making moccasins for Joe, decorating tobacco pouches and fire bags with beads and porcupine quills. I have a fire bag of hers that Joe gave me, and I prize it very much. She no longer had the buffalo, but on the rafters of her lodge she had her dried meat hanging, and the interior was something no man living will see again.
”Joe Kipp's Mandan mother was the last living soul of the pure-blood Mandan tribe, one of the most curious and puzzling ones of the West--they were a light-colored people, the children with light eyes; no one knows how they came on the Missouri. But the smallpox got them almost all. They went crazy, jumped in the river--died--pa.s.sed.
”Well, Joe's mother, so he said, was the last, a very old woman, I presume nearly a hundred then. Often she would take her blanket and go out on a hilltop and sit there motionless hours at a time, with her blanket over her face--thinking, thinking, I presume, over the days that you and I are studying together now.
”And just a little while ago I heard of Joe Kipp's death, too. His mother died some years earlier. So that is some Mandan history which I presume even our Mandan friend here never has heard before--about the last of the Mandans, who came down, broken and helpless, even into our own time.”
”Don't!” suddenly said Rob. ”Please don't! It makes me sad.”
They fell silent as presently each found his way to his blankets.
CHAPTER XVII
AT THE YELLOWSTONE
The motor-car journey of the party had not much of eventfulness, being practically, most of the way, through a farm or range country where roads of least pa.s.sable sort led them in the general northwesterly direction which they desired to take. All three of the young explorers could drive, so they took turns occasionally, while the editor sat in the back seat and conversed with Uncle d.i.c.k.
Beyond a few grouse and rabbits, with a half dozen coyotes, they saw no game except wild fowl on the sloughs. The cabins and tepees on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation afforded them a change of scene, and they were delighted to find three of the native Mandan earth lodges, one nearly fifty feet in diameter. They learned that the remnants of the Mandan tribe, few in number and comprising few, if any, pure blood, were located with reservation here, and were clinging to their tribal customs the best they could.
”Well, here's what Patrick Ga.s.s says about the old Mandan huts and how they were built--and he was a carpenter and so ought to know.” John was always ready with his quotations:
”'A Mandane's circular hut is s.p.a.cious. I measured the one I lodged in, and found it 90 feet from the door to the opposite side. The whole s.p.a.ce is first dug out about 1-1/2 feet below the surface of the earth. In the center is the square fireplace, about five feet on each side, dug out about two feet below the surface of the ground flat. The lower part of the hut is constructed by erecting strong posts about six feet out of the ground, at equal distances from each other, according to the proposed size of the hut, as they are not all of the same dimensions. Upon these are laid logs as large as the posts, reaching from post to post to form the circle.
On the outer side are placed pieces of split wood seven feet long, in a slanting direction, one end resting on the ground, the other leaning against the cross-logs or beams. Upon these beams rest rafters about the thickness of a man's leg, and 12 to 15 feet long, slanting enough to drain off the rain, and laid so close to each other as to touch. The upper ends of the rafters are supported upon stout pieces of squared timber, which last are supported by four thick posts about five feet in circ.u.mference, 15 feet out of the ground and 15 feet asunder, forming a square. Over these squared timbers others of equal size are laid, crossing them at right angles, leaving an opening about four feet square. This serves for chimney and windows, as there are no other openings to admit light, and when it rains even this hole is covered over with a canoe (bull boat) to prevent the rain from injuring their gammine (sic) and earthen pots. The whole roof is well thatched with the small willows in which the Missourie abounds, laid on to the thickness of six inches or more, fastened together in a very compact manner and well secured to the rafters. Over the whole is spread about one foot of earth, and around the wall, to the height of three or four feet, is commonly laid up earth to the thickness of three feet, for security in case of an attack and to keep out the cold. The door is five feet broad and six high, with a covered way or porch on the outside of the same height as the door, seven feet broad and ten in length. The doors are made of raw buffalo-hide stretched upon a frame and suspended by cords from one of the beams which form the circle. Every night the door is barricaded with a long piece of timber supported by two stout posts set in the ground in the inside of the hut, one on each side of the door.'”
”Well,” remarked Jesse, ”that sort of a house was big enough, so it is no wonder they could keep their horses in there with them, too, in the wintertime. And they fed them cottonwood limbs when there wasn't any gra.s.s to eat.”
”Yes,” remarked Uncle d.i.c.k, ”that's what we call adjusting to an environment. I will say these Mandans were rather efficient on the whole, and not bad engineers and architects.”
They did not tarry long, although they made their second encampment within the lines of the old Fort Berthold Reservation, for they found all the Indians wearing white men's clothing, and using wagons and farm implements, and Jesse said they had more Indianish Indians in Alaska.
Now they bore rather sharply to the north, feeling for the line of the railway, which they struck at a village about midway between the Little Knife and the White Earth Rivers. The early afternoon of their fourth day brought them back once more to the sight of the Missouri, at the town of Buford, near the Montana line and opposite the mouth of the Yellowstone.
Following their usual custom, they made camp outside the vicinity of the town, after purchasing the supplies they needed for the day and for the return trip of their obliging friend from Mandan, who now reluctantly decided that he could accompany them no farther.
”I'd rather go on with you than do anything I know,” said he, ”but it's going to be quite a trip, and I won't have time, even if we could get through with a car.”
Uncle d.i.c.k nodded. ”Really the best way to do this would be to take s.h.i.+p again here and follow the river up the Great Falls,” he said; ”but by the time we got a boat rigged and had made the run up--best part of six hundred miles--we'd be almost a month further into the summer--because the river is swifter above here. They made good time, but it was mostly cordelle work. And, using gas motors, the boys wouldn't have much chance of any real sport and exercise, which, of course, I want them to have every summer when possible.
”Get your map, John--the big government map--and let's have a look at this country in west of here.”
John complied. They all bent over the map, which they spread down on the floor of the tent. Their gasoline camp lantern shed its brilliant light over them all as they bent down in study of the map.
”You'll see now that we're almost at the farthest north point on the Missouri River. From here it runs almost west to the Great Falls, and then almost south. Now our new railroad (the Great Northern Railroad) will take us to the Great Falls of the Missouri, but it by no means follows the Missouri. On the contrary, a little over two hundred miles from here, I'd guess, it strikes the Milk River--as Lewis and Clark called it--and follows that river half across the state of Montana. It would carry us out to the Blackfeet Reservation, and what is now Glacier Park--my own hunting ground among the Blackfeet, where I knew Joe Kipp--but that is entirely off the map for us.”
”Why, sure it is!” said Jesse, following the line of the river with his finger. ”Look it! It runs away south, hundreds of miles, into the southwest corner of the state; and the railroad goes almost to Canada.
And there's a lot of river between here and Great Falls, too--bad water, you say?”