[Pg i] [Pg ii] I LEANED OUT AND FIRED STRAIGHT AT A BIG HEAD ( p. 105 ) COPYRIGHT, 1918, BY THE SPRAGUE PUBLISHING COMPANY COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY JAMES WILLARD SCHULTZ ALL RIGHTS RESERVED [Pg vi] [Pg vii]...

One of the greatest pleasures of my long life on the plains was my intimate friendship with Hugh Monroe, or Rising Wolf, whose tale of his first experiences upon the Saskatchewan-Missouri River plains is set forth in Rising Wolf just as I had it from him before the lodge fires of the long ago. At first an engagé of the Hudson's Bay Company, then of the American Fur Company, and finally free trapper, Hugh Monroe saw more "new country" and had more adventures than most of the early men of the West

HUGH MONROE'S STORY OF HIS FIRST YEAR ON THE PLAINS [Pg 2] [Pg 3]...

You ask me for the story of my life. My friend, it would fill many volumes, for I have lived a long life of great adventure. But I am glad! You shall have the story. Let us set it forth in order. So! I begin: I was born in Three Rivers Settlement, Province of Quebec, July 9, 1798. My father was Captain Hugh Monroe, of the English Army. My mother was Amélie de la Roche, daughter of a noble family of French émigrés . Her father owned a fine mansion in Montreal, and the large estate in Three Rivers

"How would you like to travel about with the Pi-kun-i for a time, and learn their language?" I could only stare at him, hardly believing my ears, and he added: "I am sure that you would be in no more danger than you are here in the fort, or I would not propose this." "I would rather do it than anything else! It is just what I want to do!" I told him. "Let me explain the situation to you fully," he went on. "But, first, did you ever hear of Lewis and Clark? "No? Well, they are two American Army o

When we rode out upon the plain from the valley on our way from the Post we saw several bands of buffaloes away off to the right and left of the trail. Red Crow paid no attention to them, and when, at last, I gave him to understand by signs that I would like to approach the nearest band, a couple of miles ahead and perhaps that far from the trail, he answered that we must do our killing on, or close to, the trail so that the women could put the meat on the pack horses when they came along. In my

I went but a little way through the brush when, in the dim light, I saw Red Crow clinging with both hands to a slender, swaying, quaking aspen, and jerking up his feet from the up-reaching swipes of a big bear's claws. He could find no lodgment for his feet and could climb no higher; as it was, the little tree threatened to snap in two at any moment. It was bending more and more to the right, and directly over the bear, and he was lifting his legs higher and higher. There was no time to be lost!

When we cleared that brush patch I looked back. The buffaloes were no more than fifty yards behind us and the brush was gone, trampled down to its roots. I did not see the two horses that Mink Woman had been leading, or think of them at that time; my one thought was to get away from that onrushing wall of shaggy, sharp-horned, bobbing heads. Red Crow, frantically thumping his horse with his heels, was leading us, heading obliquely toward Badger River, and waving to us to follow him. Mink Woman w

With flattened ears and a menacing snarl a mountain lion, not four feet back, was crouching and nervously shuffling her forefeet for a spring at me, and three or four small young ones behind her all had their backs arched and were spitting and growling too. I ducked down so quickly that I lost my balance and tumbled onto the rocks, but luckily the fall did not hurt me. I was up on my feet at once. "What was it?" Red Crow asked. "A big lion! It has little young ones. It was making ready to spring

All the men from the whole length of the line were rushing forward, even the old and weak who had scarce strength enough to string their bows. Ahead, women and children were coming back as fast as they could make their horses run, and pack horses, travois horses, and those dragging lodge poles were running in all directions and scattering their loads upon the plain. It was a scene of awful confusion and of noise; women and children yelling and crying with fright, flying past us wild eyed, our me

On the following evening we camped upon a small stream flowing into the Musselshell through a wide valley lying between the Moccasin Mountains, and another outlying shoot from the Rockies, named Kwun-is-tuk-ists (Snow Mountains). Not so named because they were more snowy than other mountains, but for their white rock formation. From a distance large bare areas of this on the dark, timbered slopes have all the appearance of snow banks. The two great camps of us were certainly lively enough that e

I well remember how warm and windless that March day was. There were patches of snow on the north side of the hills, and in the coulees, but otherwise the brown plains were bare and dry. The mountains, of course, were impassable, so we kept along the foot of them, traveling east, and that night camped at the foot of the Black Butte. The following morning we swung around the butte and headed south by a little east, a course that would take us to the junction of Elk River and the Bighorn, my compa

We approached the lower camp, the lodges all yellow glow from the cheerful fires within. And a cheerful camp it was; men and women singing here and there, several dances going on, children laughing and playing—and some squalling—men shouting out to their friends to come and smoke with them. We could see many dim figures hurrying through the cold and darkness from one lodge to another. We approached the west side of the circle at a swift walk, just as though we belonged there—knew where we were g