Crawford avalanche. (Grayling, Mich.) 1879-19??, 1896-02-13
INDIAN PLEASANTRlEs.
How Single Pisgan Passed for Seven

How Single Piegan Passed for Seventy.
"A member Of the Canadian mounted
police, Lieut.. McDOnough. told me-"
said Capt. Partellea at the Officers Club.
1.-The following incident of band of
Crees and a solitary Picgan Indian,
which is novel and interesting. 1t &C.
Cured about 100 miles from Fort
| Walsh. a band of Cree Indians woke
up one snowy morning to find that
about one dozen Of their choicest ponies
had been run of during the night.
Pursuit was soon organized, and within
a few hours fresh trail was found i'm
the snow After following the traii
some thirty miles il entered IA river bot
tom and headed for a wooded island
in the middle Of the river.
Smoke was seen rising from the
trees, and an opening, which seemed to
plain view. Presently single Indian,
a Piegan, showed UP In front Of the
opening. He was I'm war paint, and
there was a dog ut his heels. Pretty
soon the dog scented the Crees, and
began growing and barking. The Pie
gan looked up, glanced Il moment about
him, and then instantly entered the
cave. In about ten seconds another
Piegan came around the rocks and also
went in; then another and another and
another. there being but Il few seconds
between them. The Crees lay silently
in the bushes watching and counting,
until upward Of fifty Picgans had come
around the rocks and gone into the
cave. and still they kept coming. What
seemed remarkable was the fact that
all these Indians were, to all appear
ances, exactly the same size. were
dressed and painted alike. each carried
a rife, and. most remarkable. each
seemed n little lame i'm the left foot.
limping slightly.
They were gaudy crowd. and the
Crees counted seventy of them. The
superstitiOus Crees naturally concluded
that the evil spirit had something TO
do with it. for there was no doubt that
there were seventy Piegan Indians on
the island who were exactly alike.
$50 thoroughly were they filled with
the idea that the devil was mixed up
with the mystery that even when the
reinforcements arrived, which was in "a
few hours. they were reluctant to at
tack the island. That night one Cree
less superstitious than the rest, crossed
over to investigate. On approaching the
supposed cave he was surprised to find
il was no cave mt all. but simply an
opening leading some ten feet into the
rock. where it made turn and came
out on the other side. 1t required but
glance to understand what had
seemed so mysterious before. There
was but the remnant of single camp
fire, the ponies were gone, and not an
Indian was i'm sight The apparent
presence of sixty-nine other warriors
was sharp trick Oh the part Of the
Piegan warrior to deceive his enemies
and gain time for his escape, which he
accomplished in good shape.
while 1t is true that most red men
are ridiculOusly superstitious, and 9th
ers again so stolid and indifferent that
you might enter their presence with
brass band, throw hand springs before
them, smile, weep. have commissions,
or do some other outrageous thing, ana
vet they will sit and look ut you with
a cold, reserved glance and dislnter-
ested eye: still, there are more who
have the BUMP of humor pretty well
developed. and are Intense wags in
their own way. The trader at Fort
Berthold, on the upper Missouri, caught
Tartar one day.
a Cree Indian had given him consid-
cradle annoyance by hanging around
the store in half-drunken condition,
and was told that in case he was seen
again with bottle 1t would be taken
away from him and thrown ,intO the
fire. A few days afterward the In
dian appeared with pint flask in his
blanket, as usual. The trader was as
good as his word. and demanded the
bottle, which was given up without n
word of protest, and then the redskin
started for the door. The trader threw
the flask into the stove, when bang!
went the stove and out came the win
dows, the trader following. Had he
stopped to investigate before throwing
he would have found the flask con-
tanned gunpowder, not whisky.
"Some of COxey's foot tourists In
Eastern Montana were badly sold last
spring by a mischievous Crow Indian,
who moved a sign on the road to Bill
lings reading six miles to Billings
and stuck 1t up I'm a strange place. The
weary Commonwealers travelled six
days and nights before they reached
that town."