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[Illustration: W. A. ALLEN, AUTHOR]




  THE SHEEP EATERS

  BY

  W. A. ALLEN, D.D.S.


  [Illustration]


  THE SHAKESPEARE PRESS,
  114-116 EAST 28TH STREET,
  NEW YORK.
  1913.


  COPYRIGHT, 1913,
  _by_
  W. A. ALLEN


  _This Book Is Affectionately
   Dedicated To My Friend_

  MRS. CLARA DALLAS.




CONTENTS


  Chapter                                        Page

     I  AN EXTINCT MOUNTAIN TRIBE                   7

    II  THE OLD SQUAW'S TALE                       12

   III  THE GOLD SEEKER IN THE MOUNTAINS           21

    IV  STARTING FOR THE PAINT ROCKS               30

     V  A TALK WITH LITTLE BEAR                    35

    VI  CURIOSITIES AROUND PAINT ROCK              45

   VII  THE STORY OF AGGRETTA AND THE RED ARROW    51

  VIII  CLOSING WORDS                              72




THE SHEEP EATERS




CHAPTER I

AN EXTINCT MOUNTAIN TRIBE


The Sheep Eaters were a tribe of Indians that became extinct about fifty
years ago, and what remaining history there is of this tribe is
inscribed upon granite walls of rock in Wyoming and Montana, and in a
few defiles and canyons, together with a few arrows and tepees remaining
near Black Canyon, whose stream empties into the Big Horn River. Bald
Mountain still holds the great shrine wheel, where the twenty-eight
tribes came semi-annually to worship the sun, and in the most
inaccessible places may still be found the remains of a happy people.
Small in stature and living among the clouds, this proud race lived a
happy life far removed from all other Indians.

The Shoshones seem to be a branch of the Sheep Eaters who afterwards
intermarried with the Mountain Crows, a tall race of people who gave to
the Shoshones a taller and better physique. From what can be gleaned,
the Sheep Eater women were most beautiful, but resembled the Alaskan
Indians in their shortness of stature.

These people drew their name from their principal article of food,
Mountain Sheep, although, when winter set in, elk and deer were often
killed when coming down before a driving snow storm.

Their home life was simple. They lived in the grassy parks of the
mountains which abounded in springs of fresh water, and were surrounded
by evergreens and quaking asps and sheltered by granite walls rising
from fifty to a thousand feet high. Their tepees were different from
those of all other tribes, and were not covered with rawhide but
thatched with quaking asp bark, and covered with a gum and glue made
from sheep's hoofs. Another variety were covered with pitch pine gum.

[Illustration: WHEEL OF THE HOLY SHRINE, BALD MOUNTAIN, WYO.]

In this manner lived the twenty-eight tribes of Sheep Eaters, carving
their history on granite walls, building their homes permanently among
the snowy peaks where they held communion with the sun, and worshipping
at their altar on Bald Mountain, which seems likely to remain until the
Sheep Eaters are awakened by Gabriel's trumpet on the morning of the
resurrection.

Never having been taught differently, they believed in gods, chief of
which was the sun, and consecrated their lives to them; and their
eternal happiness will be complete in the great Happy Region where all
is bright and warm. The great wheel, or shrine, of this people is eighty
feet across the face, and has twenty-eight spokes, representing the
twenty-eight tribes of their race. At the center or hub there is a house
of stone, where Red Eagle held the position of chief or leader of all
the tribes. Facing the north-east was the house of the god of plenty,
and on the south-east faced the house of the goddess of beauty; and due
west was the beautifully built granite cave dedicated to the sun god,
and from this position the services were supposed to be directed by him.
Standing along the twenty-eight spokes were the worshippers, chanting
their songs of praise to the heavens, while their sun dial on earth was
a true copy of the sun.

A short time ago I learned that among the Mountain Crows there lived an
old woman, who was the very last of her tribe, and who was so old she
seemed like a spirit from another world. She had outlived her people and
had wandered away from her home on the mountains into the valleys,
living on berries and wild fruit as she wandered. She alone could read
the painted rocks and tell their meaning, and could relate the past
glories of the tribe and the methods of the arrow makers, who
transformed the obsidian into the finished arrows ready to kill the
mountain ram.

I was very anxious to see this creature, who had outlived her race and
her usefulness, and so one day I saddled my horse, Billie, put on my
cartridge belt, took my rifle in my hand, and set out for the mountains
where I knew a small band of Mountain Crows were hunting buffalo on Wind
River.

After a long ride I passed Bovay Creek and struck the Buffalo Trail,
which led directly toward the mountains. It soon headed toward the south
and I crossed a mountain stream and headed toward the Big Horn Canyon. I
had gone about two miles when I discovered something to my right sitting
on the remains of a mountain cedar, and in a moment I was on the scene.
I pulled up my horse and dismounted and discovered that I had found the
object of my search, the Sheep Eater squaw.




CHAPTER II

THE OLD SQUAW'S TALE


Passing the Big Horn Canyon, where the rushing waters were beaten into
spray, and where granite walls were shining like great sapphires
reflected in the sun's bright rays, I wondered how many centuries it
took to chisel that mighty water way fifty-two miles through this
tortuous mountain. Perpendicular walls of fully 2000 feet are standing
sentinels above this silvery water which goes roaring and foaming
through the narrow abyss.

The golden eagle closes its wings and falls through space like a rocket
from some unknown world, uttering a scream that resounds like a crash of
lightning. The Big Horn, proudly perched on yonder crag, bids defiance
to all living creatures. For fifteen miles this box canyon has cut
through the backbone of the mountains and holds the clear waters as in
the palm of one's hand. At the mouth of the canyon, where the waters
flow calm as a summer lake, as though tired from their terrible journey,
the rounded boulders, the white sands and quartz that have passed
through, are resting, peaceful as the wild rose which waves to and fro
in the spring zephyrs.

In the sand lies a dead cedar. Torn from the mountain top and crashing
down the canyon, it was carried by the rushing waters out on to the
beach and deposited in the sand. Sitting on a branch of this cedar is an
old woman. Her white locks hang crisp and short on her bony shoulders;
her face is covered with a semi-parchment, brown as the forest leaves,
and drawn tight over her high cheek bones; her eyes are small and sunken
in her head, but the fire has not yet gone out. An old elk skin robe,
tattered and torn, is thrown across her shoulders, with its few
porcupine quills still hanging by the sinew threads where they were
placed a century ago. The last of her race! Yes, long ago her people
have become extinct, passed away leaving her to die. But alas, death
does not claim her, and she wanders alone until picked up by the
mountain Absarokees.

I sat down by her side and asked her by sign talk: "Are you a Sioux?"
She shook her head. "Are you a Blackfoot?" Again she shook her head, and
the effort seemed to tire her. I made many signs of the different
tribes, but in the Crow sign she said "No" to them all. Her form seemed
to be of rawhide, and on her fingers were still a few old rings made
from the horn of the bighorn ram.

I gave her some of my lunch, as I ate, and she munched it with a set of
old teeth worn to the gums. She ate in silence until all was gone; then
I told her I was a medicine man, and asked her how old she was. She held
up ten stubs of fingers, all of which had been partly cut off while
mourning for dead relatives, then took them down until she had counted
one hundred and fifteen years. Her eyes brightened, and she fronted away
to the main range to a towering crag of granite, facing the north,
where Bull Elk Canyon empties into the Big Horn. She held her withered
arm high above her head and said in sign language:

"My people lived among the clouds. We were the Sheep Eaters who have
passed away, but on those walls are the paint rocks, where our
traditions are written on their face, chiseled with obsidian arrow
heads. Our people were not warriors. We worshipped the sun, and the sun
is bright and so were our people. Our men were good and our women were
like the sun. The Great Spirit has stamped our impressions on the rocks
by His lightnings; there are many of our people who were outlined on
those smooth walls years ago; then our people painted their figures, or
traced them with beautiful colored stones, and the pale face calls them
"painted rocks." Our people never came down into the valleys, but always
lived among the clouds, eating the mountain sheep and the goats, and
sometimes the elk when they came high on the mountains. Our tepees were
made of the cedar, thatched with grey moss and cemented with the gum
from the pines, carpeted with the mountain sheep-skins, soft as down.
Our garments were made from the skins of the gazelle, and ornamented
with eagle feathers and ermine and otter skins.

"We chanted our songs to the sun, and the Great Spirit was pleased. He
gave us much sheep and meat and berries and pure water, and snow to keep
the flies away. The water was never muddy. We had no dogs nor horses. We
did not go far from our homes, but were happy in our mountain abode.
Then came the Sioux, who killed the elk and buffalo in the valleys. They
had swarms of dogs and horses, and ran the game until it left the
valleys and went far away. Their people were always at war and stealing
horses, which was very wrong in the sight of our people, who never stole
anything. Our men were fearless and brave, and could bring down all
kinds of game with their bows and arrows, and were contented; but the
Sioux were not contented with fighting their enemies, but came to our
mountain home and began to try to ascend the trail. Our chief met
them on the steep precipice and ordered them to stop where they were,
but they murmured and made signs of battle. Our people had great masses
of rock as large as houses, where they could let them loose down the
trail and crush the Sioux into the earth as they were all down in a deep
canyon.

[Illustration: SHEEP EATER SQUAW 115 YEARS OLD "THE WOMAN UNDER THE
GROUND"]

"The Sioux stopped and began a war council, and began to paint and get
ready for battle. Our chief got the great rocks ready, and then sent a
runner to tell the Sioux that our people never went into the valleys nor
killed the buffalo, and that we wished to be apart from all other
people. After a long council the Sioux fired a volley of arrows at our
runner, and wounded him in the thigh. He came to the chief greatly
alarmed at the dreaded Sioux as they were many.

"The ponies in the valley below were strange looking creatures to us; we
had never seen them before. The dogs were howling and the valley rang
with the wild warwhoop. The time had come for action, and the Sheep
Eaters assembled at the narrow trail, headed by their chieftain, Red
Eagle, with his bow six feet long, made from the mountain ram's horn,
and bound with glue and sinew from the sheep's neck. Great excitement
prevailed. The squaws and children had hidden among the rocks with all
their robes and earthly possessions. The wild and savage Sioux knew no
fear and were pressing up the narrow trail with war paint and feathers,
their grim visages scowling in the sunlight as they came.

"Red Eagle, with that bravery known only to his tribe, waited until they
had reached the most dangerous precipice. Then with a great lever that
had been prepared years before, he loosened the great rock from its
moorings, and with one crash it sped down the canyon like a cyclone,
tearing the trees from their roots, and starting the rocks, until the
canyon became one great earthquake. The screams of the terrified
Indians, the howling of dogs and the neighing of horses were heard in
one awful roar. The battle was over. The canyon was a mass of blood,
and death was abroad in the valley. Not a living thing was to be seen.

"Red Eagle took a horn made of red cedar, and gave one long quivering
blast which echoed and reechoed through the alps and was carried across
the glaciers to every part of the mountain. Then the women and children
came back and once more took shelter in their comfortable homes."

I arose and gave the old crone the balance of my lunch, and told her I
was going to see that mountain some day and see their houses, but she
held up her hand and said, "Away up mountain long time ago, maybe so, no
tepee now."

And I went and left her sitting alone on the old tree, waiting for the
Great Spirit to come take her to her tribe, over on the happy hunting
ground, where scenes of warfare and savage Sioux would never molest them
again. As I left her alone on the bank of the Big Horn I could not help
feeling a pang of pity for the wild woman of the Rockies, whose life
had been spent among the canyons, and on the streams whose waters had
chiseled great passages through those granite walls centuries ago. She
who was once a belle in her tribe and had lived to see the extermination
of her people, and now wandered alone wishing to die and pass beyond.
The earth was not to her as it had been in her youth.

I shall never forget the spell that came over me as she raised her
palsied arm and showed me where she had lived a hundred years ago.
Something seemed to tell me she was speaking the truth and my trip to
that mountain became a living passion from that day.




CHAPTER III

THE GOLD SEEKER IN THE MOUNTAINS


On the apex of Medicine Mountain, whose rugged cliffs hold communion
with the fleeting clouds, and where the winds sing dismal songs among
the cedar boughs, there the forked lightnings at intervals light up the
panorama and a thousand beautiful springs and waterfalls sparkle like
myriads of diamonds. The mountain ash and the golden leaves of the
mountain quaking asp cast their shadows to make perfect this great
wonderland, whose colors are more splendid than the rainbow or the
golden setting of the western sun.

Among such scenery one could live away from the gilded vices and the
artificial lives of the crowded cities, and it was close to the god of
nature these people lived and carved their history on the mountains and
rocks, worshipped the sun because it was warm and bright, and because
it lighted the narrow trail through the defiles of the mountains, across
the streams and through the cool green forests, along the rugged cliffs
where the horny hoofs of the elk, deer, and mountain sheep had blazed a
trail so narrow and so steep that none but the Sheep Eaters dare travel
its rugged heights.

Along these trails could be seen at the four seasons of the year, all of
the Sheep Eaters, wending their way to the sacred shrine, the great
wheel, with its gates and its gods of plenty and light. Here on an
elevated spur a thousand feet above the Porcupine Basin, standing out to
the east, is a great look-out, where the great sun dial with its
twenty-eight spokes representing the twenty-eight tribes of the Sheep
Eaters, overlooking the great Grey Bull country, the Ten Sleep Mountains
and the Teton Peaks sweeping down toward the Big Horn Canyon. There the
Grey Bull and Wind River and Sage Creek are sweeping through Big Horn
Canyon, with its chiseled walls, more than a third of a mile in height,
and its serpentine trail fifty-two miles into the Big Horn River, and
thence into the Yellowstone and Missouri and on to the ocean.

Here nature's god had spread with lavish hand the richest and the
greatest blessings to the Sheep Eaters. The buffalo down in the valleys,
the antelope on the plains, the gazelle along the streams, and the elk,
black-tail and big horn on the mountains, the mountain grouse, and the
streams filled with trout, camas root for bread, cherries, raspberries,
and strawberries, made a Garden of Eden for these people until a
thousand years had passed, and the tribes increased to twenty-eight
before the onward march of the Sioux across and beyond the Mississippi
and Missouri brought them into the Sheep Eaters' country.

Around the base of these mountains were many alluring deposits of gold,
and small gold camps had started at Fire Springs, Bear Creek and on the
east and west forks of the historical Little Big Horn, all in or near
the beautiful Porcupine Basin. But the alluring grains of the precious
metal could not be found in paying quantities and the miners had quietly
packed their plunder and "hiked the trail" to more plentiful paying
"diggins."

The entire village was deserted except for the venerable Captain Jack,
who still drew a pension from the English Government which, small as it
was, supported him in this beautiful country.

As we swung down the trail which passed near his cabin door, we were
hailed by the old veteran, coming wet from his claim with a pan of sand,
which showed many grains of bright gold.

