The Thirst Dance.

To restore harmony and avert the impending rupture between the factions, Big Bear's band now proposed a Thirst Dance. This is a fete of propitiation or sacrifice and rejoicing held as soon as spring as the poplars are in full leaf. It corresponds to the Sun Dance of the Sioux, at which braves are made. The devotees dance for three days without food, sleep or drink and the young men aspiring to rank thereafter as warriors undergo The Torture. With slits cut in his chest connected by thongs to the centre pole of the lodge, the ambitious young brave dances and throws himself against them until the flesh breaks and frees him. This may take a day; perhaps more.

We were camped at Frenchman's Butte, a high conical hill twelve miles east of Fort Pitt, when on the morning of May 25th both the Plains and Wood Cree bands joined in the building of the Thirst Dance lodge. Some went a short distance into the woods and with due observance of prescribed formalities, which included shooting into the trunk, chopped down and stripped of its limbs a large poplar, leaving only a few mutilated branches near the top to support the upper ends of the poles which would form the rafters of the lodge. Then they tied ropes to the tree and each with a young squaw mounted behind him, came at a gallop, yelling and firing their guns, trailing the tree, to the centre of the camp. A hole had been dug to receive it and in this, the poplar was formally planted. The women dismounted and the bucks returned to the woods, cut smaller poplars and dragged them in. A row of posts was next sunk in a circle, perhaps thirty feet across, around the tall centre-post. The butts of the smaller trees were lashed to a rail laid on the circular line of posts and their tops lodged among the forks near the top of the centre-pole, forming the rafters of a rude sort of hut shaped like a beehive. A roof of leafy branches was next laid, the spaces between the encircling posts were enclosed in the same way, one opening only being left for a door; a portion of the interior was partitioned off into stalls with the same leafy branches for the devotees, the roof and centre-post were decorated with streamers of coloured calico, a sacrifice to the gods, and the structure was complete.

Before the ceremonies began the older warriors engaged in some minor formalities that interested me only a little less than the Thirst Dance itself. These took place in the morning, in the open, and constituted an exhibition of Indian methods of warfare. A pile of poplar brush was collected in a slight hollow in the - centre of the camp. The women, children, a few of the whites and the non-participants generally stood looking on.

In a few minutes, the painted face of Wandering Spirit appeared just over the top of a small rise. He held a field glass which he raised to his eye, looking in the direction of the brushpile; then he beckoned behind him with the other hand. He crept over the top of the ridge, followed by half a dozen others, to each of whom in turn he handed the field glass. A hurried and whispered consultation followed, they disappeared over the ridge and shortly reappeared at a different point. Then Dressy Man - as thorough a savage as ever donned war paint but whose face nevertheless betrayed as strongly as ever face did an Irishman among his forebears - stole toward the brush heap with a knife in his teeth, pausing every foot or two as if to listen. He reached the hollow, placed his ear beside an imaginary tepee, cut an imaginary circle in the wall, buried the blade in the heart of an imaginary foe sleeping tranquilly inside, removed the fictitious scalplock noiselessly and then as quietly made his retreat.

Then suddenly the whole of the pretended war party sprang to its 'feet and with whoops, cries and volleys from its guns rushed upon the doomed pile of brush. This was the signal for the crowd to do likewise, and the women and children flung themselves with the warriors upon the heap and tore it to pieces, each bearing off triumphantly a trophy in the form of a leafy twig. The whole was a dramatic play, one of the most novel I have ever seen. New York and London have nothing like it.

Afterward, they gave exhibitions of fighting on horseback, circling and riding furiously; of fighting in rifle pits hastily dug with their knives in the bare open ground when surprised on the plains; and of stealing horses from their hereditary enemies, the Blackfeet.

Stanley Simpson and I watched from a small knoll near the building of the Thirst Dance Lodge. An Indian came up smiling, seized our wrists and led us toward the structure. The long rafter-poles were green and heavy and they had an original device for raising them. Two slightly dry poles were lashed together near the top, and the upper end of the rafter was placed in the fork thus formed, two men took hold of the long ends of the lifting poles and raising the top of the rafter dropped it in the forks formed by the mutilated branches of the big centre-pole of the lodge. As each rafter settled in its designated place a chorus of approving yells came from the construction party.

Of these Wandering Spirit was one, and when Simpson and I arrived the Indians seemed at a loss, thinking we would not understand what was wanted of us.

"Nisheetotumuk! Nisheetotumuk! They understand!" cried the war chief. And he went on to tell us good-humoredly in Cree that we had been honoured by an invitation to assist them in raising the rafters. Whatever we may have felt, we tackled the job with a will and whooped as long and as wildly as did any of the redskins as the rafters went home.

Toward sundown, the dance began. One of a number of young men who aspired to the distinction of a brave climbed to the top of the centre pole and perching himself among the forks started a dolorous chant. It was a part of the rites. He was expected to sit there until morning, chanting without cessation his melancholy music. The devotees gathered and were shut up, each in his separate cell, only their heads being visible. Each held between his lips the wing bone of a wild goose, aboriginal pipes of Pan, on which they blew in chorus as they bobbed monotonously up and down in time to the chant of the drummers grouped near the fire in the centre of the lodge, the shuffle of their feet and the measured boom of the drum.

Louis Patenaude had returned that day from his scout. He brought with him a small pinto stallion, which he had hobbled and turned out behind his lodge to graze with his other horses. Louis was tired and delegated to me the job of watching his ponies that night.

I wore moccasins in the camp, and as I became familiar with the life and customs of the Indians, stalked in the evenings among the bucks, a blanket wrapped closely about me, indistinguishable from one of themselves. It is against etiquette for one Indian to intercept another strolling through the camp at night with a blanket trailing to his heels and hooded about his head so that only an eye is visible. Besides, it is dangerous. The stroller may be on his way to call on his challenger's wife or the wife of some other Indian, and he may resent having his identity disclosed. In that event he is likely to show quick disapproval of inquisitiveness; his interceptor may receive a tap on the skull from the barrel of the gun hidden beneath his blanket that will effectually knock all curiosity out of him. I took a good deal of satisfaction in wandering around among the cutthroats and listening to their councils, knowing that not one of them, while he might suspect me as the prowler, would dare to draw the blanket from my face for fear of a mistake which would bring upon his own head the wrath of another of the band and his gun.

Louis had loaned me his rifle and closely blanketed I went in the direction of the dancing lodge. The dancers in their booths jerked tediously up and down to the shrilling of their goose-bone whistles, the braves at the fire danced and boasted in turn of their exploits against the Blackfeet, overhead the young would-be warrior droned his dirge-like chant. Weird, fantastic, spectral, speaking of the primitive, the forgotten past, it all seemed in the night, the hushed embracing wilderness, the red glow of the campfires.

I saw it all and after a walk through the camp, I returned to Patenaude's lodge and with the rifle under my arm and the blanket folded about me, lay down beneath a cart to sleep.

It was a glorious night - the air soft and balmy, not a cloud flecking the high dome of the sky in which the pale May moon rode majestically, flooding the scene with mellow light. Behind the dancing lodge towered the lofty butte of the unlucky Frenchman, its poplar sides glancing through all their leaves in the shimmering effulgence.

I lapsed into unconsciousness. But suddenly, I don't know how much later, the sound of the horses blowing their nostrils came to me. I got up and walked off into the scrub to drive them nearer to the tent. I knew Patenaude's other horses and they knew me, but I had yet to make the acquaintance of the pinto stallion. He was rather pretty to look at, with his neat limbs and creamy satin skin, but he introduced himself to me in a manner which even now as I recall it am not sure I have ever completely forgiven.

I remember that I was not more than half awake. Drowsiness weighed my eyelids down. Otherwise, I expect I should have been more careful. I picked up a small willow and going round the horses turned them toward the lodge. The pinto, front feet roped together, was slow. I struck him with two or three smart taps on the rump with the switch. Then I woke up.

I saw his heels in my face. I leaped back; and threw up my arm. The hoofs struck it down. He followed me, racing backward like a crab, and next - I was still frenziedly retreating - a pile-driver caught me fairly in the mouth.

The stars had been almost drowned in the splendour of the moonlight, but now they blazed suddenly forth with startling brilliance. I saw constellations I had never before heard of and an immense number of meteors. A little later I realized that I was lying stretched on the grass with something in my mouth the shape and consistency of a hard-boiled egg. My upper lip was swollen, cut and bleeding profusely. The swelling interfered seriously with mastication for some days. My beauty was marred, though not I hope permanently. The hoof had somehow missed my teeth and I had most of them all yet.

I have been kicked severely by horses, but never as I was kicked by the rapid-fire, back-action pinto. He was the most energetic and surprising kicker I ever encountered. I got even with him a day or two later, when while I was cinching a pack on his back he tried to take me at a second disadvantage. I happened on this occasion to be awake and remonstrated with my boots. My feet were in action this time instead of his.

I drove the horses close to the lodge and lay down again. It was toward morning - daybreak comes early in May on the Saskatchewan and this was the 26th - and I had hardly begun to lose consciousness when I was roused by the voice of an Indian crier. Posted on the high Butte at the foot of which lay the camp, as dawn came he had sighted on the ground above Fort Pitt, fifteen miles away, a group of white tents. It was General Strange with the Alberta Field Force, looking for Big Bear.

Instantly all was excitement. The Indians tumbled out of their lodges, caught up their horses and began to prepare for flight and battle. The Thirst Dance ended abruptly, the would-be warrior left his tuneful perch. Wandering Spirit appeared riding the tall grey mare, her sides streaked with paint, eagle plumes floating from her tail and foretop. Naked except for his breechclout and moccasins, his curling black hair tossing in the wind, his strange eyes flashing, at a mad gallop, he circled the camp, shouting the long war cry of the Crees. He was belted with cartridges; across his chest like the sash of some military order hung a second band. He carried the Winchester without which he never left his lodge.

Breakfast forgotten, the Indians feverishly struck their tents, and with belongings thrown into carts and on the backs of ponies and dogs, hurried away to the east. In the midst of the excitement, Wandering Spirit came with another Indian and marched Henry Quinn, Halpin and other white prisoners to the dancing lodge. I feared mischief, but the war chief was concerned only in seeing that no attempt at escape was made and left them there under guard. I was not bothered; evidently, he surmised that Patenaude might object to his taking charge of me.

At the Little Red Deer River, a deep coulee two miles from the Butte, camp was made and a meal cooked. It was then noon. An Indian took me off to mend his buckboard. My job from his point of view was a poor one, for it was not of much use to him afterward. As we were finishing dinner a redcoat scout was reported on the rim of the coulee and pandemonium reigned again. Patenaude ordered me to get his horses, which had wandered off to feed, and though I did not like it, I complied. Indians, including Wandering Spirit, rushed past me naked and shouting war cries; they were apt to act on impulse in spasms of excitement. However, I was not molested. We hooked up again, moved down the coulee to some timber across the sluggish creek or muskeg, that trickled through it and camped for the day.

Here the Indians prepared to make a stand. They went over their rifles and selected a position along the brow of the bank above us opposite the point at which we entered the coulee. It was an anxious and thrilling period for the prisoners. We could have shouted, but the slightest sign to betray the delight we felt would have been our undoing. At last Help, after two months of nerve-wracking strain, hardship and the hope deferred that makes the heart sick, was near. Often we had despaired of living through to the end of it, but we knew now that unless our captors should decide at the last moment to wreak vengeance upon us, our release was at hand.

That evening, as Mr. McLean, James K. Simpson and myself sat with Louis Patenaude and several other Indians in the lodge, Wandering Spirit lifted the flap and entered. His face looked black and forbidding and as he spoke he rested his rifle across his knees. He had been told, he said, that we planned to make our way to the soldiers that night; we were to get terms for the Indians from the soldier chief. He warned us that he meant to fight; there was no truce for him with the soldiers. If we made any such attempt, we would pay with our lives. There was nothing possible for us, we saw, but to wait.