Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 1.djvu/111

Rh Mountains, has somewhat lost the use of his sight. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, of high degree. He was in the mercantile business for many years, after 1850, at Butteville, with George Le Roque, and in all business relations and in public affairs has maintained a reputation for unquestioned honesty.

Mr. Matthieu says: "I have forgot a great deal. Of the Sioux, where I was, there were the Blackfeet—a large nation; then there were the Ogalallahs. Their chief, when I was there, was called Yellow Hair. His hair was not yellow, but lighter than some others. He was a big fellow, and you could hear him grunt like a grizzly. Then there was a little tribe, the Broken Arrows. They were the meanest set they would get liquor, and kill each other. I do not suppose there were twenty of them when I left. The Crow nation lived west of Fort Pierre, about one hundred or two hundred miles, and one division of them was the Gros Ventres. The Pawnees were the terror of the Sioux; there were many halfbreeds among them. The Sioux did not all have horses. The poorer ones went on foot. But all had buffalo meat. Those that had horses would surprise a herd, and drive them to the Bad Lands, and force many of them over a precipice or into a crevice. Buffalo, when they are stampeded, do not stop at anything, but go over a bluff or into a river. When a crevice is filled full of their bodies the main herd passes on as over a bridge; then the poorer Indians came and helped themselves to the meat.

"West of the Rocky Mountains the Indians were