July 30
We break camp and move northward to-morrow. For the past two days some of us have been riding about on this “Backbone-of-the-World,” as the Blackfeet call the Rocky Mountains, and we have ridden our horses where, in former times, nothing but a bird could go. The Park Supervisor and his engineers and miners and sappers have blasted out trails over the highest parts of the range, making it easy and safe for tenderfeet tourists to view the wonders of this sub-Arctic, greater than Alpine range of mountains. One of the most impressive views is from the summit of the trail from Upper Two Medicine Lake to Cutbank River. The Dry Fork Trail, it is called. At its extreme height the trail is along a mountain crest about thirty feet in width. Mr. L. W. Hill graphically described the stretch the other day, when, after crossing it, he said: “On its east side one can spit straight down three thousand feet into a lake, and on the other side cast a stone that will go down much farther than that!”
Indeed, the view of the mountains and cliffs and canyons from that height is so grand, so stupendous and impressive, that one cannot find words to describe it all.
On another day we went over Cutbank Pass and down the west side of the range, far enough to get a good view of the Pumpelly Glacier, and see the huge ice blocks break from it and drop from a cliff more than two thousand feet in height. They strike the bottom of the canyon with a reverberating crash that can be heard for miles. Just below this glacier, down Nyack Creek three or four miles, is a fine alkaline spring and clay bed where, in other days, old Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill and I were wont to go for bighorn, goats, deer, and elk. All these animals came to it in great numbers, and drank the waters, and ate great wads of the salty mud. We once killed a large grizzly there, whose late autumn coat was as black as that of a black bear.
This afternoon we have had further talk about the naming of these mountains. For a wonder, the topographers have not taken away the original name for the outer mountain on the north side of this Cutbank Valley: we find on the map that it is still White Calf Mountain. It was named for one of the greatest chiefs the Montana Blackfeet ever had. As a young man, fresh from his first war trail, he witnessed the signing of the treaty between his people and the representatives of the United States, at the mouth of the Judith River, in 1855, so he must have been born in 1836 or 1837. As a warrior, his rise to fame was rapid, and many are the stories told of his indomitable bravery in facing the enemy. In later years, because of his great interest in the welfare of his people, he became their head chief. He died in Washington, in 1903, while there on tribal business.
The right names of the other mountains walling in this valley are as follows: The unnamed mountain next west from White Calf Mountain is Ahk′-sap-ah-ki (Generous Woman); Mount James is Ah′-kow-to-mak-an (Double Runner); Mount Vorhis is O-nis-tai′-na (Wonderful Chief). The west one of the Twin Buttes is Little Plume; the east one is O-nis-tai′-mak-an (Wonderful Runner). And, as I have said, the outer mountain on the south side of the valley is Muk-sin-a′ (Angry Woman). All but the last one were named for old-time great chiefs and warriors of my people, and we intend that they shall be so named on the official maps, even if we have to petition the House of Representatives and the Senate, in Washington, to make the change! And you, my readers, lovers of these grandest mountains of our country, will you not be with us in this perfectly proper request?
Said Takes-Gun-Ahead to me this afternoon: “Who are these white men, James, and Vorhis, for whom the mountains were named? Were they great warriors, or presidents, or wise men?”
I had to confess that I had never heard of them.
“Huh!” he exclaimed. And “Huh!” all the others, even the women, echoed.