on, an appointment in the American Fur Company, and went to
one of their stations on the Upper Missouri. At this time he was just
twenty-four years old; at the time of his death he was fifty-two, so
that more than half his life was spent in the Indian country. The
story of his life in the Far West is full of incident. Soon after his
arrival in the Blackfoot country he won the name of Ne-so-ke-i-u (the
Four Bears), by killing four Grizzlies one morning before breakfast,
which remarkable feat gave him high rank in the estimation of the
tribe. How he traded successfully among these Indians, in all cases
studying their best interests; how he came to be looked upon as a
great and powerful chief; how he identified himself with them by
marrying among them; how, by his deeds of daring, his many miraculous
escapes, his rare prowess and skill, and his wonderful personal
influence over them, he obtained the dignity of a "_Medicine Man_," in
whom they professed implicit faith and confidence, are facts well
known to all who knew him.

And, how, when the eager, grasping whites encroached upon their
territory, seeing before them the fate that had befallen all the other
tribes among whom white settlements had been opened up, these Indians
feared that this man, whose hair had whitened among them, would take
part with his own people against them, and made a foul conspiracy
against his life, treacherously stilling the heart that had beat with
kindness and affection for them, are grievous facts in the history of
his beloved Montana, on which I need not and cannot dwell.

In sketching the record of this life from early childhood to its
tragic ending, I seem to see again before me my beautiful, bright-eyed
brother, a boy of whom I was very proud, and who was, to me, the
embodiment of everything brave, and manly, and true. I follow him in
his eventful life, and while I realize that his impetuosity sometimes
led him to do things which were not wise, and which he afterwards
regretted, yet above all these errors and mistakes, rises the memory
of his unswerving integrity; his fidelity to his friends; his high
sense of honor, between man and man; his almost womanly tenderness
towards those whom he loved; his rare culture and refinement; his
affable, genial and courteous manners; his hospitality and
large-heartedness,--all entitling him richly, to

"Bear without abuse,
The grand old name of gentleman."

_CHAPTER XIX._