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THE WEEKLY HERALD. S. S. FISK...........................Editor. THURSDAY, JULY 12, 1817. MOB£ in max alarms. The disappearance of the hostile Indians from Gen. Howard's front ; the appearance of Indians in Beaverhead county, and the hob-nobbing said to be going on between the Crows and Sioux with the aim of a mutual alliance to make war on the whites, are all so many additional causes of alarm. The call for arms comes up from every direction, and would indicate a scarcity of shooting irons, which we are unprepared to expect. We hear, too, of the formation ot military companies on the West Side, tobe in readi ness for the possible chances of war. Military drill of the usual sort, we appre hend, will be of little use in the kind of fight ing that will have to be done, if any. We have no possible foe but the Indian, and he will be sure to follow no recognized military tactics or usages, so it will be a waste of time and misdirection of exertion to practice ordinary military manoeuvours. In no event is it probable that there will be any large body of hostiles to encounter. Scouting will be the principal work needed. It wants good steeds and riders, quick and sure marksmen. If there were great danger of an invasion it would not be wise or prudent to have good weapons in everybody's hands and in every house, because it would in many cases be al most like putting them in the enemy's hands. There is plenty for all to do, which is equally important. Some should guard the stock and watch the crops, while those who have most skill in the use of weapons and most knowl edge of Indians should be selected for posts and offices of danger. And instead of trying to defend every house, let neighborhoods gather in the most central and defensible locality and live in common until the danger is passed. Old Fort Owen offers an admira ble point of assemblage and defense tor the Bitter Root Valley in case of real danger and actual invasion. It hardly seems reasonable, however, that j the dissatisfied Nez Perces are going to run away from those who have provoked them to rebellion so soon, to wreak vengeance and seek reprisals in a distant valley from a people who have never given them ground of offense. It is suggested that those Indians would be brought into Montana by buffalo hunting, but it is very unlikely that any hostile In dians would think of buffalo while war was going on and the wealth of extensive settle ments was exposed to their grasp. It will be noticed, as something unusual in an In dian outbreak, that in many cases women and children have been spared when the males of the family have been killed. It shows this fact, that these Indians who have taken up arms have special grievances to re dress which they propose to settle with the responsible members of society. It is no spirit of indiscriminate butchery that urges them on, or at least it has not reached that stage so far. These Indians have also con- ] .siderable property in horse flesh which they will not run away and leave, or if it is taken from them they will be pretty sure to stay around the place where it was lost and keep it in sight. On the whole, the probabilities are ten to one that the hostiles will spend the season and do all their fighting in the vicinity of the place where the hostilities commenced. Of the danger from the Crows allying with the Sioux for war, we think they are none too good for it, besides we know they are, and /for a long time have been, dissatisfied with ■ their agents. Those who were with the James Stewart expedition of 1863 know that the Crows have no compunctions about kill ing-white men, nor are they any despicable foe to encounter. But yet, centuries of hos tilities such as have existed between Crow j and Sioux are not easily forgotten. Such al liances have been extremely rare in Indian history. Besides, the time is anything but favorable for the inception of such an enter prise. The greater part of the Sioux have surrendered, another large portion has crossed the northern line, and the principal portion of the United States army is now within striking distance building permanent forts, with some first rate Indian fighters in command. While there are always plenty of incentives I to caution, we can discover no new causes for any serious exciting alarm either west or cast. _ Ip the President's letter is to be fully car ried out, the following members of the Re publican national and other important com-1 mittees will be compelled to resign their places or the government offices which they now hold ; Gov. McCormick, assistant secretary of the treasury, who is secretary of the Re publican committee; Will Cumb&ck, who is collector of internal revenue in Indiana; Capt. Enos, who is postmaster in Wisconsin; Chauncey Filley, postmaster at St. Louis; Gov. I Noyes, commissioned wiiniwter to France; I Postmaster Keyes of Wisconsin, çharlman I of the Republican State committee, besides a I great many others in every State in the union. Gen. Sherman's projected tour to the Northwest will occupy about three months» and will embrace all interesting points in the Upper Missouri and Yellowstone regions, He will probablv go as far west as the head waters of the Columbia river, visiting that I portion of Idaho which is the scene ' of the I present Indian war. The region the General I proposes to traverse is the only portion of I the western territories with which he is not already pretty well acquainted by personal observation. I a of a the At day " the all it j ] j I I I I I I I I I THE WOOL INTEREST. It is matter of congratulation that Montana is developing other resources than mineral wealth. The sight of numerous fleecy flocks over our grass-waving hills and broad shoul dered wagons piled up with bales of wool rol ling into town from every direction, indicates a development already attained full of reward and rich in promise. We have at times since our residence in Montana, when the subject of bunch-grass was the topic of discussion, heard the opinion expressed that constant pasturage would kill it out and nothing else would take its place, until our foot-hills would soon become as bare and bald as many a familiar scalp. Longer experience and ob servation show that as the bunch-grass dis appears its place is supplied by other kinds just as nutritious and much more abundant. Borne feeble experiments in sheep growing were made in the earlier years of our settle ment and pronounced failures, but the rapid growth and the proportions already attained not only assure success but wonderful and rapid increase. Of all industries in the world none present instances of such rapid rise as that of wool-growing. At the time of the last census, in 1870, California returned a yield of about eleven million pounds of wool, while in 1875 the product had increased to 43,500,000 pounds. Many other States and countries present even a more wonderful ex ample of growth. Australia and New Zea land furnish fabulous instances of this kind. What has occurred in California we may ex pect to see in as rapid development in Mon tana. Counting the natural increase of our flocks, with what will be driven in from the States, we may expect, without being un reasonable in our hopes, that for the next ten years the number of sheep and weight of fleeces will double every year until we reach the figures already attained by California. Though Montana is a little less in size than California we think we have full as much good pasturage, besides a more favorable climate for growth of grass, for health of sheep, and for fineness of fleece, as well as evenness of fibre. We may expect to see dry summers when grass will not be plenti ful as tbis year, but we are sure that such long and severe droughts as sometimes visit California, will never occur in Montana. There will also be severe winters when many sheep will perish, for we know that many will embark in the business who do not un derstand it, and others will take desperate chances, to be occasionally overwhelmed by sweeping disaster ; but in spite of all these risks and disadvantages we believe Montana a superior sheep country, and that this inter est is as sure and durable and even more re munerative than mining. The same plains and grass> slopes that have fed the million head herds of buffalo, elk, deer, and ante lope, will yield more abundantly for millions of sheep, besides herds of cattle and droves of horses, and for the more inaccessible mountain sides and tops, troops of long and silky fleeced goats. The day will come beyond a doubt when the twenty miles of continuous water-fall of the Missouri will furnish power for miles of wool en mills, and millions of spindles and looms I Our people will then reap not only the profit of producing the raw material, but of the manufacture as well, besides saving to them selves the expense of transportation and the profits of a half dozen middlemen. While our mines are yielding their grosser treasures from beneath the surface, our flocks and herds shall crop the rich herbage that covers it, and a hearty, vigorous race shall breathe the pure air that floats above. The waters that drip from snow banks piled by wintry winds and frosts on our loftiest ranges shall wash the gold from our gulches and afterwards turn the wheels that shall set in motion millions of spindles and looms, to turn the fleeces of our flocks into finest and costliest fabrics, which shall afterwards float away on our mighty river route to all the markets of the world. Among the many surprises that the census of 1880 will reveal, none will be more con spicuous than the growth ot Montana as a wool producing country. We know of no way in which the natural annual resources of our country can be so rapidly utilized as in sheep-growing. It is an unfailing source of wealth through all the coming centuries. While our mines become exhausted by work ing, the rich feed that covers our broad up heaved surface will be renewed by returning showers and sunshine year after year and century after century, till time itself ends. The New York Evening Post is glad that Halstead, of the Cincinnati Commercial, is not going to France, because it sees signs of returning wisdom in such sentences as this: "We have no thought of a silver dollar not equal in value to the gold dollar." One of the Ohio Gubernatorial importa tions saddled upon the Territories is thus r&> ferred to and described by the Balt Lake Tribune: Bishop Ax tell, of New Mexico, is having a stormy time with his diocese, and when President Hayes gets so far along as to reach the Territories, he would be a man to re lieve of the cares of office. He may not be essentially corrupt, but he is a shallow pate, utterly without tone or dignity, and ready to become anybody's tool. In Utah he started upon the hopeful task of reconciling the two factions, and he began by becoming a pen sioner upon the City Council, and obeyingthe behests of his benefactors like an errand boy. At every Mormon hoo-doo and at every Bun day school festival, brother Axtell was on band to chant the pre-eminent virtues of " this peoule," and tell how they have made the desert blossom as the rose. The New Mexicans say he is a Mormon Bishop, and they complain also of his crookedness in re gard to certain mining patents. in of cm in BEYOND THE BOEDER. Canada, Manitoba, Carleton, Ed monton and the Great Northwest. One day last week all Main street was agog. 'Shop-keepers and customers and everybody rushed to the sidewalk, when a pemmican-fed man, as the length of his hair indicated, with a colored handkerchief bound round his head after the style of a northern half-breed, audfdressed in fantastic skins, rode past. A Herald reporter hurried to the scene of sensation, and with various clothing merchants vied in pressing an ac quaintance with the stranger. The new comer was speedily relieved of imbarrass ment, and an engagement was arranged by which the Herald readers were to know all about him. The voyageur, after a rest here of some days, contributes to our columns the following Story of Travel : July 1U, 1876, I sat on the deck of a trim little steamer creeping up the Ottawa. A young and pretty widow who knew, when her mother was around, how to look as though nothing had been going on, and the old lady, who had that good solid sense to think it was too warm on deck when the widow and I were there, were the only other cabin pas sengers. 1 recollect we were three days reaching the head of navigation, and it is my belief that the scenery on this river is fine, but in the long landscape I now look back upon, this is the only part where the outline is uncertain and the colors fade away. All 1 can see when thinking of the Ottawa is black—a mourning habit. Matawa is a log town built on bou Iders. Blueberries are the only production of the crevices in the rocks. Salt pork, a dish I could not eat at that time, bread of good, honest weight, and coffee below proof, (at least it would have been difficult to prove it was coffee) composed each meal. That ho tel proprietor was a knowing man. The second day, when I was growing very hungry, speaking of the degraded Indian, he said: "Why, they used to live all summer on blueberries straight." I took this for square talk, and quietly tried blueberries myself. They made a good and sufficient meal, and I lived on them chiefly while there. I noticed peo ple were merry as I came from the bush af ter a meal, but I thought that was because my head was shaved. My last day there, as I was taking dinner, a man came over to' the patch and observed: "You'r boarding at the hotel, I see. That's the way that landlord feeds all you kind of fellow's. He tells you that the Indians used to live on them." Beaten by a backwoods hotel keeper, and every one in the town knew it ! Borne men would have wished to sink into the ground. I didn't. I already felt like a man who had been berried alive. Here I saw, for the first time to me, the most poetical of all the works of man—the birch-bark canoe. It sits the water like a dry leaf, but it is the 'cayuse of boats. You must put one foot slowly into the center, grasp the cross-bar in the middle with the right hand, and have a widow steady the left while you place the second foot beside the first, and then sit down on the floor. Be fore taking a passenger you push out to try it. The cayuse seems to be gentle; you gain confidence; rise to your knees; give it a strong paddle. The cayuse bucks, rolls over, floats down stream. A woman screams, and you reach shore, your black suit misshappen and last clean shirt and cuffs unironed. The town is looking. Your companion* strolls up stream, and you reach the hotel just as an Indian boy comes up with a high hat blocked to the shape of a sugar loaf. Some one makes the comforting remark: "Didn't I tell you so!" In a few days my friends turned again to ward England, and for the next six weeks the canoe carried and housed me. The Matawa river is a string of small lakes, its shores rocky, and, since the days of chaos, undisturbed. I paddled up this river into Nippising, a forest-bound lake ninety miles in length and thirty broad. Here I stayed four weeks exploring the rivers that empty into it, and making the acquaintance of In dians, as they are called here. I now know them to be half-breeds. I entered a hut one day and saw a violin on the wall. Great was my curiosity to hear the wild tune which a ten ant of the forest would bow from the strings of this familiar instrument. I motioned the man to play. Taking the position of an Ital ian street fiddler, he struck up the "Mulligan Guards" with variations. On hearing this I immediately sold my canoe and shot out for the Far West. A number of the Hudson Bay Company's canoes, which carry 8,000 pounds each, were cm their way.to Georgian Bay. I took pas sage in one. We made a quick trip down the French river, shooting rapids, and past shag-bark sided islands, that seemed placed as punctuation marks to vary the oth erwise monotonous voice of the river. At Killearney I took the steamer for Duluth. A few weeks in the bush makes a change in one's appearance. It was noon when I went aboard the Cumberland, and the pas sengers were at table. As I entered .the.din ing saloon a while waiter stepped up and asked: "Are you a first class passenger?" I made no reply, but drew from my pockei I in I I od I I the on tor the act to a'gold watch. His eye rested on it, and then caught my satisfied smile. "Igue8sl'm mistaken," said he, and he placed me beside Sir Somebody, Centennial Commissioner from Somewhere. When Duluth was started it was thought it would grow like one of the the same family —Chicago—and stand there the North Star. It looks as if it had been 'struck by a comet,' such was the blow Wall street gave it. One third of the houses are deserted ; business is in a calm; a town haunted by hard times, more to be feared than ghosts. Carlisle says of Rousseau, "He couldn't help copying music for a living ; couldn't help sleeping on straw; couldn't help living in an attic, nor couldn't help setting Europe on fire." Duluth couldn't help that worst ot ghosts : couldn't help get ting that black eye ; can't help having that natural breakwater, and she can't help but be a great city—some day. By rail to a Red river steamer; that to a flourishing town, Winnipeg. A few days travel and you pass out of Manitoba, the finest farm of the Queen's Dominion, into what has been properly named "The Great Lone Land." John Hay says of Madrid, "It's a capital with malice aforethought." Such a country is this, and when it was made with malice in afterthought it was peopled. To Carleton House, five hundred miles, I scarcely had a drink of pure water. Alkali deserts and Hudson Bay Co. half-breeds are the chief productions. The half-breed is an amalgamation of the Indian and a class of whites who were simple enough to be drawn into the country by the misrepresentations of the company, and with too little spirit to make their escape, prefering to work during life for board and clothes. Much can't be expected from that stock. They incline to wards civilization, though. What they might accomplish on a warmer soil and under purer skies, who knows ? The women when vexed take a countenance like a thunder storm. They are most always vexed. I have seen a few only of complaisant looking breeds. It may be remarked here as well as anywhere, that two or three English lords have traveled through the country. It was a tedious trip in the mud. We passed dozens of single ox-cart trains, which a quarter of a mile away cack led as if they had been laying eggs. If those half paid half-breed freighters were to see a Montana train coming they would think some State had seceded from the Union, and was on its way North, f armes, babies and aye. Carleton, like the most of these northern posts, is a fort built of pickets with a few log huts outside. Cree lodges are all around. Here I attended a "tea drink" for the first time. I was given the seat in the lodge op posite the door, and the men's drink—tea, su gar, painkiller and tobacco mixed,—was passed. I tried it, but the rest of the evening I took the women's drink, plain tea. Danc ing commenced and I was called in turn to my feet. I gave great satisfaction and re ceived long and continued applause. Boon it was my turn to drum. Having very little ear for music, I thought I could succeed in making their discord. I attacked the instru ment like a drum-major. I had struck but half a dozen taps when I noticed every face in the tepee had lost its smile, and an Indian next to me reached over and gravely took the drum. As I had no further use for the stick I handed it to him. There was only one stick. 1 think the other must have gone into the men's drink. I failed, but I think a man with no ear for music—for instance a deaf and dumb man—would have succeeded. I re tired about midnight, but when I awoke in the morning the drum was still going and never ceased during the week I stayed there. After a fourteen days' ride through deep snow I reached what might be called Pem mican town. If a man take horses, cattle, flour cr butter to Edmonton or anywhere that way he can get a good price, but he must take his pay in pemmican. That is the pro vision, currency and bedding of the country. At least in my case it was bedding. It was more trouble than most persons up there would take, but I didn't care for that. At every meal I would carefully withdraw all the buffalo robe from my plate. In one week I had a very nice pillow. This labor in creased my appetite. I ate more and conse quently saved more robe. In the short peri od of three weeks I had a hair mattress large enough for two, but I never enjoyed it any. I used to lay awake for hours thinking how selfish it was for me to sleep there all alone. After these pieces of upholstery were com pleted I discontinued this unnecessary bother. I should not like to compute the number of chignons and swiches I ate during the rest of the winter The survey line for the Canadian Pacific Railway runs through Edmonton. Very likely there is less snow along that line than on the Union Pacific, but a railroad can't rest like a suspension bridge on two shores ; it must have props all along. How can we ex* pect cities to rise in a country where frost is first harvester ? When the States are over peopled then the Northwest may be settled as Norway and Swedan are. There is fine gold on the Sascatchawan. Once it paid $20 a day; now no one bnt "John" would work there. There is coal and iron in abundance. Hardesty is chief fac tor of the Hudson Bay Co. in Edmonton. Huston is blacksmith. Pig Kenney cares for the hogs and Mitcheass is a half breed dwarf who chops fire wood. If you wish to trans act any business with the company you nat urally go to the store keeper. He sends you to Huston, Huston refers you to Pig Kenney, Pig takes you to Hardesty, and Hardesty sends you to Mitchiass. This is the business principle and system of a company that once in to no in governed the country and still enslaves the people by withdrawing all money as fast as it finds its way in. I've heard that England cared for all her subjects, and party journals in my own coun try had made me think I lived under an in ferior government. But when at last I reach ed the line that divides the territory of an old and new government, and stepping across to solid ground, 1 cried— Long float the flag that's made of streamers, And never a star turned comet ! When the coldest weather had passed, I started with a dog train from the shanty where I had loitered away a few happy months trying to guess some parts of the "great open secret," as Goethe called nature, and the set tlement w'here I never learned anything but to dance Red River jigs and reels with the ladies of the second classin society, of which Pig Kenney was leader, and a country where I had seen no species of game but musk-rat and cayote, and never met but one woman who would speak English. With little sad ness I bid farewell to the country where men whip their wives, and turned anxiously to the country where they scold them. We un derwent the usual hardships—snow blind and obliged to travel by night ; swimming in ice water ; our dogs four days without a meal; ourselves on raw buffalo meat ; a number of times one and two days hungry. About the hardest trial was from Edmonton to Tail creek without salt. At the last named place we threw away our sled and put the dogs in treviers: Reporter.—How far from here to Tail creek ? Tom.—About five hundred miles. Rep.—You have done that section thor oughly. Tom.—Yes. I missed the buffalo though, but I'm well satisfied ; I've been kicked by a cayuse. One can't expect to have everything as he would wish it. Rep.—Had you seen the mountains before ? Tom.—Never. And I suppose I enjoyed them more than one wbo, without labor, comes in sight of them from across a conti nent that steam has shrunk. It was a glorious moment when from a high point beyond Bow river 1 first got sight of those frozen waves a hundred miles away. Rep.—Well, here's no ill will to the folks beyond the border. Tom.—And here's good will to you of Hel ena ; may you greatly prosper and the popula tion of your town shortly double. THE FOURTH AT SHAW AND SUN RIVER. Music, Gaines, Firework», Picnics. Balia, Etc. Fort Shaw, July Gtb. To the Editor of the Herald : Independence anniversary was celebrated at Shaw as becomes the glorious occasion. Doubtless you Helenaites had a patriotic and jolly good time, but do not for a moment think you can successfully vie with us here in music, pyrotechnics, games, sports, and such. Reveille had scarcely sounded when the splendid military band, from the parade ground, struck up, "Hail Columbia,'' followed by other patriotic airs, with "Yankee Doodle" in variation at the finish. Slumber broke from drowsy eyelids, and the Land of Nod knew sleepers no more that bright and sunny morn. Breakfast dispatched and guard mount over, sports ensued with fun and frolic at their heels. First came a foot race, with five entries ; distance one hundred yards. The victor, a young horn-blower, easily won, showing surprising fleetness of foot. Next followed sack and wheel barrow races, suc ceeded by a slow and fast mule race—all of which furnished an immense amount of amusement. At 12 o'clock m., a national salute was fired, with two shells added just to refresh the memory as to how the eagles screech. A pic nic, at the grounds of the old garden, fol lowed, with dancing in plenty, with various sports on the side to add to the enjoyment of the occasion. After tattoo the band favored us with some of their choicest "upper attic" selections, with the booming of cannon as a baratone accompaniment. Shells were burnt in mid air, giving us a grander pyrotechnic display than you in Helena were probably privileged to witness. The good people at the Grossing, joined by their neighbors of the valley, had a delight ful picnic, succeeded in the eveniug by danc ing parties at Allen's and the new hotel. The participants were many, and the fair ones were present in unusually round numbers. It would be difficult to find at any similar gathering in the States so many ladies who might properly be called beauties. 6 V V J L. F. M. Washington Lobby. Washington, July 8.—A large lobby com posed of fillibusters, holders of border dep redation claims, mining speculators and ad venturers generally from ; various parts of the Union, is still at work here endeavoring to manufacture public sentiment in favor of anexation schemes, and to copimit the ad ministration to some warlike policy which shall demand of Mexico indemnity for the past and security for the future. They make no preceptable progress, but continue their efforts in the hope that some conflict may oc cur between Trevino's forces and Gen. Ord s troops, near the Rio Grande, and that war may possibly thus be precipitated between the United States and the Diaz government, in which case fillibusters, by joining with Lerdo, might have a chance to obtain and hold possession of the northern states, w ith ultimate annexation to this country.