And so, where we once had rude rafts of logs, lashed together with rawhide ropes, we this morning embarked in good boats and went all up the beautiful lake, past Red Eagle, and Little Chief, and Almost-a-Dog Mountains to the head of the lake, and looking back at the slope of Milk River Ridge saw the far-apart, enormous footprints of Heavy Runner, keeper of the buffalo. Away back in ancient times, after Old Man had made buffalo and they had increased and covered the plains, they had great desire to wander westward and see what might be on the other side of the great mountains. The people--the Blackfeet--learning of this were greatly distressed. The far side of the mountains, away west and still westward to the shores of the Everywhere-Water, was the country of their enemies, many tribes of them, and should they get possession of the buffalo herds they would never let them return. What to do about it they had no idea, so they called upon Old Man for help. [Illustration: UPPER TWO MEDICINE LAKE Tail-Feathers-Coming-over-the-Hill (with pipe) propitiating the dreaded Under Water People] Said he: "I made the buffalo to be plains animals, and here upon these plains they shall remain, and other-side tribes shall come to you and ask permission to kill a few of them now and then. So, don't worry. Go home now and attend to your affairs. All shall be well with you." The people went home. They saw that the buffalo remained upon the plains in apparently as great numbers as ever. But some of the hunters, to learn for sure if they were all there, ascended the different passes of the mountains and went down the other side for some distance. There were no buffalo, not even a few straggling bulls on the other side, and they wondered how Old Man was keeping them back. They soon learned. In a vision it was revealed to an old medicine man that a huge god, a man of enormous stature, was patrolling the mountains from far south to the everlasting snow of the north, and with a club driving the buffalo back eastward as fast as they came anywhere near the summit of the range. And so it was that the other tribes--those of the west--never got the buffalo. * * * * *