"It was in Su' ta ne's time, in his young days, as I understood, that the Blackfeet, who had been slowly drifting westward, at last reached the mountains. When they got to the rough country they found there lots of game of all kinds, and found it very much easier to get close to than it ever had been before. So they thought that the change they had made was a mighty good one; and that's the way they changed from a timber living people to a mountain people. It was a good while after this that they got horses and began to travel around out on the prairie. The old men used to tell John that the time they first ventured out on the prairie was when they began to travel along the old trail which still runs north and south along the mountains. Of course, you know the old Red River cart trail, Hugh, and very likely you too, Jack." "Yes," replied Hugh, "I know it; but I don't believe son here has ever been on it." "Old John Monroe believes thoroughly in this story, and he naturally would, because it comes from his mother, and his relations, but he says that all the old Indians in that northern country believe in it just the same as he does. He believes that the Crees and the Blackfeet are relations, though he doesn't pretend that they are very close relations. "Well, according to old John, a while after the Indians got up close to the mountains there, up North, the white man came into the country; and when the white men came, the Indians began to get guns. Before that they had begun to get horses, maybe through the Kutenais on the other side of the mountains; and when they got guns and horses they began to take courage and to venture out on the prairie. They began to find out that they could fight their enemies and take care of themselves. Besides this, they had learned that while there were no horses north of them, the tribes to the south had horses; and of course that led to their going more and more to war, because everybody wanted horses. They were about the most valuable things that a man could get hold of. These journeys to war and their fightings led to the Indians moving south along the foot of the mountains, and out on the prairie. "Now of course I'm just telling you what John Monroe told me. I don't know anything about it myself."