The Gros Ventres of the prairie, of Arapaho stock, known to the Blackfeet as At-sena, or Gut People, had been friends and allies of the Blackfeet from the time they first came into the country, early in this century, up to about the year 1862, when, according to Clark, peace was broken through a mistake.[1] A war party of Snakes had gone to a Gros Ventres camp near the Bear Paw Mountains and there killed two Gros Ventres and taken a white pony, which they subsequently gave to a party of Piegans whom they met, and with whom they made peace.  The Gros Ventres afterward saw this horse in the Piegan camp and supposed that the latter had killed their tribesman, and this led to a long war.  In the year 1867, the Piegans defeated the allied Crows and Gros Ventres in a great battle near the Cypress Mountains, in which about 450 of the enemy are said to have been killed.

[Footnote 1:  Indian Sign Language, p. 70.]

An expression often used in these pages, and which is so familiar to one who has lived much with Indians as to need no explanation, is the phrase to count coup.  Like many of the terms common in the Northwest, this one comes down to us from the old French trappers and traders, and a coup is, of course, a blow.  As commonly used, the expression is almost a direct translation of the Indian phrase to strike the enemy, which is in ordinary use among all tribes.  This striking is the literal inflicting a blow on an individual, and does not mean merely the attack on a body of enemies.

The most creditable act that an Indian can perform is to show that he is brave, to prove, by some daring deed, his physical courage, his lack of fear.  In practice, this courage is shown by approaching near enough to an enemy to strike or touch him with something that is held in the hand—­to come up within arm’s length of him.  To kill an enemy is praiseworthy, and the act of scalping him may be so under certain circumstances, but neither of these approaches in bravery the hitting or touching him with something held in the hand.  This is counting coup.

The man who does this shows himself without fear and is respected accordingly.  With certain tribes, as the Pawnees, Cheyennes, and others, it was not very uncommon for a warrior to dash up to an enemy and strike him before making any attempt to injure him, the effort to kill being secondary to the coup.  The blow might be struck with anything held in the hand,—­a whip, coupstick, club, lance, the muzzle of a gun, a bow, or what not.  It did not necessarily follow that the person on whom the coup had been counted would be injured.  The act was performed in the case of a woman, who might be captured, or even on a child, who was being made prisoner.