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ally delivered with such force, that at least half the shaft appears through the opposite side. The creature totters, and is about to fall, when the Indian glides around, and draws the arrow from the wound lest it should be broken. A single Indian is said to kill a great number of buffaloes in this way before any alarm is communicated to the herd.

Toward evening, on ascending a hill, the party were suddenly greeted by a sight which seemed to astonish even the oldest among them. The whole plain, as far as the eye could discern, was covered by one enormous mass of buffalo. The scene, at the very least computation, would certainly extend ten miles, and in the whole of this great space, including about eight miles in width from the bluffs to the riverbank, there was apparently no vista in the incalculable multitude. It was truly a sight that would have excited even the dullest mind to enthusiasm. The party rode up to within a few hundred yards of the edge of the herd before any alarm was communicated; then the bulls, which are always stationed around as sentinels, began pawing the ground and throwing the earth over their heads; in a few moments they started in a slow, clumsy canter, but as the hunters neared them they quickened their pace to an astonishingly-rapid gallop, and in a few

minutes were entirely beyond the reach of their guns, but were still so near that their enormous horns, and long, shaggy beards were very distinctly seen. Shortly after encamping, the hunters brought in the choice parts of five that they had killed.

Of the animals belonging to those vast herds which the hunters kill, only a small portion is taken for food. Mr. Townsend and two of his associates having killed a bull buffalo, they proceeded to cut it up in the following approved manner: The animal was first raised from his side where he had lain, and supported upon his knees, with his hoofs turned under him; a longitudinal incision was then made from the nape or anterior base of the hump, and continued backward to the loins, and a large portion of the skin from each side removed; these pieces of skin were placed upon the ground, with the under surface uppermost, and the fleeces, or masses of meat taken from along the back, were laid upon them. These fleeces, from a large animal, will weigh perhaps a hundred pounds each, and comprise the whole of the hump on each side of the vertical processescommonly called the hump-ribs-which are attached to the vertebræ. The fleeces are considered the choice parts of the buffalo, and here, where the game is so abundant, nothing

else is taken, if we except the tongue and an occasional marrow-bone. This, it must be confessed, appears like a useless and unwarrantable waste of the goods of Providence; but when are men economical, unless compelled to do so by necessity? The food of the hunters consists for months of nothing but this kind of buffalo meat, roasted, and cold water-no bread of any kind. On this rude fare they enjoyed the best health, clear heads, and high spirits.

One night, shortly after their first encounter with the buffalo, Mr. Townsend, entering his tent about eleven o'clock, after having served as a supernumerary watch for several hours, was stooping to lay his gun in its usual place at the head of his couch, when he was startled by seeing a pair of eyes, wild and bright as those of a tiger, gleaming from a dark corner of the lodge, and evidently directed upon him. "My first impression," he says, "was that a wolf had been lurking around the camp, and had entered the tent in the prospect of finding meat. My gun was at my shoulder instinctively, my aim was directed between the eyes, and my finger pressed the trigger. At that moment a tall Indian sprang before me with a loud wah! seized the gun, and. elevated the muzzle above my head; in another instant a second Indian was by my side, and I saw his keen knife glitter

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as it left the scabbard. thought, and was struggling with all my might with the first savage for the recovery of my weapon, when Captain Wyeth and the other inmates of the tent were aroused, and the whole matter was explained, and set at rest in a moment. The Indians were chiefs of the tribe of Pawnee Loups, who had come with their young men to shoot buffalo; they had paid an evening visit to the captain, and, as an act of courtesy, had been invited to sleep in the tent. I had not known of their arrival, nor did I even suspect that Indians were in our neighborhood, so could not control the alarm which their sudden appearance occasioned me. These Indians," continues Mr. Townsend, "were the finest looking of any I had seen. Their persons were tall, straight, and finely formed; their noses slightly aquiline, and the whole countenance expressive of high and daring intrepidity. The face of the taller one was particularly admirable, and Gall or Spurzheim, at a single glance at his magnificent head, would have invested him with all the noblest qualities of the species. I know not what a physiognomist would have said of his eyes, but they were certainly the most wonderful I ever looked into; glittering and scintillating constantly, like the mirror-glasses in a lamp-frame, and rolling and dancing in their

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orbits as though possessed of abstract volition. As the party, leaving the Pawnees and the buffalo behind, began to approach the mountain district, the country altered its appearance. greatly for the worse. worse. They were now on a great sandy waste, forming a kind of upper table-land of North America-a region without a single green thing to vary and enliven the scene, and abounding in swarms of ferocious little black gnats, which assail the eyes, ears, nostrils, and mouth of the unhappy traveler. It is necessary, however, to pursue a route in this direction, in order to find accessible passes through the Rocky Mountains, which are impenetrable more to the north-west. Making the best of their way over the inhospitable desert, and fortunately escaping any roving bands of unfriendly Indians, the cavalcade struck through a range of stony mountains, called the Black Hills, and in a few days afterward came in sight of the Wind River Mountains, which form the loftiest land in the northern continent, and are at all times covered with snow of dazzling whiteness. From the great hight above the level of the sea which the party had attained, the climate was found to be cold, even although in summer; the plains were covered only by the scantiest herbage; and frequently there was great difficulty in obtaining a supply

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