206 THE AMERICAN BISONS. 
faloes now so wholly within their power. Soon rendered frantic with rage 
and fear, the stronger toss, crush, or impale the weaker. In this dreadful 
scene of confusion and slaughter, says Hind, “ the shouts and screams of the 
excited Indians rise above the roaring of the bulls, the bellowing of the cows, 
and the piteous moaning of the calves. The dying struggles of so many 
huge and powerful animals crowded together create a revolting and terrible 
scene, dreadful from the excess of its cruelty and waste of life, but with occa- 
sional displays of wonderful brute strength and rage; while man, in his sav- 
age, untutored, and heathen state, shows, both in deed and expression, how 
little he is superior to the noble beasts he so wantonly and cruelly destroys.” 
“The conflict over,’ says Hind, “animals of every age, from old bulls to 
young calves of three months old, were huddled together, in all the forced 
attitudes of violent death. Some lay on their backs, with eyes starting from 
their heads, and tongues thrust out through clotted gore, and others were 
impaled on the horns of the old and strong bulls. Others again, which had 
been tossed, were lying with broken backs, two or three deep. One little 
calf hung suspended on the horns of a bull, which had impaled it in the wild 
race round and round the pound.” Of the two hundred to two hundred and 
fifty animals usually killed at each impounding, only the best and fattest are 
utilized, the flesh of these being removed and dried in the sun. 
Sometimes the attempts at impounding are unsuccessful, an instance of 
which is mentioned by Mr. Hind. After the pound was nearly full, an old 
bull espied a narrow crevice which had not been closed by the robes of those: 
on the outside, whose duty it was to conceal every orifice; making a dash at 
this, he forced himself through, breaking the fence, when the whole herd ran 
helter-skelter through the gap, a few only being speared or shot through 
with arrows in their attempt to escape. 
Simpson says that in January, 1840, the buffaloes were so numerous about 
Carlton House as to render it necessary to remove the haystacks into the 
Fort to prevent their being devoured by the buffaloes. In the vicinity of 
the Fort were three camps of Assinniboines, each of whom had its buffalo 
pound, into which they drove forty or fifty animals daily ; “and I afterwards 
learned,” says Simpson, “that in other places these pounds were actually 
formed of piled-up carcasses.” * 
Audubon states that the Gros Ventres, Blackfeet, and Assinniboines often 
also took the buffalo in large pens in a similar manner. Two converging 
* Simpson (Thomas), Narrative of the Discoveries on the North Coast of America, etc., pp. 402, 404. 
