310 Sport and Life. 



upon the Kootenays in much the same stealthy manner in 

 which the former surprised the prized bison herds in the enemy's 

 country. 



The second count of the Flatbows was taken by me in 1883, 

 old Dave MacLoughlin assisting me in the task. In those days 

 they had long been under the influence of the French missionary, 

 established in his remote little mission in Upper Kootenay, so 

 that the majority of the males were known by names given to 

 them by the latter. These, pronounced invariably in the French 

 manner, such as Cyprian, Donnace, Vital, Basil, St. Pierre, Placide, 

 Augustin, Alexandre, Celice, sounded quite as strange in the 

 mouth of natives as did their aboriginal names. Amongst these 

 figured, phonetically reproduced, Sokanepacker, Kalsaytavon, Ana- 

 tavon, Skincoots, Tameeya, Lapoony, Neguala, &c. The third 

 count and first official census was taken quite recently by officials 

 of the Indian Bureau. Summarising the three counts, we find that 

 in 1848 the Flatbows consisted of 397 souls, of which seventy- 

 eight were adult males. In 1883 their number had decreased to 157 

 souls (of which thirty-five were heads of families), while in 1896 

 they had increased to 162 souls. 



In the northern interior parts of British Columbia the Indian 

 population has undergone, of course, on account of the unexplored 

 and unsettled state of the country, very much less change than on 

 the coast, where constant contact with white men and the ruder 

 forms of civilisation has changed the bearing and the appearance 

 of the natives, though never to the same wholly demoralised extent 

 observable in those parts of the Canadian North-west and Manitoba 

 touched by the railways, or in most parts of the United 

 States. The only exception being, perhaps, the large Indian 

 reserves, such as the Crow, Soshone, Flathead, and other 

 strictly defined and as strictly watched reserves in United States 

 territory. 



To return to the Indians of the northern interior of British 

 Columbia, they still live in much the same way they did when 

 stray white men were first seen by them two or three generations 



