120 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



armed with a muzzle-loading rifle, desired to kill the ani- 

 mal himself, he fired first, but missed his aim, owing to the 

 smoky glare of the light and his too great anxiety. While 

 he was reloading, I fired at it with the shot-gun, which con- 

 tained twelve buckshots in each barrel, and, hitting it in 

 the head, I brought it to the ground. The fall alone from 

 that height would have killed it; but, to be thoroughly 

 sure, I let it have the second barrel right in the eyes as 

 soon as it reached the earth, and that extracted whatever 

 life remained in the body. My companion was highly de- 

 lighted at our success, as he calculated that the death of 

 the animal would be worth at least a hundred dollars a year 

 to him, that being the value of the animals which he sup- 

 posed he lost annually by its depredations. 



Slinging the prize across his neck, after tying its legs, he 

 led the march for home; but as the fire was still burning 

 fiercely on our left, he began to get nervous about it, and 

 concluded to see what the Indians were doing, as they have 

 a habit of setting the woods on fire and destroying not only 

 valuable timber, but also endangering farm-houses. Re- 

 tracing our steps, we inarched toward the glade, and, on 

 emerging upon it, were so thunderstruck at the scene be- 

 fore us that we halted as promptly as if we had been shot, 

 and gazed for several seconds in blank amazement, first at 

 the bonfire, and then at each other. The scene was certain- 

 ly enough to make any pale-face halt; for directly in the 

 middle of the glade was a huge pile of blazing wood, and 

 around this some fifty or more Indians of both sexes cir- 

 cled and danced and yelled and moaned. The shouts and 

 bounds of the naked, dark-hued men and women, the 

 cracklings of the flames, the showers of sparks, the bright- 

 ly-lighted foreground, and the lurid glare that encompassed 

 the shadowy woods in the background, produced a sight 

 that seemed most strange, and recalled visions of the un- 

 canny creatures that are supposed to dwell in deep and 

 unearthly places. Loading our guns, we marched toward 

 the fire, and, on approaching it, saw on the top the dead 

 body of an Indian undergoing a process of cremation. 



