300 SPORTING ADVENTURES IN THE FAR WEST. 



of twenty miles brought us to the hunting-ground late in 

 the evening, and there we pitched our camp, near a rivulet, 

 and in a dense thicket of firs, pines, and larches. 



When supper was finished, my companion fell to relating 

 reminiscences of his life; and so interesting were they to 

 me that it was past one o'clock before we retired to our 

 humble couch on the ground. We had been asleep half an 

 hour, perhaps, when I was awakened by the loud wailing 

 of a woman ; and this sounded so strange in that wild re- 

 gion that I jumped to my feet at once, and listened atten- 

 tively for a few moments in order to find out the direction 

 whence the crying emanated. I supposed at first that the 

 moaning was that of somebody in distress; but before I 

 had decided what to do, my comrade, whom I supposed to 

 be asleep, said, " That's nothing; only a squaw crying about 

 some of her dead relations." 



" How came the squaw here ?" said I. 



" I don't know," was the laconic reply, " unless there's a 

 camp somewhere near us." 



As I was rather anxious to know positively the cause of 

 the wailing, he arose, and both of us having armed our- 

 selves, we started in the direction whence we heard it, I 

 for one feeling somewhat alarmed, as I feared something 

 was amiss. A walk of five minutes in the dense forest, 

 through which the moonbeams could scarcely penetrate, 

 led us into a small glade in which several trees grew in a 

 clump; and on reaching this place we halted, as the wail- 

 ing seemed to issue from that thicket. 



As I could see no camp there, nor any signs of one, I 

 was rather dubious about the correctness of my friend's 

 surmises, and told him so ; but he cleared my doubts in a 

 moment by saying that the coppice was a burial-ground 

 of a band or tribe of Indians, who often camped there dur- 

 ing the summer when they were out gathering roots and 

 berries, or on the march for the buffalo-grounds of Mon- 

 tana or British America. 



As the moon was then shining brightly, I expressed a 

 strong desire to visit the cemetery to see what it looked 



