310 SPOUTING ADVENTURES JN TEE FAR WEST. 



regular cemetery, and moan and wail by the hour beside 

 them, calling them endearing names, and asking their for- 

 giveness for any wrongs done them in life. Such a scene 

 certainly appeals to a person's sympathy ; but, from what 

 I could learn, I should fancy that the ceremony was one of 

 formality rather than of feeling. 



We found two squaws in the burial-ground who were 

 alternately crying loudly, or crooning a mournful chant, in 

 which, according to my companion, they were calling upon 

 their departed husbands to look with pity and kindness 

 upon them, as they had ever tried to be good and dutiful 

 wives. They also bemoaned their loss, as they had no per- 

 son then to supply them with food, to kill the shaggy buf- 

 falo, or to speak kind words to them. 



It is a custom, it seems, among some of the tribes, that a 

 widow has no standing; and unless her own kindred pro- 

 vide her with food and shelter, she might starve for what 

 the majority cared. When we left the Golgotha the wom- 

 en were still wailing ; and so intense was it that it rung in 

 my ears for several days afterward. 



When we returned to camp we decided to pack up and 

 move some miles farther, as we did not expect to be able 

 to find much game in that quarter, owing to the presence 

 of the Indians. By five o'clock we reached a splendid 

 camping-ground in a thicket of graceful, black pines, and 

 convenient to water. After supper we retired to rest in 

 security, and awoke the next morning before daylight, and 

 after breakfast started toward the summit of the mountain, 

 intending to beat downward — always the best plan to be 

 followed in stalking the mule deer. In the course of half 

 an hour we entered a most picturesque glade, which was 

 clad with the greenest of grasses, and dainty, bright-hued 

 sub-alpine flowers, and there saw two stags grazing as se- 

 renely as if they did not have a foe on earth. After a 

 brief consultation we concluded to separate, and, while my 

 friend worked to the windward, I crawled tediously down- 

 ward from the leeward, taking care not to even tread on 

 a decayed branchlet. When I reached to within what I 



