WESTERN FIELD SPORTS IN EARLY DAYS. 



271 



by signs) how many were in our party, and where they 

 were. I held up both hands to signify ten, and pointed 

 to the woods. Then one of them moved toward the gun 

 as if to take it, but I stepped before him and shook 

 my head. Then they laughed, shook hands with me, 

 mounted their horses, and rode away, greatly to my 

 relief. 



Next day we broke camp and returned home, the 

 Iowa men thinking these Indians were spies, and that 

 they might return with a large party and drive us away. 



Traveling over the prairies of Iowa, we often met with 

 scattered skulls and bones of the buffalo, which could 

 not have long disappeared from that region; and on a 

 high bluff on the Rock River, in Illinois, the remains of a 

 chief of the Sacs was still to be seen in a tree-top, 

 wrapped in his blanket, after the manner of sepulture 

 used by those Indians. 



