98 LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 



their well-founded complaints of the encroachments made 

 upon their hunting-grounds by the white hunters. 



In the winter, many of the tribes are reduced to the very 

 verge of starvation the buffalo having passed from their 

 country into that of their enemies ; when no other alter- 

 native is offered them but to remain where they are and 

 starve, or to follow the game into a hostile region a move 

 entailing war and all its horrors. 



Beckless, moreover, of the future, in order to prepare 

 robes for the traders, and to procure the pernicious fire- 

 water, they wantonly slaughter, every year, vast numbers 

 of buffalo cows (the skins of which sex only are dressed), 

 and thus add to the evils in store for them. When ques- 

 tioned on this subject, and reproached with such want of 

 foresight, they answer, that however quickly the buffalo 

 disappears, the Ked man " goes under " more quickly still ; 

 and that the Great Spirit has ordained that both shall be 

 " rubbed out " from the face of nature at one and the same 

 time, " that arrows and bullets are not more fatal to the 

 buffalo than the small-pox and fire-water to them, and that 

 before many winter's snows have disappeared, the buffalo 

 and the Red man will only be remembered by their bones, 

 which will strew the plains." " They look forward, how- 

 ever, to a future state, when, after a long journey, they 

 will reach the happy hunting-grounds, where buffalo will 

 once more blacken the prairies ; where the pale-faces dare 

 not come to disturb them ; where no winter snows cover 

 the ground, and the buffalo are always plentiful and fat." 



As soon as the streams opened, La Bonte, now reduced 

 to two animals and four traps, sallied forth again, this time 

 seeking the dangerous country of the Blackfeet, on the 

 head-waters of the Yellow Stone and Upper Missouri. He 

 was accompanied by three others, a man named Wheeler, 

 and one Cross-Eagle, a Swede, who had been many years 

 in the western country. Reaching the forks of a small 

 creek, on both of which appeared plenty of beaver sign, La 

 Bonte followed the left-hand one alone, whilst the others 

 trapped the right in company, the former leaving his squaw 

 in the company of a Sioux woman, who followed the for- 



