LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. 117 



appears in no degree to disturb them. Wherever a few white 

 hunters are congregated in a trading post, oi* elsewhere, so sure it 

 is that, if they remain in the same locahty, the buffalo will desert 

 the vicinity, and seek pasture elsewhere. In this, the Indians 

 affirm, the wah-keitcha, or " bad medicine," of the pale-faces is 

 very apparent ; and they ground upon it their well-founded com- 

 plaints 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 alternative is offered them, 

 but to remain where they are and starve, or to follow the game 

 into a hostile region, a move entaijing war and all its horrors. 



Reckless, 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 questioned on this subject, and reproached with 

 such want of foresight, they answer, that however quickly the 

 buffalo disappears, the Red 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 bufiaio than the 

 sniall-pox and fire-water to them, and that before many winters' 

 snows have disappeared, the buffalo and the Red man will only be 

 remembered by their bones, which will strew the plains." — " They 

 look forward, however, to a future state, when, after a long jour- 

 ney, 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 



