32 VISIT THE SOUTH SASKATCHAWAN. 



within calling distance, and that he was a Cree called A-ta-ka- 

 koup, which means the " spirit of the blanket ; " he was very 

 much married, having three wives and no end of children. 



We made a call, Badger going with me as interpreter, but 

 found them all away on their autumn buffalo-hunt, to lay in 

 meat and tallow for the winter : however, they came back a few 

 days afterwards and returned our call, coming a party of twenty 

 or more, and stayed an unfashionably long time, being with us 

 nearly all day and eating two meals, making an awful hole in 

 our supplies, especially in the sugar-bag, out of which I could, 

 not keep the children's fingers. 



Having made things fairly comfortable, we determined to 

 pay another visit to the South Saskatchawan to get a supply of 

 meat, as the weather was now cold, and the meat would keep 

 until spring, freezing so hard that you could kill a man with a 

 strip of it. We took two ponies for packing, hired from A-ta- 

 ka-koup, and we each rode another ; and on the third day we 

 arrived at the camp of Badger's father-in-law, a Cree Indian, 

 whose name was Mis-ta-wa-sis, or " the buffalo," where we 

 remained two days. 



Old Mis-ta-wa-sis was also well supplied with wives, having 

 three of them, and lived in an immense buffalo-skin lodge, in 

 which, besides his own family, there was room for two of his 

 sons-in-law and their families, and still there was plenty of 

 room for us ; it was one of the few clean lodges I was ever 

 in. He and I got to be very friendly, by the help of signs, and 

 I promised to visit him again as we came back. 



Two days' more travelling brought us to the South Saskatch- 

 awan, both this and the main river being solidly frozen over, so 

 that we had no difficulty in crossing, and here we found a 



