72 ANECDOTE OF A BEAR. 



While at Ki-chi-mo-ko-man's, an Indian told me a very 

 curious story of a bear, which I believe to be true, as all the 

 Indians there said it was so. It seems that almost all the 

 Plains Indians desert their old people when they are poor and 

 cannot pay to be taken care of, and that in the early part of 

 that winter some Assineboines, on their way south to kill 

 buffalo, had deserted an old woman, giving her, as usual, a 

 little food and water, a small axe, and a worn-out lodge, which 

 last they put up for her. Soon after the Indians had left her, 

 she lighted a fire, and was cooking some food when she fancied 

 she saw the snow under the fire heaving up ; and a few minutes 

 afterwards the head of a bear came out, evidently only half 

 awake. Now the nose of a bear is its most vulnerable point, 

 and the old woman knew this ; so she hit it several times with 

 the axe, using all her strength, and killed it. She then dragged 

 it out and skinned it, and cut up the meat and dried it, and 

 lived on this for some weeks, till some Hudson's Bay men, who 

 happened to pass, took her into Fort Pitt, where my informant 

 told me she then was. 



When with Ki-chi-mo-ko-man I saw one of the very few 

 pretty Indian women whom I have ever come across. She was 

 the daughter of an old Cree, and had been married to a member 

 of the same tribe ; but he was too lazy to provide for her, and 

 she had left him and returned to her father. I remained two 

 days with Ki-chi-mo-ko-man, going on the second on a wolf- 

 hunt, as a great many had been seen round the house ; but we 

 only killed two. Our mode of proceeding was to form line and 

 beat all the thickets, a number of curs of all kinds assisting, 

 a nd when a wolf was started all the dogs were put on his trail 

 and we did our best to keep up. Waives are thin at that time 



