154 BAD WATER-SUPPLY. 



much frightened, their howling being incessant, and the sound 

 seems to be even more melancholy than usual, combining with 

 the storm to keep the traveller awake. 



As the water in the stream was very bad and muddy we 

 hunted for a spring, and found that what we had been drinking 

 had all filtered through the ribs of a buffalo which had been 

 dead some months, and which lay right across the channel. 

 Why we were none of us ill I cannot understand, as we had 

 been drinking this water for weeks. Water in the autumn 

 was always the great trouble, as nearly all the streams dry up 

 and leave stagnant pools, out of which we often drove buffalo, 

 and the edges were as much trampled as if a flock of sheep had 

 been there. Along the banks of the larger rivers there are 

 some beautiful springs, especially on the Republican Kiver, 

 where we found a number of them as clear as crystal, and as 

 cold as anyone could wish. Most of them had been carefully 

 cleared out and covered with stones by the Indians. 



Our life in camp here was very pleasant, game was plentiful 

 and in great variety, and we sometimes tried to make elaborate 

 dishes, as the one told off to keep camp had plenty of time on 

 his hands ; but, as a rule, the " game pies " and "vol-au-vents" 

 were not successes, the pastry being hard to make and' very 

 much so to swallow. The bulldog, too, was a good deal of 

 trouble to us, as he would always attack any porcupine he came 

 across, coming into camp very often with his mouth a mass of 

 quills it took us sometimes fully an hour to pull them ont 

 and in spite of this he would attack the next one he met, so 

 that we thought of shooting him. He was a strange animal ; 

 on our way through the settlement he had allowed any dog to 

 bite him, hardly seeming to know what fighting meant, and yet 



