1 50 EXPLORATION OF THE[PRAIRIES, 1 879 



At noon, Father Scallen and six or seven distinguished look- 

 ing Indians came to dinner. When we were about through, a 

 young man in great excitement came to the tent door and said 

 something in Blackfeet and, immediately, Father Scallen jumped 

 to his feet and ran out of the tent, followed by all my guests except 

 Crowfoot and his brother, who was the War Chief. Afterwards, 

 Ogilvie and I went out to the prairie to look around and we found 

 that all the people seemed to be going towards the Bow River. 

 We walked down towards the river and, on the way, Father 

 Scallen came up to us again, riding on his fine horse. I said : 

 "Father, what in the world is up, that you all should run away?" 

 "Oh," he said, "I did not tell you. That young fellow came and 

 told us that the Buffalo were close up on the other side of the 

 river and I and the others ran to the hills to get our horses and, 

 in a few moments, you will see quite a procession." And, sure 

 enough, we did. He gave up his horse to the War Chief, who 

 immediately mounted and proceeded to the river and plunged in, 

 and then came a stream of young braves on horseback, armed 

 with guns and without any clothes except the usual breech-clout. 

 Nearly every horse had an Indian hanging on to his tail as they 

 went across. As soon as they reached the far side, they dis- 

 appeared over the sand hills, and Ogilvie and I were left to do as 

 we thought fit. 



Late in the afternoon, the men returned and the War Chief, 

 who had Father Scallen's horse, had killed no less than six cows 

 and the others had killed numbers also. The Priest's horse, of 

 course, was the best buffalo runner and that was why the Chief 

 was so successful. The next morning, I visited the War Chief. 



When I called on him, that morning, he was sitting in 

 his tent like a lord and, in front of him, was a large heap of bloody 

 meat, cut up into pieces of possibly 20 pounds weight. Every 

 once in a while, a squaw would come into the tent and say some 

 words in their language, and he would nod his head and she would 

 take a large chunk and leave. This went on all the time I was 

 with him. The advent of the buffalo relieved me of giving my 

 provisions, so we packed up and left their camp for Calgary in 

 the afternoon. 



