132 LAKE MANDAN. 
man Merry, on the opposite side of the Missouri. The 
sounds were intermingled with the crash of trees and 
craunching of ice floes. 
At daylight, the deer of the bottom lands, now driven 
by ice from their last perches onthe sand hills in the tim- 
ber, were struggling to swim ashore through the back- 
water, now coated with new ice. Numbers had reached 
the bank. but others tired out gave up in despair, and 
sank out of sight. 
When the channel ice commenced moving, several 
deer were seen clinging to smallrafts rolling around and 
around. Their silent suplication for life was a pitying 
spectacle. The jarring or craunching of the ice flces 
sent most of them to the bottom. 
Nor were the troubles of those safely ashore over. 
Burned prairies and a cold north wind kept them close 
tothe bank. They came about the camp like pleading 
lambs. They weresafe. I harmed none of them—fred 
no shots. Had I so willed, could have killed some with 
clubs. - The truth was the heart softened at the scenes 
being enacted about me. My hunting days were about 
to end. 
Some days later I returned to Lake Mandan for a 
cache of traps. While there’ ‘the Bear, one’/er, the 
members of Good Heart’s lodge, came to me at the 
place the traps were buried. He told me he was almost 
alone now.—Good Heart had been taken to the agency 
snow blind. Pointing my finger to an object like a 
shaft of stone on a high point of bluffs, a something— 
familiar as the surface of that country was—my eyes 
had not before seen. 
‘‘What is that!’’ I said. 
