272 SPORTING ADVENTURES 



Our stock of venison was so large that we had to transport 

 it in detail on the hacks of the mules and mustangs to the 

 valley, and this required two days to accomplish, for sonic of 

 the deer were so heavy that one was an ample load over rough 

 ground. When all were together we cached them in a ravine, 

 and while my friend went home after two waggons to take our 

 trophies hack, I remained behind to keep guard over them, 

 and to spend a day by myself in the mountains. 



Mounting 1 my mustang early in the morning, I rode towards 

 the Indian camp, and reached it in three hours, but where all 

 had been barbaric revelry a few days before, nothing was now 

 to be seen except old poles and piles of bones and offal. While 

 wandering carelessly through it I was startled to see two 

 creatures, which bore a strong resemblance to revivified mum- 

 mies, seated under a loickiup made of a few fir branches; and 

 on drawing near them I found they were a squaw and a buck, 

 who were so aged that their skin was one mass of flabby 

 wrinkles, and so decayed that their features looked like old 

 and crumpled parchment. They were so blind that they could 

 not see me, though only a few feet distant, and it was only 

 when I spoke that they recognized my presence, and gave me to 

 understand by the sign language they knew I was a white man. 



The only food they had was a few pieces of dog meat, which 

 were hung from a pole near them, while a feeble fire of wet 

 boughs was the only heat they had to warm their stagnant 

 blood. Though I could not speak to them, I knew what their 

 fate was, for it is a common custom among the Indians to 

 leave the aged and decrepid behind them when they go on a 

 long march or on a hunt, because they are considered to be too 

 much of a burden, to be taken along, and are deemed to be of no 

 greater use than to feed wild animals, which they sometimes do, 

 or to eat up the substance of the young, which they are not often 

 allowed to do. They expect to meet this fate, and do not grumble 

 at it, as they say they acted towards their forefathers in the 

 same manner, and they cannot expect any different treatment. 



On seeing their condition, I built a rousing fire for them, 

 left wood within their reach, and soon brought them in a 

 young wolf, which I cut up and left near them, so that they 



