SPORT AND TRAVEL 265 



a madman is considered to be sacred by the Indians. 

 However, he was soon shot down by warriors too ex- 

 cited to give him the benefit of the doubt. If this story 

 is true, this poor fellow must certainly either have lost 

 his head and been for the moment really mad, or else, 

 seeing that all his comrades had been killed, had 

 determined to share their fate rather than to survive 

 them. 



It took us four days to get through the Indian reser- 

 vation ; and although Indians were usually conspicuous 

 for their absence, there appeared to be no four-footed 

 game left in their country. Sharp-tailed grouse (Pedice- 

 cetes phasianellus), however, were numerous along all 

 the wooded creeks intersecting the prairie lands. These 

 birds are most excellent for the table. I found them 

 either very wild or very tame. They would either get 

 up out of range, or else fly up into a tree, and let you 

 pelt them with sticks or stones for several minutes be- 

 fore flying away. The quaint little prairie marmots 

 were particularly numerous in the Indian reservation; 

 and on November 15, which was a bright, sunshiny 

 day, they were out in hundreds, scuttling over the 

 snow from one burrow to another. Many of them let 

 us pass within twenty yards of them without retiring 

 into their earths. They seemed, however, to be in the 

 wildest state of excitement all the time we were near 

 them, and kept up a continuous cry of " cheep, cheep, 

 cheep/' twitching their little tails convulsively at each 

 note. Their cry sounded to me like that of a bird 



