THE AMERICAN BISONS. 205 



up immediately after the burning. In crossing they often find themselves 

 insulated on large pieces of floating ice. The Indians seize these opportuni- 

 ties for their attack, passing nimbly across the trembling ice, where the foot- 

 steps of the huge animals are unsteady and insecure. The buffalo being 

 thus unable to offer resistance, the hunter gives him his death-wound and 

 paddles his ice-raft to the shore and secures his prey.* 



The Indians of the Northern Plains were long in the habit of hunting the 

 buffalo by impounding them, or by driving them into an artificial enclosure 

 constructed for the purpose, within which the buffaloes were at their mercy. 

 Various descriptions of this method have been given by different travellers, 

 but one of the most recent is that by Hind, in his ■'■ Narrative of the Assinni- 

 boine and Saskatchewan Expedition," t where he describes the method as 

 practised in 1859 by the Plain Cree Indians of the Qu'appelle and Saskatche- 

 wan Plains. The pound is described as circular, enclosing an area of about one 

 hundred and twenty feet in diameter, formed of the trunks of trees set in 

 the ground and bound together by withes, and braced by external supports. 

 Converging rows of bushes extend from the pound a distance of several 

 miles into the prairie, where their extremities are about one and a half to 

 two miles apart. These bushes are termed " dead men," and serve to guide 

 the buffaloes into the pound. When all is ready for action, skilled hunters, 

 mounted on fleet ponies, partly surround a herd and start them in the 

 direction of the pound, being aided by confederates stationed in hollows, 

 who, when the buffaloes take a wrong direction, rise and wave their robes to 

 change their course. If when the "dead men" are reached the buffaloes are 

 disposed to pass through them, Indians stationed behind appear, and by the 

 shaking of robes urge on the herd toward the pound. Thus the band is 

 pressed on between the narrowing lines of " dead men " to the entrance of 

 the pound. This is closed by a heavy tree-trunk placed about a foot from 

 the ground, inside of which is a ditch sufficiently deep to prevent the en- 

 closed buffaloes from jumping out. No sooner has the fatal leap been made 

 than the imprisoned animals rush wildly around the enclosure in search of 

 some point of escape. With the utmost silence, women and children hold 

 their robes before every orifice, until the whole herd is brought in. When 

 all are enclosed the slaughter begins; the hunters, climbing to the top of the 

 fence, spear or shoot, with bows and arrows or firearms, the bewildered buf- 



* Lewis ami Clarke's Expedition, Vol. I, p. 175. 



t Canadian Exploring Expeditions, etc., Vol. I, pp. 355 - 359. 



