THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 291 



numerous hunts of the buffalo with the fur company's men) in bringing in, in the 

 above manner, several of these little prisoners, which sometimes followed for five or 

 six miles close to our horses' heels, and even into the fur company's fort, and into 

 the stable where our horses were led. lu this way, before I left for the headwaters 

 of the Missouri, I think we had collected about a dozen, which Mr. Laidlaw was suc- 

 cessfully raising with the aid of a good milch cow, and which were to be committed 

 to the care of Mr. Choteau, to be transported by the return of the steamer to his ex- 

 tensive plantation in the vicinity of Saint Louis. The fate of these poor little prison- 

 ers I was informed on my return to Saint Louis * » * afterwards, was a very 

 disastrous one. The steamer having a distance of sixteen hundred miles to perform, 

 and being a week or two on sand bars, in a country where milk could not be procured, 

 they all perished but one, which is now flourishing in the extensive fields of this 

 gentleman, Mr. Choteau. — G. C, pages 25, 26, Hid. 



413. Buffalo chase ; bulls making battle with men and horses. 



(Plate No. Ill, pages 254,255, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years. 

 The buffalo is a very timid animal, and shuns the vicinity of man with the keenest 

 sagacity. Yet, when overtaken and harassed or wounded, turns upon his assailants 

 with the utmost fury, who have only to seek safety in flight. In their desperate 

 resistance the finest horses are often destroyed ; but the Indian, with his superior 

 sagacity and dexterity, generally finds some effective mode of escape. — G. C. 



414. Buffalo hunt, under the wolf-skin mask. 



(Plate No. 110, page 254, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years.) 

 The poor buffaloes have their enemy, man, besetting and besieging them at all 

 times of the year, and in all the modes that man in his superior wisdom has been able 

 to devise for their destruction. They struggle in vain to evade his deadly shafts, 

 when he dashes amongst them over the plains on his wild horse ; they plunge into the 

 snow-drifts where they yield themselves an easy prey to their destroyers, and they 

 also stand unwittingly and behold him unsuspected under the skin of a white wolf, 

 insinuating himself and his fatal weapons into close company when they are peace- 

 ably grazing on the level prairies, and shot down before they are aware of their 

 danger. 



While the herd of buftalocs are together theyseem to have little dread of the wolf, 

 and allow them to come in close company with them. The Indian takes advantage 

 of this fact, and often places himself under the skin of the animal and crawls for 

 half a mile or more on his hands and knees until he approaches within a few rods of 

 the unsuspecting group, and easily shoots down the fattest of the throng. — G. C. 



415. Buffalo chase; mouth of Yellowstone ; animals dying on the ground passed 



over, and my man Batiste swamped in crossing a creek. Painted in 1832. 

 (No plate.) 



416. Buffalo chase in snow-drift, with snow-shoes. 



417. Buffalo chase in snow-drift, with snow-shoes, killing them for their robes in 



great numbers. 



(Plate No. 109, page 254, vol. 1, Catlin's Eight Years.) 

 In the dead of the winters, which are very long and severely cold in this country, 

 where horses cannot be brought in the chase with any avail, the Indian runs ui^on the 

 surface of the snow by the aid of his snow-shoes, which buoy him up, while the great 

 weight of the buffaloes sinks them down to the middle of their sides, and completely 

 stopping their progress insures them certain and easy victims to the bow or lance of 

 their pursuers, as in Nos. 411) and 417. The snow in these regions often lies during the 

 \Vinter to the depth of three and four feet, being blown away from the tops and sides of 

 the hills in many x>laces, which are left bare for the buffaloes to graze upon, whilst it is 



