ae : NOTES TAKEN. 
. 
find water. He left word that wherever he found it he would 
build a fire as a signal. Several hours elapsed when we saw 
a fire some distance off the road. Supposing of course that 
it was his, Lieut. C——n and myself rode up to it, when we 
suddenly found ourselves in a hunting camp of Kickapoos, 
We had several times remarked upon the scarcity of game 
on our route, having one only an occasional deer, and those 
brought in by the Indians, causing them to hunt long dis- 
tances from the direct line of march, This searcity was 
now explained; the Kickapoos are the most famous hunters 
known, and when they pass over a section of country game © 
almost disappears for a season. 
Their plan is to hunt in sufficient numbers to cover a 
long line of country, and moving forward in this order, with - 
their families, pack-horses, &c., they sweep off every thing 
before them. Their women were busy dressing skins and 
drying venison. The skins were stretched around a square 
frame, made of poles stuck in the ground, with a fire built in 
the middle ; the meat they cut in long thin strips and laid it 
on tép of poles bent into a semicircle, forming a kind of 
large coop, and then built a slow fire underneath, 
It was a wild scene, at the murk hour, to come upon these 
naked dusky savages bustling in the lurid glare of their 
fires, and looking like so many demons from the background 
where we stood, - : 
We found tolerable water near them, both in quantity and 
quality, and concluded to encamp for the night, 
