WAR IMPLEMENTS. 195 
green limbs to construct their temporary shelter, some build- 
ing fires, cooking, &c., and others unsaddling, unpacking, 
watering and tethering their animals. 
Some of the visiters made their shealings on the prairie 
above us,so that, in a little while, we were surrounded by these 
wild creatures. Among these was a warrior armed with a 
lance and shield. The lance was a long, straight piece of steel, 
about two feet and a half long and an inch wide, tapering toa 
point. This was fixed into a slender handle of bois d’are, 
about four feet and a half long, making the weapon seven feet 
in length; the handle ornamented with tufts of coloured cot- 
ton yarn and strips of cloth worked with beads. 
The shield was round, and about two feet in diameter, 
made of wicker-work, covered first with deer skins and then 
a tough piece of raw buffalo-hide drawn over, making it proof 
against arrow-heads, It was ornamented with a Auman scalp, 
a grisly bear’s claw and a mule’s tail, significant of the 
brave warrior and successful hunter and horse-thief, and the 
fastenings for the arm were pieces of cotton cloth twisted 
into a rope. ; 
During their stay, we endeavoured to get this man to show 
us his exercise with these weapons, but he peremptorily 
refused, and this I understood is universal with them, a proof 
of their cunning. 
These Indians had plenty of horses and mules, but generally 
a very inferior stock, the rest of their camp material was 
meagre and scanty in the extreme. 
