130 A SOJOUBN AMONG THE IIALr-BBEEDS. 



thin slices of dried meat are pouuded between two stones until the 

 fibres separate. About fifty pounds of tins is put into a bag of 

 buffalo skin with about forty pounds of melted fat and mixed together 

 while hot, and sewed up, forming a hard compact mass;* each cart 

 brings home ten of these bags, and all that the Half-breeds do not 

 require for themselves, is eagerly bought by the Company for the 

 purpose of sending to the more distant posts where food is scarce. 

 One pound of this is considered equal to four pounds of ordinary 

 meat, and the pimmikon keeps for years perfectly good, exposed to any 

 weather. I was received by the band with the greatest cordiality : 

 they numbered about two hundred hunters, besides women and 

 children. They live during these hunting excursions in lodges formed 

 of dressed buffalo skins; they are always accompanied by an immense 

 number of dogs, who follow them from the settlements for the pur- 

 pose of feeding on the offal and remains of the slain buffaloes. These 

 dogs are very like wolves both in appearance and disposition, and, no 

 doubt, are a cross breed between the wolf and dog. A great many of 

 them acknowledge no particular master, and are sometimes dangerous 

 in times of scarcity. I have myself known them to attack the horses 

 and eat them. Our camp broke up on the following morning and 

 proceeded on their route to the open plains. The carts containing 

 the women and children, and each decorated with some flag or other 

 conspicuous emblem on a pole, so that the hunters might recog- 

 nize their own from a distance, wound off in one continuous line 

 extending for miles, accompanied by the hunters on horseback. 

 During the forenoon, whilst the line of mounted hunters and carts 

 was winding round the margin of a small lake, I took the opportunity 

 of making a sketch of the singular cavalcade. 



The following day we passed the Dry-dance Mountain, where the 

 Indians, before going on a war party, have a custom of dancing and 

 fasting for three days and nights. This practice is always observed 

 by young warriors going to battle for the first time, to ac- 

 custom them to the privations and fatigues which they must 

 expect to undergo, and to prove their strength and endurance. 

 Should any sink under the fatigue and fasting of this ceremony, they 

 are invariably sent back to the camp with the women and chddren. 

 After leaving this mountain we proceeded on our route, without 

 meeting any buffalo, although we saw plenty of indications of their 

 having been in the neighborhood a short time previous. On the 

 evening of the second day, we were visited by twelve Sioux chiefs 



* Hence its name in the Cree language ; pimmi signifying meat, and kon fat 



