THE BUFFALO. 121 



has been thrown from his steed, in consequence of the innu- 

 merable badger-holes in which the plains abound. Two others 

 are carried back to camp insensible. We have just put a 

 bullet through an enormous bull. He does not fall, but stops, 

 facing us, pawing the earth, bellowing, and glaring savagely. 

 The blood is streaming from his mouth, and it seems as if he 

 must speedily drop. We watch him, admiring his ferocious 

 aspect, combating with death. Suddenly he makes a dash 

 towards us, and we have barely time to escape the charge j 

 when, reloading, we again fire, and he sinks to the ground. 



The carts bring in the slaughtered animals to the camp, 

 when the squaws set to work, aided by the men, to cut them 

 up, and prepare them for drying and for making pemmican. 

 The women are soon busily employed in cutting the flesh into 

 slices, and in hanging them in the sun on poles. The dried 

 meat is then pounded between two stones till the fibres 

 separate. About fifty pounds of it is put into a bag of 

 buffalo skin, with about forty pounds of melted fat, which, 

 being mixed while hot, forms a hard and compact mass. 

 Hence its name, in the Cree language, of pemmikon — pemmi 

 signifying meat, and Icon fat — usually, however, spelled pem- 

 mican. One pound of pemmican is considered equal to four 

 pounds of ordinary meat,— and it keeps for years, perfectly 

 good, exposed to any weather. 



The prairie Indians obtain buffaloes by driving them into 

 huge pounds, where they are slaughtered. The pounds, how- 

 ever, can only be made in the neighbourhood of forests, from 

 whence the logs for their formation can be obtained. The 

 pound consists of a circular fence about 130 feet broad. It 

 is constructed of the trunks of trees laced together with 

 withes, with outside supports about 5 feet high. At one side 



