CONDUCT IN WAR. 



49 



at the Fort as a pledge that he would return and 

 pay the value of an article which was given 

 to him at his request. They consider this 

 deposit sacred and inviolable, and as giving 

 a sanction to their words, their promises and 

 their treaties. They are seldom known to fail 

 in redeeming the pledge ; and they ratify their 

 agreements with each other by a mutual 

 exchange of the wampum, regarding it with 

 the smoking of tobacco, as the great test of 

 sincerity. 



In conducting their war excursions, they act 

 upon the same principle as in hunting. They 

 are vigilant in espying out the track of those 

 whom they pursue, and will follow them over 

 the praries, and through the forests, till they 

 have discovered where they halt ; when they 

 wait with the greatest patience, under every 

 privation, either lurking in the grass, or con- 

 cealing themselves in the bushes, till an oppor- 

 tunity offers to rush upon their prey, at a time 

 when they are least able to resist them. These 

 tribes are strangers to open warfare, and laugh 

 at Europeans as fools for standing out, as they 

 say, in the plains, to be shot at. 



On the 22nd I reached the Farm, and from 

 the expeditious mode of travelling over the 

 snow, I began to think, as is common among 



E 



