128 SUFFERINGS OF THE INDIANS. 



but of those who bore the character of good 

 hunters, and were particularly careful of their 

 families ; and I fear it is the case of many more 

 from the exhausted state of animals in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Red River : and from the frequent 

 fires that occur in the plains, which extend also 

 to the destruction of the woods. 



Towards the conclusion of the month we had 

 another melancholy proof of the Indians suffer- 

 ing extreme want from the few animals that 

 were to be met with during the winter. An 

 Indian with his wife on their arrival gave me to 

 understand that they had been without food for 

 twenty days, and had lost their three children by 

 starvation. Their appearance was that of a melan- 

 choly dejection, and I had my suspicions excited 

 at the time that they had eaten them. This was 

 confirmed afterwards by the bones and hands of 

 one of the children being found near some ashes 

 at a place where they said they had encamped, 

 and suffered their misery. It appears that two of 

 their children died from want, whom they cooked 

 and eat, and that they afterwards killed the 

 other for a subsistence in their dire necessity. I 

 asked this Indian, as I did the other, whether from 

 having suffered so much, it was not far better 

 to do as the white people did and cultivate the 

 ground ; he said, Ci Yes ;" and expressed a desire 



