180 



EED RIVER EXPLORING EXPEDITION. 



The improvidence of many of the half-breeds is re- 

 markable. During the winter before the last, those of 

 the White Horse Plain camped out on the distant prairies, 

 and killed many thousand buffalo in wanton revelry, 

 taking only their skins and tongues, little caring that the 

 reckless destruction of these animals must exercise a very 

 important change for the worse in their own condition. 

 As the buffalo diminish and go farther away towards the 

 Eocky Mountains, the half-breeds are compelled to travel 

 much greater distances in search of them, and consume 

 more time in the hunt ; it necessarily follows that they 

 have less time to devote to farming, and many of them 

 can be regarded in no other light than men slowly sub- 

 jecting themselves to a process of degradation, by which 

 they approach nearer and nearer to Indian habits and 

 character, refusing to adopt or relinquishing the tame 

 pursuit of agriculture, for the wild excitement and pre- 

 carious independence of a hunter's life. The fascination 

 of a camp in the high prairies, compared with the hitherto 

 almost hopeless monotony of the farms of Eed Eiver, can 

 easily be understood by those who have tasted the care- 

 less freedom of prairie life. I was often told that the 

 half-breeds generally sigh for the hunting season when in 

 the settlements, and 'form but a feeble attachment to a 

 permanent home, which cannot offer to the majority 

 a comfortable maintenance under present circumstances, 

 or secure the consciousness of possessing a free and manly 

 spirit, with rational aspirations and hopes. 



But few simple aids are required at Eed Eiver to 

 ameliorate and vastly improve the condition of the more 

 improvident and careless half-breeds. They frequently 

 bring in a large quantity of buffalo meat or robes to the 

 trading posts, and receive a considerable sum of money 

 in exchange, or if they insist upon it, a certain quantity of 



