136 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



I was not a little astonished to feel the robes slowly move 

 and undulate beneath me, and before I could rise and 

 look into the cause, I found myself projected into the 

 middle of the tent among the embers, by means of some 

 violent spasmodic action from beneath the supposed pile 

 of robes. Mis-tick-oos and his three wives with the other 

 inmates, shrieked with laughter, vociferating some words 

 in Cree. Meanwhile, the buffalo robes were slowly thrown 

 on one side, and, to my astonishment, were revealed the 

 huge proportions of the chief s fourth, youngest and best 

 wife. She shook a mass of hair from her head, and 

 joined in the laughter at my discomfiture. Other Indians 

 hearing the noise came in, and Mis-tick-oos, with tears in 

 his eyes, told his friends how " the white stranger had 

 sat upon his best wife, thinking she was a pile of robes, 

 and how she tossed him into the middle of the tent like a 

 buffalo bull pitching a colt." 



During our stay with the Crees of the Sandy Hills on 

 the South Branch, when passing the door of the tent 

 belonging to the chiefs eldest son, who was my com- 

 panion at the time, I observed a young squaw leaning 

 upon sticks, evidently in great trouble, and weeping 

 bitterly. The moment she saw us she hobbled into the 

 tent, with a low cry of pain, and closed the entrance. I 

 asked the interpreter what this meant. After some con- 

 versation with her husband, he said that the woman was 

 suffering from a beating he had given her for a violation 

 of her faith during his absence in the spring on a war 

 excursion. " I would have killed her," muttered the 

 husband, " but I thought it a pity to kill two at once. 

 She had her choice whether she would have her hair, her 

 nose, or her ear cut off, or whether she would have a 

 beating. She chose what she has got ; but I would have 

 killed her had I not known I should regret having killed 



