142 ASSINNIBOINE AND SASKATCHEWAN EXPEDITION. 



Shaking hands is customary both on meeting and 

 parting. The usual preliminary to a council or a series 

 of questions, is a smoke ; and nothing smoothes the way to 

 an affable arrangement in case of a difficulty so quickly as 

 a proposal to argue the point and arrange matters over a 

 pipe. A great point is gained if the traveler is able to 

 present the chief of the party with a plug or canister of 

 tobacco to replenish his pipe, and when he offers to return 

 it, a courteous intimation that he may keep the remainder 

 or hand it round to his young men, is often a very advanta- 

 geous stroke of policy. 



In order to understand the character and nature of wild 

 prairie Indians, they must be seen in their tents when well 

 supplied with provisions, and disposed to be cheerful and 

 merry. In the prairies when on horseback, they are 

 often quiet and watchful, always on the look out, and 

 when even twenty or thirty are in a band, they generally 

 manage to see a suspicious object in the distance at the 

 same moment, so that a simultaneous note of exclamation 

 is uttered by most or all of the party. In hunting the 

 buffalo they are wild with excitement, but no scene or 

 incident seems to have such a maddening effect upon 

 them as when the buffalo are successfully driven into a 

 pound.* Until the herd is brought in by the skilled 

 hunters, the utmost silence is preserved around the fence of 

 the pound : men, women, and children, with pent-up feel- 

 ings, hold their robes so as to close every orifice through 

 which the terrified animals might endeavour to escape. 

 The herd once in the pound, a scene of diabolical but- 

 chery and excitement begins ; men, women, and children 

 climb on the fence, and shoot arrows or thrust spears at 

 the bewildered buffalo, with shouts, screams, and yells 

 horrible to hear. But when the young men, and even 

 women jump into the arena amidst the dying and the 



* The half-breeds call these enclosures "ponds."' 



