June 18, r 9 ia] FOREST AND STREAM. 
9G9 
Usually they made their start about the 15th 
of June, a part going from the Red River settle¬ 
ment and another part from the White Horse 
Plain on the Assiniboine. Once these bands 
traveled together, but differences sprang up 
among them, and between 1850 and 1857 they 
hunted apart. 
Sometimes the halfbreeds were absolutely im¬ 
provident and thoughtless of the future. Often 
they made surrounds and killed buffalo purely 
ffor the love of killing, taking nothing but the 
iskins and tongues, and not recognizing that this 
\ 
t ■ 
OLD FT. GARRY. 
1 
circle of their lodges and the turning up of carts 
on their sides to make breastworks behind which 
to fight. The Indians of those days had few 
guns or none and scarcely ever attacked them 
except on the occasion already referred to. 
When the buffalo were found, if the situation 
was favorable, a surround was made, but on 
the other hand sometimes the buffalo were on 
the flat prairie, in which case it was necessary 
to approach them openly and the horsemen could 
not get nearer than four or five hundred yards 
before the buffalo started. Then, if it was spring 
in front of them. By this method of riding, the 
buffalo could often be drawn some miles in one 
direction or the other, and toward the waiting 
and concealed hunters. 
On favorable ground, when a successful ap¬ 
proach was made the buffalo, with tails on end, 
rushed off in headlong flight. Presently the 
swiftest horses began to overtake them and to 
disappear in the dust kicked up by the flying 
herd. The noise and confusion caused by the 
running animals was astonishing. A thick cloud 
of dust hung over the scene, the air was full of 
great destruction of buffalo must sooner or later 
be felt by themselves. 
While often they rioted in plenty, having more 
food than it was possible to consume, at other 
times they suffered from hunger. If buffalo 
could not be found, provisions became scarce; 
children cried with hunger and all complained of 
the lack of food. It was a feast or a famine. 
Sometimes, too, they lost their animals. The 
horses strayed away or the oxen that belonged 
in the camp took the back trail and had to be 
searched for at great loss of time. 
On the other hand, when hunting, their indus¬ 
try was very great. They had a splendid organi¬ 
zation; they were at peace with all the Indians 
of the plains who in early days neither wished 
nor dared to attack them. The approach of a 
hostile party to the. halfbreed camp meant merely 
the withdrawal of the halfbreeds within the 
and the horses were thin and weak, a long chase 
was required to overtake the buffalo, and some¬ 
times they might not be overtaken at all. If 
the horses were weak and the buffalo were in 
such a position that there was danger that they 
might escape without being overtaken, the chiefs 
would sometimes send out two men to approach 
the buffalo gradually from one side, and starting 
them slowly t'o bring them close to the camp. 
The young men rode at a walk or a trot parallel 
to the direction in which the buffalo were headed, 
and before long the buffalo began to trot and 
then perhaps to gallop. If, riding on the left 
hand side of the herd, the men wished to turn 
them to the right,' they drew away from them to 
a greater distance. If they wished to turn them 
to the left, they directed their course more to¬ 
ward the herd, which then in turn bert its 
course toward the riders, as if trying to cross 
pebbles and sand kicked up by the hurrying feet, 
shots began to be heard, and presently the prairie 
was strewn with brown bodies. 
In such a race the men rode their best horses, 
trained buffalo runners, as experienced as their 
masters in picking out the best cows, in avoid¬ 
ing the holes and obstacles which lay everywhere 
on the prairie, in avoiding also the charge of 
angry animals that they overtook and passed. 
Really, the experienced rider paid no attention 
to his horse and merely loaded, fired and re¬ 
loaded until the chase was over. Practically all 
these men used muzzle-loading flintlock guns. 
Their balls they carried in their mouths, the 
powder was in a cowhorn hung under the right 
arm. They loaded on the run, spat a ball into 
the muzzle, jarred the gun stock on the saddle 
or with the hand, threw some priming into the 
pan, and fired. Accidents were frequent. Horses 
