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"These Fleet And Quick-Sighted Animals Are Generally The Victims
Of Their Curiosity.
When they first see the hunters, they run with
great velocity; if he lies down on the ground, and
Lifts up his arm,
his hat, or his foot, they return with a light trot to look at the object,
and sometimes go and return two or three times, till they approach
within reach of the rifle. So, too, they sometimes leave their flock
to go and look at the wolves, which crouch down, and, if the antelope
is frightened at first, repeat the same manoevre, and sometimes relieve
each other, till they decoy it from the party, when they seize it.
But, generally, the wolves take them as they are crossing the rivers;
for, although swift on foot, they are not good swimmers."
Later wayfarers across the plains were wont to beguile the antelope by
fastening a bright-colored handkerchief to a ramrod stuck in the ground.
The patient hunter was certain to be rewarded by the antelope coming
within range of his rifle; for, unless scared off by some interference,
the herd, after galloping around and around and much zigzagging,
would certainly seek to gratify their curiosity by gradually circling
nearer and nearer the strange object until a deadly shot or two sent
havoc into their ranks.
May came on cold and windy, and on the second of the month,
the journal records that snow fell to the depth of an inch,
contrasting strangely with the advanced vegetation.
"Our game to-day," proceeds the journal, "were deer, elk, and buffalo:
we also procured three beaver. They were here quite gentle,
as they have not been hunted; but when the hunters are in pursuit,
they never leave their huts during the day. This animal we esteem
a great delicacy, particularly the tail, which, when boiled,
resembles in flavor the fresh tongues and sounds of the codfish,
and is generally so large as to afford a plentiful meal for two men.
One of the hunters, in passing near an old Indian camp,
found several yards of scarlet cloth suspended on the bough of a tree,
as a sacrifice to the deity, by the Assiniboins; the custom of making
these offerings being common among that people, as, indeed, among all
the Indians on the Missouri. The air was sharp this evening;
the water froze on the oars as we rowed."
The Assiniboin custom of sacrificing to their deity, or "great medicine,"
the article which they most value themselves, is not by any means peculiar
to that tribe, nor to the Indian race.
An unusual number of porcupines were seen along here, and these creatures
were so free from wildness that they fed on, undisturbed, while the explorers
walked around and among them. The captains named a bold and beautiful stream,
which here entered the Missouri from the north, - Porcupine River; but modern
geography calls the water-course Poplar River; at the mouth of the river,
in Montana, is now the Poplar River Indian Agency and military post.
The waters of this stream, the explorers found, were clear and transparent, -
an exception to all the streams, which, discharging into the Missouri,
give it its name of the Big Muddy. The journal adds: -
"A quarter of a mile beyond this river a creek falls in on
the south, to which, on account of its distance from the mouth
of the Missouri, we gave the name of Two-thousand-mile creek.
It is a bold stream with a bed thirty yards wide.
At three and one-half miles above Porcupine River, we reached
some high timber on the north, and camped just above an old
channel of the river, which is now dry. We saw vast quantities
of buffalo, elk, deer, - principally of the long-tailed kind, -
antelope, beaver, geese, ducks, brant, and some swan.
The porcupines too are numerous, and so careless and clumsy
that we can approach very near without disturbing them, as they
are feeding on the young willows. Toward evening we also found
for the first time the nest of a goose among some driftwood,
all that we had hitherto seen being on the top of a broken
tree on the forks, invariably from fifteen to twenty or more
feet in height."
"Next day," May 4, says the journal, "we passed some old Indian hunting-camps,
one of which consisted of two large lodges, fortified with a circular
fence twenty or thirty feet in diameter, made of timber laid horizontally,
the beams overlying each other to the height of five feet, and covered
with the trunks and limbs of trees that have drifted down the river.
The lodges themselves are formed by three or more strong sticks
about the size of a man's leg or arm and twelve feet long, which are
attached at the top by a withe of small willows, and spread out so as
to form at the base a circle of ten to fourteen feet in diameter.
Against these are placed pieces of driftwood and fallen timber,
usually in three ranges, one on the other; the interstices are covered
with leaves, bark, and straw, so as to form a conical figure about
ten feet high, with a small aperture in one side for the door.
It is, however, at best a very imperfect shelter against the inclemencies
of the seasons."
Wolves were very abundant along the route of the explorers, the most
numerous species being the common kind, now known as the coyote
(pronounced kyote), and named by science the canis latrans.
These animals are cowardly and sly creatures, of an intermediate size
between the fox and dog, very delicately formed, fleet and active.
"The ears are large, erect, and pointed; the head is long
and pointed, like that of the fox; the tail long and bushy;
the hair and fur are of a pale reddish-brown color, though much
coarser than that of the fox; the eye is of a deep sea-green color,
small and piercing; the talons are rather longer than those of the wolf
of the Atlantic States, which animal, as far as we can perceive,
is not to be found on this side of the Platte.
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