In Small Parties They Began To Leave The Ground
And Ride Rapidly Away Over The Plains To The Westward.
I had taken
no food that morning, and not being at all ambitious of further
abstinence, I went into my host's lodge, which his squaws had erected
with wonderful celerity, and sat down in the center, as a gentle hint
that I was hungry.
A wooden bowl was soon set before me, filled with
the nutritious preparation of dried meat called pemmican by the
northern voyagers and wasna by the Dakota. Taking a handful to break
my fast upon, I left the lodge just in time to see the last band of
hunters disappear over the ridge of the neighboring hill. I mounted
Pauline and galloped in pursuit, riding rather by the balance than by
any muscular strength that remained to me. From the top of the hill
I could overlook a wide extent of desolate and unbroken prairie, over
which, far and near, little parties of naked horsemen were rapidly
passing. I soon came up to the nearest, and we had not ridden a mile
before all were united into one large and compact body. All was
haste and eagerness. Each hunter was whipping on his horse, as if
anxious to be the first to reach the game. In such movements among
the Indians this is always more or less the case; but it was
especially so in the present instance, because the head chief of the
village was absent, and there were but few "soldiers," a sort of
Indian police, who among their other functions usually assumed the
direction of a buffalo hunt.
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