f in the plains and
open country, these Assineboines of the Mountains retain many of the
better characteristics of their race; they are brave and skilful men,
good hunters of red deer, moose, and big horn, and are still held in
dread by the Blackfeet, who rarely venture into their country. They are
well acquainted with the valleys and passes through the mountains, and
will probably take a horse over as rough ground as any men in the
creation.

At the ford on the Clear Water River, half a mile from the Mountain
House, a small clump of old pine-trees stands on the north side of the
stream. A few years ago a large band of Blood Indians camped round this
clump of pines during a trading expedition to the Mountain House. They
were under the leadership of two young chiefs, brothers. One evening a
dispute about some trifling matter arose, words ran high, there was a
flash of a scalping-knife, a plunge, and one brother reeled back with a
fearful gash in his side, the other stalked slowly to his tent, and sat
down silent and impassive. The wounded man loaded his gun, and keeping
the fatal wound closed together with one hand walked steadily to his
brothers tent; pulling back the door-casing, he placed the muzzle of his
gun to the heart of the man who sat immovable all the time, and shot him
dead, then, removing his hand from his own mortal wound, he fell lifeless
beside his brother's body. They buried the two brothers in the same grave
by the shadow of the dark pine-trees. The band to which the chiefs
belonged broke up and moved away into the great plains--the reckoning of
blood had been paid, and the account was closed. Many tales of Indian war
and revenge could I tell--tales gleaned from trader and missionary and
voyageur, and told by camp-fire or distant trading post, but there is no
time to recount them now, a long period of travel lies before me and I
must away to enter upon it; the scattered thread must be gathered up and
tied together too quickly, perhaps, for the success of this wandering
story, but not an hour too soon for the success of another expedition
into a still farther and more friendless region. Eight days passed
pleasantly at the Mountain House; rambles by day into the neighbouring
hills, stories of Indian life and prairie scenes at the evening fire
filled up the time, and it was near mid-December before I thought of
moving my quarters.

The Mountain House is perhaps the most singular specimen of an Indian
tra