the
last recesses of his breeding-grounds, will have taken his place in the
long list of those extinct giants which once dwelt in our world. Many
favourite spots had this huge animal throughout the great domain over
which he roamed-many beautiful scenes where, along river meadows, the
grass in winter was still succulent and the wooded "bays" gave food and
shelter, but-no more favourite ground than this valley of the
Saskatchewan; thither he wended his way from the bleak plains of the
Missouri in herds that passed and passed for days and nights in seemingly
never-ending numbers. Along the countless creeks and rivers that add
their tribute to the great stream, along the banks of the Battle River
and the Vermilion River, along the many White Earth Rivers and Sturgeon
Creeks of the upper and middle Saskatchewan, down through the willow
copses and aspen thickets of the Touchwood Hills and the Assineboine, the
great beasts dwelt in all the happiness of calf-rearing and connubial
felicity. The Indians who then occupied these regions killed only what
was required for the supply of the camps-a mere speck in the dense herds
that roamed up to the very doors of the wigwams; but when the trader
pushed his adventurous way into the fur regions of the North, the herds
of the Saskatchewan plains began to experience a change in their
surroundings. The meat, pounded down` and mixed with fat into "pemmican,"
was found to supply a most excellent food for transport service, and
accordingly vast numbers of buffalo were destroyed to supply the demand
of the fur traders. In the border-land between the wooded country and the
plains, the Crees, not satisfied with the ordinary methods of destroying
the buffalo, devised a plan by which great multitudes could be easily
annihilated. This method of hunting, consists in the erection of strong
wooden enclosures called pounds, into which the buffalo are guided by the
supposed magic power of a medicine-man. Sometimes for two days the
medicine-man will live with the herd, which he half guides and half
drives into the enclosures; sometimes he is on the right, sometimes on
the left, and sometimes, again, in rear of the herd, but never to
windward of them. At last they approach the pound, which is usually
concealed in a thicket of wood. For many miles from the entrance to this
pound two gradually diverging lines of tree-stumps and heaps of snow lead
out into the plains. Within these lines the buffalo are led by