let through an enormous bull. He does not fall, but stops, facing
us, pawing the earth, bellowing, and glaring savagely. The blood is
streaming from his mouth, and it seems as if he must speedily drop. We
watch him, admiring his ferocious aspect, combating with death.
Suddenly he makes a dash towards us, and we have barely time to escape
the charge; when, reloading, we again fire, and he sinks to the ground.

The carts bring in the slaughtered animals to the camp, when the squaws
set to work, aided by the men, to cut them up, and prepare them for
drying and for making pemmican. The women are soon busily employed in
cutting the flesh into slices, and in hanging them in the sun on poles.
The dried meat is then pounded between two stones till the fibres
separate. About fifty pounds of it is put into a bag of buffalo skin,
with about forty pounds of melted fat, which, being mixed while hot,
forms a hard and compact mass. Hence its name, in the Cree language, of
pemmican--_pemmi_ signifying meat, and _kon_ fat--usually, however,
spelt pemmican. One pound of pemmican is considered equal to four
pounds of ordinary meat,--and it keeps for years, perfectly good,
exposed to any weather.

The prairie Indians obtain buffaloes by driving them into huge pounds,
where they are slaughtered. The pounds, however, can only be made in
the neighbourhood of forests, from whence the logs for their formation
can be obtained. The pound consists of a circular fence about 130 feet
broad. It is constructed of the trunks of trees laced together with
withies, with outside supports about 5 feet high. At one side an
entrance is left about 10 feet wide, with a deep trench across it, on
the outside of which there is a strong trunk of a tree placed, about a
foot from the ground. The animals, on being driven in, leap over this,
clearing the trench, which of course prevents them from returning. From
the entrance two rows of bushes or posts, which are called "dead men,"
diverge towards the direction from which the buffaloes are likely to
come. They are placed from 20 feet to 50 feet apart, and the distance
between the extremities of the two rows at their outer termination is
nearly two miles. Behind each of these "dead men" an Indian is
stationed, to prevent the buffaloes when passing up the avenue from
breaking out. Meantime, the hunters, mounted on fleet horses, range the
country to a distance of eighteen or twenty miles in search of a her