as already described. When
they reached the end of the >, they ran up the bridge, and jumped down into
the pen. When it was full, or all had entered, Indians, who had lain hidden
near by, ran upon the bridge, and placed poles, prepared beforehand, across
the opening through which the animals had entered, and over these poles
hung robes, so as entirely to close the opening. The buffalo will not dash
themselves against a barrier which is entirely closed, even though it be
very frail; but if they can see through it to the outside, they will rush
against it, and their great weight and strength make it easy for them to
break down any but a heavy wall. Mr. Hugh Monroe tells me that he has seen
a pis'kun built of willow brush; and the Cheyennes have stated to me that
their buffalo corrals were often built of brush. Sometimes, if the walls of
the pis'kun were not high, the buffalo tried to jump or climb over them,
and, in doing this, might break them down, and some or all escape. As soon,
however, as the animals were in the corral, the people--women and children
included--ran up and showed themselves all about the walls, and by their
cries kept the buffalo from pressing against the walls. The animals ran
round and round within, and the men standing on the walls shot them down as
they passed. The butchering was done in the pis'kun, and after this was
over, the place was cleaned out, the heads, feet, and least perishable
offal being removed. Wolves, foxes, badgers, and other small carnivorous
animals visited the pis'kun, and soon made away with the entrails.

In winter, when the snow was on the ground, and the buffalo were to be led
to the pis'kun, the following method was adopted to keep the herd
travelling in the desired direction after they had got between the wings of
the chute. A line of buffalo chips, each one supported on three small
sticks, so that it stood a few inches above the snow, was carried from the
mouth of the pis'kun straight out toward the prairie. The chips were about
thirty feet apart, and ran midway between the wings of the chute. This line
was, of course, conspicuous against the white snow, and when the buffalo
were running down the chute, they always followed it, never turning to the
right nor to the left. In the latter days of the pis'kun, the man who led
the buffalo was often mounted on a white horse.

Often, when they drove the buffalo over a high vertical cliff, no corral
was built beneath. Most of tho