jerked
buffalo-meat, furnishes data from which unerring conclusions are deduced
with marvellous facility.

The party of adventurers soon found that they were in the thickest of
the Cree war-party operations, and so full of danger was every day's
travel that a council was called, and seven of the ten turned back. The
remaining three, more through foolhardiness than for any good reason,
continued their journey, until their resolution failed them, and they
too determined that, after another day's travel northward, they would
hasten back to their comrades.

On the afternoon of the last day, four young Indians were seen, who,
after a cautious approach, made the sign of peace, laid down their arms,
and came forward, announcing themselves to be Blackfeet of the Blood
Band. They were sent out, they said, by Ma-que-a-pos, to find three
whites mounted on horses of a peculiar color, dressed in garments
accurately described to them, and armed with weapons which they, without
seeing them, minutely described. The whole history of the expedition had
been detailed to them by Ma-que-a-pos. The purpose of the journey, the
_personnel_ of the party, the exact locality at which to find the three
who persevered, had been detailed by him with as much fidelity as could
have been done by one of the whites themselves. And so convinced were
the Indians of the truth of the old man's medicine, that the four young
men were sent to appoint a rendezvous, for four days later, at a spot a
hundred miles distant. On arriving there, accompanied by the young
Indians, the whites found the entire camp of "Rising Head," a noted
war-chief, awaiting them. The objects of the expedition were speedily
accomplished; and the whites, after a few days' rest, returned to safer
haunts. The writer of this paper was at the head of the party of whites,
and himself met the Indian messengers.

Upon questioning the chief men of the Indian camp, many of whom
afterwards became my warm personal friends, and one of them my adopted
brother, no suspicion of the facts, as narrated, could be sustained.
Ma-que-a-pos could give no explanation beyond the general one,--that he
"saw us coming, and heard us talk on our journey." He had not, during
that time, been absent from the Indian camp.

A subsequent intimate acquaintance with Ma-que-a-pos disclosed a
remarkable medicine faculty as accurate as it was inexplicable. He was
tested in every way, and almost always stood the ordeal succ