c nocte honorem quartour maritorum custodivit.

Sunday 6. A clear cold morning with high wind: we caught in a trap a
large gray wolf, and last night obtained in the same way a fox who had
for some time infested the neighbourhood of the fort. Only a few Indians
visited us to-day.

Monday 7. The weather was again clear and cold with a high northwest
wind, and the thermometer at sunrise 22 degrees below 0; the river fell
an inch. Shahaka the Big White chief dined with us, and gave a connected
sketch of the country as far as the mountains.

Tuesday 8. The wind was still from the northwest, the day cold, and we
received few Indians at the fort. Besides the buffaloe dance we have
just described, there is another called medicine dance, an entertainment
given by any person desirous of doing honour to his medicine or genius.
He announces, that on such a day he will sacrifice his horses, or other
property, and invites the young females of the village to assist in
rendering homage to his medicine; all the inhabitants may join in the
solemnity, which is performed in the open plain and by daylight, but the
dance is reserved for the virgins or at least the unmarried females, who
disdain the incumbrance or the ornament of dress. The feast is opened
by devoting the goods of the master of the feast to his medicine, which
is represented by a head of the animal itself, or by a medicine bag if
the deity be an invisible being. The young women then begin the dance,
in the intervals of which each will prostrate herself before the
assembly to challenge or reward the boldness of the youth, who are often
tempted by feeling or the hopes of distinction to achieve the adventure.

Wednesday 9. The weather is cold, the thermometer at sunrise 21 degrees
below 0. Kagohami breakfasted with us, and captain Clarke with three or
four men accompanied him and a party of Indians to hunt, in which they
were so fortunate as to kill a number of buffaloe: but they were
incommoded by snow, by high and squally winds, and by extreme cold;
several of the Indians came to the fort nearly frozen, others are
missing, and we are uneasy, for one of our men who was separated from
the rest during the chase has not returned: In the morning,

Thursday 10, however, he came back just as we were sending out five men
in search of him. The night had been excessively cold, and this morning
at sunrise the mercury stood at 40 degrees below 0, or 72 below the
freezing point. He had