"Captain Clark with fifteen men went out and found the Indians
engaged in killing buffalo. The hunters, mounted on horseback
and armed with bows and arrows, encircle the herd and gradually drive
them into a plain or an open place fit for the movements of horse;
they then ride in among them, and singling out a buffalo,
a female being preferred, go as close as possible and wound her
with arrows till they think they have given the mortal stroke;
when they pursue another, till the quiver is exhausted.
If, which rarely happens, the wounded buffalo attacks
the hunter, he evades his blow by the agility of his horse,
which is trained for the combat with great dexterity.
When they have killed the requisite number they collect their game,
and the squaws and attendants come up from the rear and skin
and dress the animals. Captain Clark killed ten buffalo,
of which five only were brought to the fort; the rest, which could
not be conveyed home, being seized by the Indians, among whom
the custom is that whenever a buffalo is found dead without
an arrow or any particular mark, he is the property of the finder;
so that often a hunter secures scarcely any of the game he kills,
if the arrow happens to fall off."
The weather now became excessively cold, the mercury often going thirty-two
degrees below zero. Notwithstanding this, however, the Indians kept up
their outdoor sports, one favorite game of which resembled billiards.
But instead of a table, the players had an open flooring, about fifty
yards long, and the balls were rings of stone, shot along the flooring
by means of sticks like billiard-cues. The white men had their sports,
and they forbade the Indians to visit them on Christmas Day,
as this was one of their "great medicine days." The American flag
was hoisted on the fort and saluted with a volley of musketry.
The men danced among themselves; their best provisions were brought
out and "the day passed," says the journal, "in great festivity."
The party also celebrated New Year's Day by similar festivities.
Sixteen of the men were given leave to go up to the first Mandan
village with their musical instruments, where they delighted the whole
tribe with their dances, one of the French voyageurs being especially
applauded when he danced on his hands with his head downwards.
The dancers and musicians were presented with several buffalo-robes
and a large quantity of Indian corn. The cold grew more intense, and on
the tenth of the month the mercury stood at forty degrees below zero.
Some of the men were badly frost-bitten, and a young Indian, about thirteen
years old, who had been lost in the snows, came into the fort.
The journal says: -
"His father, who came last night to inquire after him very anxiously,
had sent him in the afternoon to the fort; he was overtaken
by the night, and was obliged to sleep on the snow with no
covering except a pair of antelope-skin moccasins and leggins,
and a buffalo-robe.
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