Yet It Has Happened More Than Once, And Quite Recently, That War
Parties Of The Crow Indians, Ranging Through The
Country, have thrown
the bodies from the scaffolds, and broken them to pieces amid the
yells of the Dakotas, who
Remained pent up in the fort, too few to
defend the honored relics from insult. The white objects upon the
ground were buffalo skulls, arranged in the mystic circle commonly
seen at Indian places of sepulture upon the prairie.
We soon discovered, in the twilight, a band of fifty or sixty horses
approaching the fort. These were the animals belonging to the
establishment; who having been sent out to feed, under the care of
armed guards, in the meadows below, were now being driven into the
corral for the night. A little gate opened into this inclosure; by
the side of it stood one of the guards, an old Canadian, with gray
bushy eyebrows, and a dragoon pistol stuck into his belt; while his
comrade, mounted on horseback, his rifle laid across the saddle in
front of him, and his long hair blowing before his swarthy face, rode
at the rear of the disorderly troop, urging them up the ascent. In a
moment the narrow corral was thronged with the half-wild horses,
kicking, biting, and crowding restlessly together.
The discordant jingling of a bell, rung by a Canadian in the area,
summoned us to supper. This sumptuous repast was served on a rough
table in one of the lower apartments of the fort, and consisted of
cakes of bread and dried buffalo meat - an excellent thing for
strengthening the teeth.
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