Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 6).djvu/111

of a few miles the hills rose in strange, irregular broken masses. Mr. Bradbury and I took a stroll from the camp, in quest of specimens and adventures. Before reaching the upland we observed on the river bottom a large encampment of Sioux, where they had probably remained during winter, from the traces of tents, the quantity of bones, and the appearance of the ground. Their position was well chosen; the wood of the Missouri, and that of the streamlet I have just mentioned, at {125} right angles with it, formed two sides of the camp, on the other sides there is an open plain. In this place it would have been difficult to have attacked them by surprise. On coming to the upland we found the points of the hills stony, and large masses of detached rock here and there on the more elevated places. The grass short, intermixed with many beautiful small flowers, but no weeds. A few prickly pears (cactus) were seen, but of a small size, not exceeding a few inches in length, and the thorns not strong. The upland was at every little distance, indented with ravines, or hollows, some of them bare of soil and still subject to the washing of the rains, others well covered with grass. Upon one of these projecting points, we observed at some distance a small group of buffaloes lying down. Stealing along the brow of the hill, we ascended from a ravine, approached within thirty or forty yards, and taking aim together, fired at a cow that happened to be nearest to us; she started up and bellowed, the others seemed to be but little alarmed, until we rose up and advanced towards them, when they trotted off slowly to the hills, leaving the cow who went {126} off in a different direction. The wounded buffaloe, or deer, always leave the herd. I pursued her for some distance, but found that she was not mortally wounded. The flight of these alarmed other herds which were feeding at a distance; there was something picturesque in the appearance of