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Show INDIAN LAWS OF HUNTING- BLACK HILLS. 257 all hopes, of the lost rifle were . vain, and immediately left the village. , ' This band of Ogallalah Sioux was about a hundred lodges strong, and seemed to possess a large number of fine horses, as well as a good many excellent mules; the latter procured, no doubt, by trading with the emigrants along the road to California and Oregon. . From the village we pursued a south- east course to overtake the train, Which, after passing in an easterly direction over a. lpvel grassy prairie, with plenty of fine water, had ascended the western slope of the Black Hills. Having ridden a mile or two, we enjoyed an opportunity of witnessing what is technically called a " surround" of buffalo, by a band of about fifty Indians on horseback. The poor animals were in great confusion and terror, the Indians being in full puqrait. We did not halt to see the e^ d of the hunt. During the chase a small band was driven qear us, and a fine fat cow was secured by a shot from one of my revolvers. A mile or two farther on, we found a couple of our hunters very amicably engaged in dividing the carcass of another buffalo with half a dozen Indians, who laid claim to a share of the prey, on the ground, that although the buffalo was actually killed by the white men, one of their own number had first wounded it; in proof of which they pointed to an arrow deeply buried in its side. The claim was cheerfully admitted, and the game in consequence equally shared. The Indians told us that to the eastward of this point we would see no more buffalo; in this, however* they proved to be mistaken. At the western base of the ridge we passed through another village of fifty lodges of the same tribe, who were moving to the southward. For the last seven or eight miles, the prairie has been strewn with the carcasses of buffalo, from which the choice pieces only had been selected by thpse^ untutored epicures, leaving the remainder, from which they had not taken the trouble even to remove the skin. Carcasses thus left on the open prairie are not unfrequently completely cured, or rather " mummified," in the sun, so. that they seldom exhibit flfny sign of decay. Ascending the western slope of the Black Hills by a very gentle rise, we followed the frail of our party, passing between low cliffe and detached misses of red and gray sandstone, worn into isolated pillars, hillocks, and other forms by the action of the elements. The beds appeared to be thick w/ i extensive, but the strata frere 17 |