st of
sandstone I saw some very odd formations; they looked like huge inverted
cones, that some giant sculptor had carved there. Perhaps they were
formed by the erosion of centuries, or it may have been the wear caused
by the rubbing of the buffaloes, for we found many of their bones
there, and I have often seen telegraph poles rubbed to the breaking
point. When the buffalo is annoyed by buffalo gnats and his great coat
is filled with mud and sand, he soon wears away a pretty strong pole.

This was a strange place, and in our search we found geodes, petrified
snakes, and short sections of fish. We also found several petrified
jaw-bones, of what looked to be wolves, still containing the teeth, and
fossils of many kinds. Some looked like vegetables, some were hexagonal,
and some looked as though made of floor tiling. We found many water and
moss agates of various sizes. The ground was covered with some meteoric
rock full of iron.

Here we passed the day hunting for some graves, but it was no use. Tree
burial seems to have been their method of disposing of the dead. In this
method of burial the body is taken to some low bushy tree, rolled in
fine robes and blankets, and with green strips of elk hide, wrapped to
two or more limbs. This secures it very firmly, and as the sun and wind
dry out the skin the thongs tighten, until only years of sun and rain,
mice and bugs, eat away the thongs, and the blankets, bones, and skins
are carried away by the wind. In this method of burial the body lasts
about twenty years or less.

We were tired and hungry when we returned to camp, but we soon had a
blazing fire with all the odors of good things on the breeze. Just as we
sat down to eat, I heard a horse's footfall, and turned to see who it
was. A young brave rode into the trail, and I caught up my gun. His
hands went up like a flash giving me the sign of a Crow. As all the
hunters and trappers in the west, north and south of the Yellowstone
River, know the Crows to be peaceful, I put up my gun and gave him the
sign that I understood what he said.

Young braves are always the very hardest members of the tribe to engage
in conversation, except a young girl of marriageable age. Both do all
their courting by making eyes at each other.

I knew him. He was a chief's son. Years before I had got some papers to
Washington for his father. Also I knew he could talk some broken English
and Crow, and was a superb sign talker.

We began to eat