rted back toward their camp. On their homeward way, Heavy
Collar used to take the lead. He would go out far ahead on the high hills,
and look over the country, acting as scout for the party. At length they
came to the south branch of the Saskatchewan River, above Seven Persons'
Creek. In those days there were many war parties about, and this party
travelled concealed as much as possible in the coulees and low places.

As they were following up the river, they saw at a distance three old bulls
lying down close to a cut bank. Heavy Collar left his party, and went out
to kill one of these bulls, and when he had come close to them, he shot one
and killed it right there. He cut it up, and, as he was hungry, he went
down into a ravine below him, to roast a piece of meat; for he had left his
party a long way behind, and night was now coming on. As he was roasting
the meat, he thought,--for he was very tired,--"It is a pity I did not
bring one of my young men with me. He could go up on that hill and get some
hair from that bull's head, and I could wipe out my gun." While he sat
there thinking this, and talking to himself, a bunch of this hair came over
him through the air, and fell on the ground right in front of him. When
this happened, it frightened him a little; for he thought that perhaps some
of his enemies were close by, and had thrown the bunch of hair at
him. After a little while, he took the hair, and cleaned his gun and loaded
it, and then sat and watched for a time. He was uneasy, and at length
decided that he would go on further up the river, to see what he could
discover. He went on, up the stream, until he came to the mouth of the
St. Mary's River. It was now very late in the night, and he was very tired,
so he crept into a large bunch of rye-grass to hide and sleep for the
night.

The summer before this, the Blackfeet _(Sik-si-kau)_ had been camped on
this bottom, and a woman had been killed in this same patch of rye-grass
where Heavy Collar had lain down to rest. He did not know this, but still
he seemed to be troubled that night. He could not sleep. He could always
hear something, but what it was he could not make out. He tried to go to
sleep, but as soon as he dozed off he kept thinking he heard something in
the distance. He spent the night there, and in the morning when it became
light, there he saw right beside him the skeleton of the woman who had been
killed the summer before.

That morning he went on, fo