, so as to prevent the women
and the children from attending regularly divine service on the
Sabbath. The sun however is seldom obscured with clouds, but shines
with a sickly face; without softening at all at present, the piercing
north-westerly wind that prevails throughout the winter.

A wish having been expressed to me, that I would attend a general
meeting of the principal settlers at Pembina, I set off in a cariole
for this point of the Settlement, a distance of nearly eighty miles, on
the 12th. We stopped a few hours at the Salt Springs, and then
proceeded on our journey so as to reach Fort Daer the next morning to
breakfast; so expeditiously will the dogs drag the cariole in a good
track, and with a good driver. We met for the purpose of considering
the best means of protection, and of resisting any attack that might be
made by the Sioux Indians, who were reported to have hostile intentions
against this part of the colony, in the Spring. They had frequently
killed the hunters upon the plains; and a war party from the
Mississippi, scalped a boy last summer within a short distance of the
fort where we were assembled; leaving a painted stick upon the mangled
body, as a supposed indication that they would return for slaughter.

The 18th being the Sabbath, I preached to a considerable number of
persons assembled at the Fort. They heard me with great attention; but
I was often depressed in mind, on the general view of character, and at
the spectacle of human depravity and barbarism I was called to witness.
During my stay, I went to some hunter's tents on the plains, and saw
them kill the buffaloe, by crawling on the snow, and pushing their guns
before them, and this for a considerable distance till they got very
near the band. Their approach to the animals was like the appearance of
wolves, which generally hover round them to devour the leg-wearied and
the wounded; and they killed three before the herd fled. But in hunting
the buffaloes for provisions it affords great diversion to pursue them
on horseback. I once accompanied two expert hunters to witness this
mode of killing them. It was in the spring: at this season the bulls
follow the bands of cows in the rear on their return to the south,
whereas in the beginning of the winter, in their migration to the
north, they preceded them and led the way. We fell in with a herd of
about forty, on an extensive prarie. They were covering the retreat of
the cows. As soon as ou