kee_," "_Hee-nee-kar-ray-kay-noo?_" (how do you do?)

To this succeeded the usual announcement, "_Wys-kap-rah
tshoonsh-koo-nee-noh!_" (I have no bread.)

This is their form of begging; but we could not afford to be generous,
for the uncertainty of obtaining a supply, should our own be exhausted,
obliged us to observe the strictest economy.

How beautiful the entrapment looked in the morning sun! The matted
lodges, with the blue smoke curling from their tops--the trees and
bushes powdered with a light snow which had fallen through the
night--the lake, shining and sparkling, almost at our feet--even the
Indians, in their peculiar costume, adding to the picturesque!

I was sorry to leave it, as we were compelled to do, in all haste,
Souris, the pack-horse, having taken it into his head to decamp while we
were in conversation with our red friends. As he had, very sensibly,
concluded to pursue his journey in the right direction, we had the good
fortune to overtake him after a short race, and, having received much
scolding and some blows from young Roy, whose charge he specially was,
he was placed in the middle of the cavalcade, as a mark of disgrace for
his breach of duty.

Our road, after leaving the lake, lay over a "rolling prairie," now bare
and desolate enough. The hollows were filled with snow, which, being
partly thawed, furnished an uncertain footing for the horses, and I
could not but join in the ringing laughter of oar Frenchmen as
occasionally Brunet and Souris, the two ponies, would flounder, almost
imbedded, through the yielding mass. Even the vainglorious Plante, who
piqued himself on his equestrian skill, was once or twice nearly
unhorsed, from having chosen his road badly. Sometimes the elevations
were covered with a thicket or copse, in which our dogs would generally
rouse up one or more deer. Their first bound, or "lope," was the signal
for a chase. The horses seemed to enter into the spirit of it, as
"halloo" answered "halloo;" but we were never so fortunate as to get a
shot at one, for although the dogs once or twice caught they were not
strong enough to hold them. It was about the middle of the afternoon
when we reached the Blue Mound. I rejoiced much to have got so far, for
I was sadly fatigued, and every mile now seemed like two to me. In fact,
the miles are unconscionably long in this country. When I was told that
we had still seven miles to go, to "Morrison's," where we proposed
stopping for the