hief appoints a successor: they
seem to be a sort of constable or sentinel, since they are always on the
watch to keep tranquillity during the day, and guarding the camp in the
night. The short duration of their office is compensated by its
authority. Their power is supreme, and in the suppression of any riot or
disturbance no resistance to them is suffered; their persons are sacred;
and if, in the execution of their duty, they strike even a chief of the
second class, they cannot be punished for this salutary insolence.

THE GREAT FALLS OF THE MISSOURI

WILLIAM CLARKE.

[The journals of Lewis and Clarke, descriptive of their
observations in the western United States during their journey
across the plains and mountains to the Pacific, are full of
interesting incident. They were the first intelligent travellers
through that vast region, and the story of their journey must
always possess a high value for this reason, the aborigines and
the animal life of that country being as yet undisturbed by the
presence of the whites. They had now reached the upper Missouri
and were within view of the Rocky Mountains. We quote from
McVickar's abridgment of their journals.]

On the north we passed a precipice about one hundred and twenty feet
high, under which lay scattered the remains of at least one hundred
carcasses of buffaloes, although the water, which had washed away the
lower part of the hill, must have carried off many of the dead.

These buffaloes had been chased down the precipice in a way very common
on the Missouri, and by which vast herds are destroyed in a moment. The
mode of hunting is to select one of the most active and fleet young men,
who is disguised by a buffalo-skin round his body; the skin of the head,
with the ears and horns, being fastened on his own in such a way as to
deceive the animal. Thus dressed, he fixes himself at a convenient
distance between a herd of buffaloes and any of the river precipices,
which sometimes extend for miles. His companions in the mean time get in
the rear and on the sides of the herd, and at a given signal show
themselves and advance towards them. The buffaloes instantly take the
alarm, and, finding the hunters beside them, they run towards the
disguised Indian or decoy, who leads them on at full speed towards the
river, when, suddenly securing himself in some crevice of the cliff
which he had previously fixed on, the h