d in such advantageous
conditions. It is not easy now to imagine the part played by the buffalo
in the life of the prairie. As Hendry advanced the herds were so dense
as sometimes to retard his progress. Other writers tell of the vast
numbers of these creatures. Alexander Henry, the younger, writing on
April 1, 1801, says that in a river swollen by spring floods, drowned
buffalo floated past his camp in one continuous line for two days
and two nights. In prairie fires thousands were blinded and would go
tumbling down banks into streams or lie down to die. One morning the
bellowing of buffaloes awakened Henry and he looked out to see the
prairie black. "The ground was covered at every point of the compass, as
far as the eye could reach, and every animal was in motion."

Daily as Hendry advanced he saw smoke in the distance and his Indians
told him that it came from the camp of the Blackfeet. He reached them
on Monday the 14th of October. When four miles away he was stopped by
mounted scouts who asked whether he came as a friend or as an enemy. He
was taken to the camp of two hundred tents pitched in two rows, and was
led through the long passage between the tents to the big tent of the
chief of whom he had heard much. Not a word was spoken. The chief sat
on a white buffalo skin. Pipes were passed round and each person was
presented with boiled buffalo flesh. When talk began, Hendry told the
chief that his great leader had sent him to invite them to come to trade
at Hudson Bay where his people would get powder, shot, guns, cloth,
beads, and other things. The chief said it was faraway, and his people
knew nothing of paddling. Such strangers to great waters were they that
they would not even eat fish. They despised Hendry's tobacco. What they
smoked was dried horse dung. In the end Hendry was dismissed and ordered
to make his camp a quarter of a mile away from that of the Blackfeet.

It was close by the present site of Calgary and apparently in full view,
on clear days, of the white peaks of the Rocky Mountains that Hendry
visited the Blackfeet. He lingered in the far western country through
the greater part of the winter. On a portion of his return journey he
used a horse. When the spring thaw came, once more he took to the water
in canoes. He complains of the idleness of his Indian companions who
would remain in their huts all day and never stir to lay up a store
of food even when game was abundant. Conjuring, dancing to