ng now nothing to fear from the South, we turned against
our assailants on our northern boundaries. Notwithstanding the
desertion of the Arrapahoes, the united tribes were still three times
our number, but they wanted union, and did not act in concert. They
mustered about fifteen thousand warriors, from the Umbiquas, Callapoos,
Cayuses, Nez-perces, Bonnaxes, Flat-heads, and some of the Crows, who
had not yet gained prudence from their last "brushing." The superiority
of our arms, our tactics, discipline, and art of intrenchment, together
with the good service of two clumsy old Spanish four-pounders, enabled
us not only in a short time to destroy the league, but also to crush and
annihilate for ever some of our treacherous neighbours. As it would be
tedious to a stranger to follow the movements of the whole campaign, I
will merely mention that part of it in which I assisted.

The system of prairie warfare is so different from ours, that the
campaign I have just related will not be easily understood by those
acquainted only with European military tactics.

When a European army starts upon an expedition, it is always
accompanied by waggons, carrying stores of provisions and ammunition
of all kinds. There is a commissariat appointed for the purpose of
feeding the troops. Among the Indians there is no such thing, and
except a few pieces of dried venison, a pound weight of powder, and a
corresponding quantity of lead, if he has a rifle, but if not, with
his lance, bow, arrows, and tomahawk, the warrior enters the war-path.
In the closer country, for water and fuel, he trusts to the streams
and to the trees of the forests or mountains; when in the prairie, to
the mud-holes and chasms for water, and to the buffalo-dung for his
fire. His rifle and arrows will always give him enough of food.

But these supplies would not, of course, be sufficient for a great
number of men; ten thousand, for example. A water-hole would be
drained by the first two or three hundred men that might arrive, and
the remainder would be obliged to go without any. Then, unless
perchance they should fall upon a large herd of buffaloes, they would
never be able to find the means of sustaining life. A buffalo, or
three or four deer, can be killed every day, by hunters out of the
tract of an expedition; this supply would suffice for a small
war-party, but it would never do for an army.

Except in the