La Salle and the discovery of the great West - North Central ...

1687.J PRAIRIE TRAVELLING. 423the grassy border of a brook, or at the edge of agrove where a spring bubbled up through the sands,they lay asleep around the embers of their fire, whilethe man on guard listened to the deep breathing ofthe slumbering horses, and the howling of the wolvesthat saluted the rising moon as it flooded the wasteof prairie with pale mystic radiance.They met Indians almost daily, — sometimes aband of hunters, mounted or on foot, chasing buffaloon the plains ; sometimes a party of fishermen ; sometimesa winter camp, on the slope of a hill or underthe sheltering border of a forest. They held intercoursewith them in the distance by signs ; often theydisarmed their distrust, and attracted them into theircamp; and often they visited them in their lodges,where, seated on buffalo-robes, they smoked withtheir entertainers, passing the pipe from hand tohand, after the custom still in use among the prairietribes. Cavelier says that they once saw a bandof a hundred and fifty mounted Indians attacking aherd of buffalo with lances pointed with sharpenedbone. The old priest was delighted with the sport,which he pronounces "the most diverting thing inthe world." On another occasion, when the partywere encamped near the village of a tribe whichCavelier calls Sassory, he saw them catch an alligatorabout twelve feet long, which they proceededto torture as if he were a human enemy, — firstputting out his eyes, and then leading him to theneighboring prairie, where, having confined him bj I