“Me know better than that.  There will soon be bloody work.  Government break em treaty with Injuns.  Lots of Injuns now ready to go out and scalp servants of the Government and white men.”  When, therefore, tidings reached the land of the Stoney Indians that the half-breeds, with Louis Riel at their head, had broken into revolt, Big Bear pulled off his feathered cap and threw it several times into the air.  He went to his wives, a goodly number of which he is in the habit of keeping, and informed them that he would soon bring them home some scalps.  He was so elated, that he ordered several of the young men to go and fetch him several white dogs to make a feast.  So a large fire was built upon the prairie, a short distance from the chief’s lodge, and the huge festival pot was suspended from a crane over the roaring flames.  First, about fifteen gallons of water were put into this pot; then Big Bear’s wives, some of whom were old and wrinkled, and others of which were lithe as fawns, plump and bright-eyed, busied themselves gathering herbs.  Some digged deep into the marsh for roots of the “dog-bane,” others searched among the knotted roots for the little nut-like tuber that clings to the root of the flag, while others brought to the pot wild parsnips, and the dried stalks of the prairie pusley.  A coy little maiden, whom many a hunter had wooed but failed to win, had in her sweet little brown hands a tangle of winter-green, and maiden-hair.  Then came striding along the young hunters, with the dogs.  Each dog selected for the feast was white as the driven snow.  If a black hair, or a blue hair, or a brown hair, was discovered anywhere upon his body he was taken away; but if he were sans reproche he was put, just as he was, head, and hide, and paws, and tail on—­his throat simply having been cut—­into the pot, Six dogs were thrown in, and the roots and stalks of the prairie plants, together with salt, and bunches of the wild pepper-plant, and of swamp mustard were thrown in for seasoning.  Through the reserves round about for many miles swarth heralds proclaimed that the great Chief Big Bear was giving a White Dog feast to his braves before summoning them to follow him upon the war-path.  The feast was, in Indian experience, a magnificent one, and before the young men departed they swore to Big Bear that they returned only for their war-paint and arms, and that before the set of the next sun they would be back at his side.

True to their word the Indians came, hideous in their yellow paint.  If you stood to leeward of them upon the plain a mile away you could clearly get the raw, earthy smell of the ochre upon their hands and faces.  Some had black bars streaked across their cheeks, and hideous crimson circles about their eyes.  Some, likewise, had stars in pipe-clay painted upon the forehead.