for many generations, two other tribes or portions of tribes have been admitted into the confederacy; These are the Sircies, on the north, a branch, or offshoot from the Chipwayans of the Athabasca; and the Gros Ventres, or Atsinas, on the southeast, a branch from the Arrapahoe nation who dwelt along the sources of the Platte.  How these branches became detached from the parent stocks has never been determined, but to this day they speak the languages of their original tribe in addition to that of the adopted one.  The parent tongue of the Sircies is harsh and guttural, that of the Blackfeet is rich and musical; and while the Sircies always speak Blackfeet in addition to their own tongue, the Blackfeet rarely master the language of the Sircies.

War, as we have already said, is the sole toil and thought of the red man’s life.  He has three great causes of fight:  to steal a horse, take a scalp, or get a wife.  I regret to have to write that the possession of a horse is valued before that of a wife-and this has been the case for many years.  “A horse,” writes McKenzie, “is valued at ten guns, a woman is only worth one gun;” but at that time horses were scarcer than at present.  Horses have been a late importation, comparatively speaking, into the Indian country.  They travelled rapidly north from Mexico, and the prairies soon became covered with the Spanish mustang, for whose possession the red man killed his brother with singular pertinacity.  The Indian to-day believes that the horse has ever dwelt with him on the Western deserts, but that such is not the case his own language undoubtedly tells.  It is curious to compare the different names which the wild men gave the new-comer who was destined to work such evil among them.  In Cree, a dog is called “Atim,” and a horse, “Mistatim,” or the “Big Dog.”  In the Assineboine tongue the horse is called “Sho-a-th-in-ga,” “Thongatch shonga,” a great dog.  In Blackfeet, “Po-no-ka-mi-taa” signifies the horse; and “Po-no-ko” means red deer, and “Emita,” a dog—­the “Red-deer Dog.”  But the Sircies made the best name of all for the new-comer; they called him the “Chistli” “Chis,” seven, “Li,” dogs “Seven Dogs.”  Thus we have him called the big dog, the great dog, the red-deer dog, the seven dogs, and the red dog, or “It-shou-ma-shungu,” by the Gros Ventres.  The dog was their universal beast of burthen, and so they multiplied the name in many ways to enable it to define the Superior powers of the new beast.

But a far more formidable enemy than Crow or Cree has lately come in contact with the Blackfeet—­an enemy before whom all his stratagem, all his skill with lance or arrow, all his dexterity of horsemanship is of no avail.  The “Moka-manus” (the Big-knives), the white men, have pushed up the great Missouri River into the heart of the Blackfeet country, the fire-canoes have forced their way along the muddy waters, and behind them a long chain of armed posts have arisen to hold in check the wild roving