He ceased, and a universal hum of approval running through the dusky warriors told how truly the chief had spoken the thoughts of his followers; Again he said, “What does the white man want in our land?  You tell us he is rich and strong, and has plenty of food to eat; for what then does he come to our land?  We have only the buffalo, and he takes that from us.  See the buffalo, how they dwell with us; they care not for the closeness of our lodges, the smoke of our camp-fires does not fright them, the shouts of our young men will not drive them away; but behold how they flee from the sight, the sound, and the smell of the white man!  Why does he take the land from us? who sent him here?  He puts up sticks, and he calls the land his land, the river his river, the trees his trees.  Who gave him the ground, and the water, and the trees? was it the Great Spirit?  No; for the Great Spirit gave to us the beasts and the fish, and the white man comes to take the waters and the ground where these fishes and these beasts live—­why does he not take the sky as well as the ground?  We who have dwelt on these prairies ever since the stars fell” (an epoch from which the Blackfeet are fond of dating, their antiquity) “do not put sticks over the land and say, Between these sticks this land is mine; you shall not come here or go there.”

Fortunate is it for these Blackfeet tribes that their hunting grounds lie partly on British territory—­from where our midday camp was made on the 2nd December to the boundary-line at the 49th parallel, fully 180 miles of plain knows only the domination of the Blackfeet tribes.  Here, around this midday camp, lies spread a fair and fertile land; but close by, scarce half a day’s journey to the south, the sandy plains begin to supplant the rich grass-covered hills, and that immense central desert commences to spread out those ocean-like expanses which find their southern limits far down by the waters of the Canadian River,1200 miles due south of the Saskatchewan.  This immense central sandy plateau is the true home of the bison.  Here were raised for countless ages these huge herds whose hollow tramp shook the solid roof of America during the countless cycles which it remained unknown to man.  Here, too, was the true home of the Indian:  the Commanche, the Apache, the Kio-wa, the Arapahoe, the Shienne, the Crow, the Sioux, the Pawnee, the Omahaw, the Mandan, the Manatarree, the Blackfeet, the Cree, and the Assineboine divided between them the immense region, warring and wandering through the vast expanses until the white race from the East pushed their way into the land, and carved out states and territories from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains.  How it came to pass in the building of the world that to the north of that great region of sand and waste should spread out suddenly the fair country of the Saskatchewan, I must leave to the guess-work of other and more scientific writers; but the fact remains, that alone, from Texas to the sub-Arctic forest, the Saskatchewan Valley lays its fair length for 800 miles in mixed fertility.