The best description of this method which has come under our notice is that of Professor Hind, who witnessed its practice by the Plains Crees, on the headwaters of the Qu’Appelle River, in 1858.  He describes the pound he saw as a fence, constructed of the trunks of trees laced together with green withes, and braced on the outside by props, inclosing a circular space about 120 feet in diameter.  It was placed in a pretty dell between sand-hills, and leading from it in two diverging rows (like the guiding wings of an elephant pen) were the two rows of bushes which the Indians designate “dead men,” which serve to guide the buffalo into the pound.  The “dead men” extended a distance of 4 miles into the prairie.  They were placed about 50 feet apart, and the two rows gradually diverged until at their extremities they were from 11/2 to 2 miles apart.

[Illustration:  CREE INDIANS IMPOUNDING BUFFALOES.  Reproduced from Prof.  H. Y. Hind’s—­“Red River, Assinniboine and Saskatchewan Expedition.”]

“When the skilled hunters are about to bring in a herd of buffalo from the prairie,” says Professor Hind, “they direct the course of the gallop of the alarmed animals by confederates stationed in hollows or small depressions, who, when the buffalo appear inclined to take a direction leading from the space marked out by the ‘dead men,’ show themselves for a moment and wave their robes, immediately hiding again.  This serves to turn the buffalo slightly in another direction, and when the animals, having arrived between the rows of ‘dead men,’ endeavor to pass through them, Indians stationed here and there behind a ‘dead man’ go through the same operation, and thus keep the animals within the narrowing limits of the converging lines.  At the entrance to the pound there is a strong trunk of a tree placed about a foot from the ground, and on the inner side an excavation is made sufficiently deep to prevent the buffalo from leaping back when once in the pound.  As soon as the animals have taken the fatal spring, they begin to gallop round and round the ring fence, looking for a chance to escape, but with the utmost silence women and children on the outside hold their robes before every orifice until the whole herd is brought in; then they climb to the top of the fence, and, with the hunters who have followed closely in the rear of the buffalo, spear or shoot with bows and arrows or fire-arms at the bewildered animals, rapidly becoming frantic with rage and terror, within the narrow limits of the pound.

“A dreadful scene of confusion and slaughter then begins; the oldest and strongest animals crush and toss the weaker; the shouts and screams of the excited Indians rise above the roaring of the bulls, the bellowing of the cows, and the piteous moaning of the calves.  The dying struggles of so many huge and powerful animals crowded together create a revolting and terrible scene, dreadful from the excess of its cruelty and waste of life, but with occasional displays of wonderful brute strength and rage; while man in his savage, untutored, and heathen state shows both in deed and expression how little he is superior to the noble beasts he so wantonly and cruelly destroys."[59]