It was in this vicinity that Charles Cavileer (_see Tour 5_), one of the most prominent settlers of the State, in the 1860's while making a trip with a party from Pembina to Devils Lake, saw a herd of buffalo like a black cloud on the horizon. The party immediately arranged their carts in a semicircle and prepared for an onslaught. The bison came on with a rumble like thunder, the rumble became a roar, and the earth trembled; but when they reached the carts the herd parted and swerved on either side, upsetting only the outside row of the improvised stockade. Not until the second day could the journey be resumed, and even then there were buffalo in sight for another day. The herd was believed to number two or three million, and in its wake was an area, several miles in width, entirely devoid of vegetation. At =9 m.= (L) are the SAND SLIDES, where steep sand and gravel slopes form a precipitous funnel-shaped valley down to the PEMBINA RIVER. This stream once drained prehistoric Lake Souris into Lake Agassiz, and its rushing waters cut into the Pembina Mountains, creating the present canyon 350 to 450 ft. deep. At =12 m.= (R) is WALHALLA (966 alt., 700 pop.), attractively situated in the wooded river valley on the slope of Second Pembina Mountain. In 1848 Father G. A. Belcourt established St. Joseph's Mission here for the Chippewa Indians. By 1860 the settlement had become an important fur trading post, with a population of 1,800; but good furs became scarce, the bison virtually disappeared, and by 1871 "St. Joe" was inhabited only by a priest, the U. S. customs inspector, and some 50 metis or half-breeds, who remained only as long as the hunting was good. The town revived, and was platted in 1877 and renamed Walhalla, for the palace of immortality in Norse mythology. The old bell in the Catholic church belfry, known as the ANGELUS BELL, was brought to Father Belcourt's mission when it was opened, and was the first church bell erected on the plains of North Dakota. It was cast in 1845, and a wreath of raised figures around the top represents science, art, music, mechanics, and astronomy. The bell is believed to have been brought down the Red River by boat, thence to St. Joseph by oxcart. Its tone is similar to that of the old mission bells of California. Right from Walhalla crossing the railroad tracks on a graveled road; L. on a graveled road to a METIS SETTLEMENT, =4 m.= Here, in the foothills of the Pembina Mountains, live descendants of half-breed French Canadians and Indians of earlier days. The metis are found throughout the northeastern corner of North Dakota (_see below_). In this particular settlement they operate small farms, gaining their livelihood by selling garden produce, berries, and cordwood. The graveled road turns L. at =5 m.=, to Leroy (_see below_), =7 m.=