A day or two after leaving Fort Pierre the boat was signalled by Big Head and his band who came approaching the river from the northeast, across a vast bottom prairie, and who were conspicuous on account of their absence at the council at Fort Pierre, and this fact was construed by the agent and others connected with the Indians as an indication of his continued unfriendliness or possible open hostility. The boat was steaming along against a strong current, but near the shore, when this band was seen approaching, giving signals for the boat to land, which the agent immediately ordered. While the landing was being made, the band, several hundred in number, had approached within two hundred yards of the river bank, when they formed an irregular line and halting, fired towards us a number of guns, the bullets from which went whistling through the air above us. For a while it was thought they had attacked us, but in a few moments it was discovered that this demonstration of fire arms was intended as a salute for the agent. The boat having landed, Big Head and his sub-chiefs and warriors came on board, assembled in the cabin, where a council was duly organized. Big Head made a great speech, in which he gave some excuse for not attending the general council at Fort Pierre, claiming to be altogether peaceful and friendly, and anxious to accept the annuities from the great father at Washington. Big Head was a heavy built ugly Indian unlike most of his tribe, who were generally tall, well proportioned, fine-looking fellows. Singularly enough, no buffalo were seen by us while ascending the river in 1858. Several years later, in 1865, going up the river to the mines in Montana, we saw great herds of them along the river for more than a thousand miles, and killed as many as were needful to supply the boats with meat. They were frequently found crossing the river in such numbers as to prevent navigation of the boat. Occasionally we would approach them massed under a bluff-bank, after swimming the river, too steep to allow exit from the water, and here they would stand or swim around in the water (accumulated here from the opposite side of the river) exhausted and apparently bewildered. Under these circumstances, if we were in need of meat, the captain would land the boat below them, the yawl-boat would be lowered, manned with oarsmen, and a man provided with a rope and butcher-knife, and rowed up to the heads of the animals as they swam around. The rope would be tied around the horns, the buffalo killed with the butcher-knife, the carcass floated down to the boat, when the hoisting tackle would be attached to it and lifted aboard, where it was handily skinned and quartered.