But suppose you were with some plain or buffalo Indians, and, as was about the average condition in the winter time, the buffalo were from fifty to two hundred miles from your camp--the rigor of the winter and the condition of grass and wood forbidding the camp moving any nearer to them--the hunting parties had constantly to be organized and the meat and robes brought from long distances home. Under such circumstances the hunter not only had to undergo great hardships, but also to run very great risks. Storms on the bleak, treeless plains, with deep snow, and travel of necessity slow and difficult, were indeed as "the powers of the air" and darkness to encounter and overcome, and the really indolent man was not in it when such work was engaged in. Then it was incumbent upon every able-bodied man, under the code of honor of the time, to make an annual or bi-annual or even more frequent foray for horses and scalps. These trips generally took place in the spring and fall. With the melting of snow and ice in spring, or the making of the same in autumn, parties large and small would be made up. Each with lariat and a few pairs of moccasins, and, if possessed of a gun, with as much ammunition as he could obtain, or armed with bow and quiver full of shod arrows, in the dead of night these men would start for the enemy's country, depending on sustaining life by the chase on their way. Journeying on, sometimes by day and sometimes by night, fording rapid streams and swimming wide rivers, what signified the breaking up of the season or the plunge into ice-cold water of river and swamp to them? These must be considered as trifles. By and by, when the enemy's presence is felt there will come the weary watching and waiting, amid cold and hunger, for cunning and strategy are now pitted the one against the other, and endurance and pluck must back these up or the trip will be a failure. One, two, three hundreds of miles of steady tramping, with your camp always facing in the direction of where your enemy is supposed to be. Every day or night the scouts, making thrice the distance covered by the party, keep up their constant effort to discover and forestall counter war-parties, or to find the enemy's camp; and when this is found sometimes to hang for days on its movements, and, following up, watch for a favorable spot and time either to make a charge or to steal in under cover of storm or darkness and drive off bands of horses. Then in either case to start for home, and push on regardless of weather so long as men and horses will hold out.