The representation of himself was a rude figure of a bear over a kind of cypher representing a hunting ground. The second figure was designed to show that his wife was with him; the device was a boat with a squaw seated in it; over her head lines were drawn in a zigzag direction, indicating that she was the wife of White Thunder. The third was a boat with a bear sitting at the helm, showing that an Indian of that name had been seen on his way up the river, and had given intelligence where the party were. This paper he set up at the mouth of Kickapoo Creek, up which the party had gone on a hunting trip. The following is extracted from an Account of an Expedition from Pittsburgh to the Rocky Mountains, * * under the command of Major Stephen H. Long [commonly known as James’ Long’s Expedition]. Philadelphia, 1823. Vol. I, p. 478. At a little distance [on the bank of the Platte River], in front of the entrance of this breastwork, was a semicircular row of sixteen bison skulls, with their noses pointing down the river. Near the center of the circle which this row would describe, if continued, was another skull marked with a number of red lines. Our interpreter informed us that this arrangement of skulls and other marks here discovered, were designed to communicate the following information, namely, that the camp had been occupied by a war party of the Skeeree or Pawnee Loup Indians, who had lately come from an excursion against the Cumancias, Ietans, or some of the western tribes. The number of red lines traced on the painted skull indicated the number of the party to have been thirty-six; the position in which the skulls were placed, that they were on their return to their own country. Two small rods stuck in the ground, with a few hairs tied in two parcels to the end of each, signified that four scalps had been taken. When a hunting party of the Hidatsa has arrived at any temporary camping ground, from which point a portion of the members might leave on a short reconnoitering expedition, the remainder, upon leaving for a time, will erect a pole and cause it to lean in the direction taken. At the foot of this pole a buffalo shoulder-blade or other flat bone is placed, upon which is depicted the object causing departure. For instance, should buffalo or antelope be discovered, an animal of the character sighted is rudely drawn with a piece of charred wood or red lead, the latter being a substance in the possession of nearly every warrior to use in facial decoration, etc.