The half-breed hunters had just been driven in by the Sioux, who had killed four of their party, having surprised them while cutting wood away from the camp. The remainder of the half-breeds came up, however, and drove them off, killing one, whose bow and arrow they showed us. The Indians who frequent the fort are Sauteux, Assiniboines, and Crees; and the half-breeds, nearly all of whom are related to one or other of these tribes, share their hostility to the Sioux and Blackfeet, and occasionally join the war-parties of their kinsfolk. The women were busily engaged in making pemmican, which is prepared in the following manner:--The meat, having been dried in the sun, or over a fire in thin flakes, is placed in a dressed buffalo skin, and pounded with a flail until it is reduced to small fragments and powder. The fat of the animal is at the same time melted down. The pounded meat is then put into bags of buffalo hide, and the boiling grease poured on to it. The mass is well stirred and mixed together, and on cooling becomes as solid as linseed cake. Although we found pemmican decidedly unpalatable at first, tasting remarkably like a mixture of chips and tallow, we became very partial to it after a time. A finer kind of pemmican is made by using only marrow and soft fat, leaving out the tallow, and sometimes adding berries of different kinds and some sugar. The berry pemmican is much prized, and very difficult to get hold of, and is really capital eating.[3] In a country where food is scarce, and the means of transport very limited, pemmican is invaluable to the traveller, as it contains a large amount of nourishment in very small weight and compass. It is uncommonly satisfying, and the most hungry mortal is able to devour but a very small portion. Many a time have we sat down half-famished, despising as insignificant the dish of pemmican set before us, and yet been obliged to leave the mess unfinished. The voyageurs of the Hudson’s Bay Company, whose power of enduring fatigue is probably unequalled, subsist almost entirely upon this kind of food. It has, however, one drawback: it is very difficult of digestion, and a full meal of it is certain to cause considerable suffering to an unaccustomed stomach. There are few half-breeds who do not suffer habitually from dyspepsia.