Indians are stationed at intervals behind the posts, or dead men, provided with buffalo robes, who, when the herd are once in the avenue, rise up and shake the robes, yelling and urging them on until they get into the enclosure, the spot usually selected for which is one with a tree in the centre. On this they hang offerings to propitiate the Great Spirit to direct the herd towards it. A man is also placed in the tree with a medicine pipestem in his hand, which he waves continually, chaunting a sort of prayer to the Great Spirit, the burden of which is that the buffaloes may be numerous and fat." (Kane, (1), pp. 117-119.) Quite similar to this is the description of a pound constructed by the Cree a few years later. This was some 120 feet across, "constructed of the trunks of trees, laced with withes together, and braced by outside supports," and within "lay tossed in every conceivable position over two hundred dead buffalo." Another pound erected at this time had the "dead men" extending for a distance of 4 miles from the entrance. (Hind, (1), I, pp. 356-359.) Maximilian, Lewis and Clark, and other explorers of the upper Missouri Valley refer to enclosures into which the Indians drove antelope. And that the custom was followed by the tribes far east of the Mississippi is proved by the writings of early explorers. Champlain in 1615 gave an account, accompanied by an interesting drawing, of such a hunt, and Lahontan nearly a century later presented an illustration bearing the legend: "Stags block'd up in a park, after being pursued by y^e Savages." Many other references could be quoted, as the ways of hunting followed by the Indians have always been of interest to the many writers who have described the manners and customs of the people. What was probably a characteristic view in a Sioux village of half a century ago, after a successful hunt, is shown in the old photograph reproduced in plate 5, _b_. Here, in front of the group of skin tipis, are quantities of meat suspended and being "jerked" or dried in the air. Buffalo skins are stretched on the ground, and in the immediate foreground are two women scraping a skin. This is a picture of the greatest interest and rarity. The sight of the great herds roaming unmolested over the far-reaching prairies proved of interest to all who saw them, and many accounts are left by the early travelers. One brief description of such a scene may be quoted. It refers to a place in the upper Missouri Valley, not far from a Mandan village, and was written June 22, 1811: