Page:Audubon and His Journals.djvu/584

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520
AUDUBON

ner of the "Opposition line" shot at and killed two white men and wounded two others, all of whom were remarkable miscreants. We are about thirty miles below Fort Pierre. Indians were seen on both sides the river, ready to trade both here and at Fort Pierre, where I am told there are five hundred lodges standing. The Indian dogs which I saw here so very closely resemble wild Wolves, that I feel assured that if I was to meet with one of them in the woods, I should most assuredly kill it as such. A few minutes after leaving Fort George, we stopped to sound the channel, and could not discover more than three and a half feet of water; our captain told us we would proceed no farther this day, but would camp here. Bell, Harris, and Sprague went off with guns; Squires and I walked to Fort George, and soon met a young Englishman going towards our boat on a "Buffalo Horse" at a swift gallop; but on being hailed he reined up. His name was Illingsworth; he is the present manager of this establishment. He welcomed us, and as he was going to see Captain Sire, we proceeded on. Upon reaching the camp we found a strongly built log cabin, in one end of which we met Mr. Cutting, who told me he had known Victor [Audubon] in Cuba. This young gentleman had been thrown from his horse in a recent Buffalo chase, and had injured one foot so that he could not walk. A Buffalo cow had hooked the horse and thrown the rider about twenty feet, although the animal had not been wounded. We also met here a Mr. Taylor, who showed me the petrified head of a Beaver, which he supposed to be that of a Wolf; but I showed him the difference in the form at once. I saw two young Wolves about six weeks old, of the common kind, alive. They looked well, but their nature was already pretty apparently that of the parents. I saw an abundance of semi-wolf Dogs, and their howlings were distressing to my ear. We entered the lodge of a trader attached to our company, a German, who is a