University of Virginia Library

2. CHAPTER II.

Winter is the season of trial for the Sioux, especially
for the women and children. The incursions of the English
half-breeds and Cree Indians, into the Sisseton country,
have caused their buffalo to recede, and so little other game
is to be found, that indescribable sufferings are endured
every winter by the Sissetons.

Starvation forces the hunters to seek for the buffalo in
the depth of winter. Their families must accompany
them, for they have not the smallest portion of food to
leave with them; and who will protect them from the
Chippeways!

However inclement the season, their home must be for a
time on the open prairie. As far as the eye can reach, it
is a desert of snow. Not a stick of timber can be seen.
A storm is coming on too; nothing is heard but the howling
blast, which mocks the cries of famished children.
The drifting of the snow makes it impossible to see what
course they are to take; they have only to sit down and
let the snow fall upon them. It is a relief when they are
quite covered with it, for it shelters them from the keenness
of the blast!

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Alas! for the children; the cry of those who can speak
is, Give me food! while the dying infant clings to its mother's
breast, seeking to draw, with its parting breath, the means
of life.

But the storm is over; the piercing cold seizes upon the
exhausted frames of the sufferers.

The children have hardly strength to stand; the father
places one upon his back and goes forward; the mother
wraps her dead child in her blanket, and lays it in the
snow; another is clinging to her, she has no time to weep
for the dead; nature calls upon her to make an effort for
the living. She takes her child and follows the rest. It
would be a comfort to her, could she hope to find her
infant's body when summer returns to bury it. She
shudders, and remembers that the wolves of the prairie are
starving too!

Food is found at last; the strength of the buffalo yields
to the arrow of the Sioux. We will have food and not die,
is the joyful cry of all, and when their fierce appetities are
appeased, they carry with them on their return to their
village, the skins of the animals with the remainder of the
meat.

The sufferings of famine and fatigue, however, are followed
by those of disease; the strength of many is laid
low. They must watch, too, for their enemies are at
hand.