with the country, a certain sign that the river will be low in the season of high water, and they govern themselves accordingly.
To conclude, I must tell you that in spring, toward the. period when the female is carrying her young, she takes sole possession of the lodge. The father, with his young progeny, amuses himself elsewhere and spends the pleasant season around the neighborhood; notwithstanding, he takes care to provide his companion with victuals in abundance. There is a belief commonly held among the hunters, that just as among men there exist indolent persons who arouse scorn rather than pity, so there are lazy individuals found among the beavers; they refuse to do any work, go and come, eat and live at the expense of the others; but when one of these loafers comes and tries to mingle with the rest, he is received with their teeth; his presence seems to inspire the others with horror, and he bears the marks of it in his slit ears and his long tail lacerated and torn by bites. Repulsed everywhere, miserable and wretched, he passes his sad days apart, in some heap of driftwood or abandoned lodge.
The Indians, as well as the hunters, regard the beaver as the animal who most nearly approaches man, as they say, " by his sense, his instinct, his manners and customs." The Absharokays or Crows treat them as brothers, because, as they claim, the beavers gave birth to their first father and mother.
The region of the upper Missouri as far as the Yellowstone, of which I have been telling you, contains more than one interesting reminder of another nature. It is the country ranged by the Assiniboins, the Crows, the Blackfeet, and at the present day by the Sioux, and whither the tribes from west of the mountains, the Flatheads, Pend d'Oreilles, Kootenais, Nez Perces, Bannocks and Snakes come down for the buffalo hunt; where all contend for the possession of those animals, and which has been the theatre of an infinity of battles, encounters and combats. It is the land to which