Page:The Columbia river , or, Scenes and adventures during a residence of six years on the western side of the Rocky Mountains among various tribes of Indians hitherto unknown (Volume 1).djvu/241

 natives of whom I write, for their perpetual warfare, is their love of buffalo. There are extensive plains to the eastward of the mountains frequented in the summer and autumnal months by numerous herds of buffalos. Hither the rival tribes repair to hunt those animals, that they may procure as much of their meat as will supply them until the succeeding season. In these excursions they often meet, and the most sanguinary conflicts follow.

The Black-feet lay claim to all that part of the country immediately at the foot of the mountains, which is most frequented by the buffalo; and allege that the Flat-heads, by resorting thither to hunt, are intruders whom they are bound to oppose on all occasions. The latter, on the contrary, assert, that their forefathers had always claimed and exercised the right of hunting on these "debateable lands;" and that while one of their warriors remained alive the right should not be relinquished. The consequences of these continual wars are dreadful, particularly to the Flat-heads, who being the weaker in numbers, were generally the greater sufferers. Independently of their inferiority in this respect, their enemy had another great advantage in the use of fire-arms, which they obtained from the