which the herd had passed, and to shout and wave their robes.  This frightened the hinder-most buffalo, which pushed forward on the others, and before long the whole herd was running at headlong speed toward the precipice, the rock piles directing them to the point over the enclosure.  When they reached it, most of the animals were pushed over, and usually even the last of the band plunged blindly down into the pis’kun.  Many were killed outright by the fall; others had broken legs or broken backs, while some perhaps were uninjured.  The barricade, however, prevented them from escaping, and all were soon killed by the arrows of the Indians.

It is said that there was another way to get the buffalo into this chute.  A man who was very skilful in arousing the buffalo’s curiosity, might go out without disguise, and by wheeling round and round in front of the herd, appearing and disappearing, would induce them to move toward him, when it was easy to entice them into the chute.  Once there, the people began to rise up behind them, shouting and waving their robes, and the now terror-stricken animals rushed ahead, and were driven over the cliff into the pis’kun, where all were quickly killed and divided among the people, the chiefs and the leading warrior getting the best and fattest animals.

The pis’kun was in use up to within thirty-five or forty years, and many men are still living who have seen the buffalo driven over the cliff.  Such men even now speak with enthusiasm of the plenty that successful drives brought to the camp.

The pis’kuns of the Sik’-si-kau, or Blackfoot tribe, differed in some particulars from those constructed by the Bloods and the Piegans, who live further to the south, nearer to the mountains, and so in a country which is rougher and more broken.  The Sik’-si-kau built their pis’kuns like the Crees, on level ground and usually near timber.  A large pen or corral was made of heavy logs about eight feet high.  On the side where the wings of the chute come together, a bridge, or causeway, was built, sloping gently up from the prairie to the walls of the corral, which at this point were cut away to the height of the bridge above the ground,—­here about four feet,—­so that the animals running up the causeway could jump down into the corral.  The causeway was fenced in on either side by logs, so that the buffalo could not run off it.  After they had been lured within the wings of the chute, they were driven toward the corral as already described.  When they reached the end of the >, they ran up the bridge, and jumped down into the pen.  When it was full, or all had entered, Indians, who had lain hidden near by, ran upon the bridge, and placed poles, prepared beforehand, across the opening through which the animals had entered, and over these poles hung robes, so as entirely to close the opening.  The buffalo will not dash themselves against a barrier which is entirely closed, even though it be very frail; but if they can see