"They
live," says he, "without any further protection from the inclemency
of the season, than a sort of break-weather, about three feet high,
composed of sage (or wormwood), and erected around them in the shape
of a half moon." Whenever he met with them, however, they had always a
large suite of half-starved dogs: for these animals, in savage as well
as in civilized life, seem to be the concomitants of beggary.
These dogs, it must be allowed, were of more use than the beggary curs
of cities. The Indian children used them in hunting the small game of
the neighborhood, such as rabbits and prairie dogs; in which mongrel
kind of chase they acquitted themselves with some credit.
Sometimes the Diggers aspire to nobler game, and succeed in entrapping
the antelope, the fleetest animal of the prairies. The process by which
this is effected is somewhat singular. When the snow has disappeared,
says Captain Bonneville, and the ground become soft, the women go into
the thickest fields of wormwood, and pulling it up in great quantities,
construct with it a hedge, about three feet high, inclosing about a
hundred acres. A single opening is left for the admission of the game.
This done, the women conceal themselves behind the wormwood, and wait
patiently for the coming of the antelopes; which sometimes enter this
spacious trap in considerable numbers. As soon as they are in, the women
give the signal, and the men hasten to play their part.
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