A Winter Camp.

Journeying along the line of open country extending between the North Saskatchewan River and the great forest region stretching out toward the Polar Sea, in company with a party of half-breed plain-hunters, we reached, one dreary evening in November, one of those curious communities which are to be found in winter only along the borders of the great plains of the Fur Land. Nothing like them exists on the plains of the United States territories, because the peculiar nomadic population necessary to their being is lacking. On the south side of the forty-ninth parallel, there are comparatively few half-breeds; on the north side, there are half-breeds whose great-grandfathers were half-breeds.

Situated in the sparse timber bordering a small tributary of the Saskatchewan, the community consisted of French half-breed hunters engaged in the usual winter quest for buffalo. It was a picturesque though not over-clean place, and will probably look better in a photograph than it did in reality. Some thirty or forty huts crowded irregularly together, and built of logs, branches of pine trees, raw hides, and tanned and smoked skins, together with the inevitable tepee, or Indian lodge; horses, dogs, women and children, all intermingled in a confusion worthy of an Irish fair; half-breed hunters, rib-boned, legginged, tasseled and capoted, lazy, idle, and, if liquor was to be had, sure to be drunk; remnants and wrecks of buffaloes lying everywhere around; here a white and glistening skull, there a disjointed vertebra but half denuded of its flesh; robes stretched upon a framework of poles and drying in the sun; meat piled upon stages to be out of the way of dogs; wolf-skins, fox-skins, and other smaller furs, tacked against the walls of the huts, or stretched upon miniature frames hanging from the branches of trees; dusky women drawing water and hewing wood; and at dark, from every little hut, the glow of firelight through the parchment windows, the sparks glimmering and going out at the chimneytops, the sound of violin scraped and sawed by some longhaired Paganini, and the quick thud of moccasined heel, as Baptiste, or Franpois, or Pierrette footed it ceaselessly on the puncheon-covered floor.

Inside the huts a bare floor of pounded earth, or half-hewn boards; in one corner a narrow bed of boughs, covered deep with buffalo robes; a fireplace of limited dimensions, a few wooden trunks or cassettes; a rude table and a few blackened kettles; on the walls an armoury of guns, powderhorns and bullet-bags; on the rafters a myriad of skins. Every hut was the temporary home of several families, and we have slept in structures of this kind, of not more than twelve by fifteen feet in a superficial area, where the families ranged from fifteen to twenty members, of all ages and both sexes. It might be useful to investigate the influence of this mode of life upon manners; whatever may be the result upon the coarser sex, its effect upon women and children is not so lamentable as may be supposed; no perceptible lowering of tone or compromising of taste follows, nor does the nature of young girls, thus exposed to the gaze of an indiscriminate crowd, change as much as might be expected; the hereditary sentiment, "honi soil qui mal y pefise,'' is too deeply seated for that.

As a rule, the winter hunters are of French origin, descendants of the old traders and trappers of the Northwest and X. Y. Fur Companies, though by long intermarriage the blood of three or four nationalities often mingles in their veins. Their grandfathers have been French-Canadian, their grandmothers Cree or Ojibway squaws; English and Blackfeet and Assiniboine have contributed to their descent on the mother's side.

Now, as in the olden time of the fur trade, there is no uniform price for squaws, their qualifications being taken into account, and a price demanded by their capacity to render service. Usually, one may be purchased for a pony, a small quantity of flour and sugar, a little tobacco and a bottle of whisky. But woe to the purchaser if he should make his abode at any point convenient of access to the band to which his squaw belonged. While she is with the tribe the squaw is kicked about and whipped by anyone that takes a notion to do so. When she becomes the white man's squaw things are different. There is not an Indian she meets who does not claim a relationship with her. She is sister to most of them and first cousin to the remainder. They meet her with a kiss, and she feels that she must ask them into dinner, and give each one something to remember her by. The result of all this is, that the white man soon finds that he has married an entire Indian tribe, and has made an ante-nortem distribution of property.

Many of the women in the winter camp were clearly of unmixed Indian blood. Their general occupation, like that of all the married women in the camp, when not engaged in culinary duties, seemed to be the dissemination of nourishment from the maternal font to swarms of children. This maternal occupation among the half-breeds is protracted to an advanced age of childhood, a circumstance probably because for four days after its birth the newly-born infant receives no nourishment from its mother so that in after life it shall be able to withstand the pangs of hunger. The infantile mind, doubtless being conscious that it has been robbed of its just right, endeavours to make up for lost time by this prolongation of the term of nursing. Similarly the half-breed doubtless obtain his appetite for strong drink from the fact that the first thing administered to him after birth is a spoonful of strong port wine, or even spirits, to insure him a vigorous constitution in the afterlife. From the persistence with which he follows this practice as he grows older, it is only fair to suppose that he is insuring himself a vigour of the constitution which will carry him into the nineties.

Children, however, eat freely of buffalo or other meat. In fact, half-breed and Indian life know only two seasons the feast time and the famine. When in camp in the neighbourhood of the buffalo herds or other game, living on the fattest hump and tongues, the moose nose, or the daintiest tidbit of forest and stream; when on the march, glad to get a scrap of dried meat or a putrid fish to appease the cravings of hunger. While the meat lasts, life is one long dinner. A child scarce able to crawl is seen with one hand holding a piece of meat, the other end of which is tightly held between the teeth, while the right hand wields a knife with which it saws away between fingers and lips till the mouthful is detached. We have never seen a native minus his nose, but how noses escape amputation under these circumstances is an unexplained mystery.

The amount of meat consumed in a winter camp is simply enormous. In every hut feasting is kept up from morning till night, and it is impossible to enter the dwelling of a half-breed without being invited to dine. As a refusal is regarded in the light of an intentional slight to the host, it happens that the unwary guest goes about in a highly surfeited condition. The invitation to eat forms, however, the most prominent feature of half-breed hospitality, and is always extended most kindly and politely. If spirits are attainable, the feast sometimes occupies a secondary position, but in one form or the other the stranger within the gates is invariably invited and expected to participate. With the half-breeds themselves, the custom is invariable, and no well-regulated metis expects to leave his neighbour's door without a feast of the best viands in the house. And a feast with this hybrid personage means no small draft upon the larder, for, if the half-breed can starve better than any other man, he can equally surpass other men in the quantity of food which he can consume at a sitting. For long days and nights he can go without any food at all, but catch him in camp when the buffalo are near and the cows are fat, and you will learn what a half-breed can do in the way of eating.

Here is one bill of fare, as given by a traveller in the North,* which may seem incredible, and yet we can vouch for it as not being a whit exaggerated: "Seven men in thirteen days consumed two buffalo bulls, seven caribou, fifty pounds of pemmican equal to half a buffalo and a great many ducks and geese, and on the last day there was nothing to eat. This enormous quantity of meat could not have weighed less than sixteen hundred pounds at the very lowest estimate, which would have given a daily ration to each man of eighteen pounds! " Incredible as this may seem, it is by no means impossible in a severe climate and living the active life these men lead. We remember camping one evening with three half-breed plain-hunters beside a buffalo calf they had killed shortly before dusk. The men began cutting the animal up and feasting upon it. They were eating when we retired for the night and were still hovering over the fire when we arose early in the morning. Except for the head, which was slowly roasting upon the coals, there was nothing left of the calf except the bones!

As an instance of what the half-breed regards as abstemiousness, a certain missionary once told us that one of his people came to him one day, and with great gravity and seriousness said: "I know that Christianity is true; that it is the great, the best religion much better, very much better than the pagan, my old religion. Now," said he, "when I was a pagan and followed my old ways” the religion of my mothers I could eat eight rabbits for my dinner, and then was not satisfied. But since I have become a Christian, and follow the new way, six rabbits at a time is plenty for me; I don't want any more!

"So well is their tremendous power of digestion, and the real necessities of their nomadic life, known to the Hudson's Bay Company, that the daily ration issued by that corporation to its half-breed voyageurs and hunters is ten pounds of beef per man, five pounds per woman, and three pounds per child, regardless of age! Beef is so much stronger food than buffalo meat that ten pounds of the former would be equivalent to fifteen pounds of the latter, and so on in proportion. Beef is, of course, only used near the settlements and is not regarded as equal in any respect to wild meat. The diet of the company's servants depends much, however, upon the district in which they serve, although the amount in any locality is equally enormous. In the plains or, Saskatchewan district the ration is almost wholly of buffalo meat, either fresh or in pemmican. In all the other districts, while pemmican is issued when procurable, the regular ration is the game supplied by the neighbourhood. On the south shores of Hudson's Bay, where wildfowl abound, each man receives for his day's food one wild goose; in the lake district or English River, three large whitefish; in the Arctic region, two fish and five pounds of reindeer meat; on the Pacific coast, eight rabbits or one salmon; in the Athabasca district, eight pounds of moose meat. All this in periods of plenty.

When the meal gets low in the bin, and the oil in the cruse fails, the half-breed goes hungry with an indifference to the existence of gastric juices that are affecting to behold. But no amount of starvation has the effect of making him reserve from present plenty for future scarcity. The idea of saving for the inevitable rainy morrow is entirely foreign to his nature. It is useless to tell the plain hunters that the winter is long and that the buffalo might move out of range, and want to stare them in the face; they seem to regard starvation as an ordinary event to be calculated upon certainly, and that so long as any food is to be obtained it is to be eaten at all times; when that is gone well, then the only thing is to do without. This is the universal half-breed logic: let us eat, drink and be merry, lest tomorrow we cannot; and it is in perfect keeping with the simplicity and cunning, faith, fun, and selfishness which are mingled in the half-breed's mental composition.

As a consequence of so general a commingling of the sexes in the many huts of the winter camp, it occurs that when the young men are not engaged in dancing or feasting they are usually making love; and as there is a large number of young women and girls in every camp, each family rejoicing in the possession of several, the wooings of the dusky Pyr amuses and tawny Thisbes is going on continually, and without exciting any particular comment. Many of the women are very handsome, but run the gamut of colour from a clear white of the Caucasian type to the deep and dirty copper colour of the Indian. They receive the attention of their lovers, we are bound to say, with a degree of propriety and maiden coyness which reflects much honour upon their native modesty, situated as they are. As no opportunity is offered for retirement or privacy, the love-making is carried on in the presence of all the other occupants of the room, and very frequently each corner of the single apartment will have its couple whispering soft nothings, to be heard, of course, by all the rest. To civilized young persons, no doubt, a courtship pursued under these depressing circumstances would be trying to the utmost; but Frangois and Philomel are not in the least embarrassed by having their conversation overheard, and they caress each other, and call pet names, as if there were no ears within a mile of them.

Francois or Gabriel generally comes early in the evening, and having been duly embraced and handshakes by the entire family, is at once invited to dine. The fact that it is past the dinner hour makes no difference, as the invitation is extended by hospitable custom. The father of Philomel takes his seat at the table with his guest, being duty-bound to eat with everyone he entertains, and the female members of the family wait upon them. Both proceed to make themselves omnipresent as far as possible. Their fingers are everywhere, and ignoring such confining influences as knives and forks, they soon attain an enviable state of greasiness. During the progress of the meal, the host is untiring in his efforts to overload his guests with buffalo-hump and tea. He informs him that he eats no more than a sparrow; that it is a constant mystery to him how he can preserve life at all on so small a quantity of food; that he confidently expects him to become a saint in glory are long, but intends doing his best not to let him go up from his roof because of starvation; that Philomel has an appetite something like his own, and that it has been a cause of anxiety to him all her life long. While thus commiserating his guest's poor appetite, mon pere is rapidly and bountifully helping himself, and makes amends for what he is pleased to call his visitor's abstemiousness. When both have eaten enough to cause immediate surfeit, and the father-in-law in prospect is blue in the face, a smoke is suggested.

While the smoking is going on Philomel deftly sweeps from the table the remnants of the repast, and retires to a corner of the apartment by herself. Here, when the fumigation is over, the enamoured Gabriel joins her, and his doing so is a signal for the rest of the family to become suddenly unconscious of their presence. This oblivion does duty on such occasions for a separate apartment. Whatever incidents of a tender nature occur are supposed to be invisible to any person save the principals. Everybody acts on this theory. Even the respected but dissipated host produces his black bottle with the hoarded store of rum and drinks it himself under the assumed belief that his young guest is in the next room. The small brothers-in-law are to be, indulge in a rather vindictive skirmish over a moccasin game in utter ignorance of any bodily presence, and the seven sisters of Philomel criticize the cut of her lover's garments, and the classic but retiring beauty of his countenance with a charming unconsciousness of his proximity. Philomel, plastic and pliable Philomel is in no manner abashed at being wooed in the presence of her relatives and even becomes herself the wooer on discovering that Gabriel is to a certain degree timid. She intimates by caresses of the hand that they are alone and converses in a tone of voice sufficiently loud to dispel the idea that they can be overheard. If Gabriel recovers courage in some measure, he looks upon Philomel admiringly, as he would upon any other thing of beauty, and it is not long before she becomes conscious of the observation. Then it is a study to watch the airs assumed by this half-breed belle. She is as well versed in the masonry of her sex as if born with white skin and reared in Madison Square. There is no difference in her mode of action; the only difference is in the effect.

Gabriel, unless he is adept at the business, cannot entirely rid himself of the depressing effect of twelve pairs of eyes taking in his glances. He is, in consequence, not so susceptible to her wiles as he would be if otherwise situated. At first, he limits his love-making to affectionate looks, caresses, and the simpler forms of speech which convey to her the knowledge that she is the light of his eyes. As the evening advances and his embarrassment wears off, he ventures upon remarks of a more intensely passionate nature, indicative of his love and desire to be first in her affections. The mixed language spoken by the lovers affords an unlimited supply of diminutives, and Gabriel may call his sweetheart by the names of almost all the animal creations, and yet use but legitimate pet names. In the Cree tongue he may address her as his musk-ox, or, if he desires to become more tender, may call her his muskrat with equal propriety. By a blending of two Indian tongues she becomes a beautiful wolverine, and a standard but commonplace love-name is *"my little pig."

The half-breed's pet names have all been taken from those of animals that seem to be especially innocent or beautiful in his eyes, and the fact that different persons have different standards of beauty and innocence has led to the invention of an almost unlimited vocabulary of diminutives. When the lady-love is inclined to be stout, the names of the larger animals are chosen, and rather liked by her upon whom they are conferred. We remember that one woman was affectionately called the Megatherium, a name that clung to her for months, as being peculiarly the representative of ideal love.

After the lovers have passed a considerable time in this manner alone, as it were, the sisters and other female relatives of Philomel evince an inclination to take part in the wooing. They participate in the conversation by almost imperceptible degrees; then gather by slow approaches into the corner set apart for the courting; and at last become a radiant but tawny group, sparkling and scintillating in the humour of the heathen tongues. They resolve themselves into a species of whippers-in; condole with each other upon the prospective loss of their dear sister; congratulate Gabriel upon having gained the affections of so irreproachable a maiden as Philomel, and feel assured that their lives will be one of unalloyed happiness. In this way, the half-breed lover is wafted into matrimony with a facility and dispatch not easily excelled by her fairer sisters of paved avenues.

After a short season of courtship, the anticipated mother-in-law contributes to the certainty of the matrimonial venture by exhibiting, with commendable pride, the household goods which are to accompany Philomel upon her departure from the domestic fold. A feather bed, certain articles of embroidered clothing, highly decorated moccasins, and sundry pieces of earthenware and tin constitute the whole. To this, the host adds a trade musket, which, he says, has been used by him in the chase, and has been destined from the period of earliest infancy as a present to the fortunate winner of Philomel. He takes occasion, at the same time, to produce the black bottle, and ask the pleasure of drinking the health of his prospective sun-in-law, which he does in a demonstratively paternal way affecting to behold.

If Gabriel seems to be overcome by the beneficence of the family, and the threatening prospects of immediate matrimony and relapses into quietude and sombre thought, his host insists that he must be suffering from hunger again, and expresses his wonder that he has been able to keep up so long. As the half-breed idea of hospitality consists of oft-repeated food and drink, Gabriel knows that it is useless as well as impolitic to refuse, and is accordingly made the recipient of more buffalo hump and tea, which leaves him in a surfeited and numbed condition, and quite willing to be married out of hand. From this time on Gabriel is, so to speak, an engaged man. As the evenings return, he repairs the corner of the room where the placid Philomel awaits him, and again the imaginary walls are reared up, rendering it an apartment of itself. Here he may hurl amatory adjectives and noun substantives at her brow to his heart's content; for there comes a day shortly when they must repair to the priest, and when Philomel will remove the gaudy handkerchief from her head and wear it crossed meekly upon her breast in token of her wifehood.

Against this marriage day Gabriel accumulates a rich store of buffalo meat and Jamaica rum, and, if possible, a fine-cloth capote of cerulean hue, and ornamental leggings of bewildering beadwork; for the unmarried half-breed in the consummation of his toilet first pays attention to his legs. His cap may be old, his capote out at the elbows, but his leggings must be without spot or blemish. A leggings of dark-blue cloth, extending to the knee, tied at the top with a gaudy garter of worsted-work, and having a broad stripe of heavy bead or silk-work running down the outer seam, is his insignia of respectability. Gabriel's marriage generally takes place in the winter, when the cares of existence are lightened because of advances made him upon the labour of the ensuing season or a generous supply of provisions in hand from the late fall hunt. On the appointed day he makes a present of a few ponies, or several provisions, to his prospective father-in-law, and, accompanied by the paternal blessing and a numerous crowd of friends, repairs with Philomel to the chapel, where the offices of some spiritual father make the twain one flesh. The ceremony is over, and all persons concerned repair to the residence of Baptiste, Pascal, or Antoine, who has agreed for consideration to permit the wedding festivities to be held in his house. Everybody is free to attend the feasting and dancing which follow. When the festivities are over the happy couple begin life upon a capital stock of a pony or two, a few kettles, a pair of blankets, and a trading gun, and are happy.

Attached to every winter camp, and forming part and parcel of it, is a considerable following of Indian hangers-on. These picturesque vagabonds constitute the rags and remnants of the camp dress, as it were, and vary the jollity and dissipation of their half-breed brethren by their more grave and sombre demeanour. Most "grave and reverend seigniors" are they, who stalk through the squalid huts and tepees of the encampment like green and yellow apparitions, or melancholy gods of bile from a dyspeptic's inferno.

Occasionally they join themselves permanently to the camp, and their dusky and aquiline features at length come to assume a certain degree of individuality; but for the most part, they are sunny-day friends, only seeking the dissipations of the hunting camps when the stages are well loaded with a hump, brisket and ribs, and disappearing when wanting and scarcity usurp the place of plenty. For these children of the forest and plain well know that the winter camp is the most perfect socialist and communistic community in the world. Its members hold every article of food in common. A half-breed is starving, and the rest of the camp wants food. He kills a buffalo, and to the last bit, the coveted food is shared by all. There is but a thin rabbit, a piece of dried fish, or an old bit of rawhide in the hut, and the red or white stranger comes and is hungry; he gets his share and is first served and best attended. If a child starves in the camp, one may know that in every hut, famine reigns, and gaunt hunger dwells in every stomach. When the time comes, the Indian shares his last morsel with the rest; but so long as the meat of his half-breed brethren lasts, he is content to remain in a complete state of destitution as regards food of his own. In other words, he finds it easier to hunt buffalo on the half-breed's stages than on the bleak plains in mid-winter.

Coming in from the wrack and tempest, and finding the camp stages well stocked with food, the Indian begins to starve immediately. At all hours of the day and night the men, the squaws and the children form doleful processions to the huts for food. An Indian never knocks at the door; he simply lifts the latch, enters edgeways, shakes hands all around, and then seats himself, without a word, upon the floor. One may be at breakfast, at dinner or in bed, it doesn't matter he will wait. With the pangs of hunger gnawing at his stomach, and viewing, no doubt with longing eyes, the food around, he yet, according to Indian etiquette, refrains from clamouring at once for food, but sits and smokes for a long time without making the slightest allusion to his suffering condition. When, in due course, his host offers him something to eat, he mentions the wants of himself and family, that he has not eaten for so many hours, and so forth. He seems exceedingly grateful for the assistance and promises to return in a day or two and repay the obligation a promise which he never fulfills.

If there is any liquor in the camp, the Indian is always the first to find it and the last to leave it. He divines its presence instinctively. He brings his marten-skins, his fish, or whatever he may happen to have, and insists upon having his share; and it does not answer to dilute it too much for his use. It must be strong enough to be inflammable, for he always tests it by pouring a few drops into the fire. If it possesses the one property from which he has given it the name of fire-water, he is satisfied, whatever its flavour or other qualities may be. A very little suffices to upset him, and when intoxicated he is the most irrepressible being a quiet man can have about him. He chuckles and hugs his tin pot, exclaiming: "Tarpoy! tarpoy! " (It is true ! it is true !) scarcely able to believe the delightful fact. When he begins to sober up, he will sell the shirt off his back for another drain of the beloved poison. Failing to get it, he pours hot water into the cup, in which the rum has been, and drinks it to obtain the slight flavour which still clings to it; often filling and emptying it half a dozen times before being fully satisfied with the scent of the distilled molasses has long ago left it.

The Indian's habitation is seldom in the camp itself. He generally places his lodge of skins or bark a little way off in the forest, and keeps a narrow path beaten to the open space. His dwelling, inside or out, always presents the same spectacle: battered-looking dogs of all ages surround the lodge; in the low branches of the trees, or upon a stage, meat, snowshoes, dog sleds, etc., lie safe from canine ravage. Inside, from seven to fifteen persons hover over the fire burning in the centre. Meat, cut into thin slices, hangs drying in the upper smoke; the inevitable puppy dogs play with sticks; the fat, greasy children pinch the puppy dogs, drink on all fours out of a black kettle, or saw off mouthfuls of meat between fingers and lips; the squaws, old and young, engage in cooking, or in nursing with a nonchalance which appals the modest stranger. Such is the lodge of the Indian hanger-on; sometimes a pleasant place enough to while away an hour in the study of the aboriginal character, for the appropriate gestures and expressive pantomime with which an Indian illustrates his speech renders it easy to understand. One learns without much difficulty to interpret the long hunting stories with which they while away the evenings in camp. The scenes described are nearly all acted; the motions of the game, the stealthy approach of the hunter, the taking aim, the shot, the cry of the animal, or the noise of its dashing away, and the pursuit, are all given as the tale goes on.

Associating with the aborigines entirely, one rapidly picks up their language, and in a little time can speak it fluently if not grammatically. Nothing is easier than to get a decent smattering of the Indian languages, although the construction of most of them is extremely intricate. The names of many articles is the explanation of their use or properties, the word being a combination of a participle and a noun, the latter meaning generally "a thing." Thus a cup is called a drinking-thing, a gun a shooting-thing, etc. Especially does this apply to articles introduced by the whites, and not pertaining strictly to savage life? The names of such articles invariably express their use, and very frequently the motions made in using them. This peculiarity also appears in their proper names, which are generally descriptive of some personal singularity. But the sign language used by the Indian is, after all, the greatest aid to conversation, and is very complete. Their pantomimical power seems to be perfect. There are no two tribes of Indians that use the same oral language, but all are conversant with the same pantomimic code.

The costume of the Indian, when in the privacy of his own home, is somewhat limited in its nature. Like other thrifty people, he is given to wearing his old clothes. That feathered vertebra, which is seen meandering down the exceedingly straight back of the Indian in the picture books, is only used upon state occasions. Ordinarily, he wears leggings reaching a certain way up his legs, and a shirt extending a certain way down his trunk; taken together, they are not unlike that garment so pleaded for by reformers in female dress. Sew the bottom of the shirt to the top of the leggings, and you have what? The chemiloon. Eureka! Ages ago the chemiloon dawned upon the mind of the untutored Indian, but inventions are of slow growth. It took three hundred years to develop the sofa from the three-legged stool: so with the garment of the red-man; and it is still in the process of evolution. The moccasin-top, protecting the ankle, was perhaps the Bathybius from which the aboriginal chemiloon was evolved. Gradually it crept up the leg and assumed the shape of the leggin. Down to meet it from the neck, evolved from a wampum collar, came the shirt, slowly extending downward until it now almost meets the leggings. What will be the wild joy in the red man's tent, when, years hence, the ends of the two garments shall meet, and the perfect chemiloon is formed! Until then he enters a caveat against any infringement of his patent; for the invention belongs to the Indian.

By some seeming incongruity the winter camp is nearly always called a Mission an appellation warranted, perhaps, by the invariable presence there of a priest, either temporarily or permanently. This personage is the spiritual guide, philosopher and friend, of a very disreputable flock, and his duties, if conscientiously performed, are very arduous. And it is seldom that they are not conscientiously performed; for no man can labour more disinterestedly for the good of his fellow than the missionary priest. It is a startling contrast to find in these rude camps men of refined culture, and the highest mental excellence, devoting themselves to the task of civilizing the denizens of the forest and plain sacrificing all the comforts and advantages of their better lives to the advancement of a barbarian brother, whose final elevation to the ranks of civilized men they can never hope to see. And yet they are to be found everywhere throughout the lone places of the North, dwelling amid wild and savage peoples, whom they attend with a strange and paternal devotion. On the banks of lonely lakes, they minister to the wants and needs of the wild men who repair thither periodically to fish; in the huge camps of our barbarian brethren on the limitless plains; at the isolated trading posts scattered over the Fur Land; and, seeking them in their lonely huts or squalid lodges, one ever finds the same simple surroundings, the same evidence of a faith that seems more than human.

Prominent among the rude landmarks of the winter camp is the store of the free trader. Of more pretentious exterior, and larger proportions than the dwellings of the hunters, it is easily discerned at a glance. As a rule, its owner is developed from the ordinary plain-hunter. Antoine, or Pascal, or Baptiste, having followed the chase for years and proving a more successful hunter than his fellows, accumulates a fair supply of robes and ponies. On some springtime visit to the settlements, the fur trader with whom he has dealt for years, noticing his thrift and success, offers to outfit him with goods on condition of receiving the first offer of the furs for which they are exchanged. Pascal is delighted with the prospect of becoming a free trader, pays down a small sum in cash and furs, and receives a considerable amount of ammunition and finery on credit. With this, he starts for the plains, and at some eligible point near a watercourse, and in advantageous proximity to both buffalo grounds and forest, to attract trade in both classes of fur, locates his trading store. Around this nucleus gather the nomadic plain-hunters and Indians, and lastly the priest; for Pascal may be said to be the founder of the winter camp. The size of his store is regulated by the amount of his stock, but likely in any event to be the most pretentious in the camp. It may have two apartments, but more likely one. The goods are kept in boxes and bales and produced only as required. Pascal has yet to learn the art of attracting custom by the display of his wares. In truth, there is but little need for him to do so; for, if the improvident Indian or half-breed should by some fortuitous circumstance become possessed of a surplus of salable provision or fur, its ownership becomes a consuming flame to him until disposed of. So Pascal's stock of merchandise decreases rapidly as the winter advances, and his store of robes and furs increases in proportion. Most of the latter are purchased cheaply, and for an equivalent of gilt and colour, as it were; for the tastes of his customers are of a very decided sort, like those of other mixed races.

If Pascal trades merchandise alone, his life flows uneventfully along, and he may enjoy counting his store of peltries as they increase day by day. He is looked up to by his fellows as a kind of Delphic oracle upon all disputed points, on account of his superior wealth and standing. His vanity is flattered by such adulation, and he assumes an air of vast importance as the head man of the camp. He becomes the arbiter in all petty disputes, the umpire at horse races, and general referee in knotty and vexatious games of grand-major., poker, and the moccasin game. His authority is second to none save the priest, who, as the spiritual head of the camp, assumes the first place by right of eminent fitness and propriety. If Pascal trades liquor, however, his lines are not cast in pleasant places, notwithstanding the heavy profits upon the barter. Every day turmoil reigns in the camp, and sounds of revelry fill the midnight air. His otherwise quiet store becomes the rendezvous of a cursing, clamouring, gesticulating assemblage of men. There the betting and drinking of the afternoon are succeeded by the deeper drinking and gambling of the evening; and the sound of shuffling cards, the clinking of the buttons and bullets of the moccasin game, and the exclamations of triumph and despair of winner and loser are heard at all times. Rum flows freely; for the plain-hunter carries to the trading store every peltry he can obtain. Under these circumstances, the free trader becomes a curse to his brethren, and his store a plague spot upon the plains.

Toward the middle of April Pascal begins to pack up his furs, collect his outstanding debts, and make preparations for a return to the settlements with the proceeds of the year's trade. His ponies are brought in from the prairie where they have wintered out; the fractured wooden carts are bound up with raw-hide lines; the broken-spirited ponies coaxed into a semblance of life and vigour; the dusky progeny packed in with bales and blankets, the hut locked up, and he sets forth for the lonely oasis of civilization nearer the border. On the main prairie trails, he joins the trains of other traders, who have left their winter stations at the same time. Constantly augmented by new additions, and following each other in a single file, the long line seems at length interminable; and by the time the border settlements are reached, often varies from two to three miles in length. Their long winding columns sparkle with life and gayety; cart-tilts of every hue flash brightly in the sun; hosts of wolfish dogs run in and out among the vehicles, and troops of loose horses gallop alongside. The smartly dressed men ride their showiest steeds, their wives and daughters travelling in the carts, enthroned on packs of fur. The traders wear their picturesque summer dress brass-buttoned dark-blue capotes, with moleskin or corduroy trousers and calico shirts. Wide-awake hats, or cloth caps with peaks, are the favourite head-covering. Gayly embroidered saddle cloths and variegated sashes are preferred to those of less showy appearance; red, white and blue beading on black ground is common.

Reaching the settlements, the free trader ascertains the current price of peltries, then repairs to his outfitter and offers him his stock at the highest market rates. To protect himself, the merchant generally accepts; for, if Pascal sells elsewhere, and obtains the money for his peltries, the chances are that he forgets his obligation, and returns to the plains without liquidating his debt. Having sold his furs, however, the half-breed trader next proceeds to clothe himself and his family in all the gaudy finery that money can purchase, and then, procuring an ample supply of rum, gives a party to his friends. In this manner, and by the dissipations induced by a prolonged sojourn in the settlements, he manages to squander the greater portion of the season's earnings and finds himself, when ready to return to the plains, as poor as he was the year before. Then he returns to the trader, who has anticipated just such a consummation of things, and obtaining credit for a new outfit, finally departs.

But it is a month or more before the last half-breed trader in tasseled cap, sky-blue capote, brilliant sash and corduroy trousers, has had his last dram in the border grog-shops, and carries his fevered brow off toward the setting sun; a month before the last cart-train, with its following of mongrel dogs, unkempt ponies, lowing kine and tawny human beings, has disappeared beyond the horizon. Very brilliant and picturesque they were while they stayed about the settlements. Their brown and smoke-discoloured leather tents dotted the prairie for weeks; there was always a scurrying of horses and a barking of dogs in the neighbourhood; a continual feasting and drinking; a reckless riding to and fro, and the jargon of voices vociferating and shouting in half-a-dozen languages. Pierre and Antoine ran a mad race through the streets of the town; dusky Darby and tawny Joan made love upon the open plain in anything but the conventional manner; Gabriel drank deep of the white man's fire-water, and fell prone in the gutter, but, raised to his pony's back, went off at a wild gallop, to the astonishment of everyone, as if he were part and parcel of that unkempt animal; Philomel, appareled in scarlet cloth and bewildering beadwork, like the little savage peri that she was, danced down the still hours in the short grass of the prairie, to the music of some long-haired and moccasined Paganini. Dark but comely was Philomel; her full rounded figure, black hair, bewitching eyes and little affectations, were enough to soften the soul of an anchorite. Like Mr. Locker's heroine, she was

Her little moccasined feet will accompany the quick thud of hunter heel, as Louison or Baptiste dance unceasingly upon the half-hewn floor of some winter hut, in the glow of firelight through parchment windows, and to the sound of fiddle scraped by rough hunter hand.

It occasionally occurs that a pure Indian turns trader, and when he does so he is likely to be a more provident and successful trader than his half-breed brother. I recollect one Pegowis, a Cree, who amassed considerable wealth in this way. He was a saturnine old red man, small in stature and very dark even for an Indian. Of a quiet, grave and reticent nature, yet shrewd, cunning and avaricious, he would have made, had he been white and had proper advantages, a most pronounced type of the successful gambler. He had every trait of that well-known steamboat character and loved the hazard of a die to an equal degree. He was a notorious gambler and as notoriously a successful one. He took the chances on almost everything. He would sit down with an untutored Indian fresh from the primeval wilderness, and with the fascinations of the moccasin game lure him on to certain poverty. He would inveigle a card-loving half-breed into a game of grand major, and strip him of his last earthly possession. He would race his horses against any animal that ran on four legs and invariably came off the winner. Of his propensity for this latter amusement, I recall an amusing instance.

Pegowis, on some of his visits to the military posts along the Missouri, had picked up a bay horse of more than ordinary speed and endurance. He christened him "The arrow that flies out of the big gun," which is short for cannon ball; a name derived from the fact that the horse has a large lump on his fore knee, resembling one of those projectiles. In addition to this defect, the joint of the same limb, from the knee down, went off at an angle of forty-five degrees from the remainder of the leg and appeared to bear no sort of relevance to the animal at all. He limped very perceptibly, and altogether ambled along in that fashion described by the nautical phrase "a rolling gait." Yet the wily Pegowis cared for the animal as for the apple of his eye, and taking him home reduced the whole prairie country to insolvency with him during the winter. In the spring he brought Cannonball into the settlement, harnessed to a very shaky old cart, drawing a load of furs, and employed a wideawake half-breed, who spoke English fluently, as a sort of "roper-in" to effect a horse race. Driving the disreputable-looking beast up before the door of a trading shop, the half-breed patted and caressed the animal, and bade his helper take every care of him; for, remarked Pegowis's emissary, in the hearing of his victims, "That 'ere horse is a racer." A young Canadian, with a fancy for horse flesh, thinking he had an easy victim, immediately offered to race and was as promptly accepted by the half-breed. The wager was raised higher and higher, until it reached the formidable sum of one hundred pounds sterling, which the venerable Pegowis, who now opportunely appeared upon the scene, at once drew forth from the recesses of his red blanket. Cannon-ball was unharnessed from the cart, the ground measured off, and, mounted by a young Cree, the old horse came in an easy winner, the saturnine Pegowis pocketing the money without a smile to disturb the placidity of his muddy countenance. This veteran trader continues the business, and unless overtaken by reverses, or estopped by the bullet of some cheated red brother, will probably become a very rich man.

From time to time, as the winter camp runs short of provisions, expeditions are made to the buffalo grounds to obtain a fresh supply. The herds, which wander far to the southward in the fall, strange to say, return in the winter and collect in great numbers in the broken country between the two Saskatchewans, finding shelter in the timber, and browsing upon the willows, or coarse grass, still uncovered by snow. The half-breeds generally go to the winter hunts in small parties, and with horse or dog sleds to haul home the robes. The journey thither occupies a week or ten days, as the herds are near or far out. Proximity to the buffalo grounds is known by the radical change in the aspect of the country. Instead of an interminable plain, with an illimitable perspective of wrack and drift, the country becomes undulating, with scattered patches of small timber alternating with miniature meadows and grassy levels. Here the buffalo separate themselves into small bands, and often into twos and threes, and find abundant food beneath the light snows. But into this sylvan retreat come the hunters with their dogtrains. Carefully skirting its border, but not penetrating it needlessly to alarm the herds, they select their camping place in the thickest of the timber and thence make prolonged forays upon their shaggy game. Aside from the mere selection of the camping ground, little time is lost in rendering it comfortably; for on the winter hunt the main object is attended to with a singleness of purpose that would delight the soul of a business martinet. But few fires are lighted during the day, for fear of frightening the game; so that the labour of making camp is limited to securing, out of reach of the dogs, not only the provisions of which by this time there is likely to be but little left but snowshoes, harness, and everything with any skin or leather about it. An Indian sledge-dog will devour almost anything of animal origin and invariably eats his harness and his master's snowshoes if left within his reach.

Dividing into parties, the hunters pursue different directions, endeavouring, however, whenever practicable, to encircle a certain amount of territory, with the object of driving the quarry toward a common centre. Again, the small parties follow the same plan on a smaller scale, each one surrounding a miniature meadow or grassy glade; so that, if the number of hunters is large, there are many small circles within the limits of the general circumference of the hunt.

The winter hunt for buffalo in the Fur Land is generally made by stalking the animals in the deep snow on snowshoes. To hunt the herds on horseback, as in summer, would be an impossibility; the snow hides the murderous badger holes that cover the prairie surface, and to gallop weak horses on such ground would be a certain disaster. By this method of hunting the stalker endeavours to approach within gunshot of his quarry by stealthily creeping upon them, taking advantage of every snow drift, bush, or depression in the prairie, which will screen his person from view. And it is a more difficult feat to approach a band of buffalo than it would appear at first thought. When feeding the herd is more or less scattered, but at the sight of the hunter it rounds and closes into a tolerably compact circular mass. If the stalker attempts an open advance on foot concealment being impossible from the nature of the ground the buffalo always keeps sheering off as soon as he gets within two hundred yards of the nearest. If he follows, they merely repeat the movement and always manage to preserve the same distance. Although there is not the slightest danger in approaching a herd, it requires, in a novice, an extraordinary amount of nerve. When he gets within three hundred yards, the bulls on that side, with head erect, tail cocked in the air, nostrils expanded, and eyes that seem to flash fire, walk uneasily to and fro, menacing the intruder by pawing the earth and tossing their huge heads. The hunter is still approaching, some bull will face him, lower his head, and start on a most furious charge. But alas for brute courage! When he has gone thirty yards he thinks better of it, stops, stares an instant, and then trots back to the herd. Another and another will try the same strategy, with the same result, and if, despite these ferocious demonstrations, the hunter continues to advance, the whole herd will incontinently take to its heels.

By far the best method of stalking a herd in the snow is to cover oneself with a white blanket, or sheet, in the same manner as the Indians use the wolf-skin. In this way, the animal cannot easily get the hunter's wind and is prevented from distinguishing him amidst the surrounding snow. The buffalo being the most stupid and sluggish of plains animals, and endowed with the smallest possible amount of instinct, the little that he has seems adapted rather for getting him into difficulties than out of them. If not alarmed at the sight or smell of the stalker, he will stand stupidly gazing at his companions in their death throes until the whole band is shot down.

When the hunter is skilled in the stalk, and the buffalo are plentiful, the wild character of the sport almost repays him for the hardships he endures. With comrades equally skillful he surrounds the little meadows into which he has stalked his quarry. Well posted, the hunter nearest the herd delivers his fire. In the sudden stupid halt and stare of the bewildered animals immediately following, he often gets in a second and third shot. Then comes the wild dash of the frightened herd toward the opening in the park, when the remaining hunters instantly appear, pouring in their fire at short range, and pretty certain of securing their game.

The cutting up follows, and the rapidity with which a skillful hunter completes the operation is a little short of marvellous. When time permits, the full process is as follows: He begins by skinning the buffalo, then takes off the head, and removes the paunch and offal as far as the heart; next, he cuts off the legs shoulders and back. The chest, with the neck attached, now remains a strange-looking object, that would scare a respectable larder into fits and he proceeds to lay beside the other joints, placing there also such internal parts as are considered good. Over the whole, he then draws the skin and having planted a stick in the ground close by, with a handkerchief or, some such thing fastened to it to keep off the wolves, the operation of cutting up is complete, and the animal is ready for conveyance to camp when the sleds arrive. The half-breed goes through this whole process with a large and very heavy knife, like a narrow and pointed cleaver, which is also used for cutting wood, and performing all the offices of a hatchet; but unwieldy as it is, a practiced hand can skin the smallest and most delicate creatures with it as easily as with a pocket-knife.

A few days' successful stalking generally supplies a party with sufficient meat, and, unless hunting for robes, they are not likely to linger long upon the bleak plains for the mere sake of sport. The winter stalk is emphatically a "pot hunt," the term "sport" being scarcely pertinent to a chase involving so serious discomfort. A cache of the meat is accordingly made, from which supplies may be drawn as required. And cache has to be made in a very substantial manner to resist the attacks of wolves, which invariably hang about the camp of the hunter. Generally speaking, it is made in the form of a pyramid, the ends of the logs being sunk slightly into the ground, against which a huge bank of snow is heaped. This, when well beaten down, and coated with ice using water poured over it, holds the timber firmly in position, and is perfectly impregnable to a whole army of wolves, though a wolverine will certainly break it open if he finds it.

At last comes the departure. The sleds are packed with melting rib, fat brisket, and luscious tongues; the cowering dogs are again rudely roused from their dream of that far-off day, which never comes for them when the whip shall be broken and hauling shall be no more. Amid fierce imprecation, the cracking of whips, deep-toned yells, and the grating of the sleds upon the frozen snow, the camp in the poplar thicket is left behind. The few embers of the deserted campfire glow cheerily for a while, then moulder slowly away. The wolves, growing bolder as the day wears on, steal warily in, and devour such refuse as the dogs have left. As night settles silently down, the snow begins to fall. It conies slowly, in a whirling mist of snowflakes that dazzles and confuses the eye. The ashes of the campfire, mingling with it, take on a lighter grey; the hard casing of the cache receives a fleecy covering. Feathery shafts of snow, shaken from the long tree branches, fly like white-winged birds down over what has been the camp. But all traces of its use are hidden by the spotless mantle flung from above. The coming morning reveals only a pyramidal drift of snow among the aspens around, a hopeless, uncharted, trackless sea of white.

Such is the winter stalk a hunt that has often formed the theme of the traveller's story. And yet it may be doubted if there has ever been placed before the reader's vision anything like a true account of the overpowering sense of solitude, of dreary, endless space, of awful desolation, which at times fills the hunter's mind, as, peering from some swelling ridge or aspen thicket, he sees a lonely herd of buffalo, in the long, scattered file, trailing across the snow-wrapt, interminable expanse into the shadows of the coming night.

Life for the white stranger temporarily resident in the winter camp becomes after a season pleasant enough. The study of Indian and half-breed character and customs, the visits of his barbarian neighbours, and the exciting incidents of his every day life, all conspire to relieve the monotony which would otherwise hang over him like a pall. It is true that of life other than human there is a meagre supply; a magpie or screaming jay sometimes flaunts its gaudy plumage on the meat stage; in the early morning a sharp-tailed grouse croaks in the fir or spruce trees; and at dusk, when every other sound is hushed, the owl hoots its lonely cry. Besides human companionship, however, the white resident of the winter camp has many pleasures of a more aesthetic character. It is pleasant at night, when returning from a long jaunt on snowshoes or dog-sled, to reach the crest of the nearest ridge and see, lying below one, the straggling camp, the red glow of the fire- light gleaming through the parchment windows of the huts, the bright sparks flying upward amid the sombre pine-tops, and to feel that, however rude it may be, yet there in all that vast wilderness is the one place he may call home. Nor is it less pleasant when, as the night wears on, the long letter is penned, the familiar book read, while the log fire burns brightly and the dogs sleep quietly stretched before it. Many a night thus spent is spread out in those pictures which memory weaves in afterlife, each pleasure distinct and real, each privation blended with softened colours.