THE MUSK-OX HUNT XII 



posed of, the women returned to the other lodges — within a 

 few yards of each other — to dress skins and perform other dis- 

 agreeable labor that had been reserved for an occasion when 

 the lord and master was not at home. The men spent the 

 afternoon in singing hymns, translated into the Dog Rib tongue 

 by the missionaries, and in chanting the old songs of their own 

 composition. 



On the evening of the 28th my dogs were not to be found 

 at feeding time. "Ti-ka Us mangeaient vos cliiens, as'soir," said 

 Johnnie. "Yaz-zi ti-ka thlo n " said the others. " The wolves 

 will eat your dogs to-night." "Yes, the wolves are very nu- 

 merous." Without the dogs I could do nothing; missing this 

 opportunity to secure musk-ox, I must remain another year in 

 the country or go back to Iowa without these, the most difficult 

 to obtain of American mammals. After a long search the next 

 morning, I found two of them feeding upon the remains of a 

 caribou six miles from camp, and by 3 p. m., just as I was con- 

 cluding arrangements to buy two miserable little giddes, the 

 other two dogs made their appearance. I felt that a year of my 

 life had been restored. An hour later we started on the grand 

 hunt, in which only the best men engaged; the women and 

 children, of course, remained at the camps in the woods. There 

 were eleven Indians in the part) 7 , with two lodges — Johnnie in 

 charge of mine with three other Indians. 



We occupied the greater part of the second day in traversing 

 a long narrow lake called Ten-en-di-a Tooh. In the afternoon, 

 from the summit of a lofty granite hill, I beheld the Barren 

 Ground for the first time. Behind us lay the rugged hills, their 

 slopes clothed with stunted pines, upon which a bright sun was 

 shining; before us were hills still more precipitous and barren, 

 everywhere strewn with angular blocks of granite — a cold and 

 dreary waste from which a snowstorm was swiftly approach- 

 ing. Half-acre patches of pines, from one to three feet high, 

 still appeared for a few miles, but our lodge poles were cut 

 that day; these were trimmed down so slender that they would 

 afford little fuel for the return trip; each sled carried four 

 poles, fourteen feet in length. The country was so rough that 

 we only traveled thirty-five miles. 



Before starting on the morning of the fourth day, the regular 

 Sunday service was performed, as it was, also, on the two fol- 



