1633-34.] THE INDIAN HUT. 27 



worse case. Though in the extremity of a mortal 

 sickness, they left her lying in the snow tUl the 

 wigwam was made, — without a word, on her part, 

 of remonstrance or complaint. Le Jeune, to the 

 great ire of her husband, sometimes spent the 

 interval in trying to convert her; but she proved 

 intractable, and soon died unbaptized. 



Thus lodged, they remained so long as game 

 could be found within a circuit of ten or twelve 

 miles, and then, subsistence failing, removed to 

 another spot. Early in the winter, they hunted 

 the beaver and the Canada porcupine ; and, later, 

 in the season of deep snows, chased the moose and 

 the caribou. 



Put aside the bear-skin, and enter the hut. Here, 

 in a space some thu'teen feet square, were packed 

 nineteen savages, men, women, and children, with 

 their dogs, crouched, squatted, coiled like hedge- 

 hogs, or lying on their backs, with knees drawn up 

 perpendicularly to keep their feet out of the fire. 

 Le Jeune, always methodical, arranges the griev- 

 ances inseparable from these rough quarters under 

 four chief heads, — Cold, Heat, Smoke, and Dogs. 

 The bark covering was full of crevices, through 

 which the icy blasts streamed in upon him from 

 all sides ; and the hole above, at once window and 

 chimney, was so large, that, as he lay, he could 

 watch the stars as well as in the open ah. While 

 the fire in the midst, fed with fat pine-knots, 

 scorched him on one side, on the other he had 

 much ado to keep himself from freezing. At 

 times, however, the crowded hut seemed heated 



