THE MAKING OF THE MOCCASINS 119 



sleeps where night overtakes him. But this plan needs 

 two men; for if the traps are not closely watched, the 

 wolverine will rifle away a priceless fox as readily as he 

 eats a worthless musk-rat. The stone fire-place stands 

 at one end. Moss, clay, and snow chink up the logs. 

 Parchment across a hole serves as window. Poles and 

 brush make the roof, or perhaps the remains of the 

 cotton tent stretched at a steep angle to slide off the 

 accumulating weight of snow. 



But if the trapper is an Indian, or the white man 

 has a messenger to carry the pelts marked with his 

 name to a friendly trading-post, he may not build a 

 lodge ; but move from hunt to hunt as the game changes 

 feeding-ground. In this case he uses the abuckwan 

 canvas for a shed tent, with one side sloping to the 

 ground, banked by brush and snow, the other facing the 

 fire, both tent and fire on such a slope that the smoke 

 drifts out while the heat reflects in. Pine and balsam 

 boughs, with the wood end pointing out like sheaves 

 in a stook, the foliage converging to a soft centre, form 

 the trapper s bed. 



The snow is now too deep to travel without snow- 

 shoes. The frames for these the trapper makes of ash, 

 birch, or best of all, the mackikwatick tamarack 

 curving the easily bent green wood up at one end, 

 canoe shape, and smoothing the barked wood at the 

 bend, like a sleigh runner, by means of the awkward 

 couteau croche, as the French hunter calls his crooked 

 knife. 



In style, the snow-shoe varies with the hunting- 

 ground. On forested, rocky, hummocky land, the shoe 

 is short to permit short turns without entanglement. 

 Oval and broad, rather than long and slim, it makes 



