ART OF PULLING HEARTS. 199 



being subjected to a quick and great heat, pene- 

 trates the skin and it is consequently grease 

 burnt. 



The greater number of beaver skins one gets 

 about the Canadian villages are badly gotten up. 

 This, in a great measure, is due to the French 

 custom of buying by weights instead of by the 

 skin, the hunters reasoning that the more meat, 

 grease, flippers, etc., they can leave on, the 

 greater number of pounds gross. 



Mink and otter are the two hardest animals 

 we have to skin clean, and the majority we get 

 on the frontier go to the London markets in a 

 shameful state, and must tend towards their de- 

 crease in value. I have seen foxes, minks, mar- 

 tens and musquash as taken crumpled like rags 

 from the same bag. It was a great wrench for 

 me after handling skins of every sort positively 

 prime, and as clean as the paper upon which 

 this is printed, for twenty years to find myself 

 on the frontier buying such burnt and crumpled 

 skins, as I found was the rule rather than the 

 exception. 



Yes, it was a pleasure to barter the furs 

 hunted by our inland Indians; every skin was 

 brought to the post hair side in. If the Indian 

 had a bear, the two flanks were turned in 

 lengthwise of the skin, then the hide was folded 

 twice, the thick part of the head and shoulders 



