VISITING THE TRAPS. — HUNTER'S CABIN. 169 



he who endures the most, and speaks the least about it, soon 

 acquires the reputation which he has worked to earn, of a fellow 

 who will stand almost anything. The great occupation in winter 

 is visiting the traps and hunting. I might have placed these 

 occupations in exactly the reverse order but that more is secured 

 by trapping, hence the more important, than by hunting, which 

 usually furnishes only a temporary supply of game for the table, such 

 as partridges, rabbits, and in some cases deer. The partridges are 

 the ptarmigan, the spruce partridge, and rarely the sharp-tailed 

 grouse ; the two former being very abundant, while the latter is rare. 

 The various animals, except the porcupine, which is clubbed with 

 a stick, since its gait is so slow that it cannot run away from 

 one, though sometimes shot are more often trapped, and these 

 will be spoken of in another place. The deer-hunting forms 

 an occupation in itself. There are several cabins built near the 

 well-known deer hunting grounds in the interior of the country 

 some ten or twenty miles away, where parties, wishing to enjoy this 

 sport, and secure some fresh meat for the table, make their head- 

 quarters ; from here they take long tramps, and often shoot several 

 deer to a man in the course of a season. The cabins are very small 

 within, and some ten or twenty men will huddle together in this 

 confined place in the evening ( if the deer be unusually abundant 

 during the day) and spend their time smoking and playing cards. 

 A dingy little cabin scarcely larger than an ordinary room 

 sixteen by twenty feet in width, with a long bin-shaped bunk or 

 berth on each side, capable of holding six or eight men each, 

 as a sleeping apartment ; a stove in the middle of the room ; a 

 room full of tobacco smoke ; and the shouts and confused voices 

 of so many men, are anything but pleasant to one whose nerves 

 are at all delicately strung ; yet, as I have before said, these men 

 think nothing of hardships, being bred to them from childhood, 

 and though they often go forty miles a day looking for game, 

 over hills and down gorges of the most difficult walking, and 

 have started off early in the morning sometimes before light, go- 

 ing all day with only a taste of food, returning late in the evening, 



