30 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



sists of a species of jigs and reels gone through at a pace 

 that makes you dizzy only to watch. They have their 

 dances where several couples perform, but the most pop- 

 ular seemed that in which separate couples engaged as 

 many as the floor would accommodate. These face one 

 another, and the man enters upon a vigorous exploita- 

 tion of the double-shuffle, which he varies with "pigeon- 

 wings " and other terpsichorean flourishes, always making 

 the greatest noise of which he is capable. Noise and en- 

 durance, I was given to understand, are the two requisites 

 to good dancing; but men and women of course wear 

 moccasins, and only on occasions have board floors to 

 dance on. It was my luck to happen along at one of 

 those "occasions," and to be further tortured by a half- 

 breed company servant, whose great pride was a pair of 

 white man's heavy boots, which he never wore except 

 when threading the giddy maze. 



Halt-breeds French and Cree constitute the larger 

 share of population at La Biche, if I may class as its pop- 

 ulation those scattered over the immediately surrounding 

 country, and where the settlement consists of just three 

 cabins besides those belonging to the Hudson's Bay Com- 

 pany. But, after all, the French blood reveals itself chiefly 

 in a few Christian names and in the more fanciful coloring 

 and use of some articles of wear, for there is little French 

 spoken, the children of mixed parentage almost invariably 

 adopting the mother-tongue, Cree, which the ingenuity of 

 Catholic priests has raised to the dignity of a written lan- 

 guage. There are not more than one hundred Crees who 

 come into La Biche, which is the most northerly post 

 where treaty money is given, and they are not increasing 

 nor even thriving to any very great extent. The annuity 

 of about five dollars a head is not sufficient to support 

 and just enough to interrupt keen hunting: they plant a 



