OUR WOOD- BISON HUNT 125 



you are surfeited, but after a couple of hours' hard travel- 

 ling you feel as empty as though in the midst of a pro- 

 longed fast. There is neither nourishment nor strength 

 in the meat, and yet the rabbit seems almost to be manna 

 for the otherwise God-forsaken land. In countless num- 

 bers they skurry over the entire country, and are just the 

 ordinary rabbit known everywhere, except that here they 

 change to white in the winter, and on the lower Barren 

 Grounds double in size, and become arctic hares. Every 

 seventh year their numbers are decreased a good half by 



RABBIT SNARE 



a mysterious and deadly disease, and then the Indians 

 suffer, for no one can say how many depend on them for 

 subsistence. If there is caribou or moose meat or fish at 

 the lodge, it goes to the hunters, who must face the 

 storms and withstand the hardships of travel ; but the 

 " squaw men," the old men, and certainly the women and 

 children, more than once during the year owe their very 

 lives to the rabbit. So, although despised by me, he is 

 revered in this home of snow and hunger. 



Caribou, I may say in passing, I consider of all wild 

 meats the one that one tires of least. 



We moved only fifteen miles the first day we broke our 



