126 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



rabbit camp, keeping a sharp lookout all the way, and 

 passing over a country filled with curious bowl-shaped 

 depressions that ranged from ten to fifty feet in depth 

 and proportionately wide, and at night the Ancient War- 

 rior's sons turned up to gladden our hearts and relieve 

 our stomachs with dried moose meat. Dried meat, by- 

 the-way, caribou or moose, when at its best, is about as 

 thick as sole-leather, and of like consistency ; when it is 

 poor it somewhat resembles parchment in thickness and 

 succulence. It is made by cutting the fresh meat into 

 strips, which are hung over the fire to smoke, subsequently 

 in the sun to dry, and is the ordinary food on these expe- 

 ditions, because dried it is so much easier carried. It is 

 not toothsome, but it is filling, and that is the main de- 

 sideratum in this country. Fresh meat is the hunter's 

 luxury. 



The coming of these two boys furnished my first in- 

 sight into the relations between Indian parents and chil- 

 dren. They arrived, one with a badly frozen cheek, the 

 other with frozen fingers, and both shivering with cold, 

 yet Jeremi scarcely turned his head in greeting, made no 

 sign to give them room by his own warm place at the 

 fireside, nor showed paternal solicitude for their sufferings. 

 They scraped away a little snow at the edge of our camp, 

 and there rolled up in their blankets, while their dogs and 

 ours, by the light of a glorious moon, mingled in an ani- 

 mated fight that lasted a good part of the night, and was 

 waged vigorously around and over us. The dog is the 

 one member of the Indian family that is no respecter of 

 age or sex. But the boys pay the penalty of youth, as. 

 their sisters and mothers do of womanhood. 



We were now where the sight of bison was an hourly 

 expectation ; we had come over one hundred miles into 

 their range without a glimpse of a track, new or old, and 



