MAKING READY FOR THE BARREN GROUNDS 159 



man could not endure the fatigue and cold and starvation 

 without the stimulus of hot tea once or twice a day. 

 When the sledges are loaded with the requisite supply of 

 wood and the sleeping-robes there is no room left for 

 provisions. To take more sledges would mean more men, 

 more dogs, more mouths to feed, with no added prospect 

 of feeding them. Thus it is that no attempt is made to 

 carry in provisions, and that a visit to the home of the 

 musk-ox is always attended by great danger, and never 

 without much suffering, be the season what it may. None 

 but the younger and hardiest and most experienced Ind- 

 ians go into the Barrens, and to be a musk-ox hunter is 

 their highest conception of courage and skill and en- 

 durance. 



Bearing in mind these conditions, it may be imagined 

 with what disfavor my proposed visit in early March was 

 viewed. No one would hire me dogs, asserting I should 

 never get them back alive ; and if Gaudet had not come 

 to my rescue, and let me have his own train, I fear I 

 should have been obliged to delay my hunt until the 

 usual time. I shall never forget the kindness of Gaudet 

 and his sister he helped me in my search for an inter- 

 preter and dog-driver, and in my studies of the country 

 and people; she saw that my moccasins and duffel were 

 properly worked, and herself made me a pair of slippers 

 of unborn musk-ox hide, to be worn next the skin, fur side 

 in ; and both of them heaped curios upon me in such 

 generous profusion that I grew afraid of expressing admi- 

 ration for anything, lest they give it to me forthwith. 

 These seem little things, no doubt, to the inhabitant of 

 the grand pays, but in that country the little things are 

 everything, and Gaudet and his sister gave freely of their 

 all, and seemed sorry they could not do more. 



Meanwhile I was awaiting Beniah, taking photographs, 



