I 9 2 ON SNOW-SHOES TO THE BARREN GROUNDS 



Finally, when there came a lull in the vocal bombard- 

 ment, I stepped forward and entered upon the most elab- 

 orate and important speech I had yet attempted in the 

 sign language. I held their attention for probably fifteen 

 minutes, and there was no interruption save when the 

 dogs broke into the lodge and scrambled and fought all 

 over us, until whipped out again. I expressed to them 

 that I had brought the pemmican not for myself, but for 

 us all ; that we had only begun our journey ; that there 

 might come a time when it would save us from death ; 

 that I intended leaving it at the last wood ; that they 

 could not get it now without fighting for it, and if we fought 

 I should surely be killed, as we were in quarters too con- 

 fined to use any weapon but a knife, and they were seven 

 against me, and then the " Big Master " (the Hudson's Bay 

 Company commissioner, Mr. Chipman, who I hope will 

 forgive my liking him to an implacable Nemesis in my 

 hour of need) would take all their skins away, and kill 

 them and their women and children. I do not believe at 

 any time they really had an idea of serious personal con- 

 flict, but, at all events, I made them understand they 

 could not get the pemmican that night without putting 

 me out of the way, and they left off muttering, drank 

 their tea in sullen silence, glaring at me over the top of 

 their cups. 



Before pipes had been lighted two of the scouts came 

 in, each with a caribou head on his back and bearing the 

 good news that three had been killed. So peace reigned 

 again in the lodge, and the late unpleasantness was for- 

 gotten, while we feasted on the ears and eyes and tongues 

 of those two heads. 



But these two heads among eight men furnished, of 

 course, only a mouthful apiece, and the real feast, and, I 

 may add, our last, began the next morning, when we came 



