AND OTHER HUNTING ADVENTURES. 99 



skin cover as carefully as if it had been a $300 

 breech-loader. 



Nearly all these Indians use just such old mus- 

 kets, bought from the Hudson Bay Company, and 

 yet they keep them in covers made of the skin of 

 the seal, which they kill in the rivers hereabout, or 

 of deer or other animals. They take excellent care 

 of their guns in this respect, but I have never seen 

 one of them clean or oil his weapon, and several of 

 them told me they seldom do so. 



My Winchester express, with fancy stock, Lyman 

 sight, etc. , was a curiosity to them. None of them 

 had ever seen anything like it, and one of them 

 asked me what kind of a rifle it was. When told it 

 was a Winchester, he said: 



" I didn't know Winchester so big like dat. 

 Didn't know he had stock like dat." He had only 

 seen the little .44 Winchester, with a plain stock, 

 and innocently supposed it was the only kind 

 made. 



Pean and I had a hard day's work toiling up the 

 mountain through fallen timber, over and around 

 great ledges of jutting rock, across deep, rugged 

 canons and gulches, and through dense jungles of 

 underbrush. About two o'clock in the afternoon we 

 halted, lay down for a rest, and had been there but 

 a few minutes when I heard the sharp, familiar 

 chatter of the little pine squirrel. I looked around 

 quickly, expecting to see one within a few feet of 

 me, but instead saw Pean lying close to the ground, 

 beckoning to me and pointing excitedly up the game 

 trail in which we had been walking. Looking 

 through the thick, intervening brush, I saw two 



