142 THE DRAMA OF THE FORESTS 



sweat and therefore to require constant drying and oiling; 

 and for the same reason, in winter time, when a hunter is 

 camped for the night, he does not place his gun near the open 

 fire, but sets it back against a tree, well out of range of the heat. 



On one of their rounds of the trapping trails the boys dis- 

 covered a splendid black fox in one of Oo-koo-hoo's traps, 

 and it was with great pride that the little chaps returned 

 home with the prize. 



One sunny day, late in November, while tobogganing with 

 the children on the hillside, our sport was interrupted by the 

 approach of a young stranger, an Indian youth of about seven- 

 teen. He came tramping along on snowshoes with his little 

 hunting toboggan behind him on which was lashed his caribou 

 robe, his tea-pail, his kit bag, and a haunch of young moose as a 

 present to Amik and his wife. In his hand he carried his gun 

 in a moose-skin case. He was a good-looking young fellow, 

 and wore the regulation cream-coloured H. B. capote with hood 

 and turned-back cuffs of dark blue. He wore no cap, but his 

 hair was fastened back by a broad yellow ribbon that encir- 

 cled his head. At first I thought he was the advance mem- 

 ber of a hunting party, but when I saw the bashful yet 

 persistent way in which he sidled up to Neykia, and when 

 I observed, too, the shy, radiant glance of welcome she 

 gave him, I understood; so also did the children, but the 

 little rogues, instead of leaving the young couple alone, teased 

 their sister aloud, and followed the teasing with boisterous 

 laughter. It was then that I obtained my first impression of 

 the mating of the natives of the northern forest. The sylvan 

 scene reminded me of the mating, too, of the white people of 

 that same region, and I thought again of the beautiful Atha- 

 basca. Was it in the same way that her young white man 

 had come so many miles on snowshoes through the winter 

 woods just to call upon her? It set me thinking. Again, I 

 wondered who "Son-in-law" could be? Whence did he come? 



