NORTHERN OCEAN 263 



Athapuscow Indians ; because I wished, if possible, to purchase 1772. 

 a tent, and other ready-dressed skins from them; as a supply mh. 

 of those articles would at this time have been of material 

 service to us, being in great want both of tents and shoe- 

 leather: and though my companions were daily killing either 

 moose or buffalo, the weather was so excessively cold, as to 

 render dressing their skins not only very troublesome, but 

 almost impracticable, especially to the generality of the 

 Northern Indians, who are not well acquainted with the 

 manufacture of that kind of leather. 



To dress those skins according to the Indian method, a 

 lather is made of the brains and some of the softest fat or 

 marrow of the animal, in which the skin is well soaked, when 

 it is taken out, and not only dried by the heat of a fire, but 

 hung up in the smoke for several days ; it is then taken down, 

 and well soaked and washed in warm water, till the grain of 

 the skin is perfectly open, and has imbibed a sufficient quantity 

 of water, after which it is taken out and wrung as dry as 

 possible, and then dried by the heat of a slow fire ; care being 

 taken to rub and stretch it as long as any moisture remains in 

 the skin. By this simple method, and by scraping them after- 

 wards, some of the moose skins are made very delicate both 

 to the eye and the touch. 



[262] On the eleventh of January, as some of my com- 

 panions were hunting, they saw the track of a strange snow-shoe, 

 which they followed ; and at a considerable distance came to a 

 little hut, where they discovered a young woman sitting alone. 

 As they found that she understood their language, they 

 brought her with them to the tents. On examination, she 

 proved to be one of the Western Dog-ribbed Indians, who had 

 been taken prisoner by the Athapuscow Indians in the Summer 

 of one thousand seven hundred and seventy ; and in the 

 following Summ-er, when the Indians that took her prisoner 

 were near this part, she had eloped from them, with an intent 

 to return to her own country ; but the distance being so great. 



