FUR-TRAPPING 



maybe, for it was sadly leaky in the springtime, 

 or a new gun for the hunter, and clothes for every 

 one of them, not to speak of a barrel of flour and 

 a bag of ship's biscuit and a hanging lamp to burn 

 paraffin oil ! 



The hunter is as careful as his wife over those 

 valuable furs and woe betide her if he catches her 

 making a tear or a cut in the course of her scraping ! 

 There must be no spot, no blemish, no mark upon 

 the skin ; and when he finds a fox in his trap, if it 

 is not already dead from the cold he dare not risk 

 spoiling the fur by shooting it, but kneels upon its 

 chest and so puts an end to its life. 



The Mission pays very generous prices for furs, 



and one can easily understand that the result of a 



night's trapping may make a poor man rich at a 



single bound. It happened that way in the case of 



I a poor fellow called M61e, who lived in a hut on the 



hill behind us. All the autumn he lay ill ; and the 



seal hunt went by and left him destitute. He could 



! not even hire his net out as some men do, because 



| he was too poor to own one : he was one of the 



kajak men, and was wont to depend altogether upon 



I his skill with the harpoon. So the boisterous 



I autumn passed, and never a chance did he get to 



go a-hunting : the ice came, and he was penniless. 



He was not starving, for the Eskimos are always 



neighbourly enough to find food for one another, 



and he had help from the Mission and the hospital ; 



but his position was a serious one, for he had a 



large family to keep, and he had the winter to face 



without seals. That would mean giving up his few 



dogs, for dogs are hungry brutes, and without dogs 



he could neither go to the ice-edge nor fetch fire- 



227 



