2x8 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



he was to use his judgment whether to take them at their 

 word or whether to give them the larger amount. 



As soon as I had written this letter and translated it 

 to Joseph, both Indians became cheerful and commenced 

 at once chopping down trees to make the raft. 



[When I was on my way north on my second expedi- 

 tion (1908) I saw Firth again and asked him what had 

 happened to the wages of the Indians. He said that 

 when they had come back he had received news of it 

 right away and had expected them to come that same 

 day to get their wages. They did not come, however, 

 until the next day and were then accompanied by a large 

 number of their relatives and friends. When they 

 handed him my letter and he read it over, he asked 

 whether it was correct that they preferred four dollars 

 a day, whereupon not only they but also their relatives 

 spoke up and said that it was only fair. Everybody else 

 had been getting four dollars a day for years and they 

 did not see why these young men should not get the 

 same wage. Thereupon Firth paid each of them twenty- 

 four dollars and they went home well satisfied. This 

 left him twenty-two dollars to refund to me.] 



Although the Indians and I worked hard at the mak- 

 ing of the raft, it took all the rest of the day. For 

 making the raft we had brought along a sharp new ax 

 and several hundred feet of strong but slender rope. 

 The logs we used were about twenty feet long, about a 

 foot in diameter at the big end and four inches at the 

 small end. To make a good buoyant raft we should have 

 had dry logs, but others had built their rafts in this 

 locality ahead of us and, although we went as much as 

 half a mile afield, we got only enough dry wood to make 

 half of the raft. The rest, then, had to be green. 



