THE THIRD BUFFALO HUNT 



117 



last is fundamental, a three-times sacred principle. 

 Not long ago one of these Chipewyans went to con- 

 fessional. Although a year had passed since last he 

 got cleaned up, he could think of nothing to confess. 

 Oh! spotless soul! However, under pressure of the 

 priest, he at length remembered a black transgression. 

 The fall before, while hunting, he went to the wind- 



Little Buffalo River looking north. July 8, 1907 



ward of a thicket that seemed likely to hold his Moose, 

 because on the lee, the proper side, the footing hap- 

 pened to be very bad, and so he lost his Moose. Yes! 

 there was indeed a dark shadow on his recent past. 



A man may be a good hunter, i. e., an all-round 

 trapper and woodman, but not a moose-hunter. At 

 Fort Smith are two or three scores of hunters, and 

 yet I am told there are only three moose-hunters. The 

 phrase is not usually qualified; he is, or is not, a 

 moose-hunter. Just as a man is, or is not, an Oxford 

 M.A. The force, then, of the phrase appears, and 

 we were content to learn that young Bezkya, besides 

 knowing the Buffalo country, was also a good man 

 and a moose-hunter. 



