264 WILD BEASTS' SKINS IN COMMERCE 



In summer the hides were stripped for leather, while 

 those taken in winter were sold to be dressed for 

 buffalo robes. The leather was no better than that of 

 ordinary cattle. The * robes ' had a considerable value 

 as winter wraps. The deer were less easily killed off, 

 but for years an enormous trade was done in American 

 deer-skins. These were mainly those of the black- 

 tailed deer. The skin-hunter on his trained pony went 

 out into the spruce-forests of the Rocky Mountains, 

 killed his five or six deer every day, skinned them, and 

 leaving the carcases to rot, took the hides back to his 

 camp. When one district was * shot out ' he moved on 

 to another, and having secured as many skins as his 

 pack-horses could carry, took them to the nearest point 

 on the railway, and sent them to New York. Side by 

 side with the illicit skin-hunting, and its resultant trade 

 in skins for tanning, there is a genuine demand in 

 Canada for deer-skins for garments. Its main use is 

 for leggings and moccasins to be worn with snow-shoes, 

 or without snow-shoes, in winter. These moccasins are 

 sold in great numbers, and nothing quite so comfort- 

 able has yet been devised as foot-gear in the dry 

 Canadian snows. Their softness prevents the straps of 

 the snow-shoes from galling the feet, and the leather 

 is both porous and warm. It is not tanned but 

 ' shamoyed,' the process which all races, civilized or 

 savage, use when preparing wild beasts' skins for use as 



