THE MONTAGNAIS INDIANS AND THEIR FOLK-LORE 319 



farmer's field for cultivation. Some hunters have 

 several hundred square miles of territory in their 

 respective game preserves. Bears and caribou and 

 such like roaming animals are killed wherever seen, if 

 wanted, but beavers and similar game and fur-bearing 

 animals that inhabit restricted areas are the property 

 of the hunter within whose territory they reside and 

 breed. For any but their owner to kill them would 

 be as unjustifiable as the shooting down of a neigh- 

 bor's ox. 



An Indian never loses his way in the woods, being 

 always able to find his road over a route once followed 

 by him, and also to penetrate through forests that he 

 has never seen, if only another Indian shows him the 

 course in a rough draft upon a piece of bark. Even 

 those of them who cannot write display marked 

 ability in communicating with each other in the 

 woods. They telegraph by means of smoke, and it is 

 astonishing how far off they can scent it always for 

 a long time before they can see it or could hear a 

 sound from its vicinity. If they expect to be followed 

 by another party they stick a piece of wood in the 

 ground upon a portage, slanting it in the direction in 

 which they are travelling. Those who find it will 

 know by its degree of inclination whether or not they 

 who planted it are travelling hurriedly or not. If it 

 be in summer, a small bough or piece of a shrub is 

 fastened to the stake, and by the extent to which it 

 has become withered those who find it will know 

 when it was placed there. If a hunter, as very often 

 happens, has to make a detour or remain behind his 

 squaw in search of game, she will occasionally indicate 



