A LABRADOR SPRING 
the white of the snowbanks. On visiting them 
I found a camp well on the way to completion. 
Each was doing his or her part, — chiefly hers. 
The women were gathering balsam boughs and 
thatching them into thick springy beds for 
their wigwams, which were to be erected in 
flat places from which they had first scratched 
away the moss. A man and woman were 
busily engaged in scraping the hair from a seal 
skin, keeping it wet in a pot of water placed 
between them, — the first stage in the manu- 
facture of skin-boots. Children and dogs were 
everywhere, and while the former showed 
timidity and even terror, the latter showed 
belligerency at my approach. The terror dis- 
played by the little Indian children at the sight 
of a stranger was as marked as was the fear- 
lessness and placidity on the part of the infant- 
in-arms under the same circumstances. 
There seemed to be four families, five men 
and five or six women young and old, seven or 
eight girls and boys of all ages, and an infant, 
not to mention numerous Indian dogs and a 
cat. , 
My communications with them were in- 
teresting to me, but not very satisfactory, as I 
154 
