THE MUSK-OX HUNT Uj 



In the evening a fire about the size of a cigar-box was kept up 

 long enough to boil a kettle of tea, one cup for each man; we 

 always wanted four! No meat was cooked, for our appetites 

 were soon satisfied with the large sticks of white frozen marrow 

 from the long bones of the musk-ox. 



We usually drank snow water, as soon as snow could be 

 melted, after the camp fire was started. Each individual car- 

 ried a tin plate on which a block of snow was placed and in- 

 clined toward the fire. As the lower side became saturated, 

 we drank the water as from a soggy snowball, and so avoided the 

 cinders and hairs which quickly covered everything about the 

 diminutive fire. Before leaving the woods we had melted snow 

 by fixing large blocks on the ends of poles before the long 

 camp fire; a steady stream soon trickled from the lower end 

 which was trimmed to a point by a few strokes of a knife. 



Throughout the trip we washed our hands and faces daily by 

 melting water in tin plates and squirting it, a la Chinese laun- 

 dryman, upon our hands. The whole party possessed two 

 pieces of soap and one towel. A Dog Rib towel is never 

 washed, its owner's face is often greased and the color of the 

 towel is affected accordingly. 



Throughout the following day the storm continued with in- 

 creased severity, and we were forced to lie in the snow another 

 twenty-four hours. 



My dogs never came inside the lodge at night, but coiled 

 themselves up in the lee of the lodge, where the snow soon 

 drifted over them, giving warmth and shelter. The twelve 

 Indian curs came inside as soon as the last man rolled up in his 

 blanket at night. At first they spent a few minutes fighting over 

 the bones about the fireplace, then they rummaged through 

 everything that was not firmly lashed down. As a dog walked 

 over a prostrate form the muffled "marche!" or "m'nitla!" 

 would quiet them for an instant, when their snarling and snap- 

 ping would break out anew, until some of us would pick up a 

 billet of wood and "pacify them." After we had once fallen 

 into the sleep of exhaustion we were seldom awakened by their 

 fighting over us. In the morning I usually found two or three 

 giddes coiled up in the snow upon my blanket; the heat of their 

 bodies melted the snow, which froze as soon as they left it and 

 made my scanty bedding hard and stiff. 



