254 
SABLE. 
3 
After this commendable ceremony is concluded,* 
they penetrate into the woods, marking the trees as 
they advance, that they may know their way back ; 
and in their hunting quarters form huts of trees, and 
bank up the snow round them. Here they begin 
by laying some of their traps ; they afterwards ad- 
vance further and lay more traps, still building new 
huts in every quarter, and return successively to 
every old one, to see what luck they have had, and 
to take out the game they have caught, and skin it ; 
which none but the chief of the party must do. 
While they are employed in this cold and uncom- 
fortable business, they are provided with provisions 
by persons who are appointed to bring it on sledges, 
from different places on the road, where magazines 
are formed for their use ; as it would be impossible 
to convey large quantities of provisions at a time 
through the country the hunters are destined to 
penetrate, and at that inclement season of the year. 
The common trap used by these people is a sort of 
pit-fall, with a loose board placed over it, baited 
with fish or flesh. When sables are scarce, the 
hunters have recourse to nets, and follow their tracks 
in the new fallen snow till they discover their holes, 
place their nets at the entrance, and sometimes wait 
watching two or three days for the coming out of 
the animal. We are told that these poor people 
have sometimes been so pinched with hunger, by 
the failure of their provisions, that they have been 
reduced to take two thin boards, one of which they 
apply to the pit of the stomach, the other to the 
