138 
THE MAINE WOODS. 
into the ground at each end, and then two poles ten feet 
long , were stretched across over the fire, and smaller 
ones laid transversely on these a foot apart. On the 
last hung large, thin slices of moose-meat smoking and 
drying, a space being left open over the centre of the 
fire. There was the whole heart, black as a thirty-two 
pound ball, hanging at one corner. They said, that it 
took three or four days to cure this meat, and it would 
keep a year or more. Refuse pieces lay about on the 
ground in different stages of decay, and some pieces 
also in the fire, half buried and sizzling in the ashes, 
as black and dirty as an old shoe. These last I at first 
thought were thrown away, but afterwards found that 
they were being cooked. Also a tremendous rib-piece 
was roasting before the fire, being impaled on an upright 
stake forced in and out between the ribs. There was a 
moose-hide stretched and curing on poles like ours, and 
quite a pile of cured skins close by. They had killed 
twenty-two moose within two months, but, as they could 
use but very little of the meat, they left the carcasses 
on the ground. Altogether it was about as savage a 
sight as was ever witnessed, and I was carried back at 
once three hundred years. There were many torches 
of birch-bark, shaped like straight tin horns, lying ready 
for use on a stump outside. 
For fear of dirt, we spread our blankets over their 
hides, so as not to touch them anywhere. The St. Fran¬ 
cis Indian and Joe alone were there at first, and we lay 
on our backs talking with them till midnight. They 
were very sociable, and, when they did not talk with us, 
kept up a steady chatting in their own language. We 
heard a small bird just after dark, which, Joe said, sang 
at a certain hour in the night, — at ten o’clock, he 
