his proposed hunting grounds be remote from a deer country he would take dressed leather for mits and moccasins, parchment deerskin for his snow shoes. Snow shoes, of course, each one of his family must have, and supplying himself with this leather, makes quite a hole in the amount of his debt.

Here again another addition of figures is made; perhaps a few dollars yet remain to complete the agreed upon sum. He and his wife, on the floor of the shop, handle each article they have received, and think their hardest to remember some forgotten necessary article that may have escaped their memory. We also, from long use to the Indian's requirements, come to their assistance and sometimes suggest something quite overlooked, but very necessary.

A further adding up is now made; they have positively all they require for the winter months, and yet a few dollars remain to make up the amount, and then the Indian's weakness shows itself and he says: "Oh! well give sugar and lard for the remainder." Then he and his wife make all the purchases up into one or two blankets; an order on the provision store is given him and his account is made up and given him in the following manner.

They don't generally understand figures, but they all understand that X stands for 10. As the Indian kills his furs, he adds them to his pack in saits often, at the same time scoring out one of the crosses on his debt slip. After all has been cancelled, he then hunts a few more skins to cover any misvaluation on his part, or to have something extra to barter for finery.

After the chief leaves the shop another man and wife are called in according to their standing in the band, and thus it goes on till we reach the last one. Six to eight families are about all we can get thru in a day, as there is so much time wasted in talk.

If we begin on the Monday, we generally see the grand departure take place on the following Saturday. We only import the best of everything and the Indian buying from our stores is assured of the purest provisions and the strongest and most durable goods. This is no boast for where we have no opposition the Indians and our interests are identical, and the company's agent at such posts has the Indians' welfare at heart.

On the frontier we are obliged by other buyers and circumstances over which we have no control to take common out of season skins. As the Indians find sale for skins of any kind, they hunt actually ten months out of the twelve. At our interior posts, where our word is law, we appoint the 25th of October to begin hunting and the 25th of May to finish; except for bears, and these they are allowed to hunt up to the 10th of June. What a sad sight it is for an officer coming from some interior district to a frontier post, where he left well-clothed contented Indians to find those swindled by the unprincipled traders, in rags, drunken and the seeds of consumption marked in their faces.

CHAPTER IV.
TRACKERS OF THE NORTH.

What appears marvelous and positively uncanny to a town person is simple to a bushman.

Years of continuous observation develops the bump of locality, every object has a place and meaning to a trapper; his eye is ever on the alert, and what his eye sees is photographed on the brain and remains there for future reference at any time he may require it.

This bump of locality is highly developed in all Indians and whites who have passed many years in the bush. Without the faculty of remembering objects a bushman could not find his way through the dense forests.

Providing the trapper has once passed from one place to another, he is pretty sure to find his way through the second time, even if years should have elapsed between the trips. Every object from start to finish is an index finger pointing out the right path. A sloping path, a leaning tree, a moss-covered rock, a slight elevation in land, a cut in the hills, the water in a creek, an odd-looking stone, a blasted tree — all help as guides as the observant trapper makes his way through a pathless forest.

Of course, this tax on the memory is not required of trappers about a settled part of the country, but I am telling of what is absolutely necessary for the safety of one's life in the faraway wilds of the North, where to lose one's self might possibly mean death.

I followed an Indian guide once over a trail of 280 miles, whereon we snowshoed over mountains, through dense bush, down rivers and over lakes. To test my powers of a retentive memory, the following winter, when dispatches again had to be taken to headquarters, I asked the Indian to allow me to act as guide, he following.

On that long journey of ten or twelve days, always walking and continually thinking out the road, I was in doubt only once. We were standing on the ice; a tongue of land stood out toward us; a bay on either side. The portage leaving the lake was at the bottom of one of these bays, but which? The Indian had halted almost on the tails of my snowshoes, and enjoyed my hesitation, but said nothing. To be assured of no mistake, I had to pass over the whole of last winter's trip in my mind's eye up to the point on which we stood. Once the retrospect caught up with us, there was no further trouble. Our route was down the left-hand bay.

When the Indian saw me start in that direction, he said: "A-a-ke-pu-ka-tan" ("Yes, yes, you are able").

The most difficult proposition to tackle is a black spruce swamp. The trees are mostly of a uniform size and height, the surface of the snow is perfectly level, and at times our route lies miles through such a country, and should there be a dull leaden sky or a gentle snow falling, there is nothing for the guide to depend on but his ability to walk straight.

It has been written time and again that the tendency when there are no land marks is to walk in a circle.

By constant practice, those who are brought up in the wilds acquire the ability to walk in a straight line. They begin by beating a trail from point to point on some long stretch of ice, and in the bush, where any tree or obstruction bars the way they make up for any deviation from the straight course by a give-and-take process, so that the general line of march is straight.

During forty years in the country, I never knew an Indian or white bushman to carry a compass. Apart from a black spruce swamp, it would be no use whatever.

In going from one place to another, the contour of the country has to be considered, and very frequently the "longest way round is the shortest way home." A ridge of mountains might lay between the place of starting and the objective point, and by making a detour round the spur of same, one would easier reach his destination, rather than to climb up one side and down the other.

On the first day after my arrival in London (the only time I ever crossed the water) a gentleman took me out to see some of the sights. He lived on the Surrey side, and took me direct, or, I should say crooked, into the city across the Thames. After walking me around several blocks and zigzagging considerably about, he came to a sudden stop at a corner. "Now," he said, "Hunter, suppose I was to disappear all at once, do you think you could find your way back to Elm Tree Lodge? I have always heard that you bushmen can find your way anywhere."

Now, although there was no necessity for it, my years of schooling had caused me to observe every conspicuous object, and every turn we had made since leaving his residence; and therefore I replied, with the utmost confidence, "Why, to return to your house from here is as simple as falling off a log."

Looking at me with the greatest incredulity, he said, "If you can find your way back unaided I will