well-made Eskimo outfit of inner and outer suits, with mittens, socks,
and boots, weighs about thirteen pounds, while one imported fur coat of
European deerskin will alone weigh more than that.

A custom noted at the afternoon whale-meets and pink-teas might
fittingly find way into the latitudes where narrow toes and French heels
obtain. Two ingenious young Kogmollyc belles had placed applique pockets
mid-leg on their lower garments. When the walrus was passed round and
conversation became general, the boots were slipped off quietly and one
foot at a time was thrust for a resting spell into the pocket provided
on the opposite trouser-leg. This act of easement was done deftly, and
the neat action of instep boot-jack never lost its fascination for us.

[Illustration: A Wise Man of the Dog-Ribs]

All the way from boundary-line to ice-barrier we had seen Indians
tricked out in grotesque garments borrowed from the white man and used
in combination with their own tribal covering of skins and furs. These
sun-bonnets and shepherd's-plaid trousers, silk hats and red-flannel
petticoats, the trader had persuaded the child of the woods to buy. The
debonair Eskimo is a re-incarnation of the bastard brother of Aragon's
Prince, and, leaning his furry back against the North Pole, says with
him, "I smile at no man's jests, eat when I have stomach and wait for no
man's pleasure, sleep when I am drowsy and tend on no man's business,
laugh when I am merry and claw no man in his humour."

[Illustration: A Study in Expression]

You cannot induce an Eskimo to think he wants anything just because you
have found that thing to your liking. There are two reasons for this.
First, long experience in the most rigorous climate which the human race
inhabits has taught this man what garments are the most suitable for him
in which to live and move and have his being. Second, although the
Indian may ape the white man as a superior being from whom eleemosynary
grub and gew-gaws may be wheedled, the Eskimo of the Mackenzie delta
considers himself to be the superior of every created being. The Eskimo
knows what he wants; he is always sure of it, and there is no
vacillating. When he comes into the H.B. Company's post to trade, skins
are his currency, the pelts of the silver-fox his gold coinage. A good
silver, or black-fox is worth here about one hundred dollars in barter.

We saw a band of Nunatalmutes come into Fort Macpherson to do their
summer sho