ey simply went about stalking their fellow Indians with as much
industry as if they were hunting animals. "These prowling ogres caused
such terror that to sight the track of one of them was sufficient to
make twenty families decamp in all the speed of their terror"
(Alexander Henry). It was deemed useless to attempt any resistance
when these monsters were coming to kill and eat. The people would even
make them presents of clothes and provisions to allow them and their
children to live. There were women cannibals as well as men (see p.
171).

As the greater part of their food came from the chase, and their only
articles of commerce likewise, they devoted themselves more entirely
to hunting and fishing than to any other pursuit. The women did most
of the fishing (and all the skin-curing for the fur market and for
their own dress), while the men pursued with weapons the beasts of the
chase, trapped them in pitfalls or snares, or drove them into "pounds"
(excavated enclosures).

Illustrating the wonderful sagacity of the Amerindians as game
trackers, Alexander Henry the Elder tells the following story in the
autumn of 1799:--

"We had not gone far from the house before we fell upon the fresh
tracks of some red deer (wapiti), and soon after discovered the herd
in a thicket of willows and poplars; we both fired, and the deer
disappeared in different directions. We pursued them, but to no
purpose, as the country was unfavourable. We then returned to the spot
where we had fired, as the Indian suspected that we had wounded some
of them. We searched to see if we could find any blood; on my part, I
could find tracks, but no blood. The Indian soon called out, and I
went to him, but could see no blood, nor any sign that an animal had
been wounded. However, he pointed out the track of a large buck among
the many others, and told me that from the manner in which this buck
had started off he was certain the animal had been wounded. As the
ground was beaten in every direction by animals, it was only after a
tedious search that we found where the buck had struck off. But no
blood was seen until, passing through a thicket of willows, he
observed a drop upon a leaf, and next a little more. He then began to
examine more strictly, to find out in what part of the body the
animal had been wounded; and, judging by the height and other signs,
he told me the wound must have been somewhere between the shoulder and
neck. We advanced about a mil