rm, sometimes uncomfortably warm, in the rabbit-skin
coats that their mother and their grandmother had made for them. The
rabbit skins were cut into thin, spiral strips and twisted, with the
hair-side out, about thin thongs, and woven together like a
small-meshed fish-net, so that, though the hair overlapped and filled
every mesh completely, one's fingers might be passed through the
garment anywhere. They also made rabbit-skin blankets in the same way;
and of all blankets used in the north woods, none has so many good
qualities. A rabbit-skin blanket is less bulky than that of the
caribou skin; it is warmer than the famous four-point woollen blanket
of the H. B. Co., and not only ventilates better than either of the
others, but it is light to carry. It has the drawback, however, that
unless it is enclosed in a covering of some light material, the hair
gets on everything, for as long as the blanket lasts it sheds rabbit
hair. I have tried many kinds of beds, and many kinds of blankets, and
sleeping bags, too, even the Eskimo sleeping bag of double
skin--hairless sealskin on the outside and hairy caribou skin on the
inside--and many a night I have slept out in the snow when it was fifty
degrees below zero, and experience has taught me that the rabbit skin
blanket is best for winter use in the northern forest. A sleeping bag
that is large enough to get into is too large when you are in it; you
cannot wrap it around you as you can a blanket, therefore it is not so
warm; besides, it is harder to keep a bag free of gathering moisture
than a blanket.

But to return to the children. It used to amuse me to see the boys
returning from their hunts carrying their guns over their shoulders.
The contrast in size between the weapons and the bearers of them was so
great that by comparison the lads looked like Liliputians, yet with all
the dignified air of great hunters they would stalk up to their sisters
and hand them their guns and game bags to be disposed of while they
slipped off their snowshoes, lighted their pipes, and entered the
lodge. By the way, I don't believe I have mentioned that in winter
time the guns are never kept in the lodges, but always put under cover
on the stages, as the heat of the lodges would cause the guns to sweat
and therefore to require constant drying and oiling; and for the same
reason, in winter time, when a hunter is camped for the night, he does
not place his gun near the open fire, but sets i