eal. But, as he says, they had been three whole days without food.
The Saskatchewan folk, however, known of old as the Gens de
Blaireaux--'The People of the Badger Holes'--were not behind their
congeners. That man of weight and might, our old friend Chief Factor
Belanger, once served out to thirteen men a sack of pemmican weighing
ninety pounds. It was enough for three days; but there and then they
sat down and consumed it all at a single meal, not, it must be added,
without some subsequent and just pangs of indigestion. Mr. B., having
occasion to pass the place of eating, and finding the sack of pemmican,
as he supposed, in his path, gave it a kick; but, to his amazement, it
bounded aloft several feet, and then lit. It was empty! When it is
remembered that in the old buffalo days the daily ration per head at
the Company's prairie posts was eight pounds of fresh meat, which was
all eaten, its equivalent being two pounds of pemmican, the enormity of
this Gargantuan feast may be imagined. But we ourselves were not bad
hands at the trencher. In fact, we were always hungry. So I do not
reproduce the foregoing facts as a reproach, but rather as a meagre
tribute to the prowess of the great of old--the men of unbounded
stomach!"

And yet, strange as it may seem, fat men are seldom seen in the
northern wilderness. That is something movie directors should remember.

Pemmican, though little used nowadays, was formerly the mainstay of the
voyageurs. It was made of the flesh of buffalo, musk-ox, moose,
caribou, wapiti, beaver, rabbit, or ptarmigan; and for ordinary use was
composed of 66 per cent. of dried meat pounded fine to 34 per cent. of
hard fat boiled and strained. A finer quality of pemmican for officers
or travellers was composed of 60 per cent. of dried meat pounded extra
fine and sifted; 33 per cent. of grease taken from marrow bones boiled
and strained; 5 per cent. of dried Saskatoon berries; 2 per cent. of
dried choke cherries, and sugar according to taste. The pounded meat
was placed in a large wooden trough and, being spread out, hot grease
was poured over it and then stirred until thoroughly mixed with the
meat. Then, after first letting it cool somewhat, the whole was packed
into leather bags, and, with the aid of wooden mallets, driven down
into a solid mass, when the bags were sewn up and flattened out and
left to cool; during the cooling precaution was taken to turn the bags
every five minutes to