l never spoil then."

"Alex," ventured Moise, laughing, "you'll talk just like my old woman
about tan hides. Those business is not for mans."

"That's true," said Alex, smiling. "In the old times, when we had
buffalo, the women always tanned the hides. Hard work enough it was,
too, with so heavy and coarse a hide. Now they tan the moose hides.
I'll show you, young gentlemen, lower down this river near the camping
places on the shore spruce-trees cut into three-cornered shape. You
might not know what that was for. It was done so that the women could
rub their moose hides around these angles and corners while they were
making them soft. They make fine moose leather, too--although I
suppose we'd have to wait a good while before we could get Moise to
tan one in that way!"

"What makes them use brains in tanning the hide?" asked Jesse.

"Only for the grease there is in them," said Alex. "It takes some sort
of grease to soften up a hide after it has been dried. The Injuns
always said they could tan a hide with the brains of the animal.
Sometimes in tanning a buffalo hide, however, they would have marrow
and grease and scraps thrown into a kettle with the brains. I think
the main secret of the Injun tanning was the amount of hard work put
in on rubbing the hide. That breaks up the fiber and makes it soft.

"But now, Moise," resumed Alex, getting up and filling his pipe, "I
think it is about time we went down and had a look at those rapids
below the camp. We've got to get through there somehow before long."

"I don't like this water in here at all," said Jesse, looking
troubled. "I could hardly sleep last night on account of the noises it
made--it sounded just like glass was being splintered up under the
water."

"That's gravel, or small rocks, slipping along on the bottom in the
current, I suppose," said Alex, "but after all this is not nearly so
bad a river as the Fraser or the Columbia--you ought to see the old
Columbia in high water! I'm thinking we'd have our own troubles
getting down there in boats as small as these. In a deep river which
is very fast, and which has a rough bottom, all sorts of unaccountable
waves and swells will come up from below, just when you don't expect
them."

"These rapeed in here, she'll been all right," said Moise. "No trouble
to ron heem."

"Well, we'll not take any chances," said Alex, "and we'll in no case
do anything to alarm our young friends."

He turned now, and, followed by