Suppose, on the other hand, your tourist is unfortunate enough to get
left at some North Woods railway station where he has descended from
the transcontinental to stretch his legs, and suppose him to have
happened on a fur-town like Missinaibie at the precise time when the
trappers are in from the wilds. Near the borders of the village he will
come upon a little encampment of conical tepees. At his approach the
women and children will disappear into inner darkness. A dozen
wolf-like dogs will rush out barking. Grave-faced men will respond
silently to his salutation.
These men, he will be interested to observe, wear still the deer or
moose skin moccasin--the lightest and easiest foot-gear for the woods;
bind their long hair with a narrow fillet, and their waists with a red
or striped worsted sash; keep warm under the blanket thickness of a
Hudson Bay capote; and deck their clothes with a variety of barbaric
ornament. He will see about camp weapons whose acquaintance he has made
only in museums, peltries of whose identification he is by no means
sure, and as matters of daily use--snow-shoes, bark canoes, bows and
arrows--what to him have been articles of ornament or curiosity.
To-morrow these people will be gone for another year, carrying with
them the results of the week's barter. Neither he nor his kind will see
them again, unless they too journey far into the Silent Places. But he
has caught a glimpse of the stolid mask of the Woods Indian, concerning
whom officially "nothing" is known.
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