How all
this could be supported by fur it was difficult to see, but it must
have been so, for there was, as yet, little or no farming amongst the
old "Lakers." It was, of course, a great fur country, and though
the fur-bearing animals were sensibly diminishing, yet the prices
of peltries had risen by competition, whilst supplies had been
correspondingly cheapened. It was a good marten country, and, as this
fur was the fad of fashion, and brought an extravagant price, the
animal, like the beaver, was threatened with extinction, the more so
as the rabbits were then in their period of scarcity.
There were other aspects of Lake life which there is neither
space nor inclination to describe. If some features of "advanced
civilization" had been anticipated there, it was simply another
proof that extremes meet.
Whatever else was hidden, however, there was one thing omnipresent,
namely, the mongrel dog. It was hopeless to explore the origin of an
animal which seemed to draw from all sources, including the wolf and
fox, and whose appetite stopped at nothing, but attacked old shirts,
trousers, dunnage-bags, fry-pans, and even the outfit of a geologist,
to appease the sacred rage of hunger.
It was believed that over a thousand of these dogs, mainly used
in winter to haul fish, surrounded our tent, and when it is said
that an ordinary half-breed family harboured from fifteen to twenty
of the tribe, there is no exaggeration in the estimate.
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