keep out the snow. Cutting off a piece about two feet long, he again
fastened up his shoe, and then, with the string thus secured, began to
make a snare out of it. He first tied one end of the string securely to
the smaller end of the long pole; then in the other end of the string he
made a running slip noose, which he arranged so that it would be about
four inches in diameter. Then began the strangest part of his
proceedings, and one only possible in a land of such intense cold.
Taking his hand out of his mitten, Mustagan wet his fingers with his
saliva and then immediately rubbed it on the deerskin string. As fast
as it was thus wet it froze as stiff as wire, and stood straight out
from the stick. Rapidly did the Indian thus wet the whole string, the
loop of the slip noose included, until the whole stood out as though
made of steel wire. Then, cautioning Sam not to move, Mustagan,
carrying his long pole with this uniquely formed noose on its end, moved
cautiously and quickly under the tree in which the partridges were still
sitting. Carefully he began raising up the pole until it was higher
than the head of the partridge nearest the ground. Then he deftly
brought it so that the noose was directly over the head of the bird.
With a quick jerk he pulled the pole down with the head of the bird in
the noose of the string, which, of course, tightened with the sudden
jerk. Mustagan quickly killed the bird by crushing in the skull. Then,
loosing it from the string, he rapidly went through the whole process
again of moistening the string with his saliva and arranging the noose
as before. In this way he succeeded in securing the whole covey of
those partridges. From his favourable position Sam watched the whole
operation, and was much delighted with the success of the old Indian,
who had in this way, without the loss of one charge of powder, or even
an arrow, secured ten or a dozen fine, plump partridges. On their way
home, in answer to Sam's many questions as to his reasons for adopting
this method of capturing the partridges, the Indian stated that the
secret of his success in getting them all was the fact that he began by
catching in his noose the bird lowest down. "When you do that," he
added, "the birds above think that as those below them go down they are
just flying to the ground to see what they can find to eat. Never take
a bird that is higher up in the tree than any other. If you do you get
no more. T