Some said it was only 350
pounds, but none made it less. As George is only three-quarters
white, this is perhaps not a case in point. But during our stay
at Fort Smith we had several athletic meets of Indians and whites,
the latter represented by Preble and the police boys, and no matter
whether in running, walking, high jumping, broad jumping, wrestling,
or boxing, the whites were ahead.
As rifle-shots, also, the natives seem far inferior. In the matter
of moose-hunting only, as already noted, the red-man was master.
This, of course, is a matter of life-long training. A white man
brought up to it would probably do as well as an Indian even in
this very Indian department.
These tribes are still in the hunting and fishing stage; they make
no pretence of agriculture or stockraising. Except that they wear
white man's clothes and are most of them nominally Roman Catholics,
they live as their fathers did 100 years ago. But there is one
remarkable circumstance that impressed me more and more - practically
every Chipewyan reads and writes his own language.
This miracle was inborn on me slowly. On the first Buffalo hunt we
had found a smoothened pole stuck in the ground by the trail.
