174 THE GREAT DENE RACE.

Grounds, the country is more or less heavily timbered, and to the occident
of the Rocky Mountains it becomes perfectly broken and hilly. This naturally
suggests snaring and trapping as the means best calculated to further the
huntsman’s ends. In fact, the intermediate and western Dénés might be regarded
more as trappers than as hunters in the strict acceptation of the word.

By trapper, howewer, I do not mean, with the dictionaries, simply one
whose occupation is the trapping of fur-bearing animals, but any person who
seeks game by means of a mechanical appliance, be this a trap or a snare.
As a matter of fact, the latter device is more generally resorted to than the

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former, even by people who are usually known as trappers. In a preceding
work! | have entered into full details concerning the various modes of sna-
ring animals followed in the west. As these do not materially change with
the different tribes, I must be allowed to refer to that source of information,
limiting myself here to a few figures and as brief explanations as possible,
consistent with intelligibility.

Fig. 26 speaks for itself. The snare therein represented is used in con-
nection with cariboo. The Sékanais and a few other tribes of analogous habi-
tats would set some forty or fifty such snares along the defiles or passes of
their mountains, whither they drove the animals. Two of the most active
hunters were deputed to watch at either end of the line, after which the main

‘ “Notes on the Western Dénés”.