_Files._--Files of all kinds are eagerly sought after by the natives, who use them with very great skill and patience, doing nearly all their metal work with these tools. For instance, one particularly ingenious native converted his Winchester rifle from a rim fire to a central fire with nothing but a file. To do this he had to make a new firing pin, as the firing pin of the rim-fire gun is too short to reach the head of the cartridge. He accomplished this by accurately cutting off, to the proper length, an old worn-out three-cornered file. He then filed off enough of each edge so that the rod fitted evenly in the cylindrical hole where the firing pin works. The work was done so carefully that the new firing pin worked perfectly, and he had only to complete the job by cutting off his central fire cartridge shells to a proper length to fit the chamber of the gun. [Illustration: FIG. 160.--Flint-bladed reamer. 3/4] [Illustration: FIG. 161.--Awl. 3/4] They have almost no knowledge of working metal with the aid of heat, as is natural from the scarcity of fuel. I have, however, seen them roughly temper small articles, such as fire steels, etc., by heating them in the fire and quenching them in cold water. One native very neatly mended a musket barrel which had been cracked by firing too heavy a charge. He cut a section from another old barrel of somewhat larger caliber, which he heated until it had expanded enough to slip down over the crack, and then allowed it to shrink on. [Illustration: FIG. 162.--Jade whetstones. 1/2] _Whetstones_ (ipiksaun).--Knives are generally sharpened with a file, cutting a bevel, as before mentioned, on one face of the blade only. To “set” or “turn” the edge they use pieces of steel of various shapes, generally with a hole drilled in them so that they can be hung to the breeches belt by a lanyard. One man, for instance, used about half of a razor blade for this purpose, and another a small horseshoe magnet. In former times they employed a very elegant implement, consisting of a slender rod of jade from 3 to 7 inches long, with a lanyard attached to an eye in the larger end. These were sometimes made by cutting a piece from one of the old jade adzes in the manner already described. There are a few of these whetstones still in use at the present day, and they are very highly prized. We succeeded in obtaining nine specimens, of which No. 89618 [801], Fig. 162_a_, has been selected as the type. It is of hard black stone, probably jade, 6.3 inches long. Through the wider end is drilled a large eye, into which is neatly spliced one end of a stout flat braid of sinew 4¾ inches long.