=73. Indian Tools and Snowshoes.=--As the Indians had so little to work with--no iron for knives, nor tools of any kind except flinty stones made sharp and called "hatchets"--it is wonderful how ingenious they were in supplying their personal wants. They kneaded in oil and softened with heat the furry skins of animals, and from these they made excellent garments for winter. From dried deerskins they fashioned a sort of soft serviceable shoe called the "moccasin." This was wrought from a single piece of the leather. It fitted snugly to the foot and was tied with strips of buckskin at the ankle. The danger of starving in the winter when the snow was deep led the Indians to invent the snowshoe. This was made of a light framework of ash, filled with meshes of rawhide, thus presenting a broad surface to the snow. By this contrivance the Indians could travel in winter as easily as in summer. It is said that an Indian upon snowshoes could easily travel forty miles a day. Strangely enough, all the cunning of the white man has never availed to make anything better for such a purpose. =74. Indians as Hunters.=--The Indian contrived ingenious traps for catching bears, moose, and other sorts of game. One of these devices consisted of a long and heavy log, carefully balanced upon a post placed upright in the ground, with a log attached to one end of it. The roving animal would approach, and by jumping attempt to get the bait that was so attractive. The movement would cause the log to fall, and thus, perhaps, the creature would be killed. Fish were killed by shooting them with the arrow as they swam; or they were caught with hooks of bone, or taken in rivers by means of a weir, or brush fence, fixed across the stream. Sometimes they were taken in nets woven from the bark of the elm, and in traps of wickerwork not unlike the lobster pots now in use. The Indians had a remarkable faculty, resembling that of the ventriloquist, whereby they could imitate the voices of woodland creatures--the hoot of the owl, the cry of the wild turkey, the howl of the wolf. By this means they could readily attract animals of various species to a spot where they might easily kill them. Even hostile Indians out searching for game were in this manner sometimes allured to the place of danger.