The Red River Half-Breed by Gustave Aimard

It is commonly in September that the savages "go in for the winter hunt," in the region where our story takes place. These hunts are the more important from the animals' fur being in prime condition, and, of course, fetching a better price at the trading centres. The picked hunters of various Indian nations come into the great northern wilds, and are the more mixed up recently, as the railway pioneers and settlers arrive in too strong force to pay much heed to treaty restrictions. The upshot is, that while a tacit truce is tolerably well maintained, so long as every arrow and bullet is required to make "eatable meat," the view, often the contact of enemies, causes a stray hunter of any race to thread his way as gingerly as a soldier advancing among mines, countermines, and torpedoes. Unless under exceptional circumstances, though, the main bodies do not fall on one another. Personal interest, the only motor, imposes this restraint on their ferocious habits.

In sooth, besides the furs they sell, the red men have to preserve some for garments; moreover, there is the flesh of the prizes to be dried by sun or fire, jerked, or crubbed up with salt, to enable them to pass the rigorous winter so fatal to improvident tribes.