Iron had been quite lately introduced, indirectly obtained from the Russians in Alaska.

Their spears were pointed with barbed bone, and their daggers were made of horn or bone.
Their great club, the _pogamagan_, was made of a reindeer's antler.
Axes were manufactured out of a piece of brown or grey stone, six to eight inches long and two inches thick.

They kindled fire by striking together a piece of iron pyrites and touchwood, and never travelled without a small bag containing such materials.
The Amerindians along the lower Mackenzie had heard vague and terrible legends about the Russians, far, far away on the coast of Alaska; they were represented as beings of gigantic stature, and adorned with wings; which, however, they never employed in flying (possibly the sails of their ships).

They fed on large birds, and killed them with the greatest ease.

They also possessed the extraordinary power of killing with their eyes (no doubt putting up a gun to aim), and they travelled in canoes of very large dimensions.
[Illustration: BIG-HORNED SHEEP OF ROCKY MOUNTAINS] "I engaged one of these Indians," writes Mackenzie, "by a bribe of some beads, to describe the surrounding country upon the sand.