A Wood-Indian "Trade".

"From the latter part of October, when the hunters and trappers take advances for the winter's hunt, to the latter part of March, when the season's catch of fur begins slowly to come in, but few indications of life are visible about the isolated trading-posts of the company scattered throughout the Fur Land. Through the deep snow, drifted within the stockades in fantastic outlines, narrow paths are cut. Occasionally a shivering figure hurries from one building to another, but for the most part they are deserted; and, except for the light smoke curling from the chimney-tops, one might fancy the small collection of houses but a series of snowdrifts, shaped by the shifting winds into a weird but transient likeness to human habitation. As the spring approaches, however, the hibernal torpor which has influenced a large portion of the trading population, gives way to the active life generated by the vigorous prosecution of the fur trade.

Toward the latter end of March, or the beginning of April, the Indian trappers leave their hunting grounds and make a journey to the fort with the produce of their winter's toil. Here they come, marching through the forest, a motley throng; not men only, but women and children and dogs, of all ages and conditions; each dragging sleds, or hand-tobogans, bearing the precious freight of fur to the trading post. The Braves march in front, too proud and too lazy to carry anything but their guns, and not always doing even that. After they come to the squaws, bending under loads, driving dogs, or hauling hand-sleds laden with meat, furs, tanned deer-skins, and infants. The puppy dog and the inevitable baby never fail in Indian Lodge or Cortege. The cheering spectacle of the two, packed together on the back of a woman, is not of infrequent occurrence; for in the Fur Land wretched woman often bears man's burden of toil as well as her own. The unwilling dog also becomes a victim, and degenerates into a beast of burden, either drawing a sledge, or a loaded travaille.

Fifty or one hundred miles away from the nearest fort the mink and marten of the Indian trappers have been captured. Half a dozen families have, perhaps, wintered together, and they all set out for the fort in company. The dogs and women are heavily laden, and the march through the melting snow is slow and toilsome. All the household goods have to be taken along. The black and battered kettles, the leather lodge, the axe, the papoose strapped in its moss bag, the two puppy dogs not yet able to care for themselves, the snowshoes for hunting, the rush mats, the dried meat; all together it makes a big load, and squaw and dog toil along with difficulty under it. Day after day the mongrel party journeys on, until the post is reached. Then comes the trade.

The trapping or wood Indian not being considered a dangerous customer, the gates of the post are freely thrown open to him. Accompanied by his female following, bearing the burden of fur, he marches boldly into the trading-room. Here the trader receives him and proceeds at once to separate his furs into lots, placing the standard valuation upon each pile. The company has one fixed, invariable price for all goods in each district, and there is no deviation from the schedule. Any Indian to whom particular favour is meant receives a suitable present, but neither gets more for his furs nor pays less for his supplies than the tariff directs. In the southern portion of the territory, which forms the great battleground between the company and free traders, the Indians receive many presents to keep them true to their allegiance. Especially is this true with the most expert trappers, who often get articles to the value of fifty or sixty skins (upwards of $35 in value), and the ordinary hunters receive large presents also. In the North, however, where the company is all-powerful, and rules its subjects with a mild and equitable sway, presents are only made in exceptional cases. The company reserves a very narrow margin of profit, so narrow, indeed, that on certain staple articles, there is an absolute loss. In the Missouri country, some years ago, when several rival companies existed, the selling price of goods, as compared to their cost price, was about six times greater than that fixed by the Hudson's Bay Company's general tariff.

And yet their total profits are so enormous that it has been deemed advisable, from time to time, to hide the truth by nominal additions to the capital stock. Of two hundred and sixty-eight proprietors there were, in July 1858, one hundred and ninety-six who had purchased at two hundred and twenty to two hundred and forty percent. In the hostilities between the French and English from 1682 to 1688 they lost 118,014 pounds in 1814, yet in 1864 a dividend of fifty percent, and in 1869 one of twenty-five percent, were paid. The capture of fortresses by the French at intervals between 1662 and 1697 cost them 97,000 pounds. Yet soon after the peace of Utrecht, they had trebled their capital, with a call of only ten percent on the stockholders. No wonder that in those days, and for long after, a Hudson's Bay share was never long in the market.

For a very evident reason of the goose and golden eggs, the price paid for furs is not in strict accordance with their intrinsic value. If it was, all the valuable fur-bearing animals would soon become extinct, as no Indian would bother himself to trap cheap fur when a high-priced one remained alive. The hunter may, in the remote northern regions, have to pay five silver-fox skins for his pair of three-point blankets, worth there about fifteen dollars, the value of the skins paid representing two hundred dollars; but he can, if he likes, buy the same article by paying for it in muskrat red fox, or skunk skins of inferior worth. In the early days of the trade, before the transportation facilities were as perfect as now, the price of merchandise far exceeded that of the present time.

We have been credibly informed that when Fort Dunvegan, on Peace River, near the Rocky Mountains, was first established, the regular price of a trade musket was Rocky Mountain sables piled up on each side of it until they were level with the muzzle. The sables were worth in England at least fifteen dollars apiece, and the musket cost in all not more than five dollars. The price of a six-shilling blanket was in a like manner thirteen beavers of the best quality and twenty of a less excellent description. At that time beaver were worth eight dollars a pound, and a good beaver would weigh from one to one and three-quarter pounds. Gradually the Indians began to know better the value of a musket and their furs and to object most decidedly to the one being piled alongside the other, which, report goes, was lengthened every year by two inches. Finally, a pestilent fellow discovered silk as a substitute for the napping of beaver hats, and that branch of the trade declined.

Lest an erroneous impression of the profit made on the trade musket by the company may be gained, however, it may be well to state that because the flint-gun and the sable possess so widely different values in the world's markets, it does not necessarily follow that they should also possess the same relative values in the Fur Land. Seven years often elapse after the trade musket leaves the company's warehouses in London before it returns to the same place in the shape of a sable. It leaves England in the company's ship in June, and for one year lies within the walls of York Factory, on Hudson's Bay; one year later it reaches Red River; twelve months later again it reaches Fort Simpson, on the Mackenzie River; there it is turned into sable within the year, and returns to London in three years, following the same route over which it came. That old rough flint gun, whose bent barrel the Indian hunter will often straighten between the limbs of a tree or in the cleft of a rock, has been made precious by the long labour of many men; by the trackless wastes through which it has been carried; by the winter famine of those persons who have to sell it; and by the years which elapse between its departure from the workshop, and the return of the skin of sable or, silver fox for which it was bartered.

It is a mistake also to suppose that spirits are supplied in large quantities from the company's stores. In the Northern districts, spirits are not allowed to enter the country; and in no case are they a medium of traffic for furs; though in the Southern districts, rum is sometimes exchanged for provisions when they cannot be got on other terms. It is only when the Indian is in communication with free traders that he becomes a regular drunkard; those who deal with the company confine themselves, or rather are confined, to a small quantity twice a year; the first when they receive their supplies before the hunting season, the second when they return with the product of the chase. Even this custom obtains only with the Plain-Indians and is being gradually abolished.

The trader, having separated the furs, and valued each at the standard valuation, now adds the amount together and informs the Indian who has been a deeply interested spectator of all this strange procedure that he has got sixty or seventy * "skins." At the same time, he hands his customer sixty or seventy little bits of wood, to represent the number of skins; so that the latter may know, by returning these in payment of the goods for which he barters his furs, how fast his funds decrease.

The first act of the Indians was to cancel the debt of last year. This is for advances made him at the beginning of the season; for the company generally issues to the Indians such goods as they need, up to a certain amount, when the summer supplies arrive at the forts, such advances to be returned in furs at the end of the season.

After that, he looks around at the bales of cloth, guns, blankets, knives, beads, ribbons, etc., which constitute the staples of the trade, and after a long while, concludes to have a small white capote. The trader tells him the price, but he has a great deal of difficulty in understanding that eight or ten skins only equal one capote. He believes in the single standard of values one skin for one capote. If an Indian were to bring in a hundred skins of different sorts, or all alike, he would trade off every one separately, and insist on payment for each, as he sold it. It is a curious and interesting sight to watch him selecting from the store articles that he may require, as he disposes of skin after skin. If he has only a small number, he walks into the shop with his blanket about him, and not a skin visible. After some preliminary skirmishing he produces one from under his blanket, trades it, taking in exchange what he needs; then he stops. Just as one thinks the trading is over, he produces another peltry from beneath his blanket and buys something else. Thus he goes on until, having bought all the necessaries he requires, he branches off into the purchase of luxuries candy, fancy neckties, etc. Under so slow a process an Indian trader needs to possess more than average patience.

When the little white capote has been handed to the Indian, the trader tells him the price is ten skins. The purchaser hands back ten little pieces of wood, then looks about for something else; his squaw standing at his elbow, and suggesting such things as they need. Everything is carefully examined, and with each purchase, the contest over the apparent inequality between the amount received for that given is renewed. With him, one skin should pay for one article of merchandise, no matter what the value of the latter. He insists also upon selecting the skin. Like his savage brethren of the prairies, too, he has never solved the conundrum of the steelyard and weighing balance he does not understand what "medicine" that is. That his tea and sugar should be balanced against a bit of iron conveys no idea of the relative values of peltries and merchandise to him. He insists upon making the balance swing even between the trader's goods and his furs until a new light is thrown upon the question of steelyards and scales by the acceptance of his proposition. Then, when he finds his fine furs balanced against heavy blankets and balls, he concludes to abide by the old method of letting the white trader decide the weight in his way; for it is clear that the steelyard is a very great medicine, which no brave can understand, and which can only be manipulated by a white medicine man.

The white medicine man was, in the fur trade of fifty years ago, a terrible demon in the eyes of the Indian. His power was unlimited and reached far out upon the plains. He possessed medicines of the very highest order: his heart could sing, demons sprang from the light of his candle, and he had a little box stronger than the strongest Indian. When the savage Plain tribes proved refractory around the company's trading posts, the trader in charge would wind up his music box, get his magic lantern ready, and take out his galvanic battery. Placing the handle of the latter instrument in the grasp of some stalwart chief, he would administer a terrific shock to his person, and warn him that far out upon the plains he could inflict the same medicine upon him. If the doughty chieftain proved penitent and tractable thereafter, the spring of the music box, concealed under his coat, would be touched, and, lo! the heart of the white trader would sing with the strength of his love for the Indian. "Look," he would say, "how my heart beats for you!" and the bewildered savage would stalk away in doubt of his own identity. If the red man made medicine to his Manitou and danced before all his gods, the white medicine man would paint gibbering demons on the skins of his lodge, and send fiery goblins riding through the midnight air, until, in sheer terror, the superstitious savage hid his painted face in the dank grasses of the prairie.

When the Indian trapper has paid his debt and purchased all needful supplies, if he has any skins remaining, he turns his attention to the luxuries of life. The luxuries of life with this painted child of the forest and stream consist of fancy neckties, coloured beads, cotton handkerchiefs, red and yellow ochre, and cheap and tawdry jewelry. For articles such as these, he hands over his remaining chips, amid childlike manifestations of delight on the part of his expectant squaw. Then he turns his attention to the last, and, to him, a most important feature of the trade, that of getting into debt again; for a great majority of the Indian and half-breed trappers and hunters live in a state of serfdom, or peonage, to the company. Indeed, it may be said that every man, woman and child living in the Fur Land contributes to the revenue of that corporation; and also that the company feeds, clothes, and wholly maintains nine-tenths of the entire population; nearly all classes being more or less engaged in the fur-trade, and bartering their produce at the many posts scattered over the country. Like the Mexican or Brazilian peon, the Indian trapper is so constantly, and, for him, largely in debt to the fur trade, as to be practically its servant. Twice during the year, perhaps, he is free from debt and his own master; but such freedom is only of momentary duration, continuing but for such time as he can get into debt again. The trapper seems ill at ease when free from pecuniary obligation, and plunges into it with a facility and to an extent only limited by his ability to contract it. By this system of advances, the company rules its vast territories and is as much a monarch of the frozen latitudes as Crusoe was monarch of his island. The continuance of this system has been caused by the necessities of the hunters and trappers; and by the fact that the company, like the wise corporation that it is, does not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs, but carefully cares for the game and the hunters on its vast preserves.

Contrary to the general rule in civilized life, a debt is seldom lost, except in the event of the death of the trapper. He may change his place of abode hundreds of miles, but he still has only a company's post at which to trade, and it is impossible for him to conceal his identity so as not to be found out sooner or later. But the trapper seldom attempts to evade the payment of his debts; he is not yet civilized to that degree which practices rehypothecation. The company has always been a good friend to him and he supplied his necessities, ministered to his wants, and paid when he could. He knows that when he liquidates his old debt, he can contract a new one just as big. He knows, too, that when the company promise him anything he will get it; and that he will always pay just so much for his goods and no more. No attempt was ever made to cheat him, and there never will be. When he is ill, he goes to the nearest fort and is cared for and attended until he recovers. When he does his duty well, he gets a present; and he never performs any labour for his employers without receiving fair compensation. Such humane treatment binds the Indian and half-breed to the company in a bond that is not easily broken. So, when he has spent all his little pieces of wood and asks for further advances, he is allowed to draw any reasonable amount. Carefully looking over the purchases already made, counting up his supply of ammunition, clothing, gew-gaws, etc., he concludes to take more tea and tobacco; for the trapper is a very Asiatic in his love of soothing stimulants.

The consumption of tea in the Fur Land is enormous, the annual importation for one department alone (the Northern) amounting to over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds. The tea used is nearly all of the black varieties and commands a price ranging from two to three shillings sterling per pound. In every half-breed's hut and Indian lodge, the teakettle is always boiling. Unlike the Asiatic, who drinks his tea from a glass tumbler, with sugar and a slice of lemon to give it flavor, the native of the Fur Land takes his Confucian beverage undiluted from any vessel that may come handiest; though preferring the black and battered cup in which it has been brewed. He likes it, too, as near the boiling point as can be reached, and as strong as can be made; though he will take it at any temperature, and of any degree of strength, rather than not get it at all. He drinks enormous quantities of it at his meals, until, like Mr. Weller's girl, he swells visibly before your very eyes; gets up in the night, time after time, and drinks it cold; carries it with him in his weary journeys over the plains, and halts at every available pine thicket to build a fire and put his kettle on. Meet a party of Wood Indians anywhere and after the handshake and inevitable "How! "comes the mystic word" the. "A very little suffices to make them happy, and wrapping it carefully in their blankets, they run to the nearest timber and start a fire. When the half-breed buys tea at the trading store, he never permits the officious clerk to wrap it in paper, but purchases a new handkerchief, or a square of white cotton, to put it in. He cherishes a vague and misty idea that brown paper absorbs the aroma of his tea and lessens its strength. Besides, the cotton handkerchief becomes aromatic from its savoury contents, and consequently more valuable.

Nearly on par with the consumption of tea in the country ranks that of tobacco. The company's annual importation for the Northern department alone amounts to over seventy-five thousand pounds. It comes, for the most part, in the shape of manufactured plugs, small black "tens," composed of equal parts of molasses, tobacco, copperas, and other ingredients for the aboriginal and his blood relations, and the large, flat, natural-leaf cavendish for the whites. The amount of smoking going on seems at first incredible to the newcomer. Everybody "puffs a cloud," and goes prepared with all the paraphernalia of a smoker. The native carries a fire bag a long leather bag, containing pipe, tobacco, knife, flint and steel, and harougc, the inner bark of the grey willow. He mixes an equal quantity of the Indian weed with the willow bark and smokes it from choice and economy. The compound has a rather pungent, aromatic odour, not unlike that produced by smoking cascarilla bark. The Indians also mingle with their tobacco an equal amount of a small species of sage, common on the prairie, instead of the willow bark. Its continued use, however, is productive of certain irritable diseases of the throat and cellular tissues of the lungs, and finally of consumption. The dry, hacking cough, common among Indians, is said to be one of the primary results of its use.

The purchase of such soothing solace terminates the trade of the Indian trapper. After going into debt to the extent of his ability, he wends his way to the forest again. The furs he has traded are thrown carelessly behind the counter, to be afterward carried to the fur room. In the early spring, when the snow is gone from the plains, and the ice has left the rivers, the workmen at the trading post begin to pack all the fur skins in bales of from eighty to one hundred pounds each, that being the usual weight of each package goods, or furs in the company's trade. The outer covering is buffalo skin or rawhide; loops are made to each package to sling it on the pack saddles if the pack is sent from an inland post; the pack saddles are repaired and thongs are cut to fasten the bales onto the horses. The company's horses of which each fort has its complement that has wintered in some sheltered valley, under the care of Indians, are now brought to the post; the packs are tied on, and the train starts for the depot or chief fort of the district, situated always on the banks of some navigable stream. This is calling fitting out a brigade and forms the grand event of Fort Life being looked forward to by the men as a boy anticipates his holidays. Arrived at the depot, the bales are handed over, and goods for the ensuing year are received in return. A fire-bag.

It generally occurs that several brigades meet at the depot simultaneously. In this event the spectacle presented is quaint and singular: the wild looks, long unkempt hair, sunburnt faces and leather costumes of the traders are only exceeded by the still wilder appearance and absence of clothing among their Indian attendants. So long as the brigades remain the scene is one continuous festivity, eating, drinking and quarrelling. When the brigades depart, the furs are all sorted and repacked, and pressed into bales by an enormous lever rum and tobacco being placed between the layers of skins to keep out the insects and moths. They are then shipped by slow stages to the nearest seaport and eventually sold at a public auction in London. It is estimated that the total worth of the furs collected by the Hudson's Bay Company alone since its organization represents a monetary value of $120,000,000 in gold. Still, strange to say, that owing to the careful preservation of the game by the company, the average yearly catch is not sensibly decreasing.

It may not be uninteresting in this connection to give a brief sketch of the various furs traded by the company, and the average number of each species annually exported from its territories.*

The first in point of value is the pine marten, or Hudson's Bay sable, of which about 120,000 skins, on average, are exported every year. The martens, or sables from this region are not considered as valuable furs as the sables of Russia. Although there is no doubt that the varieties are in reality the same species; the difference in temperature, and other local causes, readily account for the better quality of the Russian fur. The difference between the two is not always discernible, the lighter-coloured skins being usually dyed and sold as Russian sable. The winter fur is the most valuable, and the Indian trappers say the first fall of rain after the snow disappears, spoils the marten. When caught the animal is skinned like a rabbit, the peltry being inverted as it is removed, then drawn over a flat board, and dried in the sun. The animals haunt the pine forests, especially where fallen or dead timber abounds, and are mostly caught in the style of trap known as the dead-fall. A good marten skin is worth in trade from two and a half to three dollars. The best skins come from the far North, being darker and finer-furred than others.

The fisher is much like the pine marten, but larger. Just why he is called a fisher we cannot imagine, as he does not catch fish, or go near the water except when compelled to swim a stream. He climbs readily but is trapped like the marten. The tail is very long and bushy, and at one time a large trade was carried on in them, only the tails being worn by the Polish Jew merchants. About twelve thousand are annually exported from the territory. The average trade price is from two and a half to three dollars. The fisher in full winter coat makes a finer suit of furs than the sable.

The mink is vastly inferior to either fisher or marten in the quality of fur, and its habits are entirely different. It frequents streams and water-courses and feeds upon fish, crabs, etc. The Indian hunter catches it with a steel trap, baited generally with fish. The trade price is about fifty cents a skin. About 250,000 skins are exported, the majority of which ultimately go to the continent of Europe.

The raccoon is widely scattered over the territories of the company, with about 520,000 skins being purchased and exported every year. The raccoons are generally shot, but a few are taken in steel traps. The fur is not very valuable, being principally used in making carriage rugs and inlining inferior cloaks and coats.

The most valuable fur traded by the company is that of the black and silver foxes. There are three species of fox found in the territory, the black or cross, the silver and the red fox. The two former are considered to be only varieties of the latter; as in any large collection of skins every intermediate tint of colour, changing by regular gradations from the red into the cross and from the cross into the silver and black, may be found, rendering it difficult even for the trader to decide to which of the varieties a skin belongs. The Indians also assert that cubs of the three varieties are constantly seen in the same litter. The silver and cross fox skins bring from $0 to $50 each; the red fox is only worth about five to eight shillings. About 50,000 red foxes, 4,500 cross, and 1,000 silver are annually exported. The silver fox fur is almost entirely sold to Chinese and Russian dealers.

To illustrate the difference in the trade in beaver now as compared with what it was before the introduction of silk in the napping of hats, we may mention that in 1743, the company sold in England 26,750 skins, and more than 127,000 were exported and sold at Rochelle, in France. In 1788 Canada alone supplied 176,000, and in 1808 again 126,927 skins. About 60,000 are now brought annually from the company's territories. So much was this fur in demand before the introduction of silk and rabbits' fur that the poor little rodent in some districts is entirely exterminated. The principal use made of the fur now is in the manufacture of bonnets in France, and in making cloaks. The long hair is pulled out, and the underfur shaved down close and even by a machine; some of it is still felted into a kind of cloth. The beaver is a very difficult animal to trap, but is, nevertheless, rapidly disappearing from the great fur preserves of the North. The muskrat is similar in many of its habits to the beaver. Indeed, some of the species build their houses precisely as the beaver does. The hunters generally spear them through the walls and roofs of their dwellings. The annual destruction of these little animals, though immense, with many hundreds of thousands being yearly exported, does not serve greatly to diminish their numbers. The fur is of very little value, being used in the coarsest manufactures. Large bundles of the tails of the muskrat are constantly exposed for sale in the bazaars of Constantinople as articles for perfuming clothing.

The lynx, or wildcat is found in considerable numbers throughout the territory. Its fur, however, though prettily marked, is not of much value. Of wolf skins about fifteen thousand are annually exported, and of the land otter about seventeen thousand skins are often procured. The fur of the sea otter, though the most valuable fur traded, is very difficult to obtain. The animal ranges along the seacoast between California and Alaska and appears to be a connecting link between the true seal and the land otter. It is generally caught in nets, or speared by the Indians in the sea. Nearly all the sea otter fur goes to China, and good skin is worth about $200.

The coarse fur of the wolverine or American glutton is used mostly in the manufacture of muffs and linings and is of comparatively little value. Only a small exportation, about twelve hundred skins yearly is made by the company. Some years ago the caprices of fashion introduced the fur of the skunk into popular use, and for a few seasons, the traffic in that odorous peltry was enormous. Now, however, its use is almost wholly abandoned, and only about a thousand skins are yearly collected. The Indians generally shoot the skunk and always skin it underwater.

The skin of the bear, black, brown, and grizzly is always in demand and is used for innumerable purposes. The number of bears killed annually is not easily determined, but, at a safe average, it may be estimated at 9,000. The greater part are killed in winter, during their period of hibernation. An immense business is also carried on in rabbit fur. Besides the hundreds of thousands of rabbit skins exported by the company, there are sold annually in London about 1,300,000 skins which are used in the fur trade. The natives of the territory manufacture large quantities of these skins into bed quilts, the pelts being cut into strips and braided into thick braids, which are then sewed together and covered with cloth, making a quilt unsurpassed for warmth.

An immense annual export, which cannot properly come under the head of fur, is made by the company in the shape of buffalo robes. In the autumn of 1870 the line of forts along the Saskatchewan River, in the Plain country, had traded 30,000 robes before the first of January; and for everyone traded fully as many more in the shape of skins of parchment had been purchased, or consumed in the thousand wants of savage life. The number of buffaloes annually killed in the territory seems incredible; 12,000 are said to fall by the Blackfeet alone. It is only during a part of the winter that the coat is "prime," as the phrase is. Before the first of November, the hair is not long enough to make a marketable robe. After the middle of January, it gets ragged, and its rich black-brown is bleached by the weather to the colour of dirty snow, especially along the animal's back. During the summer months, the hair is, very short, and frequently rubbed entirely off in many places, from the animal's habit of wallowing in the mud. The robe of commerce is generally taken from cows, and sometimes from young bulls, but never from old bulls, whose hides are much too thick and heavy. In the winter months the latter are covered all over with thick, long and curly fur; a mane of light-brown hair and fur, like that of a lion, only larger, envelopes his neck; a long glossy dew-lap, hanging from his chin like a deep fringe, sweeps the ground; which, with his savage-looking muzzle, and prominent black eyes flashing between the tangled locks of his hair, give him altogether a most ferocious appearance. In reality, however, he is a very timid animal, and it is only when he imagines himself unable to escape that he becomes desperate, and therefore dangerous from his immense strength.

We have been struck more than once with the resemblance of old bulls to lions, as we have seen them standing apart on the low ridges and sandy knolls, eying one from afar with an air of savage watchfulness, each neck crested with a luxuriant mane, swelled into greater largeness by the hump beneath it, each short, tufted tail held straight out from the body in bold and lion-like defiance. The full-grown bull is immensely shaggy, especially about the head, which is covered with so vast a quantity of fur, wool and long hair hanging down over its eyes, and almost concealing the horns, as to give it the appearance of being nearly one-third the size of the whole body. Such an outline, seen relieved against the night sky, as one lies in a cheerless bivouac upon the plains, is not calculated to inspire a feeling of safety.

Most buffalo robes are found to have been split down the middle and sewed up again, the object of the process is to lighten the labour of dressing the skin. The Indian women dress in all the robes, and few of them can prepare a complete hide without assistance. Some Indians, when asked why they have married more than one wife, will answer that each wife requires another to help her in dressing robes; and the more wives one possesses the more skins he can bring to market.

The hides are brought in from the hunt just as they are taken from the animals, and given to the women, who stretch them upon a rude framework of poles and flesh them with iron, or bone scrapers. They are then slowly dried, and during this process, various things are applied to render them pliable.

The final work is painting the inside with pigments, labour bestowed only upon unusually fine skins. We have seen some robes thus ornamented that were beautiful specimens of Indian decorative art. The designs used in most instances are of the calendar style. The intention seems to be to keep a record of certain years on the buffalo robe with some symbol representing an event that took place in that year. The events selected are not always the most important of the year, but such as were, in some sense, the most striking, and could be best represented by symbols. For example, stars falling from the top to the bottom of the robe represent the year 1833, an event from which the Indians frequently count. The etching of an Indian with a broken leg and a horn on his head stands for a year in which Mr. Hay-waujina One Horn, had his leg "killed," and so on. The symbols are placed in a spiral form, beginning in the centre, and going a little to the left; the line then turns on itself to the right and below, and so on, turning with the sun. These designs are copied many times, of course, so that in a pack of painted robes, nine-tenths of them will be decorated in the same manner.

The work of dressing a buffalo skin perfectly is a very tedious process, and one squaw is only considered capable of preparing ten robes for the market during the year. To the savage with any sort of an eye to business, this fact alone would be a sufficient incentive to polygamy on the most extended scale.

The best robes are always reserved by the Indians and half-breeds for their use, and some of them are marvels of beauty and finish. We have seen buffalo skins tanned to a degree of softness that would rival the finest cloths. The trader, for the most part, gets only second-rate robes and the refuse of the hunt. The Indian loves the buffalo and delights in ornamenting his beautiful skin. The animal is his only friend, and small wonder he calls it so. It supplies every want from infancy to old age; wrapped in his buffalo robe, the red man waits for the coming dawn.

The catalogue of quadrupeds in the company's territory embraces ninety-four different animals, but we have noticed the principal ones to whose fur the corporation confines its trade. There is a small traffic done in the robes of the musk-ox, and the furs of the ermine, siffloe, fitch, squirrel and chinchilla, but it is insignificant compared to the staples of the trade.