GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 255 



How did these rulers of the wilds, these princes of the fur trade, 

 live in lonely forts and mountain fastnesses ? Visit one of the 

 northern forts as it exists to-day. 



The colder the climate, the finer the fur. The farther north 

 the fort, the more typical it is of the fur trader's realm. 



For six, seven, eight months of the year, the fur trader's world 

 is a white wilderness of snow ; snow water-waved by winds that 

 sweep from the Pole; snow drifted into ramparts round the fort 

 stockades till the highest picket sinks beneath the white flood and 

 the corner bastions are almost submerged and the entrance to the 

 central gate resembles the cutting of a railway tunnel ; snow that 

 billows to the unbroken reaches of the circling sky-line like a white 

 sea. East, frost-mist hides the low horizon in clouds of smoke, 

 for the sun which rises from the east in other climes rises from the 

 south-east here; and until the spring equinox, bringing summer 

 with a flood-tide of thaw, gray darkness hangs in the east like a 

 fog. The sun moves across the snowy levels in a wheel of fire, for 

 it has scarcely risen full sphered above the sky-line before it sinks 

 again, etching drift and tip of half-buried brush in long lonely fading 

 shadows. The west shimmers in warm purplish grays, for the 

 moist Chinook winds come over the mountains melting the snow 

 by magic. North, is the cold steel of ice by day ; and at night 

 Northern Lights darting through the polar dark like burnished 

 spears. 



Christmas day is welcomed at the northern fur post by a firing 

 of cannon from the snow-muffled bastions. Before the stars have 

 faded, chapel services begin. Frequently on either Christmas or 

 New Year's day, a grand feast is given the tawny-skinned habitues 

 of the fort, who come shuffling to the main mess-room with no other 

 announcement than the lifting of the latch, and billet themselves 

 on the hospitality of a host that has never turned hungry Indians 

 from its doors. 



For reasons well known to the woodcraftsman, a sudden lull 

 falls on winter hunting in December, and all the trappers within 



