258 THE FUR TRADE OF AMERICA 



of Sir George Simpson behind one raconteur'' s head. Ah ! yes, 

 the oldest guides all remember Sir George, though half a century 

 has passed since his day. He was the governor who travelled with 

 flags flying from every prow, and cannon firing when he left the 

 forts, and men drawn up in procession like soldiers guarding an em- 

 peror when he entered the fur posts with coureurs and all the flourish 

 of royal state. Then some story-teller recalls how he has heard 

 the old guides tell of the imperious governor once provoking personal 

 conflict with an equally imperious steersman, who first ducked 

 the governor into a lake they were traversing and then ducked 

 into the lake himself to rescue the governor. 



And there is a crucifix high on the wall left by Pere Lacomb the 

 last time the famous missionary to the red men of the Far North 

 passed this way ; and every Indian calls up some kindness done, 

 some sacrifice by Father Lacomb. On the gun-rack are old mus- 

 kets and Indian masks and scalp-locks, bringing back the days 

 when Russian traders instigated a massacre at this fort and when 

 white traders flew at each other's throats as Nor' Westers struggled 

 with Hudson's Bay for supremacy in the fur trade. 



"Ah, oui, those white men, they were brave fighters, they did 

 not know how to stop. Mais, sacre, they were fools, those white 

 men, after all ! Instead of hiding in ambush to catch the foe, those 

 white men measured off paces, stood up face to face and fired blank 

 — oui — fired blank ! Ugh ! Of course, one fool he was kill' and 

 the other fool, most like, he was wound' ! Ugh, by Gar ! What 

 Indian would have so little sense ?" * 



Of hunting tales, the Indian store is exhaustless. That enor- 

 mous bear-skin stretched to four pegs on the wall brings up Mon- 

 tagnais, the Noseless One, who still lives on Peace River and once 

 slew the largest bear ever killed in the Rockies, returning to this 

 very fort with one hand dragging the enormous skin and the other 

 holding the place which his nose no longer graced. 



1 To the Indian mind the hand-to-hand duels between white traders were incomprehen- 

 sible pieces of folly. 



