GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 261 



mens of brown Arctic and white Arctic. Against the wolf, the 

 trapper wages war as against a pest that destroys other game, and 

 not for its skin. Next to muskrat the most plentiful fur taken by 

 the Indian, though not highly esteemed by the trader, will be 

 that of the rabbit or varying hare. Buffalo was once the staple of 

 the hunter. What the buffalo was the white rabbit is to-day. 

 From it the Indian gets clothing, tepee covers, blankets, thongs, 

 food. From it the white man who is a manufacturer of furs gets 

 gray fox and chinchilla and seal in imitation. Except one year in 

 seven, when a rabbit plague spares the land by cutting down their 

 prolific numbers, the varying hare is plentiful enough to sustain 

 the Indian. 



Having received so many bits of lead for his furs, the Indian 

 goes to the store counter where begins interminable dickering. 

 Montagnais's squaw has only fifty "beaver" coin, and her desires 

 are a hundredfold what those will buy. Besides, the copper- 

 skinned lady enjoys beating down prices and driving a bargain 

 so well that she would think the clerk a cheat if he asked a fixed 

 price from the first. She expects him to have a sliding scale of 

 prices for his goods as she has for her furs. At the termination 

 of each bargain, so many coins pass across the counter. Frequently 

 an Indian presents himself at the counter without beaver enough to 

 buy necessaries. What then ? I doubt if in all the years of 

 Hudson's Bay Company rule one needy Indian has ever been turned 

 away. The trader advances what the Indian needs and chalks 

 up so many "beaver" against the trapper's next hunt. 



Long ago, when rival traders strove for the furs, whiskey played 

 a disgracefully prominent part in all bartering, the drunk Indian 

 being an easier victim than the sober, and the Indian mad with 

 thirst for liquor the most easily cajoled of all. But to-day, even 

 with competition, whiskey plays no part whatever. Whiskey is 

 in the fort, so is pain killer, for which the Indian has as keen an 

 appetite, both for the exigencies of hazardous life in an unsparing 

 climate beyond medical aid ; but the first thing Hudson's Bay 



