GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 263 



the skin for which the Louis of France used to pay, in modern 

 money, from a hundred dollars to a hundred and fifty dollars. The 

 full-grown ermines will be worth only some few "beaver" at the 

 fort. Perfect fur would be marred by the twine snare, so the 

 trapper devises as cunning a death for the ermine as the ermine 

 devises when it darts up through the snow with its spear-teeth 

 clutched in the throat of a poor rabbit. Smearing his hunting- 

 knife with grease, he lays it across the track. The little ermine 

 comes trotting in dots and dashes and gallops and dives to the knife. 

 It smells the grease, and all the curiosity which has been teaching 

 it to forage for food since it was born urges it to put out its tongue 

 and taste. That greasy smell of meat it knows ; but that frost- 

 silvered bit of steel is something new. The knife is frosted like 

 ice. Ice the ermine has licked, so he licks the knife. But alas 

 for the resemblance between ice and steel ! Ice turns to water 

 under the warm tongue ; steel turns to fire that blisters and holds 

 the foolish little stoat by his inquisitive tongue a hopeless prisoner 

 till the trapper comes. And lest marauding wolverine or lynx 

 should come first and gobble up priceless ermine, the trapper comes 

 soon. And that is the end for the ermine. 



Before settlers invaded the valley of the Saskatchewan the 

 furs taken at a leading fort would amount to : 



Bear of all varieties .... 400 



Ermine, medium 200 



Blue fox 4 



Red fox 91 



Silver fox 3 



Marten 2,000 



Muskrat 200,000 



Mink 8,000 



Otter 500 



Skunk 6 



Wolf 100 



Beaver 5, 000 



Pekan (fisher) 50 



Cross fox 30 



White fox 400 



Lynx 400 



Wolverine 200 



The value of these furs in "beaver" currency varied with the 

 fashions of the civilized world, with the scarcity or plenty of the 

 furs, with the locality of the fort. Before beaver became so scarce, 



