TJie Home of the Wolverene and Beaver. 79 



telegrams. The above-mentioned grades are all 

 tilled by members of the working classes. Now 

 come the young men of birth and education, who 

 enter the Company's service at an early age as 

 apprentice clerks, in which capacity they serve for 

 five years, at the end of which they are sufficiently 

 conversant with their duty to drop the apprentice 

 and become clerks. After about fifteen years' 

 service, the clerk becomes a half-shareholder, and 

 is then termed a chief trader ; in due course he 

 becomes a whole-shareholder, and has then reached 

 the top of the tree, changing his appellation for 

 the last time to that of chief factor. 



In obedience to Mr. Groves' orders, the men all 

 furbished up their weapons, and loaded the old 

 swivels with reduced blank charges ; the gate was 

 then closed, the English ensign run up to the flag- 

 staff, and the inmates of the fort awaited the arrival 

 of the canoes, which were now rapidly nearing the 

 shore. Soon the prow of the foremost one grated 

 on the sand, and its occupants, consisting of two 

 Ojibbeway hunters and their squaws, stepped upoi 

 the shore, the latter proceeding to land the parcels 

 of furs, while their better halves walked up to the 

 wicket of the gate, where Groves and his interpreter 

 stood ready to welcome them. The parley was of 

 sliort duration, for both sides were equally anxious 



