Naza! Naza! Naza! 



the north. They worship him, pray to him. It is 

 a wonder you have not been stopped.&quot; 



&quot;Who ll stop me?&quot; 



&quot; The Indians. They will kill you if you do not 

 turn back.&quot; 



&quot;Faugh! to tell an American plainsman that!&quot; 

 The hunter paused a steady moment, with his eyelids 

 narrowing over slits of blue fire. &quot; There is no law 

 to keep me out, nothing but Indian superstition and 

 the greed of the Hudson s Bay people. And I am an 

 old fox, not to be fooled by pretty baits. For years 

 the officers of this fur-trading company have tried 

 to keep out explorers. Even Sir John Franklin, an 

 Englishman, could not buy food of them. The 

 policy of the company is to side with the Indians, 

 to keep out traders and trappers. Why? So they 

 can keep on cheating the poor savages out of clothing 

 and food by trading a few trinkets and blankets, a 

 little tobacco and rum for millions of dollars worth 

 of furs. Have I failed to hire man after man, 

 Indian after Indian, not to know why I cannot get 

 a helper? Have I, a plainsman, come a thousand 

 miles alone to be scared by you, or a lot of craven 

 Indians? Have I been dreaming of musk-oxen for 

 forty years, to slink south now, when I begin to feel 

 the north? Not I.&quot; 



Deliberately every chief, with the sound of a hiss- 



145 



