LET US GO AFIELD 



of merchandizing, taking supply to the demand, and 

 uniting the corners of the world. 



Fur traders multiplied in the Middle West. They 

 could pay as much as two dollars for a good robe 

 at the last of the trade sometimes as much as four 

 dollars, or perhaps eight dollars for a painted Indian 

 robe. There were outfits all over the Plains picking 

 up robes among the Indian villages. There were 

 trading-posts established where the Indians brought 

 their robes. The day was one of waste and ruin 

 and dissolution and destruction. Some of the trad- 

 ers used whisky with the Indians, although this 

 ancient practice of fur traders was not approved of 

 by the new and sober school of commerce which 

 was connected with the robe trade pure and simple. 

 Sometimes a pint of whisky to the head man made 

 his heart good and he told his people to sell their 

 robes. In the earlier times the red men were paid 

 in trade goods on which the trader made his own big 

 profit; but in the railroad days of the buffalo robe 

 trade it was the custom to pay coin to the Indian 

 and trust him to spend it back again at the goods 

 wagon or shopcounter, as the case might be. Some- 

 times the native hunter got as little as a dollar, or 

 a dollar and a half, for his buffalo robe. Those were 

 easy times. The Indian soon learned that he could 

 make more money by killing more buffalo. In time, 



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