48 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



This dark act marked the last important episode 

 in the long conflict among traders. A decline of values 

 followed the civil war. Settlers were rushing overland 

 to Oregon, and Fort Union went into the control of the 

 militia. To-day St. Louis is still a centre of trade in 

 manufactured furs, and St. Paul yet receives raw pelts 

 from trappers who wander through the forests of Min 

 nesota and Idaho and the mountains. Only a year ago 

 the writer employed as guides in the mountains three 

 trappers who have spe.it their lives ranging the north 

 ern wilds and the Upper Missouri; but outside the 

 mountain and forest wastes, the vast hunting-grounds 

 of the famous old trappers have been chalked off by 

 the fences of settlers. 



In Canada, too, bloodshed marked the last of the 

 conflict once in the seventies when Louis Kiel, a half- 

 breed demagogue, roused the Metis against the survey 

 ors sent to prepare Eed Kiver for settlement, and again 

 in 1885 when this unhanged rascal incited the half- 

 breeds of the Saskatchewan to rebellion over title-deeds 

 to their lands. Though the Hudson s Bay Company 

 had nothing to do with either complaint, the conflict 

 waged round their forts. 



In the first affair the ragged army of rebels took 

 possession of Fort Garry, and for no other reason than 

 the love of killing that riots in savage blood as in a 

 wolf s, shot down Scott outside the fort gates. In the 

 second rebellion Eiel s allies came down on the far- 

 isolated Fort Pitt three hundred strong, captured the 

 fort, and took the factor, Mr. MacLean, and his family 

 to northern wastes, marching them through swamps 

 breast-high with spring floods, where General Middle- 

 ton s troops could not follow. The children of the fam- 



