ASTOR ENCOUNTERS NEW OPPONENTS 49 



ily had been in the habit of bribing old Indian gossips 

 into telling stories by gifts of tobacco; and the friend 

 ship now stood the white family in good stead. Day 

 and night in all the weeks of captivity the friendly In 

 dians never left the side of the trader s family, slipping 

 between the hostiles and the young children, standing 

 guard at the tepee door, giving them weapons of defence 

 till all were safely back among the whites. 



This time Kiel was hanged, and the Hudson s Bay 

 Company resumed its sway of all that realm between 

 Labrador and the Pacific north of the Saskatchewan. 



Traders lives are like a white paper with a black 

 spot. The world looks only at the black spot. 



In spite of his faults when in conflict with rivals, 

 it has been the trader living alone, unprotected and un- 

 fearing, one voice among a thousand, who has re 

 strained the Indian tribes from massacres that would 

 have rolled back the progress of the West a quarter of 

 a century. 



