JOHN COLTER FREE TRAPPER 169 



game while the mothers were with their young. Famine 

 had taught them the punishment that follows reckless 

 hunting. But the free trappers were here to-day and 

 away to-morrow, like a Chinaman, to take all they could 

 get regardless of results ; and the results were the rapid 

 extinction of fur-bearing game. 



Always there were more free trappers in the United 

 States than in Canada. Before the union of Hudson s 

 Bay and Nor 7 Wester in Canada, all classes of trap 

 pers were absorbed by one of the two great companies. 

 After the union, when the monopoly enjoyed by the 

 Hudson s Bay did not permit it literally to drive a free 

 trapper out, it could always &quot; freeze &quot; him out by with 

 holding supplies in its great white northern wilder 

 nesses, or by refusing to give him transport. When the 

 monopoly passed away in 1871, free trappers pressed 

 north from the Missouri, where their methods had ex 

 terminated game, and carried on the same ruthless 

 warfare on the Saskatchewan. North of the Saskatche 

 wan, where very remoteness barred strangers out, the 

 Hudson s Bay Company still held undisputed sway; 

 and Lord Strathcona, the governor of the company, was 

 able to say only two years ago, &quot; the fur trade is quite 

 as large as ever it was.&quot; 



Among free hunters, Canada had only one com 

 manding figure John Johnston of the Soo, who set 

 tled at La Pointe on Lake Superior in 1792, formed 

 league with Wabogish, &quot; the White Fisher,&quot; and became 

 the most famous trader of the Lakes. His life, too, was 

 almost as eventful as Colter s. A member of the Irish 

 nobility, some secret which he never chose to reveal 

 drove him to the wilds. Wabogish, the &quot; White Fisher,&quot; 

 had a daughter who refused the wooings of all her 



