THE GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 187 



long winter nights. But over the feast wild hilarity 

 reigns. 



A French-Canadian fiddler strikes up a tuneless jig 

 that sets the Indians pounding the floor in figureless 

 dances with moccasined heels till midday glides into 

 midnight and midnight to morning. I remember hear 

 ing of one such midday feast in Ked Kiver settlement 

 that prolonged itself past four of the second morning. 

 Against the walls sit old folks spinning yarns of the 

 past. There is a print of Sir George Simpson behind 

 one raconteur s head. Ah! yes, the oldest guides all 

 remember Sir George, though half a century has passed 

 since his day. He was the governor who travelled with 

 flags flying from every prow, and cannon firing when he 

 left the forts, and men drawn up in procession like 

 soldiers guarding an emperor when he entered the fur 

 posts with coureurs and all the flourish of royal state. 

 Then some story-teller recalls how he has heard the old 

 guides tell of the imperious governor once provoking 

 personal conflict with an equally imperious steersman, 

 who first ducked the governor into a lake they were 

 traversing and then ducked into the lake himself to 

 rescue the governor. 



And there is a crucifix high on the wall left by 

 Pere Lacomb the last time the famous missionary to 

 the red men of the Far North passed this way; and 

 every Indian calls up some kindness done, some sacri 

 fice by Father Lacomb. On the gun-rack are old mus 

 kets and Indian masks and scalp-locks, bringing back 

 the days when Eussian traders instigated a massacre 

 at this fort and when white traders flew at each other s 

 throats as Nor 7 Westers struggled with Hudson s Bay 

 for supremacy in the fur trade. 



