THE GREATEST FUR COMPANY OF THE WORLD 199 



paddlers and steers the craft past foamy reefs. The 

 bowman it is who leaps out first when there is &quot; track 

 ing &quot; pulling the craft up-stream by tow-line who 

 stands waist high in ice water steadying the rocking 

 bark lest a sudden swirl spill furs to the bottom, who 

 hands out the pacl~~ +o the others when the waters are 

 too turbulent for &quot; tracking &quot; and there must be a 

 &quot; portage,&quot; and who leads the brigade on a run 

 half trot, half amble overland to the calmer currents. 

 &quot; Pipes &quot; are the measure of a portage that is, the 

 pipes smoked while the voyageurs are on the run. The 

 bowman it is who can thread a network of water-ways 

 by day or dark, past rapids or whirlpools, with the cer 

 tainty of an arrow to the mark. On all long trips by 

 dog train or canoe, pemmican made of buffalo meat and 

 marrow put in air-tight bags was the standard food. 

 The pemmican now used is of moose or caribou beef. 



The only way to get an accurate idea of the size of 

 the kingdom ruled by these monarchs of the lonely 

 wastes is by comparison. 



Take a map of North America. On the east is 

 Labrador, a peninsula as vast as Germany and Hol 

 land and Belgium and half of France. On the coast 

 and across the unknown interior are the magical letters 

 H. B. C., meaning Hudson s Bay Company fort (past 

 or present), a little whitewashed square with eighteen- 

 foot posts planted picket-wise for a wall, match-box 

 bastions loopholed for musketry, a barracks-like struc 

 ture across the court-yard with a high lookout of some 

 sort near the gate. Here some trader with wife and 

 children and staff of Indian servants has held his own 

 against savagery and desolating loneliness. In one of 

 these forts Lord Strathcona passed his youth. 



