200 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



Once more to the map. With one prong of a com 

 pass in the centre of Hudson Bay, describe a circle. The 

 northern half embraces the baffling arctics; but on the 

 line of the southern circumference like beads on a 

 string are Churchill high on the left, York below in 

 black capitals as befits the importance of the great fur 

 emporium of the bay, Severn and Albany and Moose 

 and Kupert and Fort George round the south, and to 

 the right, larger and more strongly built forts than in 

 Labrador, with the ruins of stone walls at Churchill 

 that have a depth of fifteen feet. Six-pounders once 

 mounted these bastions. The remnants of galleries for 

 soldiery run round the inside walls. A flag floats over 

 each fort with the letters II. B. C.* Officers dwellings 

 occupy the centre of the court-yard. Banked against 

 the walls are the men s quarters, fur presses, stables, 

 storerooms. Always there is a chapel, at one fort a 

 hospital, at others the relics of stoutly built old powder 

 magazines made to withstand the siege of hand gre 

 nades tossed in by French assailants from the bay, who 

 knew that the loot of a fur post was better harvest than 

 a treasure ship. Elsewhere two small bastions situ 

 ated diagonally across from each other were sufficient to 

 protect the fur post by sending a raking fire along the 

 walls; but here there was danger of the French fleet, 

 and the walls were built with bastion and trench and 

 rampart. 



Again to the map. Between Hudson Bay and the 

 Rocky Mountains stretches an American Siberia the 

 Barren Lands. Here, too, on every important water- 



* The flag was hoisted on Sundays to notify the Indians there 

 would be no trade. 



