204 THE STOEY OF THE TRAPPER 



coast Indians, Chinook and Chilcoot low and lazy be 

 cause the great rivers feed them with salmon and they 

 have no need to work. 



Over these lawless Arabs of the New World wilder 

 ness the Hudson s Bay Company has ruled for two and 

 a half centuries with smaller loss of life in the aggre 

 gate than the railways of the United States cause in a 

 single year. 



Hunters have been lost in the wilds. White trap 

 pers have been assassinated by Indians. Forts have 

 been wiped out of existence. Ten, twenty, thirty tra 

 ders have been massacred at different times. But, then, 

 the loss of life on railways totals up to thousands in a 

 single year. 



When fighting rivals long ago, it is true that the 

 Hudson s Bay Company recognised neither human nor 

 divine law. Grant the charge and weigh it against the 

 benefits of the company s rule. When Hearne visited 

 Chippewyans two centuries ago he found the Indians 

 in a state uncontaminated by the trader ; and that state 

 will give the ordinary reader cold shivers of horror at 

 the details of massacre and degradation. Every visitor 

 since has reported the same tribe improved in standard 

 of living under Hudson s Bay rule. Recently a well- 

 known Canadian governor making an itinerary of the 

 territory round the bay found the Indians such devout 

 Christians that they put his white retinue to shame. 

 Returning to civilization, the governor was observed at 

 tending the services of his own denomination with a 

 greater fury than was his wont. Asked the reason, he 

 confided to a club friend that he would be Hanked if 

 he could allow heathen Indians to be better Christians 

 than he was. 



