DARK FURS. 209 



paid. We know that furs realized good prices 

 at the last London sales, and. some few, very 

 few, bought were no doubt well worth these high 

 prices. 



The part where the most harm was done the 

 trade was the anxiety of some of these buyers 

 to get the furs at almost any price. Almost any 

 kind of a marten would be paid $10 for. Such 

 martens that the writer of this article has 

 bought a few years ago for $1.25, a very choice 

 marten, large, dark and well furred, one we will 

 say out of two or three hundred, such a' one as 

 we ordinarily paid $7 for, has brought $18 to 

 $20. Martens and otters especially, they seem 

 to have gone perfectly crazy to get. 



Two years ago a man, further down the 

 Coast paid $720 for what I was told was a very 

 ordinary Silver Fox. He went to Paris during 

 the Exposition with the fox to sell. I never 

 heard if he got his money back. Had he paid 

 $150, he would have got the fox just the same 

 for this was the price being paid along the Coast 

 during that year. 



The rivers are the highways of the Indians 

 and the mouths of most of the big ones are the 

 summer camping grounds. At these places are 

 trading posts where they barter and sell their 

 winter's catch, get new supplies for another 



14 



