INDIAN GUIDES GO HOME 207 



had dislocated the fur trade, and the Hudson Bay 

 Company were not anxious to continue buying 

 until the world-wide confusion in commerce 

 steadied, and pointed to some definite stability. 

 Prices of furs were away down, which the Fur 

 Posts already knew. There was no change at 

 Christmas, and thus the officials in authority 

 were waiting and hoping for change in the pros- 

 pects of the trade ; if that came, then would 

 they send forth their sled-packets to carry news 

 and instructions that their Posts would welcome. 



My letters were enlightening in regard to the 

 war, and brought relief in that all was well at 

 home ; but they left me more restless than before 

 to hurry on to the south. 



At daylight on the 6th I bade good-bye to 

 J'Pierre and Mistewgoso, and watched those 

 sturdy travellers and their splendid dogs start 

 back north on their long trail home. Should they 

 go back as quickly as they came (and they would 

 probably now go faster without loads) they 

 would have covered five hundred miles in sixteen 

 days, with but one day's rest. 



John and Philip, two half-bred Indians, have 

 here taken over my sled-loads of specimens, and 

 so I resume my journey, to-morrow, with strangers. 



I passed the day very agreeably with the 

 Hudson Bay Factor at Pelican Narrows, and 

 greatly enjoyed conversing with a fellow-country- 

 man. He was a man who fully came up to one's 

 pictured ideal of the fine old type of Hudson 

 Bay servant ; strong and of the outdoors, yet 

 gentlemanly without the telling or prompting of 

 neighbourly society. He was one of the fine 



