THE STORY OF THE BEAVER. 



61 



The traders that made the greatest profit, however, out of beaver skin 

 obtained from the Indians were those who traded whisky for skins. Tlie 

 whisky was nothing more than high-proof alcohol, which the trader diluted 

 many times with water. Five dollars' worth of this stuff would procure many 

 hundreds of dollars' worth of furs. 



The traders often took desperate chances in dealing out this intoxicating 

 poison to the red men, for the most peaceable Indians when sober were perfect 

 demons when under the influence of liquor. But the old trappers were men 



THE BEAVER CUTTING DOWN TREES TO BUILD A DAM. 



who did not know the name of fear, and although they had many narrow 

 e.scapes from the intoxicated savages very few of them lost their lives at the 

 hands of the redskins. 



This style of traffic w'as much more fatal tO' the Indians, for when an 

 Indian had traded his beaver skins for the diluted alcohol, he almost invariably 

 wound up his spree by beating or killing his wife or some other Indian with 

 whom he may have had a previous call. To the pioneer traders must be 



