34 HUNTERS OF THE GREAT NORTH 



build their own steamers. It would have been better busi- 

 ness for the Company to secure a share of the Free Trad- 

 ers' profits by carrying their freight for them at a figure 

 that would have been remunerative to the Company and 

 still not so high as to make it pay better for the small 

 traders to build their own ships. Now when it was in a 

 sense too late, the Company's policy was being changed 

 by orders from Winnipeg. Anderson was no man to 

 carry out such orders. They were a complete reversal 

 of the policy under which he had risen from the lowest 

 rank in the service to the highest rank. He spoke with 

 suppressed fury of the recreant officers in Winnipeg who 

 had so far forgotten the dignity and glory of the Company 

 as to truckle and trade with the enemy. 



This was a situation I did not fully understand until 

 at Arctic Red River when a young man by the name of 

 Jaquot came aboard the Wrigley and paid his fare to 

 ride with us to the last outpost of the Company, Fort 

 Macpherson. He was a personable, well-spoken young 

 man whose blood was obviously mainly Indian. Ander- 

 son received him with surly looks. Indeed, he could 

 hardly be said to receive him at all, for he avoided him 

 as much as was possible on so small a craft. At first I 

 took this for a prejudice against Jaquot's Indian blood, 

 but a little thought showed that this was not possible, for 

 I had already observed through a month of close associa- 

 tion that Anderson treated Indians and white men with 

 an even hand. I think it was Bishop Reeve who made 

 the situation clear to me. Anderson had nothing against 

 Jaquot except that he was a Free Trader. 



From Red River, we went a few miles north and came 

 to the Mackenzie delta, but were still perhaps a hundred 

 miles from the ocean proper. Here we steamed west 



