90 TRANSACTIONS. 1906-7. 



water alive. The remaining French, now reduced to half a 

 dozen, retreated down the shore. With yells of triumph the 

 Sioux followed, keeping within shelter of the trees. In des- 

 peration the voyageurs dropped their guns and took to the water, 

 hoping to reach a neighbouring island. Wounded and exhausted, 

 they were attempting the impossible. The Sioux rushed to the 

 shore, but realizing the plight of the French, did not waste an 

 arrow on them. One by one the swimmers sank beneath the 

 waves; and the savages returned to scalp those who had fallen 

 at the camp. With characteristic ferocity they hacked and 

 mutilated the bodies, and then gathering up their own dead, 

 hastily retreated by the way they had come. 



Let us turn back now, nearly a hundred years, to the founda- 

 tion of the Hudson's Bay Company. 



At the corner of Lime and Leadenhall streets, in the heart 

 of the World's Metropolis, there stands to-day a building — 

 venerable as we count time on this continent, though a mere 

 thing of yesterday when compared with scores of other famous 

 buildings in that great city. This is Hudson's Bay House, the 

 home of the greatest of all fur-trading companies. For two 

 hundred and thirty-seven years the history of the Hudson's Bay 

 Company has been part and parcel of the history of British North 

 America; part and parcel of the history of this land of magni- 

 ficent proportions and boundless resources. The Hudson's Bay 

 Company has been severely and justly criticised in the past, 

 for its selfish, dog-in-the-manger policy. Yet it may well be 

 that we have to thank the Hudson's Bay Company, to some 

 extent, for our present possession of a country washed by three 

 oceans; though we owe an even deeper debt of gratitude to our 

 own North West Company. It was not the fault of the North 

 West Company that the international boundary robs Canada 

 of half the western wheat belt, as well as of the rich valley of the 

 Columbia. The men of this plucky Canadian company were 

 trading on the banks of the Missouri years before Lewis and 

 Clark explored the river for the United States government. 

 When Astoria was built in 1810 — by Canadians — at the mouth 

 of the Columbia, the North West Company was already estab- 

 lished on its upper waters. The Canadians came down the river 

 — and Astoria became Fort George. From the mouth of the 

 Columbia to the limits of Russian America, the North West 

 Company held undisputed sway. Nevertheless, the British 



