First French Foot-Prints Beyond the Lalzes. 121 



from the missing vessel, had been taken by savages from that 

 captive. 



In order to buy cheaper of Indian trappers, wandering fur 

 hunters would XQ^oxi i:)estilence as prevailing in Montreal, and thus 

 frighten savages from paddling down the river. Such fur-factors 

 were outlawed on the upper lakes, and they could not dam up 

 their outlets, but they intercepted many a flotilla anxiously ex- 

 pected from above in Montreal. Thus masters of the situation, 

 they resembled those cunning Athenians who Aristophanes tells 

 us were suspended in a sort of balloon, stopping incense as it rose 

 from Jove's altars, and letting no savor of it reach Olympian 

 nostrils, but keeping all for themselves. 



On a long march every thing not totally indispensable is dropped. 

 Hence the far western dealer carried no scales or steel yards. But 

 he was himself a better weighing machine, for himself at least, 

 than any witty invention of Fairbanks with all Howe's improve- 

 ments superadded. So the saying was about Duluth : " Duluth, 

 an honest man, bought all by weight, and made the ignorant 

 savages believe that his right foot exactly weighei a pound. By 

 this for many years he bought their furs, and died in quiet like 

 an honest dealer." 



In selling to Indians, however, the pound was no doubt quite a 

 different weight. In the journal of a missionary at the outlet of 

 Lake Superior I find th^t in 1670 a beaver was there valued at 

 either four ounces of powder, or one fathom of tobacco, or the 

 same length of blue serge or six knives. 



Wood-ranging fur men seemed an evanescent race. Neverthe- 

 less they outlasted French empire in America. In latter times 

 when English and Yankee fur-companies were organized in 

 Montreal and New York they were unable to di.spense with the 

 French operatives, "to the manner born." Generation. after gen- 

 eration they retained them as practical men fittest for all works 

 relating to fur. In all governmental departments the higher 

 functionaries, when first elected (and too often to the very end of 

 their career), need to be taught official routine. Hence officials 

 of lower grade who have learned to run the machine, are retained 

 without regard to political revolutions. These factotums are sig- 



