First French Foot-Prints Beyond the Lakes. 133 



they sought. No populous native tribes still survived east of 

 Lake Huroo. The French were hemmed in by the English and 

 Iroquois on the south, while short days and long winters repelled 

 them from the north. On the other hand, everything allured 

 them westward — natural highways, mild climate, fertile soil, 

 prairies that needed no clearing, buffaloes fancied ready to yield 

 wool and draw the plow, friendly Indians, and — more than all — 

 elbow room, safe from Canadian dictators. The founders of Mon- 

 treal had been brow-beaten in Qaebec. The vice-governor at 

 Montreal was not very subordinate to the royal functionary at 

 Qaebec, but more so than the officials upon Ontario and further 

 were to his owq jurisdiction. They were their own masters. 



In addition to this, French iotrigaes in the far we^t were multi- 

 plied and intensified by pecuniary interest. Nothing but politi- 

 cal supremacy in that distant realm could assure prosperity in that 

 fur-trade where lay their sole hope of money-making. 



As soon as they had secured sway in any tribe they first said, 

 "Bring all your fur to our factors!" This point gained, their 

 second demand was, " Make your neighbors do likewise, peace- 

 ably if you can, but forcibly if you must." Thus it eame to pass 

 that many a brave was butchered to procure beaver for French 

 whose policy was that of JEsop's monkey : 



" That cunning old pug everybody remembers, 

 Who, when he saw chestnuts a roasting in embers, 

 To spare his own bacon, took pussy's two foots, 

 And out of the ashes he hustled his nuts." 



Considerations such as these show how powerfully the finesse 

 of political schemers and the ambitions of feudalism roused the 

 French to penetrate into the utmost corner of the west. 



The English also, as adventurers, traders, or both, tried to push 

 into the farthest western wilds. But the French outstripped them, 

 arrested their factors and explorers and treated them as outlaws. 

 The motto of the French was : 



" It shall go hard, 

 But we will delve one yard below their mines 

 And blow them at the moon." 



