i fie lurch, so went down to the breeds 
:ith him. At this point I may say, that 
aving heard a great deal about Indians 
cing “lousy as pet coons” I was some- 
hat chary of getting too intimate with 
lem, but if any of the Crees who came 
bout the Ninety Mile House were af- 
icted with “graybacks” we never knew 
Seated about a square table were six 
f us, Old Neassus and his son; another 
ill-blood Cree called Abraham; La 
oque, the Breed; Walters and myself, 
latches were issued as chips, at so 
uch each, the cards were dealt out and 
ie game was on ! There is something 
iscinating about games of chance; even 
tough a great deal of skill may enter, 
green horn will often win out against 
i expert. I was having beginner’s luck 
id by midnight had enough matches to 
‘present the handsome sum of six 
illars. Walters proved a match for 
ie shrewd natives and was winning 
eadily from them. Then I had a 
reak of bad luck and when we finally 
lit I had only a two-dollar pair of moc- 
isins to the good. The Indians had 
st to the trader something in the neigh- 
irhood of twenty dollars, and before 
e left, they made us promise to give 
em another chance at an early date. 
A couple of weeks later this same 
irty made another trip from Hasche 
ike, their trapping grounds some 
irty miles northeast, and they brought 
} splendid bunch of furs with them, 
iefly foxes. Walters did pretty well 
trading with them so we decided to 
i.ve the Indians a “regular spread” and 
vited them over to the house for sup- 
j r and a sociable evening. I had 
ked a fine lot of bread that day and 
i roasted a half dozen big whitefish. 
lese with potatoes, canned peas and 
ied peaches made a supper the like of 
uch these Indians hadn't tasted in a 
ig time. The way they went after 
; f bread was enough to scare a baker 
d they laughingly dubbed me, “Meas- 
i kloochnian” (good squaw). 
j After the eating artillery was cleared 
ay we settled about the table in my 
j 'ond game of draw poker. As in the 
’t game I had good luck at the start, 
t as midnight drew nigh I could feel 
| 'self slipping and in order to try and 
ice myself for the finish I suggested 
1 it we lay off for a spell and have some 
i fee. I knew those Crees had me 
rked for the goat, and I stalled things 
as long as I could, hoping that some- 
; would suggest that we quit. But 
y were impatient to once more engage 
deadly combat! I held up pretty well 
a couple of hours and then started 
ing steadily and when Walters de- 
red he would play no longer, I was 
ng to the tune of nine dollars! 
i he Indians gambled constantly 
ong themselves. One day La Rocque 
ae back from an outside camp, and 
lough it was a mighty cold day, he 
l no coat on his back. On question- 
him I was amazed to find that he 
: l gambled everything he owned, in- 
1 c ^ n g his coat. But the best of it was 
ien he borrowed half a dozen traps 
1 :e 237 
f i om me, went back to the camp and 
returned home three days later, with 
not only all of his personal belongings, 
but half of what the camp had contained 
as well! La Rocque was pretty clever 
with cards and I do not think he was 
at all averse to cheating if occasion de¬ 
manded. He was not very well liked 
among the full-bloods as is often the 
case. 
Regarding the instinct for gambling, 
that seems so strong in the native of 
this country, Old Dan MacMillar (who 
stayed with us for a while) was credited 
with the following. An old squaw on 
the Reserve was continually after Dan 
and wanted him to marry her. Finally 
Dan, in order to get rid of her, offered 
to gamble with her and if she won he 
was to marry her, while if he was the 
winner she was to leave him alone. 
Just before this particular game was 
staged, a mining shark, armed with il¬ 
licit whisky, had sold a number of 
worthless shares in a so-called placer 
mining corporation, to the natives of the 
Reserve, and not a few white men had 
fallen for the bait. Old Dan was a 
clever rascal and while he had not per¬ 
sonally fallen for this “gold brick” 
scheme, he had later acquired some of 
the certificates from the waste paper 
basket of a friend who had been stung. 
Being conservative, Dan tucked them in¬ 
side the pocket of his vest. 
J he day came when Dan was to gam¬ 
ble with his “would-be” squaw. The 
girl, not to be outdone by any scheme, 
had contrived to get a number of both 
white men and Indians interested and 
just after the game was well started 
these spectators strayed in. Old Dan 
was so completely flabbergasted by this 
unexpected turn of affairs he lost right 
away and in a surprisingly short time 
found himself alone with the squaw 
while the spectators went after the 
priest, the Catholic Mission being but 
a short distance 
away. 
Old Dan was a 
man of his word 
but he didn’t want 
to marry the 
squaw. Time was 
precious; he tried 
to bribe the native 
woman with what 
little money he had 
on him but she 
scoffed at the 
idea! In despera¬ 
tion he thought of 
the Gold Certifi¬ 
cates resting in his 
pocket and as a 
last resource 
brought them to 
light. The squaw 
could read just 
enough English to 
make out the dol¬ 
lar marks on the 
handsomely e m - 
bossed paper and 
when Dan ex¬ 
plained to her that 
they were worth a 
small fortune, she 
fell for it and agreed that in echange 
lor the beeg dollars she would release 
the white man from his obligations. 
Dan warned her not to tell anyone she 
had such a fortune, at least for a time, 
as someone would try to rob her. She 
saw the wisdom in this (or at least she 
thought so at the time) and when the 
priest came she sent for an old Indian 
that had been wooing her for a long¬ 
time and married him ! Thus was Old 
Dan saved from the abyss of matrimony. 
TWO of the most valuable furs, from 
the trapper s view-point, are those 
of the marten and lynx. The Indians 
have a very novel way of taking these 
two furbearers. Both of these animals 
will "tree” quite readily when pursued 
closely by dogs. Every family of In¬ 
dians, as a rule, will have one or two 
trained tracking dogs. After a fresh 
snow the Crees will go out with their 
dogs and put them on the first recently 
made track of marten or lvnx that they 
come across. 
The lynx is nothing more or less than 
a huge grayish spotted cat, with all the 
habits of the latter. Whenever he hears 
dogs coming close behind on his trail 
he will invariably take to the tall timber 
and climb a sizeable spruce or pine. 
I bus, when the hunter arrives, all that 
remains to be done is quickly accom¬ 
plished with the rifle. Now, this sounds 
easy enough, and it is too, if one has a 
good dog, that is, one trained to chase 
this one animal. 
The marten, being considerably 
smaller, is a more difficult animal to keep 
track of than the lynx. I have chased 
a number of martens, both with dogs 
and alone, and my success was nothing 
to brag about. The trouble in “running 
the marten down” is that, once he gets 
into a sizeable groupe of pine or spruce 
trees, he will leap from one to another 
and in this way throw the dogs off the 
(Continued on page 252) 
In the Cree Camp 
