other tribes of Indians and white fur-traders in that section of the
country. Many times he has grappled with and narrowly escaped from the
grizzly bear and treacherous buffalo which were then very numerous in
that portion of the country. This was about one hundred years ago. He
has seen there things that would be almost incredible at this present
age: liquor sold to the Indians measured with a woman's thimble, a
thimbleful for one dollar; one wooden coarse comb for two beaver skins;
a double handful of salt for one beaver skin--and so on in proportion
in everything else; the poor Indian had to give pile upon pile of
beaver skins, which might be worth two or three hundred dollars, for a
few yards of flimsy cloth. Englishmen and Frenchman who went there
expressly to traffic with the Indians, generally started from Quebec
and Montreal, leaving their families at home; but so soon as they
reached this wild country, they would take Indian wives. When they left
the country, they would leave their Indian wives and children there to
shift for themselves. Consequently there are in this region thousands
of half breeds, most beautiful men and beautiful women, but they are as
savage as the rest of the Indians. No white man there ever told these
poor Indians anything about Christianity, but only added unto them
their degradations and robbed them.

My father was once there left to perish on a lonely island by the fur
traders, not because he had done any crime, but simply from inhuman
cruelty and disregard of Indians by these white men. He was traveling
with these traders from place to place in a long bark canoe, which was
the only means of conveyance on the water in those days. It appears
that there were two parties, and two of these long bark canoes were
going in the same direction, one of which my father was paddling for
them. He was not hired, but simply had joined them in his travels. But
these two parties were thrown into a great quarrel about who should