, and deal fairly. With them we have
no quarrel--honest competition, of course, we have--but no quarrel.
Comes now the free trader. He is a man of small capital. His goods are
cheap, they are of inferior quality. He cannot give 'debt,' as the
credit of the North is called. He cannot carry a large number of Indians
for six months or a year as we do. If he attempts it, his creditors
press him and he goes to the wall--or the Indians find out before time
for payment comes that the goods are inferior, and they repudiate their
debt. It is bad all around--bad for the Indians, bad for the free
traders, and bad for us----"

"I should think it would be good for you," interrupted Connie.

The factor shook his head: "I told you the Indians' interests are our
interests. I will show you. Take it at this very post. We will suppose
that the beaver are becoming scarce around here; what do we do? We say
to the Indians, 'Do not kill any beaver this year and next year.' And
they obey us--why? Because we will not buy any beaver here during that
time. They will not kill what they cannot sell. Then, when the beavers
have become numerous again, we resume trade in them. Were it not for
this policy, many fur-bearing animals that once were numerous would now
be extinct.

"But--suppose there are free traders in the country--we will pay nothing
for beavers, so they begin to buy them cheap--they can name their own
price, and the Indians will keep on killing them. The Indian says: 'It
is better that I should sell this beaver now at six skins than that my
neighbour should sell him in two years at twelve skins.' Then, soon,
there are no more beavers left in that part of the country. Another
thing, in the fur posts our word is law. We tell the Indians when they
can begin to take fur, and when they must stop. The result is we handle
only clean, prime pelts with the flesh side white as paper. With the
free trader a pelt is a pelt, prime or unprime, it makes no difference.
So the killing goes merrily on where the free traders are--and soon all
the fur-bearing animals are exterminated from that section. What does
the free trader care? He loads his fly-by-night outfit into canoes or a
York boat, and passes on to lay waste another section, leaving the poor
Indians to face the rigours of the coming winter with ruined credit,
cheap, inadequate clothing, cheap food, and worthless trinkets, and
their hunting grounds barren of game."

"But," objected Connie, "