ar bowl of bullets--which, child-like,
he has left with the trader himself. The traders are, however, honest.
They never cheat the Indian, in that way at least. So the trader hands
down the bowl of bullets. The Indian sees what he wants on the shelves
behind the counter, and the trader holds up as many fingers as the
value is in 'skins.' The Indian picks out that many bullets from his
bowl and hands them to the trader, and the trader hands him his
goods.

"You can see, therefore, that the Indian's bowlful of bullets in this
country would not buy him as much fur as he would have gotten farther
down the river. At the same time, this is farther north, and the
freight charges are necessarily high. Perhaps there is just a little
in the fact that competition of the independents is not as keen here
as it is farther to the south!

"But whatever be the price of a 'skin,'" Uncle Dick went on, somewhat
ruefully, "these Huskies take it out of us cheechackos when we come
in. We passed the last of the Slavies at Fort Good Hope. Now we are
among the Loucheux. But these Huskies run over the Loucheux as if they
were not there."

There was plenty of time given to the passengers at this landing to
visit the boats and encampments of the natives, so that our young
investigators were able to obtain considerable information about the
methods of the country.

They went aboard one whale-boat and discovered that its owner, a
stalwart Husky, had brought in a hundred marten and a hundred mink,
and half as many white-foxes and lynx. He explained that he was going
to buy another whale-boat of the Hudson's Bay Company, and that he had
to pay yet seventy marten, besides all this other fur, in order to get
his boat, which would be delivered to him next year. The boys figured
that he was paying about twenty-five hundred dollars for an ordinary
whale-boat, perhaps thirty years old, and, inquiring as to the cost of
such a boat along the coast, found that it rarely was more than about
three or four hundred dollars new!

"Well," said Rob, "I can begin to see how there's money in this fur
business, after all. A sack of flour brings twenty-five dollars here.
A cup of flour sells for one 'skin,' or fifty cents. These people,
Huskies and all, know the value of matches, and they jolly well have
to pay for them. I've been figuring, and I find out that the traders
make about five thousand per cent. profit on the matches they sell in
the northern country. Ev