is honester,
whether it is the English Church or the Catholic, or any of
them, because they haven't anything to get out of it, so far
as I can see, and the traders have. I don't think I shall
very much enjoy seeing fine furs worn by ladies in my own
country after this--I know where they come from and what
they cost. I wonder what Las Casas would say if he were
here.

"A good many Scotchmen are through this northern country,
and some Scandinavians. I read in a book by Mr. Stewart that
you could tell the Scotchman even in a half-breed because he
always says 'boy' and 'whatever' the way the Highlanders
do--no matter how old you are a Highlander always calls you
'boy.' He says the Bishop of Saskatchewan had a half-breed
boy working for him who always called him 'Boy my Lord.'
That seems odd to me! And then about their saying
'whatever'--a Scotch half-breed said, 'We use it because we
could not express ourselves without it whatever.' And then
he said, 'Is it not correct whatever?' And after a while he
said he could see no objection to that word whatever. A
Highlander always says 'whatever,' and you can't keep him
from it. I noticed that in some of the posts we came
through.

"A woman here was sixty years old, and she married a
carpenter, and he took her money and started a sawmill. They
haven't got any sawmill now.

"A good many people here talk about other people. I have
noticed that in almost any small place, but I think it is
worse up here in the North. I suppose they get lonesome and
have to talk.

"Another thing is, they drink so much up in this country
whenever they get a chance. They don't keep their gallon of
Scotch whisky, which is supposed to last them a year, but
sit down and drink it up in two days. So they get out of
whisky and some people get crazy for it. In this same book
by Mr. Stewart he tells about some men at one of the
trading-posts of the Mackenzie who didn't have any liquor,
but the summer before there had been a party of scientists
there who had left some insects, bugs, and snakes and
things, done up in alcohol. Some other traders visited this
agent, and he was sorry not to have anything to give them to
drink. So he thought he would pour off this alcohol from the
bugs and things. Still