The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lords of the North, by A. C. Laut

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Title: Lords of the North

Author: A. C. Laut

Release Date: January 22, 2007 [EBook #20418]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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LORDS

OF THE

NORTH

BY

A. C. LAUT

TORONTO
WILLIAM BRIGGS

Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one
thousand nine hundred, by WILLIAM BRIGGS, at the Department of
Agriculture.

[Illustration:

LORDS
of the
NORTH

by A. C. LAUT]

TO THE

Pioneers and their Descendants

WHOSE

HEROISM WON THE LAND,

THIS WORK

IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT.

The author desires to express thanks to pioneers and fur traders of the
West for information, details and anecdotes bearing on the old life,
which are herein embodied; and would also acknowledge the assistance of
the history of the North-West Company and manuscripts of the
_Bourgeois_, compiled by Senator L. R. Masson; and the value of such
early works as those of Dr. George Bryce, Gunn, Hargraves, Ross and
others.

THE TRAPPER'S DEFIANCE.

"The adventurous spirits, who haunted the forest and plain, grew fond of
their wild life and affected a great contempt for civilization."

You boxed-up, mewed-up artificials,
Pent in your piles of mortar and stone,
Hugging your finely spun judicials,
Adorning externals, externals alone,
Vaunting in prideful ostentation
Of the Juggernaut car, called Civilization--
What know ye of freedom and life and God?

Monkeys, that follow a showman's string,
Know more of freedom and less of care,
Cage birds, that flutter from perch to ring,
Have less of worry and surer fare.
Cursing the burdens, yourselves have bound,
In a maze of wants, running round and round--
Are ye free me