in. Strutting about the court-yard, feeling himself a very prince of
importance, he saw MacKenzie's pretty young Indian wife. Each paid the
other the tribute of adoration that was warmer than it was wise. The
_denouement_ was a vision of the flaxen-haired Siegfried sprinting at
the top of his speed through the fort gate, with the irate MacKenzie
flourishing a flail to the rear. The matter did not end here. The
outraged Frenchman swore to kill MacKenzie on sight, and haunted the
fort gates with a loaded rifle till MacKenzie was obliged to hire a
mulatto servant to "wing" the fellow with a shot in the shoulder, when
he was brought into the fort, nursed back to health, and sent away.

At another time two Rocky Mountain trappers built an opposition fort
just below Union and lay in wait for the coming of the Blackfeet to
trade with the American Fur Company. MacKenzie posted a lookout on his
bastion. The moment the Indians were descried, out sallied from Fort
Union a band in full regalia, with drum and trumpet and piccolo and
fife--wonders that would have lured the astonished Indians to perdition.
Behind the band came gaudy presents for the savages, and what was not
supposed to be in the Indian country--liquor. When these methods failed
to outbuy rivals, MacKenzie did not hesitate to pay twelve dollars for a
beaver-skin not worth two. The Rocky Mountain trappers were forced to
capitulate, and their post passed over to the American Fur Company.

In the ruins of their post was enacted a fitting _finale_ to the
turbulent conflicts of the American traders. The Deschamps family, who
had perpetrated the worst butcheries on the field of Seven Oaks, in the
fight between Hudson's Bay and Nor' Westers, had acted as interpreters
for the Rocky Mountain trappers. Boastful of their murderous record in
Canada, the father, mother, and eight grown children were usually so
violent in their carousals that Hamilton, the English gentleman, used to
quiet their outrage and prevent trouble by dropping laudanum in their
cups. Once they slept so heavily that the whole fort was in a panic lest
their sleep lasted to eternity; but the revellers came to life defiant
as ever. At Union was a very handsome young half-breed fellow by the
name of Gardepie, whose life the Deschamps harpies attempted to take
from sheer jealousy and love of crime. Joined by two free trappers,
Gardepie killed the elder Deschamps one morning at breakfast with all
the gruesome mutil