ians were pleased.

_Austin._ I think I can see them now.

_Basil._ Did they smoke such pipes as we have been looking at?

_Hunter._ Yes; for almost all the pipes used by the red men are made
of red stone, dug out of the same quarry, called pipe-stone quarry;
about which I will tell you some other time. One bad part of this
trading system was, that the French gave the Indians but a small part
of the value of their skins; and besides this they charged their own
articles extravagantly high; and a still worse feature in the case
was, that they supplied the Indians with spirituous liquors, and thus
brought upon them all the evils and horrors of intemperance.

This system of obtaining furs was carried on for many years, when
another practice sprang up. Such white men as had accompanied the
Indians in hunting, and made themselves acquainted with the country,
would paddle up the rivers in canoes, with a few arms and provisions,
and hunt for themselves. They were absent sometimes for as much as a
year, or a year and a half, and then returned with their canoes laden
with rich furs. These white men were what I called _Coureurs des
bois_, rangers of the woods.

_Austin._ Ah! I should like to be a coureur des bois.

_Hunter._ Some of these coureurs des bois became very lawless and
depraved in their habits, so that the French government enacted a law
whereby no one, on pain of death, could trade in the interior of the
country with the Indians, without a license. Military posts were also
established, to protect the trade. In process of time, too, fur
companies were established; and men, called _Voyageurs_, or canoe men,
were employed, expressly to attend to the canoes carrying supplies up
the rivers, or bringing back cargoes of furs.

_Basil._ Now we know what a _Voyageur_ is.

_Hunter._ You would hardly know me, were you to see me dressed as a
voyageur. Just think: I should have on a striped cotton shirt, cloth
trousers, a loose coat made of a blanket, with perhaps leathern
leggins, and deer-skin mocassins; and then I must not forget my
coloured worsted belt, my knife and tobacco pouch.

_Austin._ What a figure you would cut! And yet, I dare say, such a
dress is best for a voyageur.

_Hunter._ Most of the Canadian voyageurs were good-humoured,
light-hearted men, who always sang a lively strain as they dipped
their oars into the waters of the lake or rolling river; but
steam-boats are now introduced, so that the voyageurs