along the frozen bosoms of the lakes and rivers, the train pushes northward at the rate of forty miles a day, the drivers on snow-shoes easily keeping pace with the well-broken dogs, of which four are harnessed to each toboggan, until Fort Carlton, in the Saskatchewan Valley, is reached. Here the entire mail is overhauled and repacked, branch packets being sent off east and west, while ever northward over the snow-billowed plains, across the deep-drifted valleys, through the sighing, shadowy forests, the main packet continues diminishing steadily in bulk as fort after fort is visited, until at last, reduced to a mere handful that a man might put in his pocket, it reaches the end of its journey at Fort Yukon, upon the far frontier of Alaska. When the young clerk first went out to Rupert's Land, a wife, as a compagnon de voyage, was not to be considered; and then, when the time came that he might indulge in matrimony, he was far away from the women of his own race, few, indeed, of whom would be willing to stake their future upon the uncertainty of finding such domestic happiness in the wilds of North America as would compensate them for the loss of all the delights of civilization. The natural consequence was, that, looking about him. for a companion, he found his choice limited to the dusky belles of the Indians. Sons and daughters were born, and grew up to win the love that was rarely bestowed upon the patient, faithful drudge of a mother. The natural affection of the father proved stronger than the artificial laws of society, and the connection thus strongly cemented continued unbroken to the end. The company made a point of encouraging this mating of the Indian races with their officers and men. It insured the good-will of the one, and bound the other to the country by ties not readily broken. So the children came in quiversful to the Macs and Pierres; and the blood of redskin warriors, mingling with that of "Hieland lairds" and French bourgeois, went flowing forth in a steady stream all through the mighty possessions of the company. It seems as though I had but scratched the surface of the story of this great corporation, which for more than two centuries has wielded so profound an influence throughout the northern half of this continent. It may endure for many decades, or even for centuries yet; but its career must be less romantic than that of the Canadian Pacific Railroad. The returns from sales of land already far overshadow the profits from the fur trade, and the latter must inevitably in time shrink into insignificance. However that may be, the "Honorable Company of Merchant Adventurers of England trading into Hudson's Bay," looking back upon its records, may, with substantial reason, congratulate itself upon having contributed one of the most interesting chapters to the romance of commerce. |