Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 36: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

34 catch, the hunters delayed, awaiting the coming of the new Factor in the hope that they might profit more. But the amount of that profit they had never imagined even in their rosiest dreams, for now Carlisle tapped the day-book and gave Galt the chief trader a hitherto un- heard-of schedule of prices. “Double it, Galt,’ he ordered. ‘One beaver is worth two-skins. Send out the word among our Indians and see that some of our Indians mingle with Wayne’s and Richelieu’s to carry the news.” Immediately the word went out and trade began. The Indians swarmed into the yard and covered the trading-room floor. Tall, black-eyed, raven-haired, smoky-skinned, they stood, gaunt of waist and sinewy of limb, clad only in deerskin trousers and moccasins. Galt took a bag of trade bullets to represent the beaver skins which they comprehended. They laid down what they had brought. Galt gave them its estimated value in trade bullets. They traded the bullets back to Galt for whatever supplies they needed. Thus in wilderness currency they turned fox, mink, beaver and other skins into flour, sugar, bacon and other commodities. “Nor do I measure my flour and sugar with my fingers inside the cup as the North- westers and Free-Traders do,’ Galt en- couraged them in their own language. “Neither do I take more of your bullets than the value says. And I write no larger debt against you in the books than the just debt.” The trade grew brisk, and not with the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Indians alone but with the tribes the Free-Traders and Northwesters had won to their allegiance. Cotameg the Chippewa in Carlisle’s service and others visited the teepees about Wayne’s and Richelieu’s posts, dropping news that sent the occupants of those teepees stalking over to Cumberland House. At Richelieu’s post Cotameg detached himself from all the rest and performed another and unrehearsed act. By a circuit- ous route he worked ’round to the rear of the post and there, unmarked by any one on the Cumberland House side, signaled to a man on the palisades above. In a moment the gate opened, and Richelieu himself ap- peared. “What is it, Cotameg?” he whispered. “Quick! It is broad daylight, you must oe] Adventure remember, and it would not do for us to be seen. Mon Dieu, no!” ‘“‘He has sent men to the Nepowin, the Pas, Moose Lake, Chimawawin and Grand Rapids,” the Chippewa spoke rapidly. “There is food and trade stuff coming up from James Bay. It will stay at the river posts till he sends for it. No one was to know, but I was hidden in the loft while they talked and I heard.’’ “Bont” exclaimed Richelieu. all, eh?” ‘He has made two beaver the price of one beaver.” “Ciel,a trade war! Then come to me day by day, Cotameg. There will be things I must know. Vozld! Go back swiftly and secretly.” Nor was Wayne long in hearing the news from his own Indians, and that very morn- ing he met the Hudson’s Bay Company’s challenge by advancing the beaver unit another skin. In the afternoon Richelieu was compelled to make it four skins, and that night Carlisle raised it to five. “That is THEREAFTER it was a colossal game of poker with beaver skins for chips and no limit but the topaz sky overhead. Like the Northland princes they were the three played the game with mad persistence. Never for an instant, night or day, did trade slacken, for to slacken was to lose. Carlisle, Galt and Drummond worked in turn behind the counter while the Indians they dealt with traded and slept in relays or slept not at all. Such profit, the tribes well knew, could not last long. They availed themselves while they might. Never had the stoic hunters been moved to such excitement. They stalked no more but ran violently from post to post, frantic for the highest bid. Around Wayne’s or Richelieu’s counter they would be swarm- ing, trading greedily, when a fellow tribes- man would rush in jabbering and away they would surge to Cumberland House where beaver was worth another skin. For never before had the Northland known the like, never before had the poverty-ridden Crees been possessed of so much wealth or reveled in so much luxury. Now their costlier pelts came out, bear, lynx, wolf, wolverine, ermine, otter, marten, fisher, the prime red fox, crosses, silvers, blacks. Carlisle, Galt and Drummond COnnicloookks (C@