and kept under his pillow by
night. They were the keys to the apartments of his many wives, for
like all Indians Norton believed in a plurality of wives, and the life
of no Indian was safe who refused to contribute a daughter to the
harem. The two master passions of the governor were jealousy and
tyranny; and while he lived like a Turkish despot himself, he ruled his
fort with a rod of iron and left the brand of his wrath on the person
of soldier or officer who offered indignity to the Indian race. It was
a common thing for Norton to poison an Indian who refused to permit a
daughter to join the collection of wives; then to flog the back off a
soldier who casually spoke to one of the wives in the courtyard; and in
the evening spend the entire supper hour preaching sermons on virtue to
his men. By a curious freak, Marie, his daughter, now a child of nine,
inherited from her father the gentle qualities of the English life in
which he had passed his youth. She shunned the native women and was
often to be seen hanging on her father's arm, as officers and governor
smoked their pipes over the mess-room table.

Near Norton sat another famous Indian, Matonabbee, the son of a slave
woman at the fort, who had grown up to become a great ambassador to the
native tribes for the English traders. Measuring more than six feet,
straight as a lance, supple as a wrestler, thin, wiry, alert, restless
with the instinct of the wild creatures, Matonabbee was now in the
prime of his manhood, chief of the Chipewyans at the fort, and master
of life and death to all in his tribe. It was Matonabbee whom the
English traders sent up the Saskatchewan to invite the tribes of the
Athabasca down to the bay. The Athabascans listened to the message of
peace with a treacherous smile. At midnight assassins stole to his
tent, overpowered his slave, and dragged the captive out. Leaping to
his feet, Matonabbee shouted defiance, hurled his assailants aside like
so many straws, pursued the raiders to their tents, single-handed
released his slave, and marched out unscathed. That was the way
Matonabbee had won the Athabascans for the Hudson's Bay Company.

Officers of the garrison, bluff sea-captains, spinning yarns of iceberg
and floe, soldiers and traders, made up the rest of the company. Among
the white men was one eager face,--that of Samuel Hearne, who was to
explore the interior and now scanned the birch-bark drawings to learn
the way to the "Fa