y miles, they
reached the encampment, where they found all the Indians dead drunk, and
not a skin, not even the remnant of a musquash, left to repay them for
their trouble! Then it was that they discovered the _ruse_ of the ball,
and vowed to have their revenge.

Opportunity was not long wanting. Soon after this occurrence, one of
their parties met a Hudson Bay train on its way to trade with the
Indians, of whom they also were in search. They exchanged compliments
with each other, and, as the day was very cold, proposed lighting a fire
and taking a dram together. Soon five or six goodly trees yielded to
their vigorous blows, and fell crashing to the ground; and in a few
minutes one of the party, lighting a sulphur match with his flint and
steel, set fire to a huge pile of logs, which crackled and burned
furiously, sending up clouds of sparks into the wintry sky, and casting
a warm tinge upon the anew and the surrounding trees. The canteen was
quickly produced, and they told their stories and adventures while the
liquor mounted to their brains. The Nor'-Westers, however, after a
little time, spilled their grog on the snow, unperceived by the others,
so that they kept tolerably sober, while their rivals became very much
elevated; and at last they began boasting of their superior powers of
drinking, and, as a proof, each of them swallowed a large bumper. The
Hudson Bay party, who were nearly dead drunk by this time, of course
followed their example, and almost instantly fell in a heavy sleep on
the snow. In ten minutes more they were tied firmly upon their sledges,
and the dogs being turned homewards, away they went straight for the
Hudson Bay Fort, where they soon after arrived, the men still sound
asleep; while the Nor'-Westers started for the indian camp, and this
time, at least, had the furs all to themselves.

Such were the scenes that took place thirty years ago in the northern
wildernesses of America. Since then, the two companies have joined,
retaining the name of the richer and more powerful of the two--the
"Hudson Bay Company." Spirits were still imported after the junction;
but of late years they have been dispensed with throughout the country,
except at the colony of Red River, and the few posts where opposition is
carried on by the American fur-companies; so that now the poor savage no
longer grovels in the dust of his native wilderness under the influence
of the white man's fire-water, and the stra