forest to Lake Champlain.
As he approached an Indian settlement he played his flute. The
aborigines showed no disposition to give him the hook. He hired Indians
to paddle him up to the Canadian border. He reached Montreal.

The fur-traders there knew Bowne as a very sharp buyer, and so had their
quills out on his approach. But young Astor was seemingly indifferent.
His manner was courteous and easy. He got close to his man, and took his
pick of the pelts at fair prices. He expended all of his money, and even
bought on credit, for there are men who always have credit.

Young Astor found Indian nature to be simply human nature. The savage
was a man, and courtesy, gentleness and fairly good flute-playing
soothed his savage breast. Astor had beads and blankets, a flute and a
smile. The Indians carried his goods by relays and then with guttural
certificates as to his character passed him on to other red men, and at
last he reached New York without the loss of a pelt or the dampening of
his ardor.

Bowne was delighted. To young Astor it was nothing. He had in his blood
the success corpuscle. He might have remained with Bowne and become a
partner in the business, but Bowne had business limitations and Astor
hadn't. So after a three years' apprenticeship, Astor knew all that
Bowne did and all he himself could imagine besides. So he resigned.

In Seventeen Hundred Eighty-six, John Jacob Astor began business on his
own account in a little store on Water Street, New York. There were one
room and a basement. He had saved a few hundred dollars: his brother,
the butcher, had loaned him a few hundred more, and Robert Bowne had
contributed a bale of skins to be paid for "at thy own price and thy own
convenience."

Astor had made friends with the Indians up the Hudson clear to Albany,
and they were acting as recruiting-agents for him. He was a bit boastful
of the fact that he had taught an Indian to play the flute, and anyway
he had sold the savage the instrument for a bale of beaver-pelts, with a
bearskin thrown in for good measure. It was a musical achievement as
well as a commercial one.

Having collected several thousand dollars' worth of furs he shipped
them to London and embarked as a passenger in the steerage. The trip
showed him that ability to sell was quite as necessary as the ability to
buy--a point which with all of his shrewdness Bowne had never guessed.

In London furs were becoming a fad. Astor sorted and sifted h