tors who had reigned at the Post
during the past eighty-seven years.

A MIGHTY HUNTER

After the two traders had finished "talking musquash"--fur-trade
business--they began reminiscing on the more picturesque side of their
work, and as I had come to spend the winter with the fur hunters on
their hunting grounds, the subject naturally turned to that well-worn
topic, the famous Nimrods of the North. It brought forth many an
interesting tale, for both my companions were well versed in such lore,
and in order to keep up my end I quoted from Warren's book on the
Ojibways: "As an illustration of the kind and abundance of animals
which then covered the country, it is stated that an Ojibway hunter
named No-Ka, the grandfather of Chief White Fisher, killed in one day's
hunt, starting from the mouth of Crow Wing River, sixteen elk, four
buffalo, five deer, three bear, one lynx, and one porcupine. There was
a trader wintering at the time at Crow Wing, and for his winter's
supply of meat, No-Ka presented him with the fruits of his day's hunt."

My host granted that that was the biggest day's bag he had ever heard
of, and Trader Spear, withdrawing his pipe from his mouth, remarked:

"No-Ka must have been a great hunter. I would like to have had his
trade. But, nevertheless, I have heard of an Indian who might have
been a match for him. He, too, was an Ojibway, and his name was
Narphim. He lived somewhere out in the Peace River country, and I've
heard it stated that he killed, in his lifetime, more than eighty
thousand living things. Some bag for one hunter."

Since Trader Spear made that interesting remark I have had the pleasure
of meeting a factor of the Hudson's Bay Company who knew Narphim from
boyhood, and who was a personal friend of his, and who was actually in
charge of a number of posts at which the Indian traded. Owing to their
friendship for one another, the Factor took such a personal pride in
the fame the hunter won, that he compiled, from the books of the
Hudson's Bay Company, a complete record of all the fur-bearing animals
the Indian killed between the time he began to trade as a hunter at the
age of eleven, until his hunting days were ended. Furthermore, in
discussing the subject with Narphim they together compiled an
approximate list of the number of fish, wild fowl, and rabbits that the
hunter must have secured each season, and thus Narphim's record stands
as the following figures show. I would te