ven health and game, no toil and no hardship will
hinder him from procuring fur enough to pay off his indebtedness, and
to lay up in store twice as much again with which to engage next spring
in the delightful battle of wits between white man and red in the Great
Company's trading room.

II

IN QUEST OF TREASURE

THE PERFECT FOOL

It was an ideal day and the season and the country were in keeping.
Soon the trading posts faded from view, and when, after trolling around
Fishing Point, we entered White River and went ashore for an early
supper, everyone was smiling. I revelled over the prospect of work,
freedom, contentment, and beauty before me; and over the thought of
leaving behind me the last vestige of the white man's ugly,
hypercritical, and oppressive civilization.

Was it any wonder I was happy? For me it was but the beginning of a
never-to-be-forgotten journey in a land where man can be a man without
the aid of money. Yes . . . without money. And that reminds me of a
white man I knew who was born and bred in the Great Northern Forest,
and who supported and educated a family of twelve, and yet he reached
his sixtieth birthday without once having handled or ever having seen
money. He was as generous, as refined, and as noble a man as one would
desire to know; yet when he visited civilization for the first time--in
his sixty-first year--he was reviled because he had a smile for all, he
was swindled because he knew no guile, he was robbed because he trusted
everyone, and he was arrested because he manifested brotherly love
toward his fellow-creatures. Our vaunted civilization! It was the
regret of his declining years that circumstances prevented him from
leaving the enlightened Christians of the cities, and going back to
live in peace among the honest, kindly hearted barbarians of the forest.

Soon there were salmon-trout--fried to a golden brown--crisp bannock,
and tea for all; then a little re-adjusting of the packs, and we were
again at the paddles. Oo-koo-hoo's wife, Ojistoh, along with her
second granddaughter and her two grandsons, occupied one of the
three-and-a-half fathom canoes; Amik, and his wife, Naudin, with her
baby and eldest daughter, occupied the other; and Oo-koo-hoo and I
paddled together in the two-and-a-half fathom canoe. One of the five
dogs--Oo-koo-hoo's best hunter--travelled with us, while the other four
took passage in the other canoes. Although the going was now up
st