ND RAID 73

VII. YEARS OF DISASTER 89

VIII. EXPANSION AND EXPLORATION 103

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE 125

INDEX 129

ILLUSTRATIONS

PRINCE RUPERT _Frontispiece_
From the painting in the
National Portrait Gallery.

_Page_

A VIEW OF THE INTERIOR OF OLD FORT 2
GARRY
Drawn by H. A. Strong.

TRACK SURVEY OF THE SASKATCHEWAN 4
BETWEEN CEDAR LAKE AND LAKE
WINNIPEG

THE PRINCIPAL POSTS OF THE HUDSON'S 6
BAY COMPANY
Map by Bartholomew.

THE ROUTES OF HUDSON AND MUNCK 10
Map by Bartholomew.

THE LAST HOURS OF HUDSON 18
From the painting by Collier.

JOHN CHURCHILL, FIRST DUKE OF MARLBOROUGH 42
From the painting in the
National Portrait Gallery.

ON THE HAYES RIVER 58
From photograph by R. W. Brock.

ENTRANCE TO THE NELSON AND HAYES 60
RIVERS
Map by Bartholomew.

A CAMP IN THE SWAMP COUNTRY 120
From a photograph.

CHAPTER I

THE FUR HUNTERS

Thirty or more years ago, one who stood at the foot of Main Street,
Winnipeg, in front of the stone gate leading to the inner court of Fort
Garry, and looked up across the river flats, would have seen a
procession as picturesque as ever graced the streets of old Quebec--the
dog brigades of the Hudson's Bay Company coming in from the winter's
hunt.

Against the rolling snowdrifts appeared a line, at first grotesquely
dwarfed under the mock suns of the eastern sky veiled in a soft frost
fog. Then a husky-dog in bells and harness bounced up over the drifts,
followed by another and yet another--eight or ten dogs to each long, low
toboggan that slid along loaded and heaped with peltry. Beside each
sleigh emerged out of the haze the form of the driver--a swarthy fellow,
on snow-shoes, with hair bound back by a red scarf, and corduroy
trousers belted in by another red scarf, and fur gauntlets to his
elbows--flourishing his whip and yelling, in a high, snarling falsetto,
'marche! marche!'--the rallying-cry of the French wood-runner since
first he set out from Quebec in the sixteen-hundreds to thread his way
westward throug