ortly "hoss and beaver" found their way into
the pockets of the unconscionable gamblers.

Frequently a trapper would squander the entire product of his hunt,
amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of hours. Then, supplied
with another outfit, he left the rendezvous for another expedition,
which had the same result time after time, although one good hunt
would have enabled him to return to the settlements and live a life of
comparative ease.

It is told of one old Canadian trapper, who had received as much as
fifteen thousand dollars for beaver during his life in the mountains,
extending over twenty years, that each season he had resolved in his
mind to go back to Canada, and with this object in view always converted
his furs into cash; but a fortnight at the rendezvous always "cleaned
him out," and at the end of the twenty years he had not even enough
credit to get a plug of tobacco.

Trading with the Indians in the primitive days of the border was just
what the word signifies in its radical interpretation--a system of
barter exclusively. No money was used in the transaction, as it was long
afterward before the savages began to learn something of the value
of currency from their connection with the sutler's and agency stores
established on reservations and at military posts on the plains and in
the mountains. In the early days, if an Indian by any chance happened to
get possession of a piece of money (only gold or silver was recognized
as a medium of exchange in the remote West), he would immediately
fashion it into some kind of an ornament with which to adorn his person.
Some tribes, however, did indulge in a sort of currency, worthless
except among themselves. This consisted of rare shells, such as the
Oligachuck, so called, of the Pacific coast nations, used by them within
my own recollection, as late as 1858.

The poor Indian, as might have been expected, was generally outrageously
swindled; in fact, I am inclined to believe, always. I never was present
on an occasion when he was not.

The savage's idea of values was very crude until the government, in
attempting to civilize and make a gentleman of him, has transformed him
into a bewildered child. Very soon after his connection with the white
trader, he learned that a gun was more valuable than a knife; but of
their relative cost to manufacture he had no idea. For these reasons,
obviously, he was always at the mercy of the unscrupulous trader who
came t