y,
was able to say only two years ago, "the fur trade is quite as large as
ever it was."

Among free hunters, Canada had only one commanding figure--John Johnston
of the Soo, who settled at La Pointe on Lake Superior in 1792, formed
league with Wabogish, "the White Fisher," and became the most famous
trader of the Lakes. His life, too, was almost as eventful as Colter's.
A member of the Irish nobility, some secret which he never chose to
reveal drove him to the wilds. Wabogish, the "White Fisher," had a
daughter who refused the wooings of all her tribe's warriors. In vain
Johnston sued for her hand. Old Wabogish bade the white man go sell his
Irish estates and prove his devotion by buying as vast estates in
America. Johnston took the old chief at his word, and married the
haughty princess of the Lake. When the War of 1812 set all the tribes by
the ears, Johnston and his wife had as thrilling adventures as ever
Colter knew among the Blackfeet.

Many a free trapper, and partner of the fur companies as well, secured
his own safety by marrying the daughter of a chief, as Johnston had.
These were not the lightly-come, lightly-go affairs of the vagrant
adventurer. If the husband had not cast off civilization like a garment,
the wife had to put it on like a garment; and not an ill-fitting garment
either, when one considers that the convents of the quiet nuns dotted
the wilderness like oases in a desert almost contemporaneous with the
fur trade. If the trapper had not sunk to the level of the savages, the
little daughter of the chief was educated by the nuns for her new
position. I recall several cases where the child was sent across the
Atlantic to an English governess so that the equality would be literal
and not a sentimental fiction. And yet, on no subject has the western
fur trader received more persistent and unjust condemnation. The heroism
that culminated in the union of Pocahontas with a noted Virginian won
applause, and almost similar circumstances dictated the union of fur
traders with the daughters of Indian chiefs; but because the fur trader
has not posed as a sentimentalist, he has become more or less of a
target for the index finger of the Pharisee.[38]

North of the boundary the free trapper had small chance against the
Hudson's Bay Company. As long as the slow-going Mackinaw Company, itself
chiefly recruited from free trappers, ruled at the junction of the
Lakes, the free trappers held the hunting-grounds of