ring, then, of three hundred
'castors,' and because you have brought so fine a skin of the otter,
behold also a fathom of tobacco and a half sack of flour."

"Good!" ejaculated the Indian.

The Trader then led them to stairs, up which they clambered to where
Davis, the Assistant Trader, kept store. There, barred by a heavy
wooden grill from the airy loft filled with bright calicoes, sashes,
pails, guns, blankets, clothes, and other ornamental and useful
things, Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun made their choice, trading in the worn
wooden "castors" on the string. So much flour, so much tea, so much
sugar and powder and lead, so much in clothing. Thus were their simple
needs supplied for the year to come. Then the remainder they
squandered on all sorts of useless things--beads, silks, sashes,
bright handkerchiefs, mirrors. And when the last wooden "castor" was
in they went down stairs and out the picket lane, carrying their
lighter purchases, but leaving the larger as "debt," to be called for
when needed. Two of their companions mounted the stairs as they
descended; and two more passed them in the narrow picket lane. So the
trade went on.

At once Sak-we-su and Mu-hi-kun were surrounded. In detail they told
what they had done. Then in greater detail their friends told what
_they_ would have done, until after five minutes of bewildering advice
the disconsolate pair would have been only too glad to have exchanged
everything--if that had been allowed.

Now the bell rang again. It was "smoke time." Everyone quit work for a
half-hour. The sun climbed higher in the heavens. The laughing crews
of idlers sprawled in the warmth, gambling, telling stories, singing.
Then one might have heard all the picturesque songs of the Far
North--"A la claire Fontaine"; "Ma Boule Roulant"; "Par derrier'
chez-mon Pere"; "Isabeau s'y promene"; "P'tite Jeanneton"; "Luron,
Lurette"; "Chante, Rossignol, chante"; the ever-popular "Malbrouck";
"C'est la belle Francoise"; "Alouette"; or the beautiful and tender
"La Violette Dandine." They had good voices, these _voyageurs_, with
the French artistic instinct, and it was fine to hear them.

At noon the squaws set out to gather canoe gum on the mainland. They
sat huddled in the bottom of their old and leaky canoe, reaching far
over the sides to dip their paddles, irregularly placed, silent,
mysterious. They did not paddle with the unison of the men, but each
jabbed a little short stroke as the time suited h