ment busy and enjoyable. One outstanding
feature, however, everywhere impressed an Englishman--the absolute
necessity for some standard medium of exchange. Till one has seen the
truck system at work, its evil effects in enslaving and demoralizing
the poor are impossible to realize.

All the length and breadth of the coast, the poorer people would show
me their "settling up" as they called their account, though many never
got as far as having any "settling up" given them--so they lived and
died in debt to their merchant. They never knew the independence of a
dollar in their pockets and the consequent incentive and value of
thrift.

It was incredible to me that even large concerns like the Hudson Bay
Company would not pay in cash for valuable furs, and that so many
dealers in the necessities of life should be still able to hold free
men in economic bondage. It seemed a veritable chapter from "Through
the Looking Glass," to hear the "grocer" and "haberdasher" talking of
"my people," meaning their patrons, and holding over them the whip of
refusal to sell them necessities in their hour of need if at any time
they dealt with outsiders, however much to their advantage such a
course might be.

This fact was first impressed upon me in an odd way. Early in the
summer an Eskimo had come aboard the hospital ship with a bear skin
and a few other furs to sell. We had not only been delighted with the
chance to buy them, but had spread them all around the cabin and
taken a picture of him in the middle. Later in the season, while
showing my photograph album to a trader, he had suddenly remarked,
"Why, what's ---- doing here?"

"Selling me some beautiful furs," I replied.

"Oh! was he?" said the man. "I'll make him sing for selling the furs
for which I supplied him."

It was no salve to his fretfulness when I assured him that I had paid
in good English gold, and that his "dealer" would be as honest with
the money as the system had made him. But the trader knew that the
truck system creates slippery, tricky men; and the fisherman openly
declares war on the merchant, making the most of his few opportunities
to outwit his opponent.

A few years later a man brought a silver fox skin aboard my ship, just
such a one as I had been requested by an English lady to secure for
her. As fulfilling such a request would involve me in hostilities
(which, however, I do not think were useless), I asked the man, who
was wretchedly poor, if he ow