h belonged to them in return for the loan of the
trap. They thus completely minimized the chance for competition, which
is "the life of trade."

Soon after my arrival on the coast I saw the old Hudson Bay Company's
plan of paying in bone counters of various colours; and a large lumber
company paying its wages in tin money, stamped "Only valuable at our
store." If, to counteract this handicap, the men sold fish or fur for
cash to outsiders, and their suppliers found it out, they would punish
them severely.

On another occasion, sitting by me on a gunning point where we were
shooting ducks as they flew by on their fall migration, was a friend
who had given me much help in building one of our hospitals. I
suddenly noticed that he did not fire at a wonderful flock of eiders
which went right over our heads. "What's the matter, Jim?" I asked. "I
settled with the merchant to-day," he replied, "and he won't give me
nothing for powder. A duck or two won't matter. 'Tis the children I'm
minding." The fishery had been poor, and not having enough to meet his
advances, he had sold a few quintals of fish for cash, so as to get
things like milk which he would not be allowed on winter credit, and
had been caught doing so. He was a grown man and the father of four
children. We went to his trader to find out how much he was in debt.
The man's account on the books was shown us, and it read over three
thousand dollars against our friend. It had been carried on for many
years. A year or two later when the merchant himself went bankrupt
with a debt of $686,000 to the bank of which he was a director, the
people of that village, some four hundred and eleven souls in all,
owed his firm $64,000, an asset returned as value nil. The whole thing
seemed a nightmare to any one who cared about these people.

In Labrador no cereals are grown and the summer frosts make potato and
turnip crops precarious, so that the tops of the latter are
practically all the green food to which we can aspire--except for the
few families who remain at the heads of the long bays all summer, far
removed from the polar current. Furthermore, until some one invents a
way to extract the fishy taste from our fish oils, we must import our
edible fats; for the Labrador dogs will not permit cows or even goats
to live near them. I have heard only this week that a process has just
been discovered in California for making a pleasant tasting butter out
of fish oil. Our "sweetness" m