" they say.

The French merchant hastens down to Montreal to bring lawsuit, but the
judges, you must remember, are shareholders in the {295} Northwest
Company, and many of the Legislative Council are Nor'westers. What
with real delays and sham delays and put-offs and legal fees, justice
is a bit tardy. While the case is pending the French merchant tries
again. This time he is not molested at Fort William. They let him
proceed on his way up the old trail to Lake of the Woods, the trail
found by La Verendrye; and halfway through the wilderness, where the
cataract offers only one path for portage, the Frenchman finds
Nor'-westers building a barricade; he tears it down. They build
another; he tears that down. They build a third; fast as he tears
down, they build up. He must either go back baffled by these suave,
smiling, lawless rivals, or fight on the spot to the death; but there
is neither glory nor wealth being killed in the wilderness, where not
so much as the sands of the shore will tell the true story of the
crime. So the French merchant compromises, sells out to the
Nor'westers at cost plus carriage, and retires to the St. Lawrence
cursing British justice.

It may be guessed that the sudden eruption of "the peddlers," these
bush banditti, these Scotch soldiers of fortune with French bullies for
fighters, roused the ancient and honorable Hudson's Bay Company from
its half-century slumber of peace. Anthony Hendry, who had gone up the
Saskatchewan far as the Blackfoot country of the foothills, they had
dismissed as a liar in the fifties because he had reported that he had
seen _Indians on horseback_, whereas the sleepy factors of the bay
ports knew very well they never saw any kind of Indians except Indians
in canoes; but now in the sixties it is noted by the company that not
so many furs are coming down from the Up Country. It is voted "the
French Canadian peddlers of Montreal" be notified of the company's
exclusive monopoly to the trade of these regions. One Findley is sent
to Quebec to look after the Hudson's Bay Company's rights; but while
the English company _talks_ about its rights, the Nor'westers go in the
field and _take_ them.

The English company rubs its eyes and sits up and scratches its heavy
head, and passes an order that Mr. Moses Norton, chief {296} factor of
Churchill, send Mr. Samuel Hearne to explore the Up Country. Hearne
has heard of Far-Away-Metal River, far enough away in all con