The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-11-22

theirs to set out in midwinter with no companion but his dog-man and dog carrying provisions on their backs, the man by a packstrap across his fore head, the dog by ropes hitched over his back-and blaze his way one, two, three hundred miles through an un- broken forest, to seek a new hunting field or secure the hunt of strange tribe of Indians, or make sure of pelts which might otherwise find their way to the enemy's warehouses.
 Among the cosmopolitan hunters that the French company has gathered into it's ranks are many old frontiersmen whose lives would be in themselves a book. Perhaps the most famous of these is an old Texas trapper, who be- gan as buffalo hunter on the frontier of Mexico and followed the trail along the foot of the Rockies three-quarters of the length of North America, clear up to Athabasca Lake.
 Sometimes 1t was that rarest of anil nal freaks, the white buffalo, that lured his feet. Sometimes he hunted with the Blaekfeet and the Snakes and the Sioux in the days when buffalo herds roamed the plains in millions, leaving great ruts like trench where they had marched single file over damp ground. But always ts settlement pushed back the frontier of the fur trade he followed the fleeing herds till he came to that paradise of the hunter the Athabasca.
 rTO of at I,AIJ tha rIU hIInt of an Indian tribe the white trader must be on the most friendly relations with every man, woman and child or the Indian camp. According to his age, they will probably call him uncle or brother, and if he has any distinguish ing mark, like red hair, they will call him by that mark, Red Head Chief.
 On every conceivable joy and sorrow of the camp he will be consulted, and woe to his yearly returns if he fails or effective advice! He may demonstrate beyond any reasonable doubt the non sense of their old customs and super stitions. They will not believe him and he will lose their hunt unless he can give instant answer and effective rem edy,
 For instance, last year when a lead ing trader came home to his fur post from a trip afield he found one family in deep and noisy distress Tomtoms were pounding. Old and young were dancing some religious dance, wringing their hands and tearing their hair The medicine man in the tepee hoWled like demon possessed.
 What was the matter? "Oh, very bad medicine Quck)! It was the evil eye!" The lover who had been reject ed had cast his haleful glance on the happy bride with dire predictions that in such and such a time would she be- gin to fade away; and now she lies on the bearskin robe in the teepee, color less as ashes, literally, physically, 1 hopelessly i'll with fright.
 The medicine man is bowling to frighten the evil spirit away The tom- toms are drumming to terrify the ma lign power. The dance is to propitiate the good powers; and the father is turning handsprings round the teepee to let tie evil spirit know that he sees it, is after it, and will presently land a blow with the skull cracker in his hand that will smash the cranium of the in- visible spirit to nothingness. Now the young trader might argue himself black In the face that there is no such thing as the evil cyclic will lose that familys hunt unless he can rouse the fair bride to instant vigor.
 So he joins his efforts to theirs. Yes, let the camp fire burn low. Evil spir- its escape best through tthe dark. Let the medicine man keep up his powwow. Here, some one, give him a knifel Let the father watch through the dark for a flash. Let the girl call out if she feels the thing escaping through her arm. A quick slash of the knife! The father has seen the light an the blade, the girl has felt the cut. They swear they saw it escape from her arm. And all the young trader has done is exact ly what the physicians of our forefath- CTS did-let a little blood and cured hysteria by localizing a real pain, And the bride rises from her bed
 To-day the rarest furs are un- doubtedly silver and black fox. In a single year as many as one thousand of these have been taken from the Cana dian northwest; but not all were equal ly valuable. The silver fox, perhaps, is worth from twenty to three hundred dollars a pelt; the black fox from twenty-five to seven hundred and sixty dollars, although as much as ten thou sand dollars has been paid for fancy pelt of absolutely perfect texture.
 What is the silver fox? Science con- siders it freak a sport, among the black foxes, caught at the moment when the haid Is turning from black to gray or gray to black, according to age and season. Against this I wish to set down the opinion of the experienced hunter on the field.
 He finds silver foxes in filters with red and cross and black. Therefore, he says, it Is not a distinct species, but it is a distinct kind; and he acribes its kind directly to it's parentage. Either the father or the mother fox has been a silver fox. In view of the disputes of the naturalists, the hunters opinion is worth considering.
 Besides the silver and black fox, the standard furs are what they have all ways been-4beaver and mink and mar ten and otter and fisher, not forgetting the common little fellows with whose pelts we line our coats-muskrat-of which as many as two million year have come out of the west, worth from twenty-five cents a pelt to four cents.
 What does the native trapper earn?