become known as the Northwest Fur Company. They now hire their voyageurs outright on a salary. No man is paid less than what would be $500 in modern money, with board; and any man may rise to be clerk, trader, wintering partner, with shares worth 800 pounds ($4000), that bring dividends of two and three hundred per cent. The petty merchants whom Murray and Carleton despised became in twenty years the opulent aristocracy of Montreal, holding the most of the public offices, dominating the government, filling the judgeships, and entertaining with a lavish hospitality that put vice-regal splendor in the shade. The Beaver Club is the great rendezvous of the Montreal partners. "Fortitude in Distress" is the motto and lords of the ascendant is their practice. No man, neither governor nor judge, may ignore these Nor'westers, and it may be added they are a law unto themselves. One example will suffice. A French merchant of Montreal took it into his head to have a share of this wealth-giving trade. He was advised to pool his interests with the Nor'westers, and he foolishly ignored the advice. In camp at Grand Portage on Lake Superior he is told all the country hereabout belongs to the Nor'westers, and _he_ must decamp. "Show me proofs this country is yours," he answers. "Show me the title deed and I shall decamp." Next night a band of Nor'westers, voyageurs well plied with rum, came down the strand to the intruder's tents. They cut his tents to ribbons, scatter his goods to the four winds, and beat his voyageurs into insensibility. "Voila! there are our proofs," 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 Vérendrye; 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.