No, I say it with unbiased mind that the opening up of the country to outsiders was a sorry day for the Indians. While they were dealt with exclusively by the Hudson Bay Company, they had the care and guidance of a parent, but the progress of settlement cannot be stayed and the end of the Indian is inevitable, and, like the buffalo, they will in a very few years be of the past. The Great Company, who for two and a quarter centuries has been identified with the fur trade, is rapidly becoming a company of shopkeepers in the new towns and villages of the west. With the disappearance of the Indian will go the last of the class of men who caused his undoing, "The Free Trader." CHAPTER III. OUTFITTING INDIANS. In these days of keen opposition it is only at the remote inland posts that we can supply the Indians with system; that is, as to amount of debt and a fixed time for sending them to the hunting grounds. Taking Long Lake Post, north of Lake Superior, as a sample to illustrate our manner in rigging out hunters, I will say we appoint the 15th of September as the first day of supplies. On that day, early in the morning, the chief and his wife are called into the store, all others are excluded; this is done for two reasons--first, the Indian himself does not like the others to know what they take, or the amount of their debt; and, secondly, we find that when others, who are only onlookers are in the shop, they distract the attention of the Indian, who is taking the outfit and delay us in our work. The first thing done after the door is closed and locked is to talk over the pros and cons with the Indian as to where he is going to hunt, and his prospects, and from this an amount agreed upon as to the extent of his new debt. This settled, we suggest that, first of all, necessary articles should be marked down; these we mention one by one and he replies if he has such already, good enough for another year, or if we are to mark down the article. The first essention, of course, is ammunition; so many pounds of shot and powder and so many boxes of percussion caps. Next on the list of his wants would be an axe, or axes, an ice chisel, steel traps, twine for a fish net, a few fish hooks, two or three mill-saw files (to sharpen his ice-chisel and axes) matches, a couple of bottles of pain-killer and the same of castor oil, and some thread and needles, (glovers and round). Then comes the imported provisions. To an ordinary family of a man, his wife and two or three children, he will take 200 pounds flour, 50 pounds compound lard, 10 pounds tea, the same of tobacco, 2-pound cart of soda, 25 pounds sugar, another perhaps 12 or 15 pounds pork. This latter must be pure fat, meatless and boneless.