account of the Iroquois. The Blackfeet’s entire lives were spent doing two things—hunting and raiding the Snakes of the South for horses. Men and women captives were tortured with shocking cruelty that made the Blackfeet a terror to all enemies; but young captives were adopted into the tribe after the custom followed by the Iroquois of the East. Of food, there was always plenty from the buffalo hunts; and game abounded from the Saskatchewan Forks to the mountains. [Illustration: Traders Leaving Athabasca Landing for the North.] When Cocking tried to persuade the Blackfeet to come down to the fort with furs, they were reluctant. They did not understand canoe travel and could not take their horses, and why should they go down? The Assiniboines would trade the furs for firearms to be brought to the Blackfeet. Cocking pointed out that with more firearms, they could be masters of the entire country and by dint of presenting cocked hats and swords and gold-laced red coats to the chiefs, induced them to promise not to trade with “the Canadian Pedlars.” “We have done all in our power to keep them from trading with François or Curry, who lie at the Portage (the Rapids) of the Saskatchewan to intercept the natives coming to us.” On May 16, 1773, Cocking set out to return to the fort. For the first time, a few young Blackfeet joined the canoes going to York. At the Forks, two rival camps were found, that of Louis Primo who had come over to the Hudson’s Bay from the French, and old François working for the French Canadians. The English traders had no liquor. Four gallons of rum diluted with water won the Indians over to old François, the Canadian, who picked out one hundred of the rarest skins and was only hindered taking the entire hunt because he had no more goods to trade. François’ house was a long log structure divided into two sections, half for a kitchen and mess room, half for a trading room, and the furs were kept in the loft. Outside, were two or three log cabins for François’ white men, of whom he had twenty. Round all ran ten-foot stockades against which lay the great canoes twenty-four feet long, twenty-two inches deep, which carried the furs to Lake Superior. Cocking, who was used to factors ruling like little kings, was shocked to find old François “an ignorant Frenchman, who did not keep his men at proper distance and had no watch at night. It surprises me,” he writes, “to observe what a warm side the natives hath to the French Canadians.”