It was only in regions where there were rival traders, or where colonization was bound to come, as in the Western States, that the fur brigades waged a war of extermination against the beaver. Elsewhere, north of the Saskatchewan and Athabasca, where cold must forever bar out the settler and leave the hunter in undisturbed possession of his game preserve, the Company acted as a nursery for the fur-bearing animals. Indians were taught not to kill in summer, not to kill the young, to leave the mother untouched. Tales are told—and the tales are perfectly true—of Hudson’s Bay fur traders taking a particularly long-barreled old musket standing it on the ground and ordering the poor, deluded Indian to pile furs to the top before he could have the gun; but to make these tales entirely true it should be added that the furs were muskrat and rabbit killed out of season not worth a penny apiece in the London market and only taken to keep the Indians going till a year of good hunting came. When arraigned before a committee of the House of Commons, in 1857, charged with putting an advance of 50 per cent. on all goods traded to the Indians, and with paying ridiculously small prices for the rare skins in proportion to what they had paid for the poor, the Company frankly acknowledged both facts, but it was proved that 33 per cent. of the advance represented expenses of carriage to the interior. As for the other charge, the Company contended that it was wiser to take many skins that were absolutely worthless and buy the valuable pelts at a moderate price; otherwise, the Indians would die from want in bad years, and in good years kill off the entire supply of the rare fur-bearing animals. Since the surrender of the monopoly, countless rival traders have invaded the hunting grounds of the Company. None has yet been able to wean the Indians away from the old Company. It is a question if the world shows another example of such a long-lived feudalism. Though a Hudson’s Bay servant could not take as much as one beaver skin for himself, every man afield had as keen an interest in the total returns as the shareholders in London. This was owing to the bounty system. To encourage the servants and prevent temptations to dishonesty, the Company paid bounty on every score (20) of made beaver to captains, factors, traders, and trappers, in amounts ranging from three shillings to sixpence a score. Latterly, this system has given place to larger salaries and direct shareholding on the part of the servants, who rise in the service.