"No," they would say, "we trade with our friends, as our grandfathers did. Our fathers once waited for the French and Bostonians to come to their forts, and they lay down and died, and their squaws devoured them, waiting still. You are here to-day, but will you be here to-morrow? No, we are going to trade with the Company." And so they pressed on, resisting temptation, wayward, though loyal, enduring a long and rough journey that they might deal with their friends. [Sidenote: The "coureurs de bois."] Thus for some years the Company prospered, and did a more thriving business than ever. But before, however, dealing with the new _régime_, let us turn for a moment to the Canadian bushrangers and voyageurs thus cut off from their homes and abandoned by their officers and employers. Their occupation was gone--whither did they drift? Too long had they led the untrammelled life of the wilderness to adjust again the fetters of a civilized life in Montreal or Quebec; they were attached to their brave and careless masters; these in many instances they were permitted to follow; but large numbers dispersed themselves amongst the Indians. Without capital they could no longer follow the fur-trade; they were fond of hunting and fishing; and so by allying themselves with Indian wives, and by following the pursuits and adopting the customs of the Red men, themselves became virtually savages, completely severed from their white fellows. But an influx of Scotch Highlanders had been taking place in Canada ever since 1745, and some of these bold spirits were quick to see the advantages of prosecuting, without legal penalty, a private trade in furs. To these were added English soldiers, who were discharged at the peace, or had previously deserted. How many of these were slain by the aborigines, and never more heard of, can never be computed; but it is certain that many more embarked in the fur-trade and fell victims to the tomahawk, torch, hunger and disease than there is any record of. [Sidenote: Hostility of the Indians to the English.] It is certain, also, that the hostility of the tribes, chief amongst them the Iroquois, to the English, was very great, and this hostility was nourished for some years by the discontented bushrangers and voyageurs. In the action of Pontiac at Detroit, and the surprise and capture of Michilimackinac with its attendant horrors, there is ample proof, both of the spirit animating the Indians, and the danger which went hand in hand with the new trade in furs. [Illustration: A BLACKFOOT BRAVE. (_Drawn by Edmund Morris, after photo._)]