“You flatter me,” I commented bitterly. “Considering that I have shown myself more or less weak-kneed every time I’ve got in a tight place, your remark about some one who would stick by you in a pinch savors of irony. I hardly see how you could put absolute faith in me, when I have so little faith in myself. Besides, I do not know what your program calls for. I don’t seem to have the faculty of holding my own in a rough game; nor the right sort of nerve—if I have any. My instinct seems to be to give ground until I’m cornered. I’d rather be at peace with the world. I don’t like war of the personal sort.” “Nor does any man, any normal man,” he responded soberly. “But there are times, as you have seen, when we cannot escape it. So far as your capacity for holding your own is concerned, let me be judge of that. I know men more or less well—by bitter experience. Under certain conditions I could probably guess what you would do, better than yourself. You may be sure I wouldn’t ask you to accept certain risks and hardships with me if I thought a yellow streak tinged your make-up. So we will not argue along that line. “What I need your help in is a legitimate enterprise; clean enough of itself—though I have acquired a dirty reputation in the way of it. I’ll give you a few details, and you can judge for yourself. Four years ago chance sent me north to a Hudson’s Bay post on the Saskatchewan. From there I drifted farther—to the Great Slave Lake country, almost. I’ve known more or less of the fur trade all my life. My father was in it. And so I was quick to see how the Hudson’s Bay Company holds the North trade in the hollow of its hand. It was a revelation to me, Bob. Fortunes gravitate to their posts by the simplest process in the world. They barter a worthless muzzle-loading gun and a handful of powder and ball for a hundredfold its worth in pelts. From one year’s end to another, yes, from generation to generation, the tribes have been kept in debt to the Company. They make a scanty living from the Company, and the Company builds colossal fortunes out of them. You and I would call it robbery. To the Company it is merely ‘trade.’ “Ever since the granting of its charter, close on two centuries ago, the Company has lorded it over the North, barring out the free trader, guarding jealously against competition. Only the Northwest Fur Company ever held its own with the Hudson’s Bay, and the two combined when the Northwest established itself. The others, lone traders, partnerships, the Company fought and intimidated till they withdrew. Technically, it is a free country, has been since ’69, but north of the Saskatchewan the Company still holds forth in the ancient manner, making its own law, recognizing no higher authority than itself. It is a big country, the North, and the Canadian government has its hands full in the east and south. A white man takes his own risks north of latitude 54.