Frequently a trapper would squander the entire product of his hunt, amounting to hundreds of dollars, in a couple of hours. Then, supplied with another outfit, he left the rendezvous for another expedition, which had the same result time after time, although one good hunt would have enabled him to return to the settlements and live a life of comparative ease. It is told of one old Canadian trapper, who had received as much as fifteen thousand dollars for beaver during his life in the mountains, extending over twenty years, that each season he had resolved in his mind to go back to Canada, and with this object in view always converted his furs into cash; but a fortnight at the rendezvous always "cleaned him out," and at the end of the twenty years he had not even enough credit to get a plug of tobacco. Trading with the Indians in the primitive days of the border was just what the word signifies in its radical interpretation--a system of barter exclusively. No money was used in the transaction, as it was long afterward before the savages began to learn something of the value of currency from their connection with the sutler's and agency stores established on reservations and at military posts on the plains and in the mountains. In the early days, if an Indian by any chance happened to get possession of a piece of money (only gold or silver was recognized as a medium of exchange in the remote West), he would immediately fashion it into some kind of an ornament with which to adorn his person. Some tribes, however, did indulge in a sort of currency, worthless except among themselves. This consisted of rare shells, such as the Oligachuck, so called, of the Pacific coast nations, used by them within my own recollection, as late as 1858. The poor Indian, as might have been expected, was generally outrageously swindled; in fact, I am inclined to believe, always. I never was present on an occasion when he was not. The savage's idea of values was very crude until the government, in attempting to civilize and make a gentleman of him, has transformed him into a bewildered child. Very soon after his connection with the white trader, he learned that a gun was more valuable than a knife; but of their relative cost to manufacture he had no idea. For these reasons, obviously, he was always at the mercy of the unscrupulous trader who came to his village, or met him at the rendezvous to barter for his furs. I know that the price of every article he desired was fixed by the trader, and never by the Indian, consequently he rarely got the best of the bargain.