Among Hargrave's correspondents are such notable fur traders as Cuthbert Grant, the leader of the Bois Brûlés, who had settled down on White Horse Plains, on the Assiniboine River, and was the famous captain of the buffalo hunters; and William Conolly, the daring Chief Factor of New Caledonia. Events in Fort Churchill are well described in the extensive correspondence of J. G. McTavish, long stationed there; and good Governors Finlayson and McMillan of Red River are well represented; as well as Alexander Ross, the historian of the Red River affairs. A full account of the wanderings from York Factory to the far distant Pacific slope of Mr. George Barnston, who afterwards was well known in business circles as a resident of Montreal, could be gathered, did time permit, from a most regular correspondence with Hargrave. Probably the man most after the York Chief Factor's own heart was a good letter writer, John Sieveright, who early became Chief Trader and afterwards Chief Factor in 1846. Sieveright had become acquainted with Hargrave at Sault Ste. Marie. Afterwards he was removed to Fort Coulonge on the Upper Ottawa, but he still kept up his interest in Hargrave and the affairs of Rupert's Land. Sieveright has a play of humour and pleasant banter that was very agreeable to Hargrave. He rallies him about an old acquaintance, the handsome daughter of Fur Trader Johnston, of Sault Ste. Marie, who, it will be remembered, married an Indian princess. He has a great faculty of using what other correspondents write to him, in making up very readable and well written letters to his friends. For many years Sieveright was at Fort Coulonge, and thus was in touch with the Hudson's Bay Company house at Lachine, the centre of the fur trade on this continent. Every year he paid a visit to headquarters, and had an advantage over the distant traders on the Saskatchewan, Mackenzie, and Nelson Rivers. He, however, seemed always to envy them their lot. Writing of Fort Coulonge, he gives us a picture of the fur trader's life: "This place has the advantage of being so near the civilized world as to allow us to hear now and then what is going on in it; but no society or amusement to help pass the time away. In consequence I cannot help reading a great deal too much--injurious at any time of life--particularly so when on the wrong side of fifty. I have been lately reading John Galt's 'Southernan,' not much to be admired. His characters are mostly all caricatures. If place will be allowed in paper trunk, I shall put that work and 'Laurie Todd' in for your acceptance." CHAPTER XXXI. THE VOYAGEURS FROM MONTREAL.