In the illustration on page 65 we have a fair representation of an Indian trading scene. The goods brought from Montreal in the Durham boats have been carried back to a spot a few miles from the lake shore, in charge of the trader and his assistants. Three guns were fired in quick succession upon reaching camp the previous night, as a signal for all Indians within hearing to come with their furs to trade on the morrow. A beaver skin is lying upon the ground, an Indian is negotiating for a blanket, while another is looking at a gun, and others are coming in with their furs on their backs. A few days’ trading exhausts the goods brought by the trader. He returns home with the furs received in exchange, deposits them, replenishes his pack, and sets out on other trips in different directions, until all the goods are exchanged, and the following summer the furs are taken to Montreal in the same Durham boats, where gold and silver, as well as a further supply of goods, are obtained for them. There is no record of Roger Conant having shipped his furs direct to London, England. As good prices were paid for furs in Montreal, it is most probable he disposed of them there. Year after year the trade was continued without interruption. It brought wealth to the author’s grandsire, honestly and fairly obtained. The great Hudson’s Bay Company maintained a regular chain of trading stations upon the north shore of Lake Ontario, as they did in the far west and the Arctic north. The trading stations on Lake Ontario being near to Quebec and Montreal, and close together, were easily supplied with trading goods. At the period of which we are now writing, when my forefather became an opponent to the great Hudson’s Bay Company in the fur trade (1798), that Company had a trading station very near his home--only some three miles to the west, and on what is now known as Bluff Point, a promontory two miles east of Port Oshawa. This trading station was not fortified, but consisted of a well-built, commodious log-house, with flat roof, and the corners of the house squared and neatly joined. Standing upon the promontory, it was easily accessible to the boats passing up or down the lake. In the spring the boats would come up from Montreal, generally gaily painted, and rowed quite close to shore, with song and laughter. After making the round of the trading stations of Lake Ontario, they came back in the same manner in the fall, laden with furs and Montreal-ward bound. “Here come the Hudson Bay boats!” was the word on the day of their arrival. During their first years in the wilderness the visit of these boats was an event in the lives of the settlers.