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This fur-trade engendered a strange class of men bush-rangers they were called whose work was to paddle the canoe along the lakes and streams and exchange their cheap rum for the valuable furs of the Indians. To these men the Indians of the west owe their degradation. These bush-rangers or coureurs-des-bois, perverted the Indians and sank into barbarism with them.
She can speak French with the Coureurs-des-bois." "That's more than I can do, Myeerah. And I had French teacher," said Betty, laughing. "Hello, up there," came Isaac's voice from below. "Come up, Isaac," called Betty. "Is this my Indian sweetheart?" exclaimed Isaac, stopping at the door. "Betty, isn't she " "Yes," answered Betty, "she is simply beautiful."
The more lawless new-comers stole horses from the quieter Creoles; the worst among the French, the idle coureurs-des-bois, voyageurs, and trappers plundered and sometimes killed the peaceable citizens of either nationality.
Before they had quite reached the gate, there was a general rush of trappers, traders, voyageurs, coureurs-des-bois and other employés, to reach them; and the next moment they were lost in the midst of the people who crowded out of the Fort to welcome them. This was their hour of happiness and joy.
I was aware this spirit frequently transformed seigneurs into bush-rangers and descendants of the royal blood into coureurs-des-bois.
Then came the Conquest, with the downfall of French trade in the north country. But there remained the coureurs-des-bois, or wood-rangers, the Metis, or French half-breeds, the Bois-Brulés, or plain runners so called, it is supposed, from the trapper's custom of blazing his path through the forest.
In the mazy confusion of snow and underbrush, no one but Paul would have found and kept that tangled, forest path. Where great trunks had fallen across the way, Paul planted his pole and took the barrier at a bound. Then he raced on at a gait which was neither a run nor a walk, but an easy trot common to the coureurs-des-bois.
De Raddison twice changed his allegiance, and when Quebec fell into the hands of the British nearly a century later, the French traders were as active in the northern fur preserve as their great rivals, the Ancient and Honorable Hudson's Bay Company; but the Englishmen kept near the bay and the Frenchmen with their coureurs-des-bois pushed westward along the chain of water-ays leading from Lake Superior and Lake Winnipeg to the Saskatchewan and Athabasca.
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