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These names have been adopted by the fur traders from the Indians. It is in the Strong Woods Country that most of the fur-bearing animals live. About ten o'clock on the morning after our arrival at Fort Consolation, Free Trader Spear left for home with my promise to paddle over and dine at Spearhead next day.
But here, in the circus, I saw a pair of the most terrific of all the fur-bearing land beasts, the great tigers of the caves huge monsters, of such ponderous strength that in hunger they will oftentimes drag down a mammoth, if they can find him away from his herd. How they had been brought captive I could not tell.
Since Max had found the second series of footprints, and thus proved the falsity of his claim of being alone, Jake Storms, so-called woods guide and trapper of fur-bearing animals, had relapsed into a sullen silence. Of course he knew that the game for him was up, so far as attempting to deceive these wide-awake boys was concerned.
The savages were now sought out in their prairie homes, and the company began to set up trading-posts in the interior, all the way from Rainy Lake to Edmonton House on the North Saskatchewan. Such was the situation of affairs in the fur-bearing country when the Earl of Selkirk had his vision of a rich prairie home for the desolate Highlanders.
The fur-trader, moreover, is always the worst of colonists; since the increase of population, by diminishing the numbers of the fur-bearing animals, is adverse to his interest. But behind all this there was in the religious ideal of the rival colonies an influence which alone would have gone far to produce the contrast in material growth.
The peninsula is rich in the fur-bearing quadrupeds, and some of these furnish the very best quality of furs that are known to commerce. The sable of Kamschatka is of a superior kind as also the many varieties of the fox. They have, besides, the wolverine and wolf, the ermine and Arctic fox, the marmot and polar hare, and several smaller animals that yield furs of commercial value.
They had dark-green blinds, of a color harmonious with that of the funereal evergreens in their dooryards; and they themselves had taken the tone of the snowy landscape, as if by the operation of some such law as blanches the fur-bearing animals of the North.
The district is still rich in fur-bearing animals, especially beavers and martens, which are likely to continue numerous for many years to come, as they find a safe retreat among the fastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, where they multiply undisturbed.
We headed west, and about two hundred miles from home we struck Prairie Creek, where we found abundant signs of beaver, mink, otter and other fur-bearing animals. No Indians had troubled us, and we felt safe in establishing headquarters here and beginning work.
The Company have a steamboat and several sailing vessels, for the purpose chiefly of trading with the natives along the coast. Strong parties of hunters are also constantly employed along the southern frontier for the purpose of destroying the fur-bearing animals in that quarter; the end in view being to secure the interior from the encroachments of foreign interlopers.
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