Reading of the dog that fraternized and went off with the wolves brought this to my mind after a lapse of forty-one years.
CHAPTER XXXV.
LONG LAKE INDIANS.
The two years I passed in charge of the Hudson's Bay Post of Long Lake, situated on the water-shed between Lake Superior and Hudson's Bay, was the happiest of any period of my long service.
The conclusion I have arrived at, after considerable experience, is that Christianizing, in no matter what form, has only made the Indian worse.
It is the verdict of all who have had to do with the red man, that he copies all of the white man's vices and very few, if any, of his virtues.
Indians I found at Long Lake, in the middle seventies, were Pagans, but they were honest, truthful and virtuous.
We locked our tradeshop, not to prevent robbery, simply to guard against the door being blown open. Not one of these Indians would have taken a pin without showing it to me first and saying: "I am going to keep this," holding up the pin.
My predecessor had been stationed at that post in an unbroken charge of over twenty years. He was a man of system and everything went by rote. There were certain fixed dates for out-fitting the hunters; certain dates for those short of ammunition to come and get it in the winter; and, best of all, certain dates for them to arrive in the spring and close their hunts. This assured us of getting only prime, seasoned skins, and such skins it was a pleasure to handle, since the paper upon which this is printed is not whiter than every skin that passed thru my hands in those two years.