Scotchmen, but I have always lived with them, known them, and find that
they trust me rather more than they at times trust each other. I have
been their merchant, contractor, treaty-maker, business manager,
counsellor, adviser, and confidential friend."

"But," said the writer, "as having come to cast in my lot with the
people of the Red River, I should be glad to hear from you about the
early times, and especially of the earlier people of this region, who
lived their lives, and came and went, before the arrival of Lord
Selkirk's settlers in 1812." Thus the story-telling began, and patriarch
and questioner made out from one source and another the whole story of
the predecessors of the Selkirk Colonists.

[Illustration: MOUND BUILDERS' ORNAMENTS, ETC.
A. Ornamental gorget of turtle's plastron.
B. Gorget of sea-shell (1879).
C. Gorget of buffalo bone.
D. Breast or arm ornament of very hard bone.
E. String of beads of birds' leg bones. Note cross X.
F. One of three polished stones used for gaming.
G. Columella of large sea couch (tropical, used as sinker for fishing).]


AN EXTINCT RACE.

"Long before the coming of the settler, there lived a race who have now
entirely disappeared. Not very far from the Assiniboine River, where
Main Street crosses it, is now to be seen," said the narrator, "Fort
Garry--a fine castellated structure with stone walls and substantial
bastions. A little north of this you may have noticed a round mound,