hinder him from procuring fur enough to pay off his indebtedness, and
to lay up in store twice as much again with which to engage next spring
in the delightful battle of wits between white man and red in the Great
Company's trading room.




II

IN QUEST OF TREASURE

THE PERFECT FOOL

It was an ideal day and the season and the country were in keeping.
Soon the trading posts faded from view, and when, after trolling around
Fishing Point, we entered White River and went ashore for an early
supper, everyone was smiling. I revelled over the prospect of work,
freedom, contentment, and beauty before me; and over the thought of
leaving behind me the last vestige of the white man's ugly,
hypercritical, and oppressive civilization.

Was it any wonder I was happy? For me it was but the beginning of a
never-to-be-forgotten journey in a land where man can be a man without
the aid of money. Yes . . . without money. And that reminds me of a
white man I knew who was born and bred in the Great Northern Forest,
and who supported and educated a family of twelve, and yet he reached
his sixtieth birthday without once having handled or ever having seen
money. He was as generous, as refined, and as noble a man as one would
desire to know; yet when he visited civilization for the first time--in