avoided exaggeration in everything of importance. All the chief, and
most of the minor incidents are facts. In regard to unimportant
matters, I have taken the liberty of a novelist--not to colour too
highly, or to invent improbabilities, but--to transpose time, place,
and circumstance at pleasure; while, at the same time, I have
endeavoured to convey to the reader's mind a truthful impression of
the _general effect_--to use a painter's language--of the life and
country of the Fur Trader.

EDINBURGH, 1856.






CHAPTER I Plunges the reader into the middle of an arctic winter;
conveys him into the heart of the wildernesses of North America; and
introduces him to some of the principal personages of our tale

CHAPTER II The old fur-trader endeavours to "fix" his son's "flint,"
and finds the thing more difficult to do than he expected

CHAPTER III The counting-room

CHAPTER IV. A wolf-hunt in the prairies; Charley astonishes his
father, and breaks in the "noo'oss" effectually

CHAPTER V Peter Mactavish becomes an amateur doctor; Charley
promulgates his views of things in general to Kate; and Kate waxes