infrequently came in bloody collision with each other.

Far to the northward, the Indian drove his birch canoe across the
silent Athabasca and Great Bear Lakes, on his way with his peltries
to the distant factory or post of the Company; along the frozen
shores of the lone Mackenzie (the only American river flowing into
the Arctic Ocean), the trapper glided on his snow shoes, or with
his sturdy dogs and sleigh, fought his way over the snowy wastes
of Prince Rupert's Land; the brigades in their boats rounded the
curves of the Saskatchewan, keeping time with their paddles to
their own cheery songs; their camp fires were kindled in the land
of the Assiniboine and they set their traps in the wildest recesses
of the Rocky Mountains where the whirling snow storms almost carried
them off their feet; but north of the dividing line, the hunters
had little if anything to fear from the red men. Though they
encountered in the loneliest and most desolate distant regions,
they generally met and separated as friends. Among the perils of
the trapper's life in British America was not reckoned that from
the hostile natives.

It was far different within our own territory. Those who left
our frontier States and pushed westward, and those who penetrated
northward and eastward from the Mexican country, knew they were
invading the hunting grounds of the fiercest Indians on the American
continent. We have already told enough to show the intense hostility
of the red men; between them and the hunters and trappers raged a
war that never ceased or slackened, except when policy held it for
a time in check.

The little group of horsemen, who rode out from Independence or