All the weasels and martens are very difficult to catch; they wriggle their long supple bodies through the smallest apertures with great ease, and thus elude their pursuers. In the winter, however, they are easily taken in traps, and Marbre and Sabine looked forward to make up for lost time then, when, said they, “there shall be plenty of their furs in the Company’s stores.”
We have now only to mention the Arctic or blue and silver foxes, to complete the list of animals which swelled the profits of the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The furs of these foxes are esteemed in the Russian and English markets above all others, and that of the blue fox is the most valuable of all. This pretty creature has a black muzzle, and the fur is not as one would suppose blue, but whitish-brown; its great price—six times that of any other kind—arises from its superior softness, thickness, and length. A cloak belonging to the Emperor of Russia, composed entirely of fur from the neck of the blue fox (the fur from the neck is considered better than that from any other part), was shown at the London Exhibition of 1851, and valued at £3,400 sterling.
Several of these foxes were sighted at Cape Bathurst, but all escaped the hunters; whilst only about a dozen silver foxes fell into their hands. The fur of the latter—of a lustrous black dotted with white—is much sought after in England and Russia, although it does not command so high a price as that of the foxes mentioned above.
One of the silver foxes captured was a splendid creature, with a coal-black fur tipped with white at the extreme end of the tail, and with a dash of the some on the forehead. The circumstances attending its death deserve relation in detail, as they proved that Hobson was right in the precautions he had taken.
On the morning of the 24th September, two sledges conveyed Mrs. Barnett, the Lieutenant, Sergeant Long. Marbre, and Sabine, to Walruses’ Bay. Some traces of foxes had been noticed the evening before, amongst some rocks clothed with scanty herbage and the direction taken by the animals was very clearly indicated. The hunters followed up the trail of a large animal, and were rewarded by bringing down a very fine silver fox.
Several other animals of the same species were sighted, and the hunters divided into two parties—Marbre and Sabine going after one foe, and Mrs. Barnett, Hobson, and the Sergeant, trying to cut off the retreat of another fine animal hiding behind some rocks.
Great caution and some artifice was necessary to deal with this crafty animal, which took care not to expose itself to a shot. The pursuit lasted for half-an-hour without success; but at last the poor creature, with the sea on one side and its three enemies on the other, had recourse in its desperation to a flying leap, thinking thus to escape with its life. But Hobson was too quick for it; and as it bounded by like a flash of lightning, it was struck by a shot, and to everyone’s surprise, the report of the Lieutenant’s gun was succeeded by that of another, and a second ball entered the body of the fox, which fell to the ground mortally wounded.
“Hurrah! hurrah!” cried Hobson, “it is mine!”
“And mine!” said another voice, and a stranger stepped forward and placed his foot upon the fox just as the Lieutenant was about to raise it.
Hobson drew back in astonishment. He thought the second ball had been fired by the Sergeant, and found himself face to face with a stranger whose gun was still smoking.
The rivals gazed at each other in silence.
The rest of the party now approached, and the stranger was quickly joined by twelve comrades, four of whom were like himself “Canadian travellers,” and eight Chippeway Indians.
The leader was a tall man—a fine specimen of his class—those Canadian trappers described in the romances of Washington Irving, whose competition Hobson had dreaded with such good reason. He wore the traditional costume ascribed to his fellow-hunters by the great American writer; a blanket loosely arranged about his person, a striped cotton shirt, wide cloth trousers, leather gaiters, deerskin mocassins, and a sash of checked woollen stuff round the waist, from which were suspended his knife, tobacco-pouch, pipe, and a few useful tools.
Hobson was right. The man before him was a Frenchman, or at least a descendant of the French Canadians, perhaps an agent of the American Company come to act as a spy on the settlers in the fort. The other four Canadians wore a costume resembling that of their leader, but of coarser materials.
The Frenchman bowed politely to Mrs. Barnett, and the Lieutenant was the first to break the silence, during which he had not removed his eyes from his rival’s face.
“This fox is mine, sir,” he said quietly.
“It is if you killed it!” replied the other in good English, but with a slightly foreign accent.
“Excuse me, sir,” replied Hobson rather sharply, “it is mine in any case.”
The stranger smiled scornfully at this lofty reply, so exactly what be expected from an agent of the Hudson’s Bay Company, which claims supremacy over all the northern districts, from the Atlantic to the Pacific.
“Do you mean to say,” he said at last, gracefully toying with his gun, “that you consider the Hudson’s Bay Company mistress of the whole of North America?”
“Of course I do,” said Hobson; “and if, as I imagine, you belong to an American company—”
“To the
