LORDS OF THE NORTH BY A. C. LAUT TORONTO WILLIAM BRIGGS Entered according to Act of the Parliament of Canada, in the year one thousand nine hundred, by William Briggs, at the Department of Agriculture. William Briggs TO THE Pioneers and their Descendants WHOSE HEROISM WON THE LAND, THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED. ACKNOWLEDGMENT. The author desires to express thanks to pioneers and fur traders of the West for information, details and anecdotes bearing on the old life, which are herein embodied; and would also acknowledge the assistance of the history of the North-West Company and manuscripts of the Bourgeois, compiled by Senator L. R. Masson; and the value of such early works as those of Dr. George Bryce, Gunn, Hargraves, Ross and others. THE TRAPPER'S DEFIANCE. "The adventurous spirits, who haunted the forest and plain, grew fond of their wild life and affected a great contempt for civilization." You boxed-up, mewed-up artificials, Pent in your piles of mortar and stone, Hugging your finely spun judicials, Adorning externals, externals alone, Vaunting in prideful ostentation