ous, ambitious, shrewd, bold and fertile in resources. Self-reliant, too, they were forced to be, for at first there were but few law-books, few or no advisers of experience, and little opportunity for study. Where precedents are not to be had, the pleader must make them for himself, and he who makes his own precedents soon ceases to need them at all.

The practice, as in all newly settled western states, was largely confined to courts of justices of the peace. These officers were generally strong-headed, sensible and sometimes obstinate business men, with a sovereign contempt for the technicalities of the profession, and the tricks by which, now and then, lawyers sought to sway them against their better judgment. It was one of these who, when Pot Sullivan complained that he had decided a cause immediately upon the conclusion of the testimony and without hearing argument, offered to permit Sullivan to argue the case at once, and further proposed to bet five dollars that the lawyer couldn't change his mind by any speech he might make.

The bar of Omaha in those days did not confine their practice to their own county. On horseback or in rattling buckboards, they toiled up the muddy Valley of the Missouri to the very border of what is now the territory of Dakota. Southward, they forded the Platte, a feat that few lawyers of the present time would care to hazard, and tried cases anywhere north of the Kansas line. The dusky children of the prairie, Pawnees, Omahas, Poncas and

Otoes, crowded around the log courthouses in their gay blankets, pressed their stolid faces against the windows, and wondered at the impassioned oratory of the pale-faced advocates, so different from the guttural ejaculations of their own stoic chiefs. Barring the heat of summer, which became uncomfortable when the mercury reached over a hundred degrees, and the cold of winter, which now and then froze ears and hands, perhaps even feet and legs, and the mud of spring of unknown depth, tenacious as tar, and occasional blizzards and cyclones, which interfered with appointments, these journeys were agreeable relaxations from the monotony of home life.

So, too, were the oft-repeated trips to Washington to argue the numerous cases which went up from the courts of the territory to the supreme court of the United States. Even in that august. tribunal some of the members of the Omaha bar were no mean antagonists; and though occasionally one might carry with him from the prairies some redundancy of gesture or exuberance of language, he understood his case thoroughly, and the opponent who attacked him unwarily might have cause to regret the encounter. A story long current in Omaha, and which certainly has some basis of truth, relates that a scholarly and dignified gentleman concluded his argument before the justices. by asserting that he believed he had in the preparation of his case examined and studied every reported decision of either English or American courts which bore upon the question at issue. The

After the days of that inimitable describer of the country and scenes of his exploration, Alexander McKenzie, on the hint of there being a river beyond the eastern ridge of the there divided Rocky mountain range, this vast canoe path went up the Rocky mountains, crossed their summits, and descended the main eastern head stream of the recently explored vast Yukon river of Alaska, and went down the Yukon to the last lower third of that river, where it crossed the hilly ridge of this river, descended another river, and reached Behring's sea of the North Pacific ocean. Thus from Montreal to the mouth of the Yukon, in Alaska, there was a water canoe path, with only comparatively short interruptions by portages for both freight and passenger canoes-an achievement worthy of the so-called "honorable" company. And were these things that I have named so far in this article all, I would mix no alloy with these descriptions of the doings of that company.

Further, the canoe road branched at Fort Chipewayan, on Athabasca lake, and went to the southwest (originally), by the Peace river, to the base of the Rocky mountains, and by another and later made canoe road, which left the main road near the "Northwest House," ascended that part of the River Athabasca above where the main road began its descent of that river, and in the direction of the Lesser Slave lake, and in connection with this lake reached the "Rocky Mountain House," or company's station, whence the climbing the Peace river up the Rocky mountains began to cross these mountains; with the singular fact that the Peace river goes to the very top of the mountains, where

within a few rods two lakes are the summits of two great canoe paths; from thence to the Pacific ocean: namely, first that by the headwaters of the Frazier river, down which the Canada railroad now passes; and, second, the headwaters of the Columbia river, making the canoe path to Oregon and the mouth of the Columbia. To these two, to the northern Pacific ocean, was afterwards added the third collateral road or canoe path-that of the Saskatchawan river. This Saskatchawan canoe path had numerous branches, for it was the one nearest United States territory, by which the Honorable British Hudson Bay company penetrated as far as possible United States territory, and, on the principle of a cat's stealing meat off of a table whenever the cat can, stole the United States fur, because we did not constantly watch our territory. Indeed, this transgression on the rights of the United States, east of the Rocky mountains, where there were not the slightest treaty rights to plunder us, was carefully and systematically done, all the way from Lake Superior to the Rocky mountains. Beyond them, treaty gave England and the United States the equal right to the fur trade; and the Honorable Hudson Bay company did us the honor, by intrigue. and violence, to cheat us out of the "joint occupation" for furs of "the Oregon." As one of its sins, seen in 1835-6, the father of the writer of this article was saved from assassination only by the interposition of that man of good principles, whose influence, however, indirectly did much harm-Dr. McLaughlin of Fort Vancouver, on the Columbia river. When my father's presence and what it implied

injure by restless, ceaseless activity, the mental ability that enables telegraphic train dispatchers and engineers to run safely their cars. And so on of the abusive use of their power, in a manner totally contrary to any Golden Rule.

So these honorable gentlemen of the Hudson Bay company took thousands of boys and youth, many out of Christian homes in Scotland, and isolated them in their "houses" or fortified trade buildings, such as the Calumet house, Bellfont house, Enterprise house, etc., etc., to spend months and years in almost and often total isolation from all society except as the annual visit of the canoes, the dispatch and reception of letters and goods gave a glimmer of the outside world; as if to be in the most terrific regions of North America at the very best days of youth did not wring out of soul and body of these thousands of youth, for long and long years, their life's vigor, that they might obtain their ultimate British gold at the price usually of all that was valuable in those young men. To these youth there was no woman but the halfbreed or Indian concubine. No honor able marriage. And if one like Dr. McLaughlin and others did make their concubinage marriage, and did rear children as he did his daughter, it was the exception, not the rule.

So there was no honesty that took a seaotter pelt worth one hundred dollars for fifty cents of powder or sugar! Say what you will, the one to the ten thousand per cent. obtained out of the Indian was dishonorable and dishonest; and no English gentleman had a right to thus take advantage of the Indian.

It is in vain to say that the Indians became peaceable, dependent on a steady policy that supplied them with goods, and were taught laws of an even, constant trade, and their lives were made better. All that was honorable. But to set examples of concubinage, by all or most of the employés, was ruinous to the Indian in the end. These "honorable gentlemen " of the Hudson Bay company were Protestants originally. They sold Christ in the Reformed religion to papacy, because the Canadian boatmen or voyageurs were under Rome. That was not honorable. And when the right of employé to become graded members of the company, these Englishmen sold their God-given rights of English churchmen to mammon; whereas, had Englishmen been true to their God, the evangelization of the world had been far in advance of what it is. The world needs no more Papal, Spanish or South American civilization, or even French religious influence, that allows ignorance and licentiousness.

Again, there is no honor in either Englishmen or Americans when equal rights are excluded. For example, to every animal and man, oleomargarine is an essential element; and no life can be sustained in any warm-blooded being without oleomargarine; yet, our National legislation is disgraced by laws founded, as it is said, in sneers, "on the pig." That is, "on the pig," in lard and pastry, is honorable. "On the pig," when it comes in contact with the farmer's butter, is filth, horror, and to please the farmer, laws of inequality must be enacted. I do not say that laws to regulate the manufacture of oleomargarine are not wise; but a terror,