Chapter 16

laborers, mechanics, hunters and other employees; a log hut for the clerks; the storehouses where were kept the furs, skins and pelts, and the Indian trading house where the bartering was done. Some smaller buildings--the icehouse, the powder house and a sort of stable for the canoes--completed the number.

Nearly every man had a little bedroom meagerly furnished with pictures from old illustrated papers adorning the walls. The living room where they sat at night or on off days, yarning, smoking, and drinking, was a great hall. A big table in the center was strewn with pipes and tobacco, books and writing materials; on the walls hung muskets and fishing tackle. All the houses had double doors and windows; and in the winter tremendous stoves were kept burning. The food varied according to the season, ranging from pemmican and moose-muffle--which is the nose of the moose--to venison and beaver, many kinds of fowl, and fresh and salted fish.

A word as to the Indian trading house. It was divided into two rooms, the inner and larger one containing the stores--blankets, scalping knives, flints, twine, beads, needles, guns, powder and shot and other things too numerous to mention. To the outer room the Indians entered and through a square iron-barred hole they passed their furs and pelts, receiving in exchange little wooden castors, with which they purchased whatever they wanted.

Fort Royal, as I have said, was not so large as some. It held at this time about forty men, all trusty, good-hearted fellows. It was regarded as an impregnable post; but little did any of us dream how soon our flag would be lowered amid scenes of flame and shot, of carnage and panic.