she was given in real marriage to some other voyageur, or other employee, or pensioned off.  It is worthy of note that many of these Indian women became most true and affectionate spouses.  With the voyageurs and laborers the conditions were different.  They could not leave the country, they had become a part of it, and their marriages with the Indian women were bona fide.  Thus it was that during the space from the time of Curry until the arrival of the Selkirk Colonists upwards of forty years had elapsed, and around the wide spread posts of the Fur Trading Companies, especially around those of the prairie, there had grown up families, which were half French and half Indian, or half English and half Indian.  When it could be afforded these children were sent for a time to Montreal, to be educated, and came back to their native wilds.  On the plain between the Assiniboine and the Saskatchewan, a half-breed community had sprung up.  From their dusky faces they took the name “Bois-Brules,” or “Charcoal Faces,” or referring to their mixed blood, of “Metis,” or as exhibiting their importance, they sought to be called “The New Nation.”  The blend of French and Indian was in many respects a natural one.  Both are stalwart, active, muscular; both are excitable, imaginative, ambitious; both are easily amused and devout.  The “Bois-Brules” growing up among the Indians on the plains naturally possessed many of the features of the Indian life.  The pursuit of their fur-bearing animals was the only industry of the country.  The Bois-Brules from childhood were familiar with the Indian pony, knew all his tricks and habits, began to ride with all the skill of a desert ranger, were familiar with fire-arms, took part in the chase of the buffalo on the plains, and were already trained to make the attack as cavalry on buffalo herds, after the Indian fashion, in the famous half-circle, where they were to be so successful in their later troubles, of which we shall speak.  Such men as the Grants, Findlays, Lapointes, Bellegardes, and Falcons were equally skilled in managing the swift canoe, or scouring the plains on the Indian ponies.  We shall see the part which this new element were to play in the social life and even in the public concerns of the prairies.

THE STATELY HUDSON’S BAY COMPANY.

The last of the elements to come into the valley of the Red River and to precede the Colonists, was the Hudson’s Bay Company—­even then, dating back its history almost a century and a half.  They were a dignified and wealthy Company, reaching back to the times of easy-going Charles II., who gave them their charter.  For a hundred years they lived in self-confidence and prudence in their forts of Churchill and York, on the shore of Hudson Bay.  They were even at times so inhospitable as to deal with the Indians through an open window of the fort.  This was in striking contrast to the “Nor’-Wester” who trusted the Indians and lived among them with