Page:Furcountryorseve00vernrich.djvu/145

THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 77 " Are these agents then held in such high esteem ? " asked Mrs Barnett. " Yes, madam, and with good reason. During the ninety-four years of French supremacy in Canada, French agents always proved themselves superior to ours. We must be just even to our rivals." " Especially to our rivals," added Mrs Barnett. " Yes, especially. . . At that time French hunters, starting from Montreal, their headquarters, pressed on to the north with greater hardihood than any others. They lived for years with the Indian tribes, sometimes intermarrying with them. The natives called them the ' Canadian travellers,' and were on the most intimate terms with them. They were bold, clever fellows, expert at navigating streams, light-hearted and merry, adapting themselves to circum- stances with the easy flexibility of their race, and always ready to sing or dance," " And do you suppose that hunting is the only object of the party whose traces we have just discovered ? " " I don't think any other hypotheses at all likely," replied Hobson. " They are sure to be seeking new hunting grounds. But as we cannot possibly stop them, we must make haste to begin our own operations, and compete boldly with all rivals." Lieutenant Hobson was now prepared for the competition he could not prevent, and he urged on the march of his party as much as possible, hoping that his rivals might not follow him beyond the seventieth parallel. The expedition now descended towards the south for some twenty miles, in order the more easily to pass round Franklin Bay. The country was still covered with verdure, and the quadrupeds and birds already enumerated were as plentiful as ever ; so that they could reasonably hope that the whole of the north-western coasts of the American continent were populated in the same manner. The ocean which bathed these shores stretched away as far as the eye could reach. Recent atlases give no land beyond the north American coast-line, and it is only the icebergs which impede the free navigation of the open sea from Behring Strait to- the Pole itself. On the 4th July the travellers skirted round another deep bay called Washburn Bay, and reached the furthest point of a little lake, until then imperfectly known, covering but a small extent of