tons. We've swept the hocean clean. Hour little steamer watches the coast like an 'awk. She darts hup the firths and 'auls in the furs before they never reach the coast. The Hamericans 'ave no business 'ere hanyway." Dunn thrust his fork into the duck with a savage lunge.
"Tut, tut, tut, Mr. John! "laughed the governor, "they will come unless we're sharp enough to head them off."
If there was anything Dr. McLoughlin hated, it was a Yankee skipper with rum on board. What trouble they brought! Drunken Indians who would sell for nothing but rum. All day the shrewd siwashes would lie on the shore in the sun and watch for Yankee sails. The company's men watched, too, and ran ahead to catch the furs before the ship could anchor. When naught but rum availed, rum was dealt to head the Yankees off. Then the Yankee captain swore and tore and sailed away to find another agent fighting rum with rum. At last the defeated Bostons almost quit the coast. Only at long intervals a damaged whaler ran into the cove at Esquimault. Then the forts cut off the rum supply. The red men held their furs in vain.
"Lum! lum! lum! "plead the siwashes, spreading rich bales of seal and beaver, shiny silver-fox, and glistening sea-otter around the forts. The traders shook their heads. "No liquor for the Indians." The angry red men brandished their tomahawks, but at last, subdued, were fain to trade their furs for blankets, and soberly set out on another hunt.
One day a new competitor came a Boston captain with a cargo of "Yankee notions." Right up the Columbia he sailed, and under the very guns of Fort
