Page:McLoughlin and Old Oregon.djvu/109

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paddling down the St. Lawrence. They stacked the bales in empty squares; some became damaged. At last, to get rid of so much beaver, they built great bonfires, and thousands of pounds were burnt in the streets of Montreal. That was about the time the Americans were hanging witches at Salem and the French were fighting the Inquisition at Quebec. Nobody ploughed the fields in Canada, there was almost a famine, but those men who ranged the woods could never bring themselves to settle down on their farms again. They became wild, and cared for nothing but adventure. They settled in the woods, and their children are our Iroquois voyageurs of to-day. You'll not find a full blood among them their grandfathers were the Frenchmen of that old fur-time! "