shiploads from Scotland? Shall I become a packer, a trapper, a leader of brigades? I have no future there. Let me go to Afghanistan."
"Tut, tut, tut, David; I know your prospects better than you do. Great schemes are afoot. Come, pack up."
The strong will of the father prevailed. Purchasing his son's retirement from the army, the two bade goodbye to Dr. McLoughlin's only brother, Dr. David McLoughlin, who had come over from Paris to see them off. The doctors were much alike Dr. David McLoughlin was younger and less commanding. He had a great name in Paris a leading physician. Five years ago he had received this Indian-tinted namesake from the Columbia and had given him the best that Paris afforded. Now that nephew had become a man of the world, polished and courtly. When he doffed his regimentals, he donned the ruffled linen and the broadcloth of Parisian fashion, and sailed with his father back across the Atlantic to Montreal.
Since the old French days when the governorsgeneral sat in Indian council in their elbow chairs on the banks of the St. Lawrence, Montreal had been the capital of Canadian fur trade. Hither, now, once a year, Sir George Simpson, Governor of Rupert's Land, came from his London home to superintend the company's affairs in North America.
"Trade with Russia is a hare-brained scheme," had been Sir George's earliest thought, but on McLoughlin's arrival a council was held at Montreal. In it spoke the commercial life of the Dominion. The Hudson's Bay Company and its silent partner, the beaver, practically ruled in Canada. No rival, no competitor dared question their authority. Puget Sound, Alaska, Cali
