A MERCHANT'S STORY.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XIII, Issue 58, 8 March 1878, Page 4

A MERCHANT'S STORY.

[From tba AtLmtic Monthly.] Tee^ifi was r^tier a curious start) thai J* iaJHiriawe, The first

thing I did, after having sa?ed a little pile of money waß to set up a shanty in Sioux City, I had all sorts of traps to allure Indians, and I wanted to buy any kind of peltries, sculps excepted. But I was a new, arrival and the noble red man couldn't believe in me without help and I found trade rather dull. Late one night, however, as I was sleeping among my stock, there came a iremeadous banging at my door, and when I unbarred it, there was a tall fellow who seemed to me a litlla drunk • and said he, " I want a butcher-knife." "All right. Come in," said I. <• I want a reliable one/ said he. "I want it to kill a man with. Give me a good strong handle. I want a knife that I can put in and turn round." Say* I, " I think I can suit you. Walk in and take a look." I knew him by that time. He wai a Virginian— a splendid - looking fellow —and belonged to a good family, as I understand, but be had gone wild on the frontier, and done a great many illegal things, and had been forced to herd with the Indians. The consequence wag that he spoke their languaga and was a peraon of influence among t'iiem. Well, I felt a little doubtful about his intentions, not knowing but what I was the man he was after ; but all the same I got out my stock of tools and showed them. There wtta one nearly two feet long, which I had bought for a cheese knife. Says. I, "I think this would answer your purpose " Yea, I think it might," says he. " How much is it ? " I told him the pries—about four shillings, I think. "I'll take it," says he. « But I haven't any money." Under the circumstances seeing he had the knife in his Bat, and was ready to turn it round, I thought I had beetter offer to trust him, "You'd better not, I ' say x he. "You don't know me from any other gentleman.? •' But I've got to trusc you," says I* II You've got the butcher knife by the handle, and I'm at the sharp end of it. I believe I can trust you" Off he went, and heard no more of him for a time, not even whether he killed a man. But some weeks later he put in an appearance and paid for the knife. " And now, youngster," says he, " I like the way you treated me when I roused you out for that trade. You didn't show tbe white feather. Some men, hustled up at that time of night, would have been scared, But you behaved every way like agentleman, and now I want to serve you as one. There are some Indians coming in to-day, and Til bring them to your shanty to trade. Have you got any rum?" I hadn't any rum; I didn't keep if. » Well," eaya he, «we must have some rum. No rum, no Injun. Give me two dollars." I gave him the money, and he went off. When be cane back he had a demeijohn full of driak, and some tumblers. An hour or so later the Indians appeared, some 200 of them. Firat came the warriors with their rifles, bows, and tomahawks ; then followed the squaws, stooping »l. most to the ground under their loads, My man halted them, bat they did not want to trade with me; they didn't know me. There wa« a loog palaver, and at last he threatened to kill some of them if they didn't follow hits friendly advicej and the end of it was that they gave in to save a quarrel. They crowded into my little shop, and drank my demijohn empty, and bought my stock clean out, and filled me fall of peltries. I made 2500 J01s that season, and went off in high spirits to lose it somewhere else, to pick it up again. As for the Virginian, I lost sight of him, and never learned how he ended.