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XIIL

Indian Wives

HE relation of the white chiefs of the Hudson's Bay Company with native women presents a point of vivid interest in Indian history. For twenty years Fort Vancouver, like all other Hudson's Bay posts, was the home of fair- faced men and darkfaced women.

There is no doubt as to the standing of the women. They had been wedded in the ancient and orderly fashion of their people and in the forum of conscience were as much married as ever Queen Victoria was. They knew that their husbands could dismiss them at any time, but this was the ancient and inalienable right of the husband according to Indian ideas, and so