Mary Hartwell Catherwood

“ In the wilderness the will of a brigade commander was law; but when the voyageur was out of the Fur Company's yard in Mackinac his own will was law.
One of the cautious clerks suggested that Charle' and Étienne be separated in their work, since it was likely the husband might quarrel with 'Tite Laboise's dancing partner.
"Turn 'em in together, man," chuckled the Scotch agent, Robert Stuart, who had charge of the outside work. "Let 'em fight. Man Gurdon, I havena had any sport with these wild lads since the boats came in." ”

“ If she had not been so pretty and so adroit at dodging whippings when a child, 'Tite Laboise might not have set Mackinac by the ears as often as she did. But her husband could not comfort himself with this thought as he turned to the shop of madame her aunt, who was also a trader.
It had surprised the Indian widow, who betrothed her own daughter to the commandant of the fort, that her husband's niece would have nobody but that big voyageur Charle' Charette. Though in those days of the young century a man might become anything ”

“ Madame knew a voyageur was allowed to carry scarce twenty pounds of baggage in the boats.
Did 'Tite want a better man? Let madame look at the black feather in his cap. The crow did not fly that could furnish a quill he could not take from any man in his brigade. Charle' threw out the arch of his beautiful torso. ”

“ To dance, sing, drink, and play the violin, and have the scant dozen white women, the half-breeds, and squaws of Mackinac admire him, was a voyageur's heaven—its brief duration being its charm. For he was a born woodsman and loved his life.
Charle' Charette did not care where he lodged. Neither had he any heart to dance, until he looked through the door of the house where festivities began that season and saw 'Tite Laboise footing it with Étienne St. Martin. Parbleu! With Étienne St. Martin, the squab little lard-eater whose brother, Alexis St. ”

“ Every night of the fur-trading month there was a ball in Mackinac, given either by the householders or their guests; and it often happened that a man spent in one month all he had earned by his year of tremendous and far-reaching toil. ”

“ Heads of brigades that had brought these furs from the wilderness stood by to challenge any mistake in the count. It was the height of the fur season, and Mackinac Island was the front of the world to the two or three thousand men gathered in for its brief summer. ”

“ Of the two or three thousand voyageurs and clerks, one hundred lived in the agency house, five hundred were accommodated in barracks, but the majority found shelter in tents and in the houses of the villagers. ”