in writing this book my desire has been to draw an exact copy of the picture which is indelibly stamped on my own memory. i have carefully avoided exaggeration in everything of importance. all the chief and most of the minor incidents are facts. in regard to unimportant matters, i have taken the liberty of a novelist—not to colour too highly, or to invent improbabilities, but—to transpose time, place, and circumstance at pleasure; while, at the same time, i have endeavoured to convey to the reader’s mind a truthful impression of the general effect—to use a painter’s language—of the life and country of the fur-trader.

r.m. ballantyne.

edinburgh, 1856.