But, after ploughing through stormy
wintery seas for a day or so, I found that
the man was away. He was down in Van-
couver and Seattle investigating the price
of furs. But his wife gave me the “low-
down”.

“The Russians are dumping fur on the
market. They have 200,000 Sable, and
when they put those on the market our
Marten, candidly, won't be worth a
damn.”

I didn’t ask her how she knew so much
about the inner workings of the Russian
Government. In fact, that wasn’t as im4
portant a fact as the consideration that
had paid out a lot of good money for furs
that weren’t worth a damn.

Like many another fur-owner, I sent
my furs to an auction market. I sent my
furs to Little Brothers, who claim to be
the oldest Raw Fur Agency in the west.
Their reputation is golden. Trappers
swear by them.

Their method is to collect furs from
trappers, farmers, and rural buyers, then
sell them to the fur-manutacturer at auc-
tion. It is generally conceded that Little
Brothers sales not only get the highest
market price for furs, but they also estab-
lish the prices at definite levels.

Trading for coyote skins in the interior of British Colwmbia.
during depression years, coyote skins were worth as much as twenty-five

Other business took me to Vancouver,
so 1 went to Little Brothers a few days
before their sale. As soon as one enters
their office the musky smell of raw furs
waits out from the store-rooms to greet
you. In the store-rooms themselves were
bins and bins of raw furs. Black Mink
there were, and white Fox ; brown Marten
and white Ermine; Red Squirrel and
white Rabbit. The tables were littered
with them, the walls were hung with
them.

I met Mr: George Little and Mr. Boyd.

“Your guess is as good as ours,” they
told me frankly when I asked them about
the prospects of a good sale. “In the last
few sales there has been a strong resist-
ance on the part of the buyers and not a
great deal of the furs were moved. But
it might be different this time.”

It was interesting to learn how they
conducted their business. When a ship-
ment of furs arrived from a prospective
seller, each fur was affixed with a number,
the numbers entered in a ledger. ‘Then,
those numbered were entered in cata-

*

Once,

dollars, and the pursuit of them kept many a settler from going hungry.

Today, along with more aristocratic brethen of the long-haired type, coyote
skins are worth practically nothing.

SEVENTEENTH EDITION

—Photo Clifford R. Kopas

logues which were available at their office
for both sellers and buyers. Thus when
all the furs were displayed and sold, they
were sold by number only.
The day of the auction saw me there,
again.
ScENE AT Fur AUCTION

The auction room was a floor high
in the Holden building, and when I went
into this room the lack of confusion was
almost confusing. Instead of furs being
stacked on every side, there wasn’t a fur
to be seen. Instead, there were rows of
people sitting at long tables, studying
catalogues, almost class-room style. Up
front, in a pulpit-like dias, were three
men, one of them monotonously chanting
the auctioneer’s monologue, another bark-
ite? USE?) (OPE

I watched the buyers. Every time a
pencil was raised, a hand elevated even
slightly, the one man barked “UP!” and
the figure being chanted by the auctioneer
was elevated.

Each time the bidding reached its high-
est possible point the auctioneer would

The best fox furs that the wilderness can produce, but so far as monetary
value goes, now away down in the scale of things.
—Photo Clifford R. Kopas

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