Sishetakushin had given Bob the assurance that the Nascaupees would bring him their furs to barter. He was satisfied, also, that he could secure a large share of the trade of the Eastern, or Bay, Mountaineer Indians, for he would pay a fair and reasonable price for their furs, and they would quickly recognise the advantage of trading with him. And he would have another advantage over the coast traders: he would establish a trading station in the very heart of the wilderness, in the midst of the Indian hunting country.
Previous to his coming into his little fortune his father had, as far back as Bob could remember, been struggling under a load of debt. At times the family had been plunged into the very uttermost depths of poverty; and even now a sickening dread stole upon Bob as he recalled some of the winters through which they had passed when the factor at the post had refused them further credit, and the flour barrel at home was empty, and they could scarcely have survived had it not been for the bounty of Douglas Campbell.
This was the condition still with many of the families of the Bay. They were always in debt to the Company for advances of provisions, and there was no hope that they could ever emerge from the deplorable condition. It was the policy of the Company that they should not.
In accepting credit from the Company, the trapper placed himself under obligation to deliver to the Company every product of his labours until the debt was discharged. The Company allowed the trapper in return for his pelts such an amount as it saw fit. He had no word in the matter, and of necessity was compelled to accept the Company's valuation of his furs, which valuation the Company took good care to place so low as to obviate any probability of his release from debt. At a reasonable valuation of their furs, there was seldom a year that most, if not all, the Bay trappers might not have been freed from their serfdom.
Thus when a trapper died his only inheritance to his children was a burden of debt, which sometimes passed down from generation to generation; for the son who refused to assume his father's debt was denied credit or consideration at the Company's stores.
The Grays, as we have stated, had felt the heavy hand of this inquisitional system. Now that they were free, Bob's sympathy was poured out to his neighbours, and he was secretly planning how, when he became a trader, he might also compass their release.
As rapidly as his profits would permit, Bob was determined to advance, first to one family, then to another, sufficient cash to discharge their debts and relieve them from their obligation to the Company.
Then he would advance them the necessary provisions and supplies to sustain them until they returned from their trails with their hunt. He would buy their pelts at as high a price as he could afford with a reasonable profit. This price would always be certainly double, and often four or five times, that which the Company was accustomed to allow.
Bob, thus forming his Utopian plans, forgot the tedium of the trail. No person is so happy as when doing something to make some other person happy. And Bob was happy because he believed he was to be the means of bringing happiness to many. Making a comfortable living himself, he would make it possible for his neighbours to make a comfortable living, also.
It never occurred to him that failure was possible, or that, with the amount of capital which he believed was still at his disposal, the plan was unpractical. Young, highly optimistic, and somewhat visionary, his dreams assumed the status of reality.