“That’s Cap. Shott. I’ve told you that he was the first man who ever ran the Grand Rapids of the Athabasca River. His real name is Louis Faisoneure. He’s seventy-seven years old, but still he likes to go down with the brigade, part way at least.
“The quiet young man just beyond him is his son, François. He is the real captain—or commodore, as they call it—of the brigade, and has been for several years. He’ll be the steersman on our boat, so that in one way you might say that the Midnight Sun, although not a Company boat, will pretty much be the flag-ship of the brigade this year. They’re treating us as well as they know how, and I must say we’ll have no cause to complain.”
“Cap. Shott,” as they nicknamed him, did indeed have a piratical look, as John had said. He stood more than six and a half feet in his moccasins, and was straight as an arrow, with the waist of a boy. His face was dark, his eyebrows very heavy and black, and his dark, full beard, his scant trousers held up with a brilliant scarf, and his generally ferocious appearance, gave him a peculiarly wild and outlandish look, although personally he was gentle as a child.
“Well, Cap. Shott,” said Uncle Dick, approaching him, “we start to-day, eh?”
“Mebbe so, oui,” replied the old man. “We load h’all the boats bimeby now. Yes, pretty soon bimeby we start, mebbe so, oui.”
“Well,” said Uncle Dick, smiling, as he turned to the boys, “that’s about as definite as you can get anything. We’ll start when we start! Just get your stuff ready to be embarked and tell the manager where it is. It will be on board all right.”
“But what makes them start so late in the day?” demanded John, who was of an investigative turn of mind. “I should think the morning was the right time to start.”
“Not so the great fur brigade,” was his answer. “Nor was it the custom in the great fur brigades which went out with pack-trains from the Missouri in our own old days when there were buffalo and beaver. A short start was made on the first day, usually toward evening. Then when camp was made everything was overhauled, and if anything had been left behind it was not too far to send back to get it. Nearly always it was found that something had been overlooked.
“Now that’s the way we’ll do here, so they tell me. We’ll run down the river a few miles, each boat as it is loaded, and then we’ll make a landing. That will give each boat captain time to look over his stuff and his men—and, what is more, it will give each man time to run in across country and get a few last drinks. Some of them will come back to be confessed by their priest. Some will want to send supplies to their families who are left behind. On one excuse or another every man of the brigade will be back here in town to-night if we should start! Of course by to-morrow morning they’ll be on hand again bright and early and ready for the voyage. You see, there are customs up here with which we have not been acquainted before.”