“Ay, that, but there’s no place for me like Fort Providence.”
“Try this pheasant. And you are sub-factor now, Carscallen?”
“There’s two of us sub-factors—Jeff Hyde and myself. Mr. Field is old, and can’t do much work, and trade’s heavy now.”
“I know. I hear from the factor now and then. And Gaspe Toujours, what of him?”
“He went away three years ago, and he said he’d come back. He never did though. Jeff Hyde believes he will. He says to me a hundred times, ‘Carscallen, he made the sign of the cross that he’d come back from Saint Gabrielle; and that’s next to the Book with a papist. If he’s alive he’ll come.’”
“Perhaps he will, Carscallen. And Cloud-in-the-Sky?”
“He’s still there, and comes in and smokes with Jeff Hyde and me, as he used to do with you; but he doesn’t obey our orders as he did yours, sir. He said to me when I left: ‘You see Strong-back, tell him Cloud-in-the-Sky good Injun—he never forget. How!’”
Jaspar Hume raised his glass with smiling and thoughtful eyes: “To Cloud-in-the-Sky and all who never forget!” he said.