"We start up river at daybreak."
"Then you're surely foolish. If you can't make it, there's trouble coming to you next time."
Jim understood the hint. The pack-horse freighters had enjoyed a monopoly of transport to the mining camps. The river was off the regular line, and its navigation was difficult except when the water reached a certain level, but if Jim's experiment proved that supplies could be taken by canoes transport charges would come down.
"There are some awkward portages, but I think I can get through," he said.
"I wasn't figuring on the portages," the landlord rejoined, meaningly. "Somas Charlie's a tough proposition to run up against." He indicated a man coming along the road. "Somas has his tillicums, and around this settlement what he says goes."
In the Chinook jargon, tillicum means something like a familiar spirit, and Jim thought he saw what the other implied. He had had trouble to get articles he needed and had met with annoying delays; and he studied the advancing freighter with some curiosity. Somas was big and powerful and walked with the pack-horse driver's loose stride. He had a dark face, cunning black eyes, and very black hair. It looked as if Indian blood ran in his veins. He came up the veranda steps and gave Jim an ironical glance.
"Got your canoes loaded up?" he asked.
"Not yet; the truck is ready," said Jim, who had thought it prudent to put his goods in a store.
"It's a sure thing you're not going to take your canoes through. Say, I don't want to see you lose the grub and tools. Drop the fool plan and I'll take off a cent a pound."
"If you had offered that before, we might have made a deal. You're too late."