"Then you get on with Indians?"
"Yes," Clarke said shortly. "It isn't difficult when you grasp their point of view. You ought to know something about that. On the whole, the Hudson Bay people treat the Indians well; there was a starving lad you picked up suffering from snow-blindness near Jack-pine River and sent back safely to his tribe."
"That's so; but I don't know how you knew. I'm sure I haven't talked about it, and my clerk has never left the factory. There wasn't another white man within a week's Journey."
Clarke smiled.
"I heard, all the same. You afterward had some better furs than usual brought in."
The agent looked surprised.
"Some of these people are grateful, but although I've been in the country twelve years I don't pretend to understand them."
"They understand you. The proof of it is that you can keep your factory open in a district where furs are rather scarce, and you have had very few mishaps. You can take that as a compliment."
Blake noticed something significant in Clarke's tone.
"Then you know the Jack-pine?" the agent asked.