"What's the matter with the mankiller?"
"Broke," was the laconic answer. "We fix it. Every day it break again. Now it is all broke."
"Well, every family will have to grind for themselves," said Ambrose.
Simon shrugged. "We have a new trouble here."
"What is it?" Ambrose anxiously demanded.
"The Kakisa Indians," Simon said. "They are the biggest tribe around this post, and the best fur bringers. They live beside the Kakisa River, hundred fifty miles northwest.
"All summer they come in two or six or twenty and get a little flour, little sugar, tea, tobacco from me. They want to trade with you because Gaviller is hard to them like us. They are good hunters, but he keep them poor.
"In the late summer they come all together to get a fall outfit. They are here now. They want a hundred bags of flour. They come to me. I say I have got no flour. They go to the fort.
"Gaviller say; 'Ambrose Doane bought all the grain. You want to trade with him; all right. Make him sell you flour now.'
"They are here a week now—sixty teepees. I feed them what I can. It is not much. They are ongry. They begin to talk ugly."