“It’s a hoe-axe,” said Ben. “It’s them fellows down at the Landing trying to get a rise out of me. Or if it ain’t that, it’s some guy comin’ in next spring, and sendin’ in his outfit piecemeal ahead of him. And me powerless to protect myself! Ain’t that an outrage! But when I meet him on the trail I’ll put it to him!”
“There are newspapers here, too,” Stonor pointed out. “No man coming in next spring would send himself last year’s papers.”
“Where is he, then?” they asked.
The question was unanswerable.
“Well, I’d like to see any lily-handed doctor guy from the outside face the river trail in the winter,” said Ben bitterly. “If he’ll do that, I’ll carry his outfit for him. But he’ll need more than his diploma to fit him for it.”
At any rate they had a brand-new subject for conversation at the post.
About a week later, when Hairy Ben had started back up the river, the routine at the post was broken by the arrival of a small party of Kakisa Indians from the Kakisa or Swan River, a large unexplored stream off to the north-west. The Kakisas, an uncivilized and shy race, rarely appeared at Enterprise, and in order to get their trade Gaviller had formerly sent out a half-breed clerk to the Swan River every winter. But this man had lately died, and now the trade threatened to lapse for the lack of an interpreter. None of the Kakisas could speak English, and there was no company employee who could speak their uncouth tongue except Gordon Strange the bookkeeper, who could not be spared from the post.
Wherefore Gaviller welcomed these six, in the hope that they might prove to be the vanguard of the main body. They were a wild and ragged lot, under the leadership of a withered elder called Mahtsonza. They were discovered by accident camping under cover of a poplar bluff across the river. No one knew how long they had been there, and Gordon Strange had a time persuading them to come the rest of the way. It was dusk when they entered the store, and Gaviller, by pre-arrangement with Mathews, clapped his hands and the electric lights went on. The effect surpassed his expectations. The Kakisas, with a gasp of terror, fled, and could not be tempted to return until daylight.
They brought a good little bundle of fur, including two silver fox skins, the finest seen at Enterprise that season. They laid their fur on the counter, and sidled about the store silent and abashed, like children in a strange house. With perfectly wooden faces they took in all the wonders out of the corners of their eyes; the scales, the stove, the pictures on the canned goods, the show-cases of jewellery and candy. Candy they recognized, and, again like children, they discussed the respective merits of the different varieties in their own tongue. Gaviller, warned by his first mistake, affected to take no notice of them.
The Kakisas had been in the store above an hour when Mahtsonza, without warning, produced a note from the inner folds of his dingy capote, and, handling it gingerly between thumb and forefinger, silently offered it to Gaviller. The trader’s eyes almost started out of his head.