"What do I care! I care because it's a dirty, low-lived piece of work! These Injuns need every bit of fur they can trap to buy grub and clothes with. When they get hooch, they pay a big price—and they pay it in grub and clothes that their women and children need!"
'Merican Joe shrugged philosophically, and at that moment another Indian stepped into the firelight. It was the man who had insisted upon their staying with him, and who Connie remembered had spoken a few words of English.
"You looking for hooch, too?" asked the boy.
The Indian shook his head vigorously. "No. Hooch bad. Mak' Injun bad. No good!"
Connie shoved the teapot into the coals and motioned the man to be seated, and there beside the little fire, over many cups of strong tea, the boy and 'Merican Joe, by dint of much questioning and much sign talk to help out the little English and the few words of jargon the man knew, succeeded finally in learning the meaning of the white man's trail in the snow. They learned that the Indians were Dog Ribs who had drifted from the Blackwater country and settled in their present location last fall because two of their number had wintered there the previous year and had found the trapping good, and the supply of fish and rabbits inexhaustible. They had done well with their traps, but they had killed very few caribou during the winter, and the current of the river had taken many of their nets and swept them away under the ice. The rabbits were not as plentiful as they had been earlier in the fall, and there was much hunger in the camp.
They traded as usual, and had gotten "debt" at Fort Norman last summer before they moved their camp. Later in the summer two men had come along in a canoe and told them that they would come back before the mid-winter trading. They said they would sell goods much cheaper than the Hudson's Bay Company, or the Northern Trading Company, and that they would also have some hooch—which cannot be obtained from the big companies.
Yesterday one of these men came into the camp. He had a few bottles of hooch which he traded for some very good fox skins, and promised to return in six days with the other man and two sled loads of goods. He told them that they did not have to pay their debt to the companies at Fort Norman because everything at the fort had burned down—all the stores and all the houses and the men had gone away down the river and that they would not return. The Indians had been making ready to go to the fort to trade, but when they heard that the fort was burned they decided to wait for the free traders. Also many of the young men wanted to trade with the free traders because they could get the hooch.
The Indian said he was very sorry that the fort had burned, because he did not like the free traders, and he wanted to pay his debt to the company, but if there was nobody there it would be no use to make the long trip for nothing.
When he finished Connie sat for some time thinking. Then, producing a worn notebook and the stub of a pencil from his pocket he wrote upon a leaf and tore it from the book. When he spoke it was to 'Merican Joe. "How long will it take you to make Fort Norman travelling light?" he asked.
"'Bout fi', six, day."