Mr. Scott was surprised at the other’s vehemence. He stared at Dick wonderingly, then turned and strode over to the door. Just then a customer came in and the subject was dropped. His brows puckered, Dick lounged to the door and looked outside.
“Hang the luck!” he whispered to himself. “The farther I get into this thing, the more difficult it appears.”
With an impatient, angry gesture, he yanked his hat down over his eyes and strode outside.
CHAPTER XXIX.
THE RIVER PILOT.
On the next day, the routine and monotony of life at the post was broken by the arrival of the Hudson’s Bay Company’s steamer from Painter’s Ferry. It carried a cargo of merchandise and the bi-monthly mail for persons residing at the post and vicinity. Dick was on hand when it hove to and tied up at the landing. Factor Scott was also there and waved his hand at the pilot, Captain Morrison, who stood near the rail while the gang plank was lowered. A moment later, a crowd of passengers trooped down to the shore. Dick followed the factor who went aboard to speak to the captain.
“You’re a day ahead of your schedule,” he smiled as they shook hands.
Captain Morrison was a grizzled veteran of twenty years’ continuous service with the great fur company. Few men knew the North better than he. On the Athabasca, the Peace and the Mackenzie Rivers and Great Slave Lake he had passed a long and eventful career. Scarcely a white person in the North that he had not met at some time or other. He smiled when he saw Dick, stepped forward and extended a brawny hand.
“Perhaps you don’t remember me, my boy. You’re Dick Kent, aren’t you? I was at Peace River Crossing two years ago when you made that flight from near Fort Good Faith to the Crossing in that airplane with that fire ranger.”
“At the time of the small-pox epidemic,” Dick recalled. “I remember you now.”
“I had the Northern Queen then. My run was from Fort Vermilion to Hudson’s Hope. Got transferred up here this spring.”