"The Hudson's Bay Company is not exactly crooked."
"It's you I trust. You'll do it?"
"Gladly," said Douglas.
"Fatbald's widow, Two Bits, Sitting Wolf's woman, will come to you in the morning. Or you can send for her."
He was gone, and Douglas stood in the doorway listening as Storm ran towards the river and his canoe.
CHAPTER VI
THE GHOST TRAIL
The Indian would rather not be fed from the Great Horn Spoon of the Pale-face. North of the Medicine Line we have kept faith with him, in cold frugality and aggravating meanness. Southward in the Land of Promises we showed him the whole art and practice of Humbug, sometimes massacred a tribe or so, were always liable to break out, and yet had generous moods or even dealt a little sunshine now and then to warm starved hearts. The Indian likes Canada least.
We wear hats, not for an occasional ceremony, but all the time, as though we never desisted from making magic. That is uncanny, not quite human.
The Indian likes a fight as much as anybody, and afterwards a scalp is the very best trophy. But he always took that trophy in war, not, like the white frontiersman, in peace, or for fun, or as a collector of curiosities. In other ways, too, the white man is ferocious. When, on a hard trip, the Indians are done for and lie down to die, the white man gets up and kicks them. I have done that myself. The white man's purpose goes on until he is dead, and afterwards. He is much fiercer even than the poor embittered Apaches. He is fierce in cold blood. He laughs.