"I arrived from England on the last ship," Glyndon responded. "They told me there wouldn't be another for a year." He laughed ingenuously, as if at something strangely outside his own experience.
"The vessel comes but once in twelve months," explained Dunvegan, "to bring supplies and carry back the furs to market. We get our yearly mail with the supplies."
"It seems very odd," the clerk ventured. "This is a tremendous country, and I have everything to learn about it. Perhaps Dreaulond will teach me the elementals!"
"At Oxford House he may," remarked the restive chief trader. "You can renew the acquaintance there. Just now we have something more important to do."
"At Oxford House, then," Glyndon concluded as he followed the rest of the brigade.
Dreaulond brought forth his canoe and pack-sack from the thicket. Before loading up he gazed shrewdly after the slender figure of the English clerk. He had not missed the lines of the aristocratic face; the large, hazel, womanish eyes; the cheek-marks of dissipation that even a lately-acquired tan failed to conceal.
"Dey send heem out?" Basil asked, pointing his arm in a direction designed to extend across the Atlantic.
"Yes," answered Dunvegan, "his folks sent him here. He drank at home, and they want the Company to make a man of him. New environment! The primeval law of adaptation!"
Dreaulond adjusted the tump-line and placed the canoe upon his shoulders.
"Au revoir!" he called.