[7] Pike.
Sam paused.
"Could a brigade of canoes reach it easily?" he inquired.
Now a brigade is distinctly an institution of the Honourable the Hudson's Bay Company. It is used for two purposes; to maintain communication with the outside world, and to establish winter camps in the autumn or to break them up in the spring. At once the situation became clear. A gleam of comprehension flashed over the Indian's eyes. With the peculiar attention to detail distinctively the forest runner's he indicated a route. Sam was satisfied to let the matter rest there for the present.
The next evening he visited the Indian's camp. It was made under a spreading tree, the tepee poles partly resting against some of the lower branches. The squaw and her woman child kept to the shadows of the wigwam, but the boy, a youth of perhaps fifteen years, joined the men by the fire.
Sam accepted the hospitality of a pipe of tobacco, and attacked the question in hand from a ground tacitly assumed since the evening before.
"If Hutsonbaycompany make winterpost on Animiki will you get your debt there instead of Missináibie?" he asked first of all.
Of course the Indian assented.
"How much fur do you get, good year?"
The Indian rapidly ran over a list.