A Forturne and a Flitting

Christmas had come and gone before Thompson finished his job at
Porcupine Lake, some ninety-odd miles, as the crow flies, north of Fort
Pachugan. The Porcupine was a marshy stretch of water, the home of
muskrat and beaver, a paradise for waterfowl when the heavy hand of
winter was lifted, a sheet of ice now, a white oval in the dusky green
of the forest. Here the free trader had built a fair-sized structure of
logs with goods piled in the front and the rearward end given over to a
stove, a table, and two bunks. In this place Thompson and Joe Lamont
plied their traffic. MacLeod sent them Indian and half-breed trappers
bearing orders for so much flour, so much tea, so many traps, so much
powder and ball and percussion caps for their nigh obsolete guns. They
took their "debt" and departed into the wilderness, to repay in the
spring with furs.

So, by degrees, the free-trader's stock approached depletion, until
there remained no more than two good dog teams could haul. With that on
sleds, and a few bundles of furs traded in by trappers whose lines
radiated from the Porcupine, Thompson and Joe Lamont came back to Fort
Pachugan.

The factor seemed well pleased with the undertaking. He checked up the
goods and opined that the deal would show a rare profit for the Company.

"Ye have a hundred an' twenty-six dollars due, over an' above a charge
or two against ye," he said to Thompson when they went over the
accounts. "How will ye have it? In cash? If ye purpose to winter at Lone
Moose a credit maybe'll serve as well. Or, if ye go out, ye can have a
cheque on the Company at Edmonton."