Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 11: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Ambush 9 rdle he had assumed and he motioned his two pseudo Iroquois canoemen to work him in against the crib. A pause in the toil and a shout from the toilers greeted him. All along the pier within reach of his hand were tied the big Rabiscaw freight canoes from Montreal, and the men who worked them through the Ottawa and French Rivers and the lake route to Grande Portage were the ones un- loading the cargoes they had brought: arms and ammunition; knives, axes, blan- kets; cottons from the looms of far Man- chester, gaudy handkerchiefs of sulk and cotton; rope and twine, fishing nets and lines; copper kettles and other cooking uten- sils; beads and mirrors; kegs of rum; car- rot tobacco, twist tobacco; tea, flour, sugar —articles of foodand tradein endless variety. And the men themselves Carlisle recog- nized as the giant Pork Eaters famed on the trail, French voyageurs off the Ottawa River and the parishes around, Iroquois Indians, Caughnawaga Indians, fierce, untamed. They yelled shrilly, the white men dancing joyously at the arrival of the mail, but Carlisle gave no answer other than to shake the pouch suggestively as his canoe glided close in at the end of the shoreway. There he leaped out and, his two canoeman stalk- ing at his back, strode across the flat and in through the open gate of the palisade. Leaving Missowa and Waseyawin in the yard, he went on to the main warehouse where he knew he would find the post- keeper in charge. With his blood leaping in his body he stepped over the threshold, for he knew also whom he would see sitting there. If his disguise deceived David Thompson he was safe to go where he willed in Grande Portage. He had full confidence in his masquerade, but at the same time the knowledge that this was a critical test keyed him to severest tension, poised his physical being for a dash to escape ‘if his confidence should not be instantly justified. He carried the mail- sack on his shoulder as he passed between the door-jambs, shooting a glance under the sack and his curved arm, seeking out the keeper. E>) AT SIGHT of a little office railed off Pte from the general warehouse, Car- lisle’s fibers thrilled again, for be- hind it he beheld Thompson, as ever astron- omer and explorer rather than fur-trader, poring over his maps and plans. At the swish of the courier’s moccasins he looked up. “Ha! Art herethen,” he nodded, hisWelsh origin betraying itself in his speech. ‘Tuh guide reported ’ee some hours ago. Put thy sack down there. Whilst make tuh entry.”’ As Thompson drew forward the journal of the Post, Carlisle silently expelled a deep breath. Thompson had passed him! Thomp- son who for thirteen years had served in the Hudson’s Bay Company with him, who had lived the routine post life or taken the far trail with him. Thompson with whom he had built Manchester House and Win- tered among the Indians and sojourned at Samuel Hearne’s old post, Cumberland House, which was now to be his own. Thompson with whom he had parted regretfully when, on being ordered by Colen, Factor at York Factory, to do less survey- ing and get more trade returns, Thompson had left the service in a heat and gone over to the Northwest Company to under- take a journey of discovery that shamed Colen and all the Hudson’s Bay. How Carlisle envied him and his new company that feat—the survey west from Grande Portage to Lakes Winnipeg and Winnipe- gosis, south on the Assiniboine to the Souris, across the plains to the Mandan villages on the Missouri; thence to the Assiniboine again, down to the Red River, across to the © Mississippi’s headwaters, northwest to Du- luth on Lake Superior, ’round Superior’s shore-line to the Sault and home once more to Grande Portage. Four thousand miles of virgin wilderness mapped in ten months and to be fur-farmed on the basis of the mapping by the North- westers! The magnitude of it was astound- ing, the attendant loss to the Hudson’s Bay Company colossal. Holding his company’s honor as he held his own, it hurt Carlisle keenly to think that his former friend and the company’s former servant had been the cause. But of Carlisle’s state of feeling Thomp- son realized nothing. It was to his mind the Montreal mail-courier who stood _ be- fore him, and he dipped his pen in the pot of brown ink. Carlisle, leaning sidewise against the grill, his elbow on the mail- pouch so that his big arm hid most of his face, waited with a renewal of his trepida- tion, the other entries of the journal, written in the fine, cramped hand he knew so well, dancing before his eyes. But ina moment CORnMICLOOMKKS (C@