Adventure Magazine Cover, April 3, 1918 — page 78: what you’re looking at

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

76 not a man wouldst stay. The Eastern partners wouldst not come past tuh Kam- inistiquia, and tuh Indians and tuh Mon- treal paddlers here took to tuh bush.”’ “They don’t need to be alarmed,” Car- lisle assured him. ‘All we want is a peaceful passage. You see, Davvy, the Hudson’s Bay Company has smashed the North- westers to pieces in the hinterland, and the absorption of the pieces will not be long delayed. Amalgamation is coming, old friend, and you yourself will be back with us again.” “By St. John! Dost say so, old roamer? Wilt not grieve me any if canst keep clear of Colen. Hast loved thee like a brother, Carlisle, and wilt go with a good heart if tuh Hudson’s Bay takes tuh Northwest Com- pany over. Wilt be no trade this Summer anyway, so wast thinking of going West to hew a new pass over tuh Rockies.” “Then you'll hew it for the Hudson’s Bay Company in the end, Davvy.” Thompson shrugged his shoulders. “What matter, Carlisle? Tuh land is big- ger than any institution, is greater than its furs. Wilt be an empire in tuh end of all. And thou? Art going to James Bay?” “Ves, Davvy.” “Art stopping tuh night here?” “No, we'll travel the lake when the breeze dies down. ‘Tomorrow we may have to lie up wind-bound on the shore. Will you give Miss Wayne and Father Andrews the use of your post for a few minutes? She wants to put on another dress, and Andrews a new cassock.”’ “Wilt give me pleasure,” agreed Thomp- son, saluting Joan and the others gravely. “But what is tuh purpose?” “Davvy,” smiled Carlisle, “the last time I was here as a mail courier, I had a hand in saving a certain young lady from being carried off against her will. Now she’s being carried off with her own consent.” Thompson’s eyes opened wide, his face creased in a grin of remembrance and com- prehension, and he suddenly extended his hand to the girl. “Ha! Is that, then? Wilt congratulate you, MissWayne. Yon dirty courier is lucky man. Art most beautiful woman hast ever seen. Comein. Wilt give ’ee my own house for tuh purpose, you and tuh priest.” He led Joan and Andrews inside, while Carlisle and Wayne passed on to the beach where the first packers were letting down Adventure the canoes and fur bales and more and more were arriving every minute in the gathering dusk and slipping their tump-lines to the ground. Carlisle knew such a freight of fur throughout the whole history of the fur trade had never come over the Grande Por- tage in a single season. Not only the vast catch of the Hudson’s Bay Company was in transit but also the large take of the North- west Company which he had captured from Richelieu, the McKenzies, Todd, McLeod, McDougall, McGillivray and Sager in the Devil’s Elbow. Their yearly turnover, greater than any other turnover known in America, had turned to his hands, and it would continue tosoturn. Vast as had been the institution of the Northwesters, it was, like the trust of the Free-Traders, shaken to its foundations by a combination of organized warfare and Divine visitation. : The Montreal brigades of rivermen were here, slinking in the woods, but this year the Northmen from the Pays d’en Haut would not gather to meet them. GRANDE PORTAGE was an open road, not a private gateway to the West, and though it would be used for some time by his company as an entre- pot for inland business and as an outlet on Superior, Carlisle saw in his mind’s eye a changing of the routes by which the fur would all flow to Hudson’s Bay instead of to Montreal. He pictured the dwindling of the Grande Portage, the spot where the brains of the Northwest Company had been situated though its nominal headquarters pulsed in Beaver Hall, the spot from which the ruth- less power of the organization was distrib- uted in stupendous ramifications, like electric energy from a distant waterfall. And in the end he saw the post dismantled, its foundations buried in the sand and scrub, the Portage unused, the Western highway forgotten! Something of the same thought was run- ning through Wayne’s mind as he watched the packing down and the relaunching and reloading of the canoes, and Carlisle, turning to speak to him, caught it in his eye. “You see it too, Wayne?” he ventured. “You see the glory departing from this place?”’ CORnNICLOO SS (C@