is. "He tried to
spit them out, but couldn't." A few hours later David met the factor and
observed that Bouvais had spoken the truth; at least there were two
teeth missing, quite conspicuously. Hatchett was his name. He looked it;
tall, thin, sinewy, with bird-like eyes that were shifting this way and
that at all times, as though he were constantly on the alert for an
ambush, or feared thieves. He was suspicious of David, coming in alone
in this No Man's Land with a pack on his back; a white man, too, which
made him all the more suspicious. Perhaps a possible free trader looking
for a location. Or, worse still, a spy of the Company's hated
competitors, the Revilon Brothers. It took some time for Father Roland's
letter to convince him that David was harmless. And then, all at once,
he warmed up like a birch-bark taking fire, and shook David's hand three
times within five minutes, so hungry was he for a white man's
companionship--an _honest_ white man's, mind you, and not a scoundrelly
competitor's! He opened four cans of lobsters, left over from Christmas,
for their first meal, and that night beat David at seven games of
cribbage in a row. He wasn't married, he said; didn't even have an
Indian woman. Hated women. If it wasn't for breeding a future generation
of trappers he would not care if they all died. No good. Positively no
good. Always making trouble, more or less. That's why, a long time ago,
there was a fort at Chippewyan--sort of blockhouse that still stood
there. Two men, of two different tribes, wanted same woman; quarrelled;
fought; one got his blamed head busted; tribes took it up; raised hell
for a time--all over that rag of a woman! Terrible creatures, women
were. He emphasized his belief in short, biting snatches of words, as
though afraid of wearing out his breath or his vocabulary or both. Maybe
his teeth had something to do with it. Where the two were missing he
carried the stem of his pipe, and when he talked the stem clicked, like
a Castanet.

David had come at a propitious moment--a "most propichus moment,"
Hatchett told him. He had done splendidly that winter. His bargains with
the Indians had been sharp and exceedingly profitable for the Company
and as soon as he got his furs off to Fort McMurray on their way to
Edmonton he was going on a long journey of inspection, which was his
reward for duty well performed. His fur barges were ready. All they were
waiting for was the breaking up of the ice, whe