he had purchased
from an old French-Canadian _voyageur_ during earlier stages of his
trip; he did not know how reliable it might prove to be, though thus far
the young explorers had not found it amiss to any very great extent.

When he found a chance he meant to drag this document out from its place
of hiding among the various charts of the Hudson Bay country which he
carried along, and get Owen's opinion as to its trustworthy character.

This would give him an opportunity to renew his acquaintance with the
lay of the land above, and in some way it might cause their strange new
friend to open his heart, and take them more fully into his confidence
with relation to his previous connections here.

Cuthbert was pretty positive that there was some sort of a Hudson Bay
trading post on this same stream, situated in an isolated quarter--most
of them went under the name of a fort, and indeed, they were built to
resist any attack that might be made upon them by Indians or disorderly
half breeds; for there were at times vast quantities of valuable plunder
held in these posts, in the shape of rare peltries, and the many things
the trappers took in part payment for their winter's catch, so that a
clean-out of a distant post would mean a serious loss to the great
company that for scores of years had carried on this business of
gathering the precious skins of silver foxes, lynx, badger, mink, otter,
fisher, marten, opossum, beaver, bear, wolves and muskrats.

The meal was, as we have seen, soon prepared, and partaken of with that
keen relish known only to those who live in the open.

As usual the boys had grouped themselves around the fire at the time the
question of the smoke signals arose, each bent upon doing some
individual task, that had been upon his mind; for it is the natural
habit after dining heartily to desire to rest from strenuous exertion,
and take up little matters that require possibly only the manipulation
of the hands, or the action of the brain.

Eli seemed deeply interested in some specimens he had picked up close to
their noon camp, and which held forth alluring promises of copper--it
was the chief fad of his life to run across a lode of the valuable metal
in this far-North country; and make his everlasting fortune that way;
for in secret the Michigan lad hugged certain plans for future worldwide
travel to his heart, all of which, while extremely visionary at present,
would be easily possible when his "ship