The canoe and the paddles they laid at the water’s edge.  Then they went together to the great warehouse, behind the grill of whose upper room MacDonald was writing.  Ordinarily the trappers were not allowed inside the grill, but Dick and Sam were told to help themselves freely.  The stocking Dick left to his older companion, assuring himself merely of an hundred rounds of ammunition for his new model Winchester rifle, the 44-40 repeater, then just entering the outskirts of its popularity.

In the obscurity of the wide, low room the old woodsman moved to and fro, ducking his head to avoid things hanging, peering into corners, asking an occasional question of MacDonald, who followed him silently about.  Two small steel traps, a narrow, small-meshed fish-net, a fish-line and hooks, powder, ball, and caps for the old man’s muzzle-loader, a sack of salt were first laid aside.  This represented subsistence.  Then matches, a flint-and-steel machine, two four-point blankets.  These meant warmth.  Then ten pounds of plug tobacco and as many of tea.  These were necessary luxuries.  And finally a small sack of flour and a side of bacon.  These were merely a temporary provision; when they should be exhausted, the men would rely wholly on the forest.

Sam Bolton hovered over the pile, after it was completed, his eyes half shut, naming over its items again and again, assuring himself that nothing lacked.  At his side MacDonald made suggestions.

“Got a copper pail, Sam? a frying-pan? cups?  How about the axe?  Better have an extra knife between you.  Need any clothes?  Compass all right?”

To each of these questions Sam nodded an assent.  So MacDonald, having named everything—­with the exception of the canvas square to be used as a tarpaulin or a tent, and soap and towel—­fell silent, convinced that he could do nothing more.

But Dick, who had been drumming his fingers idly against the window, turned with a suggestion of his own.

“How’re we fixed for shoe pacs?  I haven’t got any.”

At once MacDonald looked blank.

“By George, boys, I ain’t got but four or five pairs of moccasins in the place!  There’s plenty of oil tan; I can fix you all right there.  But smoke tans!  That Abitibi gang mighty near cleaned me out.  You’ll have to try the Indians.”

Accordingly Bolton and Herron took their way in the dusty little foot-trodden path—­there were no horses in that frontier—­between the Factor’s residence and the Clerk’s house, down the meandering trail through the high grasses of the meadow to where the Indian lodges lifted their pointed tops against the sky.

The wigwams were scattered apparently at random.  Before each a fire burned.  Women and girls busied themselves with a variety of camp-work.  A tame crow hopped and fluttered here and there just out of reach of the pointed-nosed, shaggy wolf-dogs.