"And that we never did," said Lampard. "Though you appear to be bearing up under it."
"Just as well as the H. B. C. is bearing up under the knowledge that it has lost its significance," agreed Dick.
"What's that?" demanded Lampard, instantly afire for the honour of his world-known firm.
"Why" Dick laid a piece of leather over a rubbed place in the leg of his riding-breeches with care. "The Hudson Bay Company spread everywhere before the missionary, and thereby earned the right to call themselves 'Here before Christ.' Now a missionary has got into some place near Herschel ahead of them, and consequently the Company is doomed."
Lampard was aroused to an exhortation on the staying powers of the Company, and Dick finished his work and turned to make a drawing on the backs of those memorandum forms which carry the full title of the Police on the front of them.
"I saw a wood-buffalo on the Twin Hill trail to-day just after you passed, Parrett," he said. "You saw the tracks of it, of course?"
Parrett was the youthful Dissenting minister fresh from Winnipeg, and he knew that his first duty towards these outcasts was to convince them of his ultimate knowledge. He was the only man there who was ignorant of the fact that wood-buffalo fed neither so far west or south by some hundreds of miles, and he fell into the trap instantly.
"Why, certainly," he said. "I saw the tracks. Plenty of them."
"Ah. I saw the buffalo itself. How big would you take it to be by the spore?" asked Dick, bringing out bold sweeps on the paper.
"Why sure; they were—I guess I didn't measure them."
"Do you think they would fit an animal of about this size?"
Dick flicked his sketch into the group round the stove, and sat unmoved under the comments. Ogilvie sucked his lips in.
"I fancy Mr. Robison will want to kill you if ever he sees this," he said.
