CHAPTER XXI 



FORT RESOLUTION AND ITS FOLK 



Early next morning Preble called on his old acquaint- 

 ance, Chief Trader C. Harding, in charge of the post. 

 Whenever we have gone to H. B. Co. officials to do 

 business with them, as officers of the company, we 

 have found them the keenest of the keen; but when- 

 ever it is their personal affair, they are hospitahty 

 out-hospitalled. They give without stint; they lavish 

 their kindness on the stranger from the big world. 

 In a few minutes Preble hastened back to say that we 

 were to go to breakfast at once. 



That breakfast, presided over by a charming woman 

 and a genial, generous man, was one that will not be 

 forgotten while I live. Think of it, after the hard 

 scrabble on the Nyarling! We had real porridge and 

 cream, coffee with veritable sugar and milk, and au- 

 thentic butter, light rolls made of actual flour, un- 

 questionable bacon and potatoes, with jam and toast 

 — ^the really, truly things — and we had as much as 

 we could eat! We behaved rather badly — ^intemper- 

 ately, I fear — we stopped only when forced to do it, 

 and yet both of us came away with appetites. 



It was clear that I must get some larger craft than 

 my canoe to cross the lake from Fort Resolution and 

 take the 1,300 pounds of provisions that had come on 

 the steamer. Harding kindly offered the loan of a 



143 



