o blow and then to growl, as a strange Indian
strode out of the gloom into the brilliant glare of the fires.

"_Wat-che_! _wat-che_?" (What cheer, what cheer?) sang out the men.
The stranger replied in Cree, and then began a lively interchange of
gossip. The Indian was the track-beater of the south-bound packet from
the Far North that was now approaching. All were keenly interested.
The cracking of whips and the howling of dogs were heard, and a little
later the tinkling of bells. Then came a train of long-legged,
handsomely harnessed dogs hauling a highly decorated carriole behind
which trotted a strikingly dressed half-breed dog-driver. When the
train had drawn abreast of our fire an elderly white man, who proved to
be Chief Factor Thompson, of a still more northerly district of the
Hudson's Bay Company, got out from beneath the carriole robes,
cheerfully returned our greeting, and accepted a seat on the dunnage
beside Factor Mackenzie's fire. Two other trains and two other
dog-drivers immediately followed the arrival of the Chief Factor, for
they were the packeteers in charge of the packet. Now the woods seemed
to be full of talking and laughing men and snarling, snapping dogs.
Twenty-two men were now crowding round the fires, and seventy-two dogs
and eighteen sleds were blocking the spaces between the trees.

NORTHERN MAIL SERVICE

Chief Factor Thompson was the "real thing," and therefore not at all
the kind of Hudson's Bay officer that one ever meets in fiction. For
instead of being a big, burly, "red-blooded brute," of the "he-man"
type of factor--the kind that springs from nowhere save the wild
imaginations of the authors who have never lived in the
wilderness . . . he was just a real man . . . just a fine type of
Hudson's Bay factor, who was not only brother to both man and beast,
but who knew every bird by its flight or song; who loved children with
all his heart--flowers, too--and whose kindly spirit often rose in
song. Yes, he was just a real man, like some of the men you know--but
after all, perhaps he was even finer--for the wilderness does nothing
to a man save make him healthier in body and in soul; while the cities
are the world's cesspools. He was rather a small, slender man, with
fatherly eyes set in an intelligent face that was framed with gray hair
and gray beard.

After the Chief Factor and his men had been refreshed with bannock,
pork, and tea, pipes were filled and lighted and for a