However, I wish ye luck. Stop in whenever ye happen along
this way."
"I thank you, sir," Thompson smiled, "both for your hospitality, and
your advice."
They shook hands. Thompson strode to the beach. Mike Breyette and Donald
MacDonald stood bare-footed in the shallow water. When Thompson had
stepped awkwardly aboard and seated himself amidships, they lifted on
the canoe and slid it gently off the shingle, leaped to their places
fore and aft and gave way. A hundred yards off shore they lifted the
dripping paddles in mute adieu to old Donald McPhee, smoking his pipe at
the gable end of his cabin. MacLeod watched the gray canoe slip past the
first point. When it vanished beyond that he turned back into his
quarters with a shrug of his burly shoulders, and a few unintelligible
phrases muttered under his breath.
Lone Moose Creek emptied into Lake Athabasca some forty miles east of
Fort Pachugan. The village of Lone Moose lay another twenty-five miles
or so up the stream. Thompson's canoemen carried with them a rag of a
sail. This they hoisted to a fair wind that held through the morning
hours. Between that and steady paddling they made the creek mouth by
sundown. There they lay overnight on a jutting sandbar where the
mosquitoes plagued them less than on the brushy shore.
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