He made
out their snowy peaks clearly, seventy miles away, and with his finger
on a certain spot on Hatchett's map his heart thrilled. He was almost
there! Each day the mountains grew nearer. From Hudson's Hope he fancied
that he could almost see the dark blankets of timber on their sides.
Hatchett grunted. They were still forty miles away. And Mac Veigh, the
factor at Hudson's Hope, looked at David in a curious sort of way when
David told him where he was going.
"You're the first white man to do it," he said--an inflection of doubt
in his voice. "It's not bad going up the Finly as far as the Kwadocha.
But from there...."
He shook his head. He was short and thick, and his jaw hung heavy with
disapproval.
"You're still seventy miles from the Stikine when you end up at the
Kwadocha," he went on, thumbing the map. "Who the devil will you get to
take you on from there? Straight over the backbone of the Rockies. No
trails. Not even a Post there. Too rough a country. Even the Indians
won't live in it." He was silent for a moment, as if reflecting deeply.
"Old Towaskook and his tribe are on the Kwadocha," he added, as if
seeing a glimmer of hope. "_He might._ But I doubt it. They're a lazy
lot of mongrels, Towaskook's people, who carve things out of wood, to
worship.
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