that time it has wrapped itself in secrecy and mystery, carrying on
its affairs behind the screen of five hundred miles of forest. Here it
has still the power; no man can establish himself here, can even
travel here, without its consent, for it controls the food and the
Indians. The Free Trader enters, but he does not stay for long. The
Company's servants are mindful of their old fanatical ideal. Nothing
is ever known, no orders are ever given, but something happens, and
the man never ventures again.

"If he is an ordinary _mètis_ or Canadian, he emerges from the forest
starved, frightened, thankful. If his story is likely to be believed
in high places, he never emerges at all. The dangers of wilderness
travel are many: he succumbs to them. That is the whole story. Nothing
definite is known; no instances can be proved; your father denies the
legend and calls it a myth. The Company claims to be ignorant of it,
perhaps its greater officers really are, but the legend holds so good
that the journey has its name--_la Longue Traverse_.

"But remember this, no man is to blame--unless it is he who of
knowledge takes the chances. It is a policy, a growth of centuries, an
idea unchangeable to which the long services of many fierce and loyal
men have given substance. A Factor cannot change it. If he did, the
thing would be outside of nature, something not to be understood.

"I am here. I am to take _la Longue Traverse_. But no man is to blame.
If the scheme of the thing is wrong, it has been so from the very
beginning, from the time when King Charles set his signature to the
charter of unlimited authority. The history of a thousand men gives
the tradition power, gives it insistence. It is bigger than any one
individual. It is as inevitable as that water should flow down hill."