84 RIVERS IN SUMMER

powder, piled it on a tin lid and set a match to it,
placing the lid this time on the floor. The mosquito
mind was bafHed.

The two of us had the post to ourselves. For
several evenings we had sat here smoking cigars,
burning incense for our mosquito gods and won-
dering when the white trappers would come in.
Two of them had been here in January; their trap-
lines were nearer to the post than the others, and
they might be the first to arrive this time. The
Liard Indians should be in before July, and it was
rumoured that the McDames tribe was in the neigh-
bourhood too.

Thomas sat with his back to the inner wall, look-
ing out through the doorway and the adjacent
window over the bench and the river: he could see
the colours on water and grass, and could watch the
Insects trying to get in. I sat facing him, looking
through the northern window: I could see the fam-
ing sky and the bright ribbons of clouds. Or I could
look at the wall behind his head, where a beautiful
girl graced last year’s calendar and a picture of Sir
George Simpson’s arrival at somewhere-or-other
dignified the fleeting days of 1931. There was a
gramophone and a pile of records on the table under
the northern window. We started with Harry
Lauder and finished with Wild Irish Rose. Then we