Here he stopped for supper and learned from Zeke Hodge, the Post servant, that Indian Jake had passed up Grand Lake in his canoe two days before.

Zeke expressed doubt as to Eli's finding the half-breed at the Nascaupee River.

He stated it as his opinion that if Indian Jake were guilty of the crime, as he had no doubt, he was planning an escape and had in all probability immediately plunged into the interior, in which case he was already hopelessly beyond pursuit and had fled the Bay country for good and all.

Like Eli, Zeke convicted the half-breed at once.
The Eskimo Bay Post of the Hudson's Bay Company is the last inhabited dwelling as the traveller enters the wilderness; he might go on and on for a thousand miles to Hudson Bay and in the whole vast expanse of distance no other human habitation will he find.

His camps will be pitched in the depths of forests or on desolate, naked barrens; and always, in forests or on barrens, he will hear the rush and roar of mighty rivers or the lapping waves of wide, far-reaching lakes.