CHAPTER XVI.
COLINA COMMANDS.
On August 25, well within his schedule, Ambrose arrived at Spirit River Crossing with ten loaded wagons.
For six long days they had been floundering through the bottomless mudholes of the portage trail and men and horses were alike played out; but the rest of the way to come was easy, and Ambrose paid off his drivers with a light heart.
The york boat and crew he had engaged at the crossing were non-existent, and no explanation forthcoming.

He had met with similar small reverses all along the line.

This one was not important; it meant three days delay to build a raft.
There was a current of nearly four miles an hour to carry him to his destination, and no rapids in the three hundred miles to endanger his cargo.
Tole Grampierre and his brother Germain were waiting for Ambrose.

With two such aides he could afford to smile at the mysterious scarcity of labor which developed on his arrival.
Tole's budget of news from down the river contained nothing startling.
John Gaviller had been very sick all summer with pneumonia as a result of his wound.

He was getting better: "pale and skinny as an old rabbit in the snow," in Tole's words.
Gaviller had sent up the launch to get what grain had been grown at the crossing; but it was not enough to fill his contracts for flour up north.