Under The Northern Lights by Alan Sullivan

Kwasind, whose name in English means the Strong Man, lived with his daughter Suggemah, the Mosquito, in a conical teepee on the iron-bound shores of Lac Seul, which lies roughly half-way between Lake Superior and Hudson Bay. Should you desire to know more of Lac Seul, it will suffice to say that the surrounding country is flat and rocky, the timber small and straggling, the fishing good, the fur better than good, the summers are hot and sweltering, the winters bleak and smitten with biting winds.

This is one of the many regions of the North once administered by the factors of the Company of Gentlemen Adventurers who became in time lords of the territory they penetrated, and developed into the undisputed rulers of the Land of Little Sticks, till later their sway was challenged by others; but Kwasind, being a conservative by nature, preferred to do business at the old shop. Also there was the fact that Mactavish, the nearby factor, was a man of few words, who had the habit of doing rather better than his promise. And that helped trade a great deal. It fell, during a winter when the winds were unusually bitter, that there passed through the Lac Seul country the story that white men were looking through spy-glasses that stood on three legs to ascertain if there could be found a good trail for the thing that vomited fire, and ran on wheels, and carried many, many men in its entrails. Kwasind, like other Ojibways in the district, heard this story, and hoped greatly that there was nothing in it. For one thing, there were enough white men as matters stood. For another, any such arrangement would certainly affect the hunting and trapping. He understood a little English, but had small respect for the men he learned it from, excepting always Mactavish. And, after all, it was his country, and not theirs.