Explore "The Gaspards of Pine Croft" by Ralph Connor on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Hudson's Bay Post stood at the southern end of the lake, as did most Hudson's Bay Posts in the North Country, and consisted of a group of log buildings, well constructed, neat in appearance and well adapted to their purposes of trade and defence. The store, with the Factor's house attached, was the most imposing of the group, and next in size was the Mission House, which did for dwelling for the missionary, the church and the school, all under one roof and within four walls. Straggling outhouses were scattered about where boats and canoes and tackle of different kinds were stored. A few Indian wigwams and well built huts near the forest line completed the picture.
It was early morning and the air was bitter cold and thick with driving snow. About the Post there was not a sign of life except at the door of the Mission House, where a six-dog team hitched to a toboggan waited for their master. In their harness they lay curled up, backs to the wind, a nondescript lot, of varied and altogether doubtful ancestry but mostly husky.