Robert Motley set out with his cargo from the headwaters of the South Saskatchewan the instant travel became possible on the watery highroad.
There were reasons for haste. Through the winter, reports had reached his post concerning the savage raiding of the Nor’Westers. Hudson’s Bay Company had, for much more than a century, held undisputed sway over three-quarters of America and it was not likely that the governors in England would fail in the counterattack against the upstart brigades that threatened the very existence of HBC.
King Charles II on a far-off day in 1670 had decreed by charter in the most solemn tones that the Hudson’s Bay Company had all sovereign powers of monarchy over almost two million square miles of continent with license to punish all trespassers at the company’s d
