Not one word was spoken. Smoking over, boiled buffalo flesh was served in baskets of bent wood. I was presented with ten buffalo tongues. My guide informed the leader I was sent by the grand leader who lives on the Great Waters to invite his young men down with their furs. They would receive in return, powder, shot, guns and cloth. He made little answer; said it was far off and his people could not paddle. We were then ordered to depart to our tents which we pitched a quarter of a mile outside their lines. Again invited to the leader's tent the next morning, Hendry heard some remarkable philosophy from the Indian. "The chief told me his tribe never wanted food as they followed the buffalo, but he was informed the natives who frequented the settlements often starved on their journey, "which was exceedingly true," added Hendry. Reciprocal presents closed the interview. The present to the Assiniboine Chief was a couple of girl slaves, one of whom was murdered at York ten years afterwards by an Indian in a fit of jealousy. Later, Hendry learned that the Assiniboines did not want these Blackfeet of the far west to come down to the Bay. Neither would the Assiniboines hunt except for food. Putting the two facts together, Hendry rightly judged that the Assiniboines acted as middlemen between the traders and the Blackfeet. By the end of October, Hendry had left the plains and was in a rolling, wooded land northwest of the North Saskatchewan. Here, with occasional moves as the hunting shifted, the Indians wintered: his journal says, "eight hundred and ten miles west of York," moving back and forward north and south of the river. Eight hundred and ten miles would bring Hendry in the region between the modern Edmonton and Battleford. It is to Hendry's credit that he remained on good terms with the Assiniboines. If he had been a weakling, he would easily have become the butt of the children who infested the tents like imps, but he hunted with the hunters, trapped with the trappers, and could outmarch the best of them.