Hendry was invited into the French post as the guest of the master. If he had been as crafty as he was brave, he would have hurried his Indians past the rival post, but he had to live and learn. While he was having supper, the French distributed ten gallons of brandy among the Assiniboines. By morning, the French had obtained the pick of the furs, one thousand of the best pelts, and it was three days before the amazed Hendry could coax the Indians away from his polite hosts. Two hundred miles more, brought the brigade to the main French post—the Pas. Nine Frenchmen were in possession, and the trick was repeated. “The Indians are all drunk,” deplores Hendry, “but the master was very kind to me. He is dressed very genteel but his men wear nothing but drawers and striped cotton shirts ruffled at the hand and breast. This house has been long a place of trade and is named Basquia. It is twenty-six feet long, twelve wide, nine high, having a sloping roof, the walls log on log, the top covered with willows, and divided into three rooms, one for trade, one for storing furs, and one for a dwelling.” Four days passed before the Indians had sobered sufficiently to go on, and they now had only the heavy furs that the French would not take. On June 1, the brigade again set out for York. Canoes were lighter now. Seventy miles a day was made. Hendry does not give any distances on his return voyage, but he followed the same course by which he had come, through Deer Lake and Steel River to Hayes River and York, where all arrived on the 20th of June. To Hendry’s profound disgust, he was not again permitted to go inland. In fact, discredit was cast on his report. “Indians on horseback!” The factors of the bay ridiculed the idea. They had never heard of such a thing. All the Indians they knew came to the fort in canoes. Indeed, it was that spirit of little-minded narrowness that more than anything else lost to the Company the magnificent domain of its charter. If the men governing the Company had realized the empire of their ruling as fully as did the humble servants fighting the battles on the field, the Hudson’s Bay Company might have ruled from Atlantic to Pacific in the North, and in the West as far south as Mexico. But they objected to being told what they did not know. Hendry was “frozen” out of the service. The occasion of his leaving was even more contemptible than the real cause. On one of his trading journeys, he was offered very badly mixed brandies, probably drugged. Being a fairly good judge of brandies from his smuggling days, Hendry refused to take what Andrew Graham calls “such slops from such gentry.” He quit the service in disgust.