Was it singular that trade carried on in such a fashion, and with results so ruinous, should cause the "partners," as these unhappy individuals, who had furnished the funds, were called, to contemplate the future with dismay? Season after season the "winterers" returned to the Grand Portage with the same tale; and season after season were better profits promised, but never, alas, for their dupes, were these promises fulfilled! [Sidenote: Frobisher intercepts Company's Indians.] Matters were thus going from bad to worse in this way, when one sober and enterprising trader, Joseph Frobisher, resolved to leave the beaten track and penetrate nearer to the Company's Factory, at Churchill, than had yet been done. In the spring of 1775, as a band of Indians were on their way as usual to Prince of Wales' Fort, they were met by Frobisher, who caused them to halt and to drink and smoke with him. The chiefs imagined he was one of the Company's factors, and Frobisher did not choose to undeceive them. His wares being of a better quality than those of his compeers, the Indians suffered themselves to be persuaded to trade on the spot, which was at a portage afterwards called by the Montreal traders La Traite, on account of this episode. The Indians, nevertheless, resumed their journey to Churchill River, where the indignation of Hearne and the Council knew no bounds. He informed the Indians that a "scurvy trick" had been played upon them; and so characterized it in his journal. A few having still some of the heavier furs by them, were paid double, as an encouragement to their future discrimination. Nevertheless, in spite of all, the "scurvy trick" was repeated by Frobisher the following year, both times securing enormous booty.[79] The difficulties and sufferings of these two undertakings, however, affected him with a distaste for a repetition; but he sent his brother Benjamin to explore the region still farther. This he accomplished, going as far west as the Lake of Isle a la Crosse. The difficulties of transport are pointed out in letters of Frobisher and McGill. The value of each canoe load, on arrival at Michilimackinac, had been estimated, in 1780, to be £660 currency, equal to $2,640, showing the cost of transport by the Ottawa to have been $640 for each canoe; the value at Montreal having been $2,000. In April, 1784, Benjamin Frobisher wrote that twenty-eight canoes were ready to be sent off, valued at £20,000 currency, or $80,000, a sum for each canoe largely in excess of the estimate of four years before.