There are standpoints from which Indians are interesting , but they can not be said to offer congenial social attractions . For three weeks after Carey went to the Flats he was lonelier than he had ever imagined it possible to be , even in the Great Lone Land . If it had not been for teaching Paul Dumont the telegraphic code , Carey believed he would have been driven to suicide in self-defense . The telegraphic importance of the Flats consisted in the fact that it was the starting point of three telegraph lines to remote trading posts up North . Not many messages came therefrom , but the few that did come generally amounted to something worth while . Days and even weeks would pass without a single one being clicked to the Flats . Carey was debarred from talking over the wires to the Prince Albert man for the reason that they were on officially bad terms . He blamed the latter for his transfer to the Flats . Carey slept in a loft over the office , and got his meals as Joe Esquint 's , across the `` street . '' Joe Esquint 's wife was a good cook , as cooks go among the breeds , and Carey soon became a great pet of hers . Carey had a habit of becoming a pet with women . He had the `` way '' that has to be born in a man and can never be acquired . Besides , he was as handsome as clean-cut features , deep-set , dark-blue eyes , fair curls and six feet of muscle could make him . Mrs. Joe Esquint thought that his mustache was the most wonderfully beautiful thing , in its line , that she had ever seen . Fortunately , Mrs. Joe was so old and fat and ugly that even the malicious and inveterate gossip of skulking breeds and Indians , squatting over teepee fires , could not hint at anything questionable in the relations between her and Carey . But it was a different matter with Tannis Dumont . Tannis came home from the academy at Prince Albert early in July , when Carey had been at the Flats a month and had exhausted all the few novelties of his position . Paul Dumont had already become so expert at the code that his mistakes no longer afforded Carey any fun , and the latter was getting desperate . He had serious intentions of throwing up the business altogether , and betaking himself to an Alberta ranch , where at least one would have the excitement of roping horses . When he saw Tannis Dumont he thought he would hang on awhile longer , anyway .
Tannis was the daughter of old Auguste Dumont , who kept the one small store at the Flats , lived in the one frame house that the place boasted , and was reputed to be worth an amount XXXXX money which , in half-breed eyes , was a colossal fortune .
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